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ready for takeoff
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we have our final keynote speaker today she's a friend of the Ruby Community a
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former CEO of Travis CI and Leadership consultants and workshop facilitator
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let's see who am I on I don't have to use my theater theater voice thank you for the cheer whoever had the
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cheer thank you hello thank you for the cheers
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all right so um like you said I'm Susan Bond I'm
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going to talk about here's what I'm gonna see I'm gonna try if I can do this without glasses but they might go on and off we'll see see if I can get my eyes
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to see well enough I'm going to talk about how leadership is like being lost in the wilderness I know I'm inspiring
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you all to like really be supportive about leadership now right I promise you I'm going to give us a
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path out but first I want to talk to you about this guy
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this is my dad it's an old picture I'm sorry for the Dust this is my dad my dad grew up in Iowa on
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a really tiny town and he was really interested in cars he's got a degree from Iowa State in
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mechanical engineering and the only gig in town was John Deere and he didn't
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want to work on tractors so he and my mom got married in their senior year of
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college and they took their honeymoon in Detroit where my dad really exotic for
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them it was my mom grew up with chickens so she was really quite excited about it
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and my dad interviewed with Chrysler Ford GM and he took a job with GM and so
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they moved to Detroit after they graduated from college so that my dad could work on cars
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and every night at dinner my dad while I stuffed meatballs and spaghetti and uh
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meatloaf in my mouth my dad would tell us about stories about how his work was
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and I remember him telling me how when he would get stuck on a problem he would have the background process so
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he would stick his feet up on a chair you know like on the desk and sit back one time his boss came by and said Bond
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he always called him Bond Bond what are you doing stop slacking off get back to work
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so my Dad decided Well I can't do that I might as well try something else so he would then walk around the GM Tech
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Center which is quite large uh when he was stuck on a problem and one day he came up with an idea
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and he was half the way around the building and so he told us how he went running back and we laughed at the idea
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of my dad dodging people with big stacks of paper this was before the internet right we it was even before fax machines
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right we were printing papers and getting around people with coffee cups and went back to his office but that was
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the funny story but the hard stories for me was when my dad would talk about feeling like his managers didn't
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understand him so my dad worked on prototypes electric cars they got are the first ones that
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were unveiled to the world at GM he also worked on 80 cars that got 80 miles to the gallon
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we might think of my dad these days as like a senior I see right he wasn't interested in management and he took a
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lot of crap for it excuse me for my language but he took a lot of crap for it
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um he um his bosses didn't always understand him it was a really difficult work
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environment it was one of those work environments where you have to conform and my dad did not conform
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uh they even put him one dollar beneath the on the income level beneath what the
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bonus pool was because he wouldn't want to be a manager
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and for me I was always sad at these stories and I asked my dad was it worth it and he said yes it was hard but I
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loved to work on mechanical systems and I got to Advance Engineering he still Tinkers with cars today and in fact he
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just built a car uh to race on the Salt Flats if anybody's familiar with the
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salt flats in Utah he was a drag racer back in the day uh he's 92 almost 92 and
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he built a car for the Salt Flats we're hoping to go next year that's my dad an unusual guy
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and he said it was worth it but for me it always struck with me so when I went
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to college I was a music Major I was a classically trained singer and I uh played five instruments but I quickly
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decided I didn't want to perform so I ended up studying social psychology sociology organizational development
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leadership and Community organizing
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and I've spent most of my career thinking about how to make better work
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environments and only a few years ago maybe even if I don't know maybe even a
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year ago I realized that I did that because I was trying to create a better time environment for my dad
