Keynote: Lost in the Wilderness

by Suzan Bond

In her keynote titled 'Lost in the Wilderness' at RubyConf 2022, Suzan Bond, a leadership consultant and former COO of Travis CI, explores the complexities of leadership through the analogy of being lost in a wilderness. She emphasizes that many leaders feel overwhelmed, lost, and unsupported in their roles due to conflating management with leadership and facing complex, unforeseen challenges. The keynote outlines several key points:

Leadership vs. Management: Bond clarifies that leadership and management are distinct roles. Leaders focus on influencing and guiding teams across organizational lines, whereas management is often about overseeing day-to-day operations.
Navigating Complexity: Leadership is characterized as complex rather than complicated, meaning it involves navigating unknowns and interdependencies rather than simply following established processes.
Transitioning to Leadership: Stepping into leadership roles necessitates a shift from managing tasks to focusing on team dynamics. Leaders often feel disoriented in this new terrain, facing heightened scrutiny.
Common Misconceptions: Many aspiring leaders underestimate the challenges of leadership until they experience it firsthand, realizing it is significantly more complex than perceived.
Support Mechanisms: Bond advocates for better support structures for leaders, including clear expectations, appropriate onboarding, and ongoing professional development.
Developing Skills: She introduces a model of seven competencies needed for effective leadership:
- Influence
- Organizational Awareness
- Systems Thinking
- Fostering a Culture of Belonging
- Adaptability and Growth
- Responsiveness to Feedback
- Conflict Resolution

Through personal anecdotes—such as her father's struggles in a traditional corporate environment and her own experiences with leadership burnout—Bond illustrates the importance of understanding the nuanced challenges that leaders face. The talk concludes with a call for organizations to invest in their leaders by providing the necessary resources, support, and a culture that allows them to thrive. The ultimate takeaway emphasizes kindness and support in leadership development, aiming to create healthier work environments for everyone involved.

00:00:00 Ready for takeoff.

00:00:16 We have our final keynote speaker today. She's a friend of the Ruby Community, a former COO of Travis CI, and a leadership consultant and workshop facilitator.

00:00:42 Let’s see, who am I? I don’t have to use my theater voice. Thank you for the cheers, whoever had the cheer. Thank you. Hello! Thank you for the cheers.

00:00:55 All right, so like you said, I’m Suzan Bond. I’m going to talk about how leadership is like being lost in the wilderness. I know I’m inspiring you all to be really supportive about leadership now, right? I promise you I’m going to give us a path out, but first I want to talk about this guy.

00:01:08 This is my dad. It’s an old picture. I’m sorry for the dust. My dad grew up in a really tiny town in Iowa, and he was really interested in cars. He got a degree from Iowa State in mechanical engineering, and the only gig in town was John Deere. He didn’t want to work on tractors, so he and my mom got married in their senior year of college.

00:01:34 They took their honeymoon in Detroit, which was really exotic for them. My mom grew up with chickens, so she was quite excited about it. My dad interviewed with Chrysler, Ford, and GM, and eventually took a job with GM. They moved to Detroit after graduating from college so that my dad could work on cars.

00:01:59 Every night at dinner, while I stuffed meatballs, spaghetti, and meatloaf into my mouth, my dad would tell us stories about his work. He would describe how, when he got stuck on a problem, he would kick back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk.

00:02:30 One time, his boss came by and said, "Bond! What are you doing? Stop slacking off and get back to work!" My dad decided he couldn’t do that, so he tried something different. He would walk around the GM Tech Center, which was quite large, when he got stuck on a problem.

00:02:53 One day, he came up with an idea while halfway around the building, so he told us how he ran back, dodging people with big stacks of paper. This was before the internet and even before fax machines; we were printing papers and weaving around people with coffee cups before getting back to his office.

00:03:17 That was a funny story, but the hard part for me was when my dad talked about feeling like his managers didn’t understand him. He worked on prototypes of electric cars that were among the first unveiled to the world at GM. He also worked on cars that got 80 miles to the gallon.

00:03:37 We might think of my dad these days as a senior IC, but he wasn’t interested in management and took a lot of criticism for it. His bosses didn’t always understand him, and it was a difficult work environment. He was in one of those places where you have to conform, but my dad did not conform.

00:03:58 They even placed him one dollar beneath the income level required for the bonus pool because he didn’t want to be a manager. I was always saddened by these stories and asked my dad if it was worth it. He said, "Yes, it was hard, but I loved working on mechanical systems, and I got to advance engineering." He still tinkers with cars today.

00:04:37 In fact, he just built a car to race on the Salt Flats. If anybody’s familiar with the Salt Flats in Utah, he was a drag racer back in the day. He is almost 92, and he built a car for the Salt Flats. We’re hoping to go next year. That’s my dad—an unusual guy.

