Technical leads and managers work hard to hire the best people, choose the best tools, implement the best process, and deliver great software. Unfortunately, our actions too often sabotage our best efforts, producing frustrated teams, poor software quality and driving away our best developers.

This book is a mirror for you to reflect on your leadership efforts. It is not for the feint of heart, but for those who are willing to bravely ask, "Do I have this habit?"

Based on my 20 years of managing software teams, and coaching other technical leaders, this book points out 7 ways you could be unwittingly hurting your programmers, eroding trust and undercutting motivation and productivity.

Chapters include:
1. Withholding feedback until the time is right
2. Forgetting how difficult good programming is
3. Fixing other people's mistakes
4. Not expressing gratitude
5. Constantly pushing the team to deliver faster
6. Breaking promises, no matter how small
7. Taking special privileges

Each chapter discusses WHY this is a problem, HOW it can ruin your team, and WHAT you can do to correct it.