No Red Shoes! How NOT to Lead a Team of Drupal Developers

Throughout my career of two decades of Web development, I've been given some really terrible advice. As I persisted, despite them, I advanced to a position of leadership. That opened the door to some more really terrible advice about how to manage.

I want to share this terrible advice, and make sure no other leader does the same things I was told to do. These nuggets would include (and countered with better advice):

• "Anyone can 'do Drupal' -- don't worry about finding the right person, just get the cheap person."
• "People are resources, cogs; put them in the right place, and the machine will run smoothly."
• "Set arbitrary rules to establish your authority, like 'no red shoes in the workplace!', then they'll know you're the boss."
• "A college degree in Computer Science is the only thing that matters when you're hiring."
• "Do it that way because that's how the CEO wants it done."
• "If you put their nose to the grind stone, and work really hard, you can have a nice car like this one day."

This session will allow for some questions and answers to help guide other Drupal leaders.