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Episode 093 | Patrick Kua - Leading Leaders

Feb 3 '16

Guest:

Pat Kua talks with Dave Rael about the characteristics of leadership, embodying leadership, motivation, and challenges

Patrick Kua is a Principal Technical Consultant for ThoughtWorks in London, and is the author of two books, The Retrospective Handbook and Talking with Tech Leads. Patrick is a frequent conference speaker and blogger who is passionate about bringing a balanced focused between people, organisations and technology.

Chapters:

0:28 - Dave introduces the show and Patrick Kua
2:43 - Patrick's emphasis on technical leadership
6:25 - Patrick's definition of value
7:07 - The things that "light Patrick up"
8:32 - How Patrick got started in software
10:23 - Patrick's history and background and move into software
11:53 - How Patrick's background led to a focus on organizations and leadership
14:04 - Patrick's story of failure - learning about needing to have tough conversations early with the right people
18:00 - Patrick's story of success - using feature leads to scale leadership in an organization
22:15 - How Patrick stays current with what he needs to know
25:09 - Patrick's book recommendation
26:02 - Continuous integration, continuous deployment, feedback, emotions, and pull requests
28:21 - The things that have Patrick most excited
29:03 - Patrick's greatest sources of pain
30:16 - The things about which Patrick likes to geek out
31:42 - The importance of diet and the challenges of eating well when traveling
35:19 - Patrick's prediction for the future of software
36:09 - Patrick's top 3 tips for delivering more value
38:13 - Keeping up with Pat

Resources:

Pat's book recommendation:

Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation - Jez Humble, David Farley

Pat's top 3 tips for delivering more value:

1. Technical excellence matters
2. Everyone can be a leader regardless of role
3. Exercise empathy