How Career Imprinting Shapes Leaders

In my early years as a developer, I was privileged to work on a project managed by Frank Stepic, now head of engineering division at GE Aircraft Engines. He was a walking example of much of what I now think of as enlightened management. One chilly day, I dragged myself out of a sickbed to pull together our shaky system for a user demo. Frank came in and found me propped up at the console. He disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a container of soup. After he'd poured it into me and buoyed up my spirits, I asked him how he found time for such things with all the management work he had to do. He gave me his patented grin and said, "Rodolfo, this is management."

Frank knew what all good instinctive managers know: The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work. - PeopleWare, DeMarco/Lister, Pg. 34.

Having worked with him, imprinted in me his leadership style. There is a good book on this subject that I recommend. usually when reading it, you can discover how much people in the past have influenced you in how you behave, usually more than you think. Here is an interview with its author and here is a link to amazon where you can get a copy of it.