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I wanted to time travel and go back and create a better work environment for my dad who was doing these really cool
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interesting work and I forgot to say he has like multiple patents he's been on I
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think this might have been a picture where he was um on the cover of a magazine he's been on a couple of covers of a couple
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mechanical engineering magazines and he has a patent that for intake manifolds
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that multiple other patents are have referenced
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and I realized I want to create a better work environment for my dad and the way that I do that is through leadership
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and I know that we might think oh leaders they have so much influence and it's easy to bag on them they make a lot
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of mistakes they make a lot of mistakes I have been one too I made a lot of mistakes
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but they have this outsized influence and they're the biggest lever of ways
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that we can change our work environment so I hope what I convince you today is why we should all really care about
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leadership and how we can help them be on lost and why helping them be on Lost is really really important for all of us
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so this is me this is when I'm a CEO I don't know I look at that and I think
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look at those arrows I might must look like look at me look at me but I see the
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doubt in my eyes I'd had a really hard week we've made an unpopular decision
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and I feel that a lot of folks telling me their comments about it mostly unhappy
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and I felt terrible I felt like I was disappointing people and I'd come to I took the job so that I could create a
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better work environment here I thought oh I'm disappointing people I'd had a really hard conversation with
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a group of people who or two people who just couldn't get along and I felt like a failure and that night I just wanted
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to stick my head into a bag of potato chips salt and vinegar by the way my favorite
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but I didn't instead I went to bed or I got a good dinner went to bed early and
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got back up again the next day to try not to stick my head into a bag of potato chips again
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so you know when I left being a leader I felt the closest to burnout I'd ever
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felt I've never experienced burnout and I was pretty close and as I reflected I realized how lost I
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felt and how much I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and I wondered like was it just me did
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the people who hired me make a big mistake and I shouldn't be a leader like did they really make a mistake giving me
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that position and so I spent the last few years
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talking with hundreds of leaders interviewing them doing um I facilitate workshops with
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leaders coaching leaders doing facilitating leadership team uh off-sites and here's
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what they told me decision making is much harder than I
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thought how do I know if I'm focusing on the right things there's all these fires and
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there's Embers and I'm which Embers should I leave going which shouldn't I I have no clue and by the way that one was
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somebody who'd been in leadership for four years that was not a that was not someone who just entered
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I feel like I don't know what I'm doing leadership isn't what I expected it's
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much harder and I felt a sigh of relief like oh it's not just me
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but then I thought oh no this is a problem because if leaders feel this way
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how are we going to create those great environments that I what that I long to create and by the way what also most of
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them told me is that they went into leadership to create great environments work environments that's why they went
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into it very few told me I went in for the money or the power very few on surveys I did
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most told me I want to create a better work environment but then we feel like this
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so um you know here's the thing I want to talk to you
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today about some of the tools that I use I can't I'm not going to give you one or two like tips on how to be a great leader because the answer is there's not
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one size fits all in leadership so I can't give you one answer but what I am going to do is tell you about some
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of the tools I've used with the leaders over these years I'm sorry if this is really loud
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uh some of the tools that I have used with leaders over the years
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but first I want to talk about why leaders feel lost
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the first thing is we conflate management and Leadership every week I read an article that says
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the headline has something about leaders but then inside the article It's All About Management
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we don't recognize that they're different things we conflate them all the time you're
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probably aware of this right we say management and leadership often as they're interchangeable but they're not so I want to tell you
