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I was actually trying to make a larger point about how the entire concept of leadership is a scam, even "technical leadership". People are clever, or charismati

I was actually trying to make a larger point about how the entire concept of leadership is a scam, even "technical leadership". People are clever, or charismatic, or whatever, but leadership describes nothing in particular. It's pure propaganda, and we should all feel bad when we use it as if it were a real concept (and I'm guilty of this myself). Here, you've defined "technical leadership" as basically just "being a software engineer". We are eating from the trashcan of ideology.

n4r9 3y ago
> Here, you've defined "technical leadership" as basically just "being a software engineer" I really don't think that's true. Software engineers can spend their whole career just checking off Jira cards, having no overarching ideas about the company's technical direction. And that's great. But leadership is specifically about leading others. That can mean establishing new processes, making global architectural decisions, mentoring juniors, and owning and driving an internal technical product roadmap. It also means having a general attitude of "how can I help the rest of the team succeed". If you learn something slightly obscure from a colleague, or a helpful language feature, document it on your internal knowledge base or make a post in Teams/Slack before moving on.
- ElevenLathe 3y ago
  These are all concrete things! That's great, but to say that they constitute "leadership", as if these are the same things an Army Captain or CEO should do, does not clarify anything, but merely clouds things. If leadership means something different in every context where it arises, it doesn't mean anything at all. Anyway I don't think we're arguing, just speaking at different levels of generality. I admit this is a poor forum to make this semi-anarchist point.
  - n4r9 3y ago
    Ah okay. I concede that "leadership" more generally is a nebulous concept. And that it just wouldn't apply in an ideal world because people wouldn't have had their self-confidence and internal drive trodden into the ground through years of authoritarian "education". I do sympathise with a healthy dose of anarchism. All the best.

n4r9 3y ago

> Here, you've defined "technical leadership" as basically just "being a software engineer" I really don't think that's true. Software engineers can spend their whole career just checking off Jira cards, having no overarching ideas about the company's technical direction. And that's great. But leadership is specifically about leading others. That can mean establishing new processes, making global architectural decisions, mentoring juniors, and owning and driving an internal technical product roadmap. It also means having a general attitude of "how can I help the rest of the team succeed". If you learn something slightly obscure from a colleague, or a helpful language feature, document it on your internal knowledge base or make a post in Teams/Slack before moving on.

ElevenLathe 3y ago
These are all concrete things! That's great, but to say that they constitute "leadership", as if these are the same things an Army Captain or CEO should do, does not clarify anything, but merely clouds things. If leadership means something different in every context where it arises, it doesn't mean anything at all. Anyway I don't think we're arguing, just speaking at different levels of generality. I admit this is a poor forum to make this semi-anarchist point.
- n4r9 3y ago
  Ah okay. I concede that "leadership" more generally is a nebulous concept. And that it just wouldn't apply in an ideal world because people wouldn't have had their self-confidence and internal drive trodden into the ground through years of authoritarian "education". I do sympathise with a healthy dose of anarchism. All the best.