I get asked a lot lot which management books I recommend

None. Management books are mid

Want to be a better leader? Start a new sports team in your local rec league, get players, get better, win the championship, keep that team together for a few seasons. Seriously

Unless you are literally unexperienced in any facet of corporate life most management books are a complete waste of time

Instead, do something, start something, or even join something and watch/absorb good & bad

Study leaders in many other fields as much as possible

The point is that unless you are only looking for mechanical checklists of ‘manager basics for people that have never talked to a human before’ you won’t learn leadership from a book

And those mechanical checklists are the ‘hello world’ of management & leadership

There are no checklists for leadership. There are no ‘structure your 1-1s this way’ or ‘let’s have a workshop’ to becoming better leaders. Those are all midwit approaches that feel comfortable and appease hr systems but won’t change outcomes. They’re management paper pushing

Leadership in nutshell: doing something that otherwise wouldn’t happen with and mostly via other people. Literally changing the outcome from ‘not possible’ to ‘done’

There is no one set way to do this but the principles are the same

1. State the goal
2. State the expectations
3. Inspire
4. Measure progress. Expect results. Stay engaged
5. Praise when good, correct when bad
6. Treat everyone fairly (not the same)
7. Look for other leaders. Let them loose on sub goals
8. Repeat

Tighter loops are better

Leadership is a an experiential thing & you don’t get it in some ‘high potential leader track’ or series of books

No amount of twiddling your vim config will replace writing code, no amount of reading about art will replace painting. You learn by doing. You master by doing more