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about how I think about leadership and what I mean today first of all their role requires them to work across
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organizational lines the second thing is I'm talking about
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people with conferred titles mostly because the mechanisms and
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expectations are different but if you squint we can apply it to all leaders and by the way please make no mistake I
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don't mean this to be it's not elitist I think there are plenty of people who act as Leaders who are not don't have
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conferred titles it's just so that we have the same understanding and so that you know who I'm talking about right now
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um and the third thing I mean by that is it's not about managing the day-to-day work that's what I mean by leader we're
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going to talk a lot more about this but we need to make sure that we're not conflating these two because we feel
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lost we get into the role and we try to manage when what we need to do is lead
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it's really makes us lost and here's the other point that's really important to
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me when we conflate the two we leave out a really important group of people
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leaders who do not manage not all leaders manage and not all managers lead
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aha thank you someone's nodding thank you you have Gorgeous Hair by the way um
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it's really beautiful sorry to make everyone look but it's great um but when we you're right not all
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leaders manage so we have to stop conflating the two because we leave them out and these folks already don't get
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enough support you know who I'm talking about right my dad was one of these people
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but it's in our environment now staff Engineers principal Engineers distinguished Engineers uh advisors to
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the ctOS sometimes ctOS so we have to make sure that we're being clear about the language what they're
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using so that we do not omit this group I'm sorry I have a hairball today and
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someone's taking a picture of me while I'm drinking water I'm so sorry
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I have no filter can you tell I'm just going to tell you what's going on inside my head
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so um I don't know if you guys know Tanya
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Riley the staff Engineers path fantastic right nods fantastic book this is my
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favorite chapter you're a role model now I'm sorry it's my favorite chapter
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because it speaks to the challenges that those leaders face and the problem is what happens with those IC leaders is
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they get into these rules where they have to do all these things like influence and get people on board and
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all the things I'm about to talk about but we don't give them any support we give them all of the technical yes
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some nods we don't tell them all of the other stuff that surrounds the technical piece which I would argue is just as big
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for senior IC leaders and it's a real shame and can you tell like I love my dad with every ounce of my being so I'm
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still trying to change that a work environment for him and um I have one of these in my own
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house too so I see this the pain of this every day but this book is an incredible
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book if you want to go that senior I see path read it if you lead people who are on the senior IP IC path read it it's an
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incredible incredible book I interviewed her for the lead Dev bookmarked series
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if anyone knows that I'm the host of that yeah it's a great series we're about to interview Laura Hogan on
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resilient management coming up we've interviewed Camille Fournier um her Siri you can listen to her talk
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about this um on that series it's on YouTube you can always find me um and I'll let you know about it on the
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Bird app you know this name so I want to talk about um
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the next reason why we're lost so our perceptions of leadership are
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shaped from afar so how many of you have ever thought leadership was not that hard
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how many have ever thought you could do a better job than the leaders yeah I know I'm like come on raise some hands
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I'm raising my hand too when I was early in my career I'll admit it I'm embarrassed but I'll
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tell you I criticize them I thought that was so simple how did they how did
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they Biff this decision how did they mess this up I thought it was simple I thought
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leadership was simple the reality is I was looking at it from afar
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and then I got into more of a leadership role I thought okay well so it's not
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simple but maybe it's complicated right there's there's problems but like
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there's steps you can take right look at that at that maze you can get out of that maze there's a way out I did not
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try it so somebody will at home will probably try this but you can get out you can find an answer they're systems
