A collection articles curated by Tech Lead Bas de Wit.

Wow, June was a scorcher in Holland, wasn’t it? We felt like we were in a tropical paradise, except without the palm trees and the cocktails. The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) even confirmed that we had several “tropical days” in June, meaning the temperature was 30°C or higher. The temperature has cooled the last week, but could this be a prelude to a sizzling summer? We hope you had fun in the sun and stayed hydrated and remembered to slip on a shirt, slop on sunblock and slap on a sun hat.

So, eventhough you might’ve been busy soaking up the sun and having fun, we hope you still read some of the awesome articles we’ve picked for you last month. This month, we wanted to share some tips and tricks on how to be a rockstar leader in your team by learning like a kid, by figuring out what makes your team tick, by saying thank you more often, and by focusing on the big picture instead of the nitty-gritty details.

One of the articles that caught our attention was How to Use the Skill-Will Matrix to Better Manage People and Performance that explains how to use a simple tool called the Skill-Will Matrix to assess the skill and will of your team members and adapt your leadership style accordingly. This can help you motivate, coach, delegate, or direct your team more effectively.

Another article that we found inspiring was Remembering How to Learn New Things that shares her experience of learning a new skill (in her case, knitting) and how it reminded her of the importance of curiosity, patience, feedback, and practice. She also draws parallels between learning new things as an adult and as a child, and how we can apply some of the same principles to our professional development.

We also enjoyed reading Be Grateful More Often by Francesca Gino. She presents some research findings on the benefits of gratitude in the workplace, such as increased productivity, creativity, and satisfaction. She also offers some tips on how to express gratitude more often and more sincerely to your colleagues, managers, and clients.

And finally, we recommend you check out Why an Engineering Manager Should Not Review Code by Alexey Sotskov. He argues that code review is not a good use of an engineering manager’s time and energy, and that it can actually harm the team’s performance and morale. He suggests some alternative ways for engineering managers to add value to their teams, such as setting clear goals, providing feedback, and facilitating collaboration.

As we enjoy the summer weather and the cloud services that make our work easier, we should also remember that they have an environmental impact and should be taken seriously. One article that made us think about this issue was Measuring Cloud Silverlining Eco. This article discusses how you can reduce cloud computing greenhouse gas emissions by optimizing resource utilization and enabling innovation. It also points out some challenges and opportunities for measuring and improving the eco-friendliness of cloud services.

We hope you enjoyed reading these articles as much as we did. We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future topics. Please leave a comment below or send us an email at info@blog.com. Thank you for reading and have a great July!