Train of Thought

The "3-5 traits of a great manager" question

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 02:00:00 +0000

Back when I had a LinkedIn account, I’d see a familiar question populate my inbox from recruiters looking to fill engineering manager positions. In fact, I saw this question so often that I finally decided to answer it…sort of.

What would you say are 3-5 traits every great manager must possess?

My cop-out answer is: I don’t know yet. I’m still learning and am still a relatively young manager, making mistakes, adjusting, repeat.

But maybe that’s a path towards articulating important traits of a manager. Perhaps a good manager must not be rigid. A good manager should be able to benefit from the continuous feedback loop that naturally exists, and make adjustments in response.

Though getting candid feedback from your direct reports is…tricky. So perhaps a good manager must be able to make his or her direct reports feel comfortable sharing this feedback. This may not always be possible, so a good manager must be able to “read between the lines”, “take the temperature of the room”, “look for patterns” and various other detective tasks.

But being a good manager probably isn’t as simple as feeding inputs into an algorithm to produce an output of a progressively better manager. So, there must be something else. I suppose a good manager must be confident, have solid intuition. She will have to trust her gut from time to time. Having the confidence and experience to do that also contributes to the success of a manager.

Additionally, a good manager should be able to earn the respect of her direct reports. She should understand the work her direct reports must complete on a daily basis, and must be able to complete this work herself. She must be able to serve as a model for her direct reports. She leads by example in every possible way, all the time. Surely, this is not overly common, but then neither are great managers, are they?

And finally, as I think I have demonstrated throughout this message: a good (maybe even a great) manager is self-aware. He might not always be correct. His perspective is not necessarily “gospel”. He realizes that there is more than one answer. When he guides his direct reports, he does so by “planting seeds” instead of transforming them into clones of himself. He is suggestive and thought-provoking instead of demanding.

And I do hope this was thought provoking for you.

Beyond jQuery

Sat, 20 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A book that aims to educate web developers and give them the confidence to abandon their jQuery crutches and walk freely with the power of the web API and JavaScript. You will learn about the most important concepts surrounding web development as I demystify jQuery!

Lessons Learned From My Three Month Experience Working Remotely In Thailand

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have much experience working remotely, but my recent long-term long-distance venture revealed so much more. In this article, I cover good things, bad things, and suggestions to fix a broken remote work culture.

Highlighting the release of Beyond jQuery - A book by Ray Nicholus

Mon, 14 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Programming Poetry

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Express your coding thoughts as a Haiku, Sonnet, or even a Cinquain.

Disrupting Open Source - The Story of Fine Uploader

Thu, 19 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Fri, 12 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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The Future of Web Dev - React, Falcor, and ES6

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

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You Don't Need jQuery!

Fri, 29 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A seven-part series that will help free you from the chains of jQuery by showing you how to embrace and understand the modern web API and JavaScript.

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Wed, 02 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Tomcat will treat encoded slashes in a URI as path delimiters. I'll demonstrate how this can cause you problems, why it occurs, and how you can work around it.

Sleep is for Quitters

Sun, 07 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Part 1 - What is the File API?

Sat, 17 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A MadJS meetup presentation with live coding. I talk about and show you how to make use of the most interesting portions of the W3C File API, including image and video file dropping & processing. Part 1 of 2.

Part 2 - What is the File API?

Sat, 17 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Uploading Files Directly To Amazon S3

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Full-Stack JavaScript Image Uploader

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Using Google Glass at Work

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was interviewed by Anne Fisher of Fortune Magazine regarding the use of Google Glass in the workplace. This is the accompanying article published by Fortune.