Servant Leadership

Heh. I simply have to talk about this - smart people think alike! I read this on Joel Spolsky's Inc article "How Hard Could It Be?: My Style of Servant Leadership"

management's job is to get things out of the way so that all the great people we've hired can get work done.

This is something I have personally believed in, and professionally practiced. A lot of managers simply assign tasks to their engineers/subordinates, set them deadlines, and left them as they were, nary lifting a finger to help, and reprimanding their people without even a clear knowledge of the situation.

I've always believed that my job is to remove the obstacles, administrative hurdles, red-tape, inefficiencies, and distractions so that my team can get their things done. Getting their work done is getting MY work done.

There is really so much I agree with Joel, as I went back to finish reading the article, a few more points struck a chord with me:

... working hard to make Fog Creek Software a place where authority and respect are earned and not bestowed. A place where management is an administrative function ...

Go on, read it! Print it, and paste it on your cubicle, facing outwards (if you have a boss), inwards if YOU are the boss.

Well, the reality of the situation is that I have not been completely able to focus on removing the obstacles - I still have to get my feet wet when the going got tough - I really shouldn't do this too much because I will lost my strategic value-add if this is sustained. We live in a world of constraints, be they natural or man-made and I guess we'd just have to work within those.