Leading Geeks

Can they actually be led?

Category Archives: general leadership

Geeks & Gag Rules

Leave a Comment Posted by Jenn Steele on June 29, 2010

If you’re a geek leader, are you gagging your geeks? (No, I don’t mean with your lack of showering. That’s probably a different post.) What I’m asking is whether saying certain things is verboten in your department/team/company. Are you so paranoid that a user or customer will hear someone venting and get offended–I used to [...]

care and feeding, general leadership, leading geeks

Customer Service = Convenience

6 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on May 17, 2010

Editor’s note: We’ll be announcing all the nifty Leading Geeks changes soon, but Jenn got inspired before that… I admit it, I subscribe to the Harvard Business Review. I’m a total business/leadership/management geek, and I really enjoy the articles and occasional data porn. Heck, I’m even on the advisory board. For a publication that’s supposed [...]

general leadership, leading geeks

On Termination

3 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on December 7, 2009

Firing a geek should be the most difficult task for any Geek Leader. If it’s not, the leader should consider that he or she might be too angry to be rational about the situation. I would personally rather handle a broken SAN and pull 5 all-nighters in 8 days (which I have actually done) than [...]

ethics, general leadership, leading geeks, teambuilding

On Interviewing

4 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on November 26, 2009

I have to admit that I find the process of interviewing prospective candidates for a job to be an odd mix of exciting and nerve-wracking. While I absolutely love getting to know people and thinking of the possibilities for them within my organization, I find I often worry about making candidates comfortable and not breaking [...]

general leadership, leading geeks, teambuilding

On Skepticism

Leave a Comment Posted by Jenn Steele on November 9, 2009

At the ILTA ’09 conference in August, I attended a couple of sessions by Jason Dorsey, the Gen Y guy. At the second of his sessions, he mentioned a service online that helped people find couches to crash on. Then he said, “You Gen Xers in the room are looking this up right now to [...]

general leadership, leading geeks, teambuilding

On Boredom

11 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on September 25, 2009

I truly hate being bored. I don’t mean “I have nothing to do” bored, I mean “I’m doing something that requires less than 1% of my thoughts but doesn’t leave me free to think/do something else” bored. I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. I’ve noticed that most geeks also hate that latter form [...]

about, care and feeding, general leadership, leading geeks

On Wars and Battles

2 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on September 11, 2009

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself using the phrase, “Right war, wrong battle.” As a principled leader, I’ve fought wrong battles many times without realizing that fighting those battles may have cost me the wars I was trying to win. As a geek, I’ve found myself doing the same thing. I’ve been so [...]

about, general leadership, leading geeks, managing up

On Burnout

5 Comments Posted by Jenn Steele on September 3, 2009

This isn’t actually a blog post. This is just letting everyone know that between my grandfather’s passing 2 weeks ago and the (totally awesome) ILTA Conference, I’ve been a little out of action. Wait, maybe it’s a blog post after all. Turns out that I just can’t keep my mouth shut when I have a [...]

about, general leadership, leading geeks

On Passion

Leave a Comment Posted by Jenn Steele on August 4, 2009

I keep contemplating the recent statistics that indicate some huge percentage of workers will be fleeing their jobs once the economy bounces back. I find I’m more interested in the other side; the people who want to stay in their jobs. What makes them want to stay? Aren’t they under the same pressures as the [...]

care and feeding, general leadership, leading geeks

On Communication and Customer Service

Leave a Comment Posted by Jenn Steele on July 21, 2009

Recently, I had some trouble with my gym. It was time to re-up my personal training package, and the gym had changed owners since the last time. My trainer tried to facilitate matters, but no one from management got back to me for over a week. Even though they had been told (3 times!) by [...]

general leadership, leading geeks

← Older posts

Newer posts →

RSS feed