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 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
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 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
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