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there's algorithms there's processes there's rules there's axioms we can solve problems
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we can control what's going on we can get a measure of control
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and then I got into bigger leadership roles more responsibility
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and I realized leadership isn't complicated it's definitely not simple
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it's complex so um complicated algorithms processes
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answers control complicate complex more unknowns more uncertainty
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more change more interrelated Parts the answer often is it depends you heard me
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right it depends this is why I wanted to stick my head into a bag of potato chips that day this makes decision making
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harder it makes it more difficult to know if you're doing a good job
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leadership is complex not complicated and when we don't understand that that's why we're lost
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because we go into it and every every leader I've spoken to has said it is so much harder than I thought
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and I think it's largely this I saw a post recently on LinkedIn
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I see this I see this frequently different posts about leadership and
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someone said so a really a high performer asks for a
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small raise and the company didn't give it and now they have to spend four times
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the amount to replace that person in recruiting costs how dumb is that how incompetent are
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they there are lots of comments about that I did read the comments I read every single one of them there were hundreds
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now listen it might be true it might be true that that is you know that that they it was simply like they were
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Pennywise and pound foolish right they cut off their nose to spite their face but when I look at something like that I
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think about the complexity that those leaders faced I think there's more to the there could be more to the answer than they're just
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incompetent or they're making really poor decisions or other answers were like they're in their ego they don't
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want people to make as much money as them I mean maybe but I think about well what if that
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company has a value called fairness and they're trying to level people up and by doing that they've said we will
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not raise anybody's salary off cycle we want to do it in a really measured
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way our salary Bans are a mess and so we need to think about that we we maybe folks who are overrepresented or already
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paid and we want to bring up other folks that could happen what if that person maybe they I mean what is a a star
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performer or a great performer mean is it just their shipping code what's their impact on the culture maybe that person
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was not a positive influence right I can see a nod thank you I love it when
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people nod I'm like yes you get it so it's complex it is it is not simple and when we don't
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remember that we get lost when we get in it when we get in that role
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so sorry for the hairballs
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the third thing is that leadership is a transition
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it's not like what we've been doing before in our old world before we get to into leadership we're moving goals
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forward we're doing or managing the work uh we have less autonomy we're more
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following Direction our focus is on our team or our area
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we have known maps to guide us I mean look at this it's very neat and orderly right we can just walk right down this
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path maybe there's some side notes but generally it's pretty neat and orderly when we get into leadership
00:19:33.960
I mean look at that it's like we've been helicoptered onto a new Terrain
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I mean uh there's a dense Force where's the path where's North
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where's the compass it's like fog I can't see a path
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so our old Maps don't work on this new Terrain where when we become a leader we have
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high pressure and more Stakes with scrutiny I always liking leadership to being
00:20:04.200
constantly on a stage I'm telling you right now I do not want to be on the stage all the time it's a
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lot of pressure but that's how leaders operate there's hard communication everywhere
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everywhere and not just those performance conversations that we think about in hard conversations lots of
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conversations about goals and rewards that don't match up and how do we get there and differing ideas about how we
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get there shared decision making we share land now now we have to share decision making and
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we want more autonomy but instead what we discover is that we actually have to make more decisions and it can feel like
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making decision by committee how fun is that it's not
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guiding rather than managing we have more power but we don't really know what it means or how to use it
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we don't understand uh how power dynamics really work we don't
