My First Management Book

The Leader-Manager: Guidelines for Action
by William D. Hitt
IEEE Press, 1988
ISBN 935470409

This was my first book about management. I bought it as soon as it became apparent that I might became a manager later on, which means that I bought it in 1997 and probably read it during the Summer of 1998. At the time, the book was recommended and sold by IEEE.

Notes I took very detailed notes, as this was my practice for studying at the University. I scanned them for your amusement as well as for myself, as they form a summary of the main points of the book. However, the notes only cover part of the book, probably the part that I managed to read while on vacation.

I no longer own this book. I passed it on to another new manager...

The book introduced me to the following major ideas:

  • The leader is a change agent and not just the manager of an equilibrium. That was a defining idea for me. I changed my team several times as needed or to reach higher ground. I also tried to change the whole company a few times... and I succeeded at least once.

  • The need to envolve team members in key decisions. We started to have regular team meetings shortly after the team grew to more than three people.

  • The importance of a long-term vision and a strategy that guides day-to-day activities. The yearly strategy meetings became major growth opportunities to the team.

  • Theory Z of management, where a team is lead and not just managed. I had already experienced managers following theories L (laissez-faire), X (autocracy) and Y (benevolent). The argumentation for theory Z of real leadership completely won me.

Overall, the book left a very good impression on me. Even after all these years, I would still whole-heartedly recommend this book to new managers.

Why I bought this book

I picked this book because it was published by IEEE Press, which I expected to be a good source to teach management to engineers. Much later, in 2013, I actually became a member of the of the IEEE Technical and Engineering Management Society.

Attachment

Handwritten notes
Handwritten notes taken in 1998, just for fun.

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