What does it mean to be a great manager?

Often I ask myself this question. Am I a good manager, how do I stack rank against other managers in my organization, in my state, in my country? What are ways I can grow and be a better manager? This mindset has helped drive me to read, learn, and question my beliefs about what it is to be a good manager. Often I will come across twitter or blog posts like this one.

Which helps to challenge me as a boss/manager but also exposes in the comments section that there are a lot of bosses/managers that do not lead well. I am thankful to be at my current company, where the culture around management revolved more around being a good leader rather than managing people.

This was best articulated to me through a book called Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. This book by Liz Wiseman & Greg Mckeown really helped solidify and show examples of how good leadership plays out in real world situations. If your looking for ways to learn and grow I encourage you to check it out!

Servant Leadership

I've been working on a talk I'd like to give at somepoint in some venue on Servant Leadership that challenges the traditional "Manager" mentality to really get to the heart of the question of "WHY?". Why are you a leader, and what's your motivation. I believe it is something that would challenge those in leadership help to shape leaders in technology for the good. If you know a good place to submit it @me.