I want to begin by telling you a story about me as a rookie manager from my own personal perspective. This sets the scene and brings the themes of this chapter to life.
The first year in the new job was difficult. I had to understand the project, get to know and lead my team, and somehow find time between meetings for my own work. Past developers and architects had left a legacy system, and there were many hard problems to solve. We had to understand the old technology, while also trying to modernize and keep pace with the changing requests being thrown at us.
My team knew I was a first-time manager, but they had heard good things about my coding skills. I wasn't 24 hours into the job before one of them, a young guy named Ed, came to seek my advice. I was determined to be a good leader, and so made some time to work out a solution for what he was asking. I had...