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understand that people now that we have this title people see us differently we think oh just little old me just I'm
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just me like I don't have any power and by the way leaders can also feel disempowered that
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might surprise you but leaders can absolutely feel disempowered even we think even though we think that they
00:21:18.120
have all the power in the world and this can lead them to not understand the
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power dynamics going on and the perception of other people it shocked me too people treated me like an authority
00:21:29.460
figure or a parent sometimes and I was like me oh
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it was a it was a real Awakening for me we have to work at the organizational
00:21:39.960
level I think almost most importantly those Maps Peter out we don't have Maps
00:21:47.460
right go forward you've got career Maps before this you have feedback conversations hopefully you're having
00:21:53.220
feedback conversations with your boss you're having those reviews but when you become a leader most of that Peter's out
00:21:59.880
and that's not a dis on senior leaders at company at companies they don't have
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the band within the time mostly some do some do it and I'm so happy for them but
00:22:11.039
we don't have the time in the space and so leaders are dropped into this terrain
00:22:18.179
and they have no idea how to navigate it
00:22:23.640
so how do we navigate the new Terrain how do we help leaders find themselves
00:22:30.900
because when they're lost we're lost the first thing is that we have to talk
00:22:37.620
about the real expectations of leadership when we don't talk about it we think
00:22:44.159
about stereotypes right what leaders are strong tough decisive
00:22:51.480
well what happens if we don't found those we just try to imitate that right if we
00:22:56.520
don't talk about it then we try to imitate that but that looks weird and awkward
00:23:02.100
by the way it also introduces bias about who gets to be a leader what leaders
00:23:07.440
look like there's bias in our system when we don't talk about it
00:23:13.260
leaders look all shapes and sizes I cannot emphasize that enough all shapes and sizes and styles
00:23:19.200
and when we don't talk about it we miss that point be more leaderly I know someone who was
00:23:26.419
literally told and they're early in their leadership journey be more leaderly and they said
00:23:32.340
what does that mean and they said I don't know I'll know it when I see it
00:23:39.000
that's literally what they said I mean we can talk on more like because we've has anyone else had that I had someone
00:23:44.340
literally say I'm gonna pull my ear when you're doing it and I was like what
00:23:50.220
they literally said I'm going to pull my ear and I said well I don't know am I scratching my nose am I talking too loud
00:23:56.460
but this is the kind of feedback that leaders get like how confusing is that it's you know
00:24:04.500
it's it's I guess you could say it's a guessing game it's feedback without
00:24:09.679
detail without a way to improve
00:24:15.240
so what we need is a common language we need some common language so we can
00:24:20.760
begin to change this and we need a map right like a here's the terrain watch out for that Lake here's where you can
00:24:27.780
camp you are here so I've come up with a model of seven
00:24:36.659
competencies things that I think leaders need in order to navigate the terrain it's
00:24:42.480
not the only answer it's just my attempt to give us a Common Language to help leaders
00:24:49.200
navigate the path so again we can create these better work environments
00:24:54.600
it's been I've worked on it it's I've used it with hundreds of leaders and by the way it also works with senior IC
00:25:00.960
leaders so if you want to go that path or you are a senior SC leader this should apply for you as well and if it
00:25:06.659
doesn't please come after me later and tell me because I will update my model
00:25:11.880
all right influence we all know about this one right no one's surprised this one shows
00:25:17.220
up we talk about influence all the time but like what does that really mean someone
00:25:23.880
a new leader once told me well my boss says that influence is kissing up to
00:25:29.039
people telling them what they want to hear because you never know when you might need a relationship
00:25:35.940
well they're right about you never know and you might need a relationship but you can have influence without
00:25:42.120
kissing up or the other one we say is like playing politics you can have influence without doing that so when I
00:25:50.100
think about influence I think about um how do you bring others along without
00:25:55.380
using positional Authority I'm your boss I told you so
00:26:01.440
because all those some of those things our parents said to us but we also do as
00:26:07.020
leaders how do we how do we influence people and get them to to want to work
00:26:12.120
with us without using position Authority are we able to adjust our communication
00:26:18.000
by audience do we understand different audiences and do we understand what keeps them up at night what they need
00:26:23.340
what worries them and we need to know how to drive
00:26:28.380
alignment across the organization a group of people across the organization so when we can
00:26:35.340
do these things we don't need kissing up fakery and playing politics this is a really
00:26:42.120
important task and when I work with I do have a few I've worked with a number of us senior SC folks in my practice
00:26:49.940
and we work on this one all the time all the time it's a really important one
00:26:55.860
that we don't um share enough about I'm really sorry for the all of the folk
00:27:03.419
learning all right the next one
00:27:09.779
weed org awareness we need to know how to operate at the organizational layer so when we are
00:27:16.860
um early in our careers what happens right we focus on our area right engineering and then we begin to marry
00:27:23.100
up what we do up to the business right we think more about what the business needs we get into leadership we are
00:27:29.760
increasingly operating at the organizational layer and people sometimes are like oh yes that is an entity it's a third entity that we need
00:27:36.840
to operate at and by the way it's a living breathing
00:27:42.059
thing organizations are constantly changing people say the organization has changed well you've just seen the
00:27:48.059
results of it or a big change but they're constantly moving and breathing have you ever tried to wrestle an octopus I have not but I think it would
00:27:55.440
be pretty difficult so um you know we have to think about three
