Apr 25, 2022 2 min read

The Leadership Garden Weekly - Firgun

Firgun (פירגון) – Firgun is a Hebrew term and concept in Israeli culture used to describe genuine and sincere happiness for another person without any ulterior motives. This often means a feeling of pure joy on seeing someone else’s accomplishment.

Precisely the time of happiness engineering managers experience when folks succeed in something they delegated to them. This is one of the sources of joy for managers.

My challenge for you for this week: think about how you can help others succeed. It can be your direct reports, your peers, or your manager. Find one thing and make it happen.

This week’s food for thought: it’s about trust. Always reflect if your nervousness is due to other people's work or your insecurity - and ask yourself: should other people have to handle your emotions for you? This is one of the many traps for folks who have a higher level of accountability but execution depends on others.

And while I hate the term “winner” with a burning passion, lots of good stuff in this thread:

The Great Return: Survey Of Managers Reveals Return To Office Battle In 2022

Ooh… if you remember some of the surveys/studies I’ve recently shared about how much engineers want to be back in the office (hint: not that much) we’re in for a nice treat here. Let the battle commence, I guess. Companies better start thinking about how to make the office appealing again.

The Manager's Handbook

I love this compact field guide to management - I keep referring back to it. The authors’ words about it: “This handbook represents the best of our collective knowledge of management. We wrote it as part of the internal management training program at Clearbit, with the goal of developing world-class managers. When we realized that other organizations would probably find it useful too, we decided to publish it.”

Intuition: When is it right to trust your gut instincts?

Intuition is often lauded as the key to decision-making. Should you always follow your gut, or is it more complicated?

The purpose of “purpose”

It’s the buzzword of the year, but discussions about purpose require rigor to make them meaningful.

How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code

I don’t think it’s a good replacement for all tech interviews, but it’s a great addition and angle. I know engineers who are great at this yet they struggle to produce solutions - but this is definitely a key part of the job.

Writing for Engineers

Yes, please! Writing is key to having an impact. As a senior software engineer chances are that writing is the most important skill you have to acquire in order to increase your scope beyond the team and advance your career. This is a fantastic, compact write-up on how to do it better.