Book Image

Engineering Manager's Handbook

By : Morgan Evans
Book Image

Engineering Manager's Handbook

By: Morgan Evans

Overview of this book

Delightful and customer-centric digital products have become an expectation in the world of business. Engineering managers are uniquely positioned to impact the success of these products and the software systems that power them. Skillful managers guide their teams and companies to develop functional and maintainable systems. This book helps you find your footing as an engineering manager, develop your leadership style, balance your time between engineering and managing, build successful engineering teams in different settings, and work within constraints without sacrificing technical standards or team empathy. You’ll learn practical techniques for establishing trust, developing beneficial habits, and creating a cohesive and high-performing engineering team. You’ll discover effective strategies to guide and contribute to your team’s efforts, facilitating productivity and collaboration. By the end of this book, you’ll have the tools and knowledge necessary to thrive as an engineering manager. Whether you’re just starting out in your role or seeking to enhance your leadership capabilities, this handbook will empower you to make a lasting impact and drive success in your organization.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Case for Engineering Management
5
Part 2: Engineering
9
Part 3: Managing
15
Part 4: Transitioning
19
Part 5: Long-Term Strategies

Leadership styles and their origins

We have learned that on an individual level, leadership styles stem from beliefs and abilities, but what broader trends should we be aware of? Can the origins of leadership styles provide us with useful information today?

In this section, we will explore these questions and provide a brief overview of what we know about leadership styles from studies and writings. We will cover three foundational views of leadership styles and how you can incorporate the teachings from them into your efforts to develop an effective style for yourself.

We will briefly review the following:

  • Leadership styles in nature
  • Leadership styles in philosophy
  • Leadership styles in management theory

Each of these views has something to teach us about leadership styles and why they exist. Let’s start with leadership styles in nature.

Natural origins

Leadership is not unique to humanity; it can be seen across the majority of the animal kingdom...