00:28:01.980
things when I think about org awareness one we have to know how to build those effective Partnerships
00:28:07.679
we have to make time to build effective Partnerships and this is harder than um
00:28:13.260
a lot of people think um because it takes a lot of time and effort and people always say well I
00:28:19.440
don't have any relationships with other people but I don't know what to say to them and we don't build the relationship
00:28:25.380
until we need it but it's hard to build those relationships because we're building relationships with people across the
00:28:32.220
organization sales marketing you know customers support you know product
00:28:38.940
people operations accounting and maybe if you're in a really large company people in your or engineering org but
00:28:46.140
people you don't work with on a regular basis but that's really important to build those we have to know how to
00:28:52.380
work across organizational boundaries because it's not enough as a leader to like oh my team won my team got across
00:29:00.240
the line we completed our goal but what about you that's your problem you can't
00:29:05.640
say that as a leader anymore because um there might be some CEOs in here who are
00:29:11.700
not about to like what I'm about to say the CEO isn't your boss when you're a leader
00:29:17.940
the business is your boss when you're the leader because we need to build the
00:29:22.980
business so the people can continue to be employed so that we can do all those wonderful
00:29:28.260
benefits that we want to offer so we have to get everybody across the
00:29:33.720
line we have to be able to work across those boundaries because it doesn't matter if we get across the line if sales can't sell it and I'm not saying
00:29:40.440
that you are responsible for sales I'm just saying we have to understand that and the third thing is we have to be
00:29:45.960
able to think in systems so we have to be able to see the impact across the organization one of the
00:29:52.799
things I see the most is um rewards that are misaligned
00:29:57.840
product and Engineering is a big one where the rewards are misaligned but we have to be able to understand how
00:30:04.559
to work through that and instead of uh you know
00:30:10.620
instead of being the poop umbrella sorry there's a lot of poop in my talk
00:30:17.520
um instead of being a poop umbrella we have to think about who are we protecting is the whole
00:30:23.340
company the whole organization not just our team and that's a really big thing
00:30:28.740
to shift and if we are having to be a poop umbrella that means that you need to do more work at the organizational
00:30:34.620
layer to so that they do not do you do not have to be them so the stuff so to speak
00:30:40.020
doesn't have to run downhill so that those things get resolved at the right layer
00:30:46.799
so leaders right we need to do uh we need to do goals we need to complete a lot of
00:30:53.460
goals we know that but if we get there and everybody's exhausted and burnt out and hates work
00:30:59.039
I don't know that that's really uh success in my opinion so we need to create a work environment
00:31:06.059
we need to guide that culture to create that work environment and the first one I would say is we have to create an environment where people want to come to
00:31:12.240
work do people have the Sunday scaries that's kind of a problem now maybe maybe
00:31:19.620
they're not in the right role but I would argue that if people if you have more you know multiple people having the Sunday scaries
00:31:25.620
you have a culture problem you have to guide the culture you might say oh well but people don't
00:31:31.440
leave companies they leave managers that's still a culture problem because why do you have a manager who is
00:31:39.299
creating employees who have the Sunday scaries that's a culture problem
00:31:44.399
this bond by the way is really guiding culture is really difficult newer
00:31:49.440
leaders will sometimes rank themselves really high on this one and the folks who are the most experienced will go oh
00:31:54.600
no I think this is really hard I think I'm just middling at it because they realize it's really difficult
00:32:00.960
um we also have to know the kind of culture that we want to create to be intentional can we say can we articulate
00:32:07.200
what kind of culture we want to create and to be intentional about wanting when we want to shift it
00:32:14.600
the last thing is to create an environment where we want to come to work we have to Foster belonging and
00:32:21.000
inclusivity not just us versus them in sort of like departments you know those kinds of
00:32:26.460
things but also race gender sexual orientation ability all those things
00:32:32.220
how do we Foster belonging and inclusivity and yes it's about culture
00:32:37.320
but also there's been multiple studies I'm sure you've seen them and you can Google them that diverse work
00:32:42.720
environments actually create better results so it's really important for leaders to
00:32:47.940
understand how do I Foster belonging and inclusivity do people feel like they belong here do they feel included
00:32:56.820
we need to be open and adaptable because you know again leadership is complex there's all this ambiguity and
00:33:02.760
uncertainty and power dynamics and an ounce size
00:33:08.580
impact make this even more important we can't manage this environment by
00:33:13.679
being rigid so the first one is we need to focus on growing rather than getting it right
00:33:19.440
we have to really be willing to make mistakes now I'm sure a lot of people when they go into leadership go yes oh
00:33:25.919
yes I'm willing to make mistakes I like mistakes I grow there how about making mistakes when you're on
00:33:31.679
a stage constantly everybody watching you it's really hard and you feel like
00:33:36.840
you're disappointing people I mean I'm a recovering perfectionist I will tell you this was hard for me I will always be
00:33:43.200
recovering by the way I will never get over it but this was really hard for me I hated making mistakes because I hated
00:33:49.080
disappointing people I hated not you know that it had impact on people because when we make mistakes
00:33:55.380
people might lose jobs people might have a really hard time they might struggle with something we
00:34:01.799
might have an unintended impact on them so this is what we have to do though if
00:34:07.919
we want to be a leader um we have to know how to manage um sorry navigate uh
00:34:15.480
change so when we think about change management what does everybody think about structures right people will come to me
00:34:22.020
I need to manage some change I'm like great here's my org chart we think about the structures what do
00:34:28.320
the teams look like great super important I love a good org chart too it's fun
00:34:34.379
right it's kind of an interesting task but that's only half the job at most we
00:34:42.300
