Leadership Principles

Becoming a manager

management is a learned skill, not a talent (Fadell)
to be a great manager – what helps is to have an experience being a great IC before - if one likes the people management part but does not have the respect from ICs by being good in that craft - it's hard to be a good manager without this trust
- to be able to lead someone – you need to to know what you're talking about and have a good idea what does excellence look like
once you become a manager, you stop being what you were before (Fadell)

most important leadership rule - you don't have to be an expert on everything but you need to care (Fadell)
caring deeply about the quality of your team's output is exactly what you're supposed to be doing, as opposed to micromanagement (Fadell)
another important job of a manager is to help his people succeed; it helps to create an environment that allows your team to surprise & surpass you (Fadell)
truly great leaders create an environment where their employees have the experience that they matter more than the leader itself (Horowitz)
managers should be like parents - they should care of their teams as they would care for their kids ie wish them to be more successful than themselves (Fadell)
get the right people to know what's in your head

Leadership is about stepping into the unknown and helping others navigate complex environments riddled with ambiguity. From this perspective, a certain degree of naiveness is almost a requirement to be effective.
the secret of being a CEO - the ability to make the best move in situations when there are no good moves (Horowitz)
most important decisions test the courage more than the intelligence (Horowitz)
one of the most important management skills is to be able to tell unpopular truths when needed (Fadell)
take care of people, product, profit exactly in that order (Horowitz)

culture is what do we say yes to, what do we say no to, what is our standard and how do we help each other to meet that standard and it is set by the leaders – if the leaders are slacking, it's going to be hard to motivate people underneath
political behavior almost always starts at the top from the CEO (Horowitz)

part of leadership is giving guidance - the ability to give tough feedback is one of the most important competencies
- sharing why with the feedback helps the team to grow themselves and decrease the need for them to seek approval when problem solving
During one's personal development – try to map out skills that are relevant for what you want to do and try to excel at one of them – imagine a "one-liner" that you get remembered for and recognized for