Linked by David Adams on Wed 6th Aug 2008 15:28 UTC, submitted by estherschindler
In an "as told to" article for CIO.com, Linus Torvalds explains how he keeps the Linux people and software on-track. Arguably the most surprising facet of Linus' management style is that he's perfectly willing to flame people when he thinks they're wrong--though he's also happy to be corrected himself. "Part of that, by the way, is not feeling shy about saying impolite things or showing some emotion. So I'd rather flame people for doing stupid things and call them stupid, rather than try to be too polite to the point where people didn't understand how strongly I felt about something." That's particularly interesting in light of several OSCON presenters who believe that the way to grow the open source community is to make projects more welcoming to would-be contributors. Do these attitudes actually contradict one another?
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Member since:
2005-11-03
Managers are not there to be your friend; they're there to make sure the work gets done, and that it gets done the way they want it done. Look at Steve Jobs at Apple, Bill Gates at Microsoft, Scott McNealy at Sun or Larry Ellison at Oracle. They've been successful leaders by knowing when to use the carrot and when to use the stick to motivate their workers. The trick is to not go overboard and kill morale.