15 Best Leadership Books
📰 leadership
7 questions I get asked frequently as an EM
A Field Guide to Team Dynamics and Conflict
Patterns, tools, and practices for cultivating environments where both harmonious flow and healthy conflict can thrive
weeklyfoo #69 / 2025-01-27leadership
A Technology Leader's Non-Technical Reading List
Inspired by the posts A VP Product’s Reading List and A Startup Reading List, here I’ll share my personal favorite reading materials that have helped me think about leadership, management, people and technology.
weeklyfoo #86 / 2025-05-26leadership
A weekly mind meld
Writing to your team every week is a great way of building trust, calling out what’s importantly, and letting people get to know you better.
weeklyfoo #83 / 2025-05-05leadership
AI Makes Bad Managers
It’s performance-review season and I’m watching managers kneecap their careers. Gleefully they share the best prompts to have ChatGPT write their performance assessments - exactly the sort of shortcut that guarantees they’ll never get better at the job.
weeklyfoo #87 / 2025-06-02leadershipai
An Engineering Manager Challenge
What would you do if you had to make the choice here?
weeklyfoo #60 / 2024-11-25interviewleadership
Being an engineering manager at Amazon
An insider take on what Amazon can teach you about leading software developers.
weeklyfoo #51 / 2024-09-23leadership
Categories of leadership on technical teams
Decision-Making Pitfalls for Technical Leaders
Tech’s favorite party trick is promoting programmers into leadership roles with zero transition coaching, or even a briefing on what the role entails. The programmer accepts the promotion because…I mean, of course you’d accept a promotion. Then, they quickly find themselves in over their heads.
weeklyfoo #57 / 2024-11-04leadership
How has AI impacted engineering leadership in 2025?
Findings from the 2025 LeadDev Engineering Leadership Report show that leadership practices are evolving even as early productivity gains are modest.
weeklyfoo #93 / 2025-07-14leadership
How To Get Good at Strategy
Quick pointers for improving your strategic thinking as a leader
weeklyfoo #83 / 2025-05-05strategyleadership
I've had a change of heart regarding employee metrics
Interviewing for Evidence
Is All Micromanagement Bad? Here's How the Best Startup Leaders Balance Details and Delegation
Founders and execs from Apple, Rippling, Carta and more share their strategies for altitude shifting as a manager.
weeklyfoo #89 / 2025-06-16leadership
It's all just leadership after all
Managers and senior individual contributors: it’s all the same.
weeklyfoo #6 / 2023-11-12managersleadership
Manager Antipatterns
Many companies make the same sorts of mistakes with their managers, over and over again. If they were software designs, we’d call them antipatterns.
weeklyfoo #48 / 2024-09-02leadership
Managing Impostor Syndrome as a New Engineering Manager
Managing Underperformers
Kind managers address underperformance early and accurately.
weeklyfoo #44 / 2024-08-05leadership
Managing Underperformers
Kind managers address underperformance early and accurately.
weeklyfoo #82 / 2025-04-28leadership
One on One Meeting Format Ideas
If you’re not doing them, start now. Read this article to get a better understanding why.
weeklyfoo #48 / 2024-09-02leadership
Pragmatism, neutrality and leadership
Principal Engineer Roles Framework
Learn how the principal role is embedded into the system at AWS.
weeklyfoo #65 / 2024-12-30leadership
The 10 Biggest Leadership Blindspots Based on 10 Years of Research
How to identify these blindspots for yourself, and most importantly, how to avoid them
weeklyfoo #76 / 2025-03-17leadership
The 25 Micro-Habits of High-Impact Managers
Sharp folks from across the First Round community share the small habits that great managers do, including delivering feedback with care, opening up about failure, and sending praise up the chain.
weeklyfoo #90 / 2025-06-23leadership
The 5 Most Difficult Employees (And How To Actually Handle Them)
The Adaptive Chief Technology Officer
The manager I hated and the lesson he taught me
How a tough manager changed my approach to leadership (and why I’m grateful now)
weeklyfoo #79 / 2025-04-07leadershipengineering
The Precise Language Of Good Management
The State of Engineering Leadership in 2025
600+ engineering leaders have shared their insights on how their roles are evolving!
weeklyfoo #90 / 2025-06-23engineeringleadership
What Real Feedback Sounds Like
You’ve probably faced these exact situations. Here’s how to finally say the thing.
weeklyfoo #87 / 2025-06-02leadership
Your Manager Is Not Your Best Friend