00:04:56 He said it was worth it, but it always struck me. When I went to college, I was a music major, a classically trained singer, and I played five instruments. However, I quickly decided I didn’t want to perform, so I ended up studying social psychology, sociology, organizational development, leadership, and community organizing.

00:05:17 I have spent most of my career thinking about how to make better work environments. Only a few years ago, I realized that I pursued this path because I was trying to create a better work environment for my dad. I wanted to time travel back and create a better work environment for him, who was doing really cool, interesting work.

00:05:37 I also forgot to mention that he has multiple patents; he’s been featured on the cover of several mechanical engineering magazines. He has a patent for intake manifolds that multiple other patents have referenced. I realized I want to create a better work environment for my dad, and the way that I do that is through leadership.

00:06:01 We might think that leaders have a lot of influence, and it’s easy to criticize them. They make a lot of mistakes. I have been one too; I’ve made a lot of mistakes. However, they hold significant influence, and they are the largest lever for changing our work environment.

00:06:19 I hope to convince you today why we should all really care about leadership and how we can help leaders who feel lost and why helping them not feel lost is crucial for all of us.

00:06:45 This is me as a CEO. I look at that and think about the arrows; I might as well say, "Look at me!" But I see the doubt in my eyes. I’d had a really hard week after making an unpopular decision.

00:07:01 I felt like I was disappointing people. I took the job to create a better work environment, but I felt I was disappointing people after a really difficult conversation with two team members who just couldn’t get along.

00:07:20 That night, I just wanted to stick my head into a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. By the way, that’s my favorite flavor. But instead, I went to bed early after a good dinner.

00:07:39 When I left my leadership role, I felt closer to burnout than I had ever been. I had never experienced burnout before. As I reflected, I realized how lost I felt and how much I felt I didn’t know what I was doing. I wondered if the people who hired me made a big mistake and if I shouldn't have been in a leadership role.

00:08:10 For the last few years, I have talked with hundreds of leaders, interviewing them and facilitating workshops. Here’s what they told me: decision-making is much harder than I thought. They often feel overwhelmed with all the ongoing challenges, not knowing which embers to let burn and which to extinguish.

00:08:34 Every leader I've spoken to has said, "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing," and they express a sigh of relief to realize they’re not alone. However, this is a problem because if leaders feel this way, how can we create those great environments that I long to establish?

00:08:56 Moreover, most of them told me they went into leadership to create great work environments. Very few mentioned they joined for money or power. Most told me they wanted to create better work environments, but if they feel lost, how can they achieve that?

00:09:20 So today, I want to discuss some of the tools I use. I won’t provide one or two tips on becoming a great leader because there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer in leadership.

00:09:28 What I will do is talk about some of the tools I have used with leaders over the years. However, first, I want to discuss why leaders feel lost.

00:09:43 The first reason is that we conflate management and leadership. Every week, I read an article that has a headline about leadership, but inside it’s all about management. We don’t recognize that they are different things, yet we conflate them all the time.

00:10:12 You are probably aware of this, right? We often say management and leadership interchangeably, but they are not. First, I want to clarify what I mean by leadership. The role requires working across organizational lines.

00:10:29 Secondly, I am mainly speaking about people with conferred titles because the mechanisms and expectations are different. But if you squint, we can apply this to all leaders. Please make no mistake; this is not elitist. I believe there are many individuals acting as leaders who lack formal titles. I just want to ensure we have a shared understanding.

00:10:49 The third point is that it’s not merely about managing day-to-day work. We will discuss this topic more, but we must ensure we don’t conflate these two aspects because when we do, we feel lost.

00:11:10 We enter the role trying to manage when we should be leading. This leads to confusion. Furthermore, when we conflate management and leadership, we overlook a significant group of leaders who do not manage.

00:11:30 Not all leaders manage, and not all managers lead. Thank you! You’re nodding, thank you for that! Not all leaders manage, so we must stop conflating these two concepts.

00:11:45 When we confuse the two, we exclude those who already don’t receive adequate support. You know whom I’m referring to, right? My dad was one of these people. We have staff engineers, principal engineers, distinguished engineers, advisors to the CTOs, and sometimes the CTOs themselves.

00:12:05 We must ensure clear language is used about these roles to avoid omitting people. I'm sorry, I am having a hairball today, and someone's taking a picture of me while I drink water. I apologize!

00:12:26 I have no filter—can you tell?

00:12:32 So I don’t know if you know Tanya Riley, her book, The Staff Engineer's Path, is fantastic, and that’s my favorite chapter. It speaks to the challenges IC leaders face. The problem is, those IC leaders have to do all these tasks, like influence and getting people on board.

00:13:03 But we don’t provide them with adequate support. We give them all of the technical resources, but we fail to inform them about all the other elements surrounding the technical components, which I would argue are just as significant.

