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This month’s Engineering Leadership Reading List examines management fundamentals and strategic decision-making. 4 styles of decision-making: A leader’s guide outlines four distinct approaches—directive, analytic, conceptual, and behavioral—that leaders can employ to adapt decision-making processes to varying business contexts, emphasising flexibility and situational awareness. This connects to 10 Management Principles to Copy from Top 10% Teams, which shares ten essential principles designed to improve team morale, establish trust and efficiency, and streamline goals whilst boosting confidence among team members.

Engineering strategy and organisational alignment receive detailed attention. Designing an Engineering Strategy focuses on understanding and addressing high-stake business problems through structured approaches, defining strategy as a coherent set of analyses and actions that align engineering efforts with business challenges through diagnostic processes, guiding policies, and coherent actions.

Team wellbeing and burnout prevention emerge as critical leadership considerations. 9 Management Habits Quietly Burning Out Your Best Engineers identifies key habits that erode motivation within engineering teams, including equating busyness with productivity, micromanagement, and failing to set boundaries, whilst providing actionable guidance to foster healthier work environments and prevent engineer burnout.

Documentation practices and startup leadership round out core themes. Docs Like Code in Very Basic Terms introduces ‘docs as code’ concepts for beginners without developer backgrounds, explaining benefits such as improved collaboration with development teams and cost efficiencies whilst acknowledging the learning curve and technical skill requirements. Leadership Tips for Startup Founders provides comprehensive guidance tailored to startup founders’ unique challenges, emphasising essential skills for building strong teams, fostering innovation, and developing resilience necessary for navigating startup leadership complexities.

Industry analysis and resource compilation provide broader context. In 2025, venture capital can’t pretend everything is fine any more examines significant challenges facing the venture capital industry, including the burden of naive investments, inflated startup valuations, and reliance on AI prospects like OpenAI as potential salvation amidst systemic issues. The Book Of Secret Knowledge compiles curated collections of daily-use technical resources including cheatsheets, tools, one-liners, and manuals primarily for sysadmins, DevOps engineers, pentesters, and security researchers.

As always, the Quantum Fax Machine Propellor Hat Key will guide your browsing. Enjoy!

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4-out-of-5-hats In 2025, venture capital can’t pretend everything is fine any more: As we delve into 2025, the venture capital (VC) industry is grappling with significant challenges and cannot feign normalcy. The AI boom, spearheaded by figures like Sam Altman, is arguably the last beacon of hope amidst systemic issues accentuated by Trump’s tariffs. The venture landscape is burdened by a history of naive investments, inflated startup valuations, and the end of zero interest rate policies, with many relying on questionable prospects like OpenAI for future success. The reliance on AI to save the VC world is emblematic of the industry’s broader woes: an inability to learn from past mistakes and diversify investment avenues.

#VentureCapital #AI #OpenAI #Investing #SamAltman

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3-out-of-5-hats 4 styles of decision-making: A leader’s guide: The article discusses four styles of decision-making that leaders can employ to adapt to varying business contexts. These styles include directive, analytic, conceptual, and behavioral decision-making, each with its own set of characteristics and suitable applications. Leaders are encouraged to be flexible and choose the style that best fits the situation to ensure effective decision-making.

#Leadership #DecisionMaking #Management #BusinessStrategy #ITInnovation

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3-out-of-5-hats Docs Like Code in Very Basic Terms: This article serves as an introduction to ‘docs as code’ for beginners without a developer background. It explains the benefits of treating documentation like software development, such as improved collaboration with development teams and cost efficiencies. While it highlights the advantages, the guide is honest about the learning curve and potential drawbacks, such as the need for some technical skills and the hidden costs of customization. The guide offers suggestions for resources to learn more about the tooling and processes involved in using tools like static site generators and version control software like Git.

#DocsAsCode #TechWriting #Git #StaticSiteGeneration #BeginnerGuide

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3-out-of-5-hats Leadership Tips for Startup Founders: This comprehensive guide provides startup founders with actionable leadership tips tailored to their unique challenges. From building strong teams to fostering innovation and resilience, the content emphasizes essential skills for new and aspiring entrepreneurs aiming to navigate the complexities of startup leadership successfully.

#Leadership #Startup #Innovation #Resilience #Entrepreneurship

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3-out-of-5-hats 10 Management Principles to Copy from Top 10% Teams: Lars Lofgren shares ten management principles that have been essential in his journey through business leadership. These principles are designed to improve team morale, establish trust and efficiency, and streamline goals and projects to enhance performance and productivity. By applying these techniques, one can boost confidence among team members and foster a productive work environment.

#Leadership #Management #Productivity #TeamWork #Innovation

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3-out-of-5-hats Designing an Engineering Strategy: The article delves into designing an engineering strategy focused on understanding and addressing high-stake business problems through a structured approach. It discusses the definition of strategy as a coherent set of analyses and actions, highlighting the importance of aligning engineering strategies with business challenges. Key elements include diagnosing issues, establishing guiding policies, and undertaking coherent actions.

#Engineering #Strategy #Business #Leadership #Innovation

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3-out-of-5-hats 9 Management Habits Quietly Burning Out Your Best Engineers: The well-being and performance of engineering teams often suffer due to overlooked management practices. This article identifies nine key habits that erode motivation, including equating busyness with productivity, micromanagement, and failing to set boundaries. It provides actionable tips to foster a healthier work environment and prevent burnout for engineers.

#EngineeringManagement #TechLeadership #BurnoutPrevention #Productivity #TeamWellbeing

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2-out-of-5-hats The Book Of Secret Knowledge: The Book of Secret Knowledge by trimstray bundles a curated collection of daily-use technical resources—cheatsheets, tools, one‑liners, lists and manuals—geared mainly at sysadmins, DevOps engineers, pentesters and security researchers. It compiles high‑quality references into one Markdown repo to simplify access and reuse.

#DevOps #SysAdmin #Cheatsheets #Security #Productivity

Regards,
M@

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Originally published on quantumfaxmachine.com and cross-posted on Medium.

QFM067: Engineering Leadership Reading List May 2025

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