Title: Dear Community,<p>Lucky me (29, Software Engineer from Berlin, Germany) recently got a new job as a Lead Architect for a startup.<p>Now I'd say I'm not a bad engineer, but I've never been much of a "people person" or a natural leader. Although my colleagues treat me with a lot of respect, I still feel a little awkward. I'm a total newcomer to the "business" of managing, regularly keeping up with people and doing hiring/firing decisions, but I think I'm worst at delegating. Since the company is still pretty small, there's no choice for me than to get my hands dirty on coding and sysadmin stuff as well. Unfortunately, I'd rather do it all myself than entrusting and encouraging others with it, so I'm kind of playing my old role. Also, I'm having a hard time being a good listener, since I'm always coming up with my own ideas and notice that I'm mostly talking about myself which doesn't exactly make me more likeable, but it's hard to stop.<p>Reading "How to win friends and influence people" already helped me a lot with my people's skills, but I'm still struggling to get it all into practice.<p>Have you ever been in a similar situation? Do you know of any great resources, tips, tricks, hacks, communities or seminars short of doing an MBA (which I definitely wouldn't do due to time constraints and the bullshit factor)?<p>I'd really appreciate your help, especially from the engineer-turned-manager folks!<p>Best,<p>Dom
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