> _The real title of my talk is "Software engineering Middle Management: Toxin, or Cancer?" Reasonable people may disagree!_ > -Bryan Cantrill Institutions don't grant Authority, people do. This is true whether you recognize it or not. Let your People choose their Leaders. They will either way. Empower your best soldiers, and you will never lack good generals. Top down control works only in cases where a group organically organizes around a leader. There is no better general than the soldiers most admired by your lower ranks. Such types are natural leaders. Their authority is not derived from any title, but from the position of respect they have earned bottom up. Institutional authority does not determine respect. Only the authority and respect given freely by your soldiers to the leaders they choose has any meaning on the ground. Do not make the mistake of believing that such natural leaders have the ability to "manage people," and should therefore be promoted to useless management jobs. When you promote them, do so by getting out of their way, not further into it. Promote them from tactics to strategy, but do not take them off the front lines or out of battle. If this seems uncautious, recall that the "front lines" in the modern world is most likely behind a desk, taking sufficiently few risks to make our ancestors weep.