00:13:24 This problem is something I see happening in my own home, as I recognize it every day. This book is incredible. If you want to follow the senior IC path, read it. If you lead people who are pursuing the senior IC path, read it. It’s truly an amazing resource.

00:13:37 I interviewed Tanya for LeadDev's Bookmarked series, and if anyone knows, I’m the host of that series. It’s a fantastic addition to our community. We’re about to interview Laura Hogan on resilient management. We’ve also interviewed Camille Fournier, and you can always find us on YouTube.

00:14:02 And by the way, I’ll let you know on Twitter about it as well.

00:14:18 I also want to talk about the next reason we feel lost: Our perceptions of leadership are shaped from afar. How many of you have ever thought that being a leader isn’t that hard? How many of you thought you could do a better job than the leaders?

00:14:43 I know I am raising my hand too. Early in my career, I admit, I criticized others and thought it was so simple. How did they mess this decision up? I thought it was easy. But the reality is, I was viewing it from afar.

00:15:01 Then I got into more leadership roles and felt that it wasn’t simple, but maybe it was more complicated. I thought, there are steps we can take to solve problems. We can control what is happening and have a measure of control. But once I stepped into larger leadership roles with more responsibilities, I realized that leadership isn't complicated, it’s complex.

00:15:21 Complicated means there are algorithms, systems, processes, rules, and more. Complex means there are many unknowns, uncertainties, and interrelated parts. The answer to many leadership problems is often, ‘It depends.’ You heard me—‘It depends.’ This complexity makes decision-making harder.

00:15:41 I saw a post recently on LinkedIn about a high performer asking for a small raise, but the company didn’t give it. Now they have to spend four times the amount to replace that person in recruiting costs. People commented how dumb and incompetent leadership was.

00:16:01 But when I look at situations like this, I think about the complexity these leaders face. There could be more to the story than simply calling them incompetent. What if the company has a fairness value and trying to level people up during a difficult salary bandwidth situation? What if the person requesting a raise is not positively influenced in culture?

00:16:27 When we don't recognize the complexity of leadership, we feel lost. We get into positions of leadership, and every single leader I have spoken to has echoed, ‘It is so much harder than I thought.’ It’s largely this.

00:16:47 The third aspect is that leadership is a transition. It’s different from what we have done before. Before stepping into leadership roles, we simply managed processes and moved goals forward. Now, our focus shifts to our team or area.

00:17:06 When we become leaders, it feels like we’ve been helicoptered into a new terrain. The new environment has no paths or compasses. Our old maps cease to work, and we become disoriented.

00:17:25 When we become a leader, we experience new pressures and higher stakes, because we are constantly scrutinized. I liken leadership to being on a stage where there's hard communication everywhere.

00:17:44 And it isn't only about performance conversations—it encompasses goal discussions, goal alignment, conflicts that arise, and shared decision-making.

00:18:03 When we want more autonomy, we often find we actually have to make more decisions, which can feel like decision-making by committee. With more power comes a lack of understanding of how to use it effectively.

00:18:22 Leaders can also feel disempowered, which might surprise you. Even though we perceive them as having all the power, they can feel powerless. This disempowerment can distort the leaders’ understanding of power dynamics and people’s perceptions of them.

00:18:41 I went through a real awakening when I realized people treated me as an authority figure and sometimes as a parent. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it, but the organizational level matters here. Most importantly, leadership guidance dwindles.

00:19:03 When leaders take on roles, many of the previous resources they had disappear. You might have had career maps and performance reviews before—now that often peters out.

00:19:23 Most leaders are dropped into this terrain with no guidance whatsoever on how to navigate it.

00:19:41 To assist leaders in finding their footing, we need to address the actual expectations of leadership. When we fail to articulate this, we default to stereotypes, leading leaders to imitate what they believe leaders should be.

00:20:04 This leads to biases about who can be a leader and what they look like. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. If we don’t talk about this, we lose out on so many unique qualities people possess.

00:20:22 Thus, let’s create a common language about what it means to be a leader. We need to build a map—a detailed one that can highlight potential pitfalls and places to camp.

00:20:42 I’ve developed a model with seven competencies to assist leaders in navigating this terrain. This isn't the only solution; it's my attempt to offer a common language we can use to create better work environments.

00:21:00 This model has been tested with hundreds of leaders, and it works for senior IC leaders as well. If it doesn’t apply to you, please let me know later, and I’ll update my model.

00:21:22 First and foremost: influence. Everyone knows about influence; it’s frequently discussed. What does it really mean? One new leader once told me, 'My boss says that influence is kissing up to people and telling them what they want to hear.'

00:21:36 While there’s some truth to that, influence doesn’t mean you have to play politics or sweet-talk your way into relationships. It’s more about how to engage others without relying on positional authority.

