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The job of a leader is to schedule meetings, and the good ones actually manage to get people to show up. Leadership is about herding cats, not about technical e

The job of a leader is to schedule meetings, and the good ones actually manage to get people to show up. Leadership is about herding cats, not about technical expertise.

lostcolony 2y ago
The job of a leader is to define the problem to solve. Meetings are a tool, not an outcome.
- philipov 2y ago
  A leader does not necessarily define the problem to solve. That is the job of an owner. Leaders coordinate people, and objectives are decided by owners. The same person might do both jobs, but they are distinct functions. They are very frequently different people, where a leader is assigned a job and a team with which to do it. The role of a leader is to be a force multiplier on the rest of the team, regardless of who decides the objective. It is often the case in contract work that the project owner is the client, and the leader is the head of the contracting team. The leader depends on the project owner to provide clear objectives, so that they may use them to effectively direct their team in accomplishing them. However, it applies within organizations as well, where the owner of a project may be on the business side, whereas the team leader is on the infrastructure side.
mads_quist 2y ago
"Herding cats" assumes your team consists of running wild stray cats. I am not sure if that's "servant" either. Leaders should treat their teams as adults. As an adult I can also accept my leader's decision - disagree and commit.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  May be lost in translation. In the US, "Herding Cats" often means trying to get a group of highly individualized people, into a unified direction. Then, there's this EDS ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE
- philipov 2y ago
  Cats are highly skilled individuals and you can trust them to catch the mice, but you can't trust them to coordinate with each other. Left to their own devices, they'll just focus on their own technical expertise. The specialized job of a leader is to get the cats to work together.

The job of a leader is to schedule meetings, and the good ones actually manage to get people to show up. Leadership is about herding cats, not about technical expertise.

lostcolony 2y ago

The job of a leader is to define the problem to solve. Meetings are a tool, not an outcome.

philipov 2y ago
A leader does not necessarily define the problem to solve. That is the job of an owner. Leaders coordinate people, and objectives are decided by owners. The same person might do both jobs, but they are distinct functions. They are very frequently different people, where a leader is assigned a job and a team with which to do it. The role of a leader is to be a force multiplier on the rest of the team, regardless of who decides the objective. It is often the case in contract work that the project owner is the client, and the leader is the head of the contracting team. The leader depends on the project owner to provide clear objectives, so that they may use them to effectively direct their team in accomplishing them. However, it applies within organizations as well, where the owner of a project may be on the business side, whereas the team leader is on the infrastructure side.

mads_quist 2y ago

"Herding cats" assumes your team consists of running wild stray cats. I am not sure if that's "servant" either. Leaders should treat their teams as adults. As an adult I can also accept my leader's decision - disagree and commit.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
May be lost in translation. In the US, "Herding Cats" often means trying to get a group of highly individualized people, into a unified direction. Then, there's this EDS ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE
philipov 2y ago
Cats are highly skilled individuals and you can trust them to catch the mice, but you can't trust them to coordinate with each other. Left to their own devices, they'll just focus on their own technical expertise. The specialized job of a leader is to get the cats to work together.