About the Engineering Leadership Handbook
The Engineering Leadership Handbook is a structured, objective, and community-curated reference for people leading in technical environments.
It exists to help current and aspiring leaders make better decisions, communicate more clearly, and operate from a foundation of shared understanding — not intuition alone.
This isn’t a personal blog. It’s not prescriptive. It’s not focused on any one company or school of thought.
Instead, it’s a modular framework of:
- ✅ Universal truths about leadership, human behavior, and systems thinking
- ✅ Widely cited laws and patterns observed in organizations
- ✅ Tenets that articulate value trade-offs between competing priorities
- ✅ Practical leadership behaviors (“practices”) that show how principles are implemented
- ✅ A shared library of values drawn from real companies and leadership cultures
- ✅ References, books, and case studies from real teams and leaders
Who It’s For
Section titled “Who It’s For”- Staff+ Engineers who influence others without formal authority
- New and aspiring Engineering Managers seeking clarity and confidence
- Directors, VPs, and CTOs who want to document, teach, or challenge leadership beliefs
- Leadership coaches and community contributors who want a structured way to engage
Why It’s Structured This Way
Section titled “Why It’s Structured This Way”Leadership content is often scattered, opinionated, or vague. This project organizes it into distinct types of content — each with clear expectations:
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Principles | Foundational ideas — either universal or contextual — that underpin effective leadership |
| Tenets | Explicit value trade-offs used to guide decisions when priorities compete |
| Laws | Widely observed patterns in systems and organizations, often named and cited |
| Practices | Repeatable leadership behaviors that implement a principle or reflect a tenet |
| Values | Common ideals used to shape team culture — not endorsements, but references |
| Books | Curated summaries and external reviews of important works in technical leadership |
Each type of content is clearly labeled, versioned, and open to contribution.
What Makes It Unique
Section titled “What Makes It Unique”- 🧠 Objectivity First: Content is evidence-backed, clearly sourced, and contextualized
- 🪢 Modular, not Prescriptive: Readers can explore, remix, and form their own views
- 🧱 Built for Citation: Every concept is linkable, explainable, and discussable
- 🫱🏽🫲🏿 Open to Contribution: Anyone can contribute, critique, or build upon this work
Contributing
Section titled “Contributing”If you’d like to suggest a new principle, tenet, or practice — or add your perspective to an existing entry — start by reading our Contribution Guide.
You can also link your own articles or case studies from principle pages under “Community Commentary.”
We’re especially interested in:
- Leadership case studies
- Alternate practices that implement the same principle
- Counterarguments and critiques — with citations
- Historical sources of laws or cultural values
Licensing
Section titled “Licensing”All content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0, so you’re free to reuse and remix it — with attribution.
Credits
Section titled “Credits”The project was created and curated by Richard Morgan, with contributions from a growing network of engineering leaders.
If you’d like to help maintain, shape, or fund the project, get in touch or submit a pull request.