00:21:56 Influencing means understanding different audiences, adjusting communication styles, and knowing what keeps them awake at night. It’s about aligning different groups across the organization.

00:22:18 It’s crucial work, and I’ve frequently worked with senior IC folks on this area.

00:22:39 Secondly: organizational awareness. We must navigate at the organizational level. Early in our careers, we focus on our teams, but as we become leaders, we need to operate gradually at the organizational layer.

00:22:55 Organizations are living, breathing entities that are constantly evolving. Have you ever tried to wrestle an octopus? It’s difficult!

00:23:11 We must focus on forming effective partnerships, which involve time and effort. Many find the difficulty in establishing these connections because they wait until they require assistance.

00:23:31 Effective partnerships must be built across organizational boundaries. If leaders only care about their team’s successes without acknowledging the wider business, they miss the point.

00:23:51 The third skill is system thinking, which allows leaders to see how their decisions impact the whole organization. Misalignment in rewards is a common issue between teams, particularly between product and engineering.

00:24:08 Instead of merely accepting that, ask how conflicts can be resolved, ensuring that the organization thrives rather than simply shielding the team from issues.

00:24:22 Leaders must help foster a culture where goals are achieved without leading to burnout and frustration.

00:24:41 It’s crucial to create an environment that people want to belong to. If multiple employees are experiencing the ‘Sunday scaries,’ it indicates a culture problem that must be addressed.

00:25:00 It is true that employees leave managers, signifying a culture problem at hand. Even the most experienced leaders struggle with guiding culture.

00:25:19 We have to create environments where people are fostered through belonging and inclusivity. This extends to aspects of race, gender, sexual orientation, and abilities.

00:25:35 Diversity leads to better results, so leaders must understand how to foster that sense of belonging.

00:25:53 Leaders must also be open and adaptable in a complex, ambiguous environment. We cannot manage effectively while remaining rigid.

00:26:12 Leaders need to focus more on growth than simply getting it right. While many say they value making mistakes, when they occur in public, it can become challenging.

00:26:30 As a recovering perfectionist, I understand the difficulties of making mistakes and fearing disappointment. However, mistakes can have profound impacts on our teams.

00:26:49 We must navigate change effectively, not just through structural systems but by considering the emotional aspects to help others adapt.

00:27:06 Lastly, we must be responsive to feedback. When I ask leaders what’s hardest about receiving feedback, they say often it’s that they don’t receive enough of it.

00:27:23 Feedback is prevalent, but it often hinges on the nuances of daily interactions instead of formal assessments.

00:27:40 We need to focus on how we spend our time. With many spinning plates, it can be challenging to prioritize, and leaders must maintain boundaries.

00:27:58 When we disregard the importance of being on time to meetings, it diminishes the trust and safety of our teams.

00:28:14 Thus, we must master the art of navigating human dynamics in everyday leadership.

00:28:30 Creating trust and psychological safety allows team members to share their ideas openly. Without that safety, they’ll remain silent.

00:28:46 Leaders must cultivate talent and empower others instead of merely doing everything themselves. Many leaders struggle with delegating tasks due to the fear of things failing.

00:29:02 However, by taking everything on yourself, you limit their growth opportunities. Hand over responsibilities for others to learn and develop.

00:29:17 Lastly, we must understand how to handle conflict effectively. Often, we perceive leaders as confrontational when many tend to be conflict-avoidant.

00:29:33 By the time we address issues, they’ve often built up over time. If we talk about things only once in passing, we limit our ability to resolve conflicts.

00:29:52 To mitigate that, we should regularly engage in conversations about issues at hand to foster healthier relationships.

00:30:09 Developing a clear strategy and vision is essential for leaders. However, it’s not the single factor for success; it’s one piece of a larger picture.

00:30:25 When we work on strategy and vision, remember to integrate those ideas across teams so that everyone is aligned to execute accordingly.

00:30:44 These competencies highlighted today demonstrate the skills needed for leaders, yet leaders require support teams to navigate these complex terrains.

00:31:01 Recognizing the distinct skills needed is paramount. We must refrain from conflating management and leadership and understand what it means to be a leader at our organization.

00:31:22 Let’s emphasize producing effective onboarding programs for leaders, instead of throwing them into operating environments by the wayside.

00:31:38 Let’s invest in budgets to foster leadership development. Leaders should be able to experience executive coaching and related workshops through their organizations.

00:31:54 Envision a world where leaders feel supported, understand their roles, and feel free to make mistakes as they develop skills essential for leading.

00:32:12 Together we can all create a better work environment, one where we all feel empowered to thrive.

00:32:27 So let’s be kind to each other. Thank you for your time, and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss leadership today.

00:32:45 Thank you.