need to figure out how do we get people on board how do we help people emotionally navigate the change because
00:34:48.540
that's the harder part because it means that all these things that they already have friends change or who they work
00:34:54.300
with changes they're going into uncertainty so we have to understand how to do that a book that is really
00:35:00.780
incredible on this I I'm sorry I don't have it on on a slide you can ask me later too transitions by William Bridges
00:35:08.400
it's an old text but it is a seminal seminal incredible text about managing
00:35:13.980
transitions he talks about three um phases of change and he talks about the emotional Journey
00:35:21.240
that people have to go through in change he has also has a great version of it I can't remember if it's managing change
00:35:27.119
or managing transition more on on like an organizational business side highly
00:35:33.000
highly highly recommend that book um and then the last thing is we have to
00:35:38.220
be responsive to feedback now it's really interesting when I teach
00:35:43.680
workshops I say to people what's hardest about feedback I ask leaders and you know what they tell me almost
00:35:49.380
invariably I thought they would say like it's hard when someone has negative feedback that's not what they say what
00:35:56.040
they tell me is I don't get enough of it I don't get enough feedback
00:36:02.820
because remember all those support systems got pulled out you don't have career Maps you don't
00:36:09.119
have reviews most of the time if somebody gets a performance review as a leader
00:36:15.240
you know what happens next we have mutually decided to part ways
00:36:22.380
I'm not saying everyone I'm not saying all the time but that happens a lot so we have to figure out how to find
00:36:28.619
feedback because the feedback exists but sometimes we think it looks like someone's going to sit me down and say Susan I have some feedback for you
00:36:35.579
guess what it rarely happens that way once in a while it does mostly it happens in these like cracks that we
00:36:42.060
don't recognize I've written more about this there's a lot to say about all of this I've written more about this and you know you can find some of that stuff
00:36:49.260
online but really important so we need to know how to manage ourselves focusing on others takes a lot
00:36:56.940
of energy so we need to know how to regulate our emotions so we can be aware of our
00:37:03.780
impact on other people I'm not saying be an automaton but we
00:37:10.380
have to know how to regulate those emotions when we get irritated and we're like oh just do it we have more impact
00:37:16.800
right because we have this title we other people see us as powerful even if we see ourselves as little old me
00:37:24.060
we have to know we have to be self-aware of our opinions our judgments and I just
00:37:29.339
don't mean about things like race gender ability you know sexual orientation I
00:37:34.440
also mean our opinions about how software gets built how teams work
00:37:40.079
best practices because we'll operate from them and assume that we're all on the same
00:37:46.320
page and that you know it we think that unless we do the work to understand what
00:37:51.900
we're you know have self-awareness we think that we see the world the way
00:37:57.900
it is it's that great and Eastern end quote we don't see the world the way it is we see it the way we are
00:38:05.640
so we don't realize that those judgments and opinions are just that judgments we just think it's the truth but you don't
00:38:11.040
agree with that what we also need to make time to think about what we're thinking about
00:38:17.640
so um one tip I will give a tip if you are in a leadership role and even
00:38:23.520
if you want one and you're maybe not in one yet takes 30 minutes to an hour every single
00:38:28.800
day just to think about what you're thinking about no goals no deliverables just spend time letting
00:38:36.359
your brain wander some people meditate um I'm not a meditator I'm a moving
00:38:41.520
meditator so some people go and get coffee they just go and they put their phone in their pocket and they walk and
00:38:46.680
they go get a cup of coffee and back so that they can let their brain wander I'm a journaler I do morning pages so I just
00:38:52.800
write three pages every day yeah yeah morning Pages for those of you who don't know Julia Cameron the artist way
00:38:59.220
morning Pages you just write three pages of anything you just write what's on your mind
00:39:04.920
you're not trying to get anywhere you're just trying to get the stuff out of your head
00:39:10.560
and the third thing that we need to do is manage our time
00:39:16.619
how we spend our time boundaries when I put this one in the model I thought I don't know if this belongs in the model
00:39:22.079
don't lead us should know how to do it they're going to know how to do this already right and the funny thing is I heard leaders who are really experienced
00:39:28.380
say I used to be so good at this I feel like I've slipped back what happened
00:39:34.619
what happened to me he became a leader the landscape changed I can see some nods thank you for the
00:39:41.820
nods by the way I love the nods they tell me that I'm getting in the right direction
00:39:48.420
managing time is really hard because there's a lot of spinning plates a lot of Embers in the air what do we pick
00:39:55.320
how do we have boundaries so that we can focus on the right things so that we can also show up for meetings
00:40:01.619
on time right because when we don't show up on those one-on-ones late we're like no no I'm going to talk to the exact team what are we telling the person who's late for
00:40:08.160
you're less important what does that do to trust and safety
00:40:15.000
So speaking of that navigating humans so navigating humans is part of everyday
00:40:20.579
life in leadership and if you are trying to get into leadership to get away from navigating humans
00:40:27.180
I'm sorry to say you're going to have a hard time I'm really sorry but you were gonna have
00:40:32.460
a hard time because leadership is not a solitary
00:40:39.240
task it isn't so we can't do it on our own we have to
00:40:46.320
navigate humans again even if you don't manage you have to navigate humans so the first one is we have to know how to
00:40:52.380
create trust and psychological safety
00:40:57.540
so people will talk to us they'll share their ideas those interesting ideas that maybe they're like I think this is maybe
00:41:03.359
weird but here's an idea but if they don't feel like they're safe or they trust you they won't
00:41:12.060
they have to tell you when I'm having a really hard time I need help they have to have trust and safety to do that
00:41:19.980
we have to cultivate talent and Empower others rather than just doing it ourselves
00:41:25.800
a lot of senior ICS struggle with this one I'm sorry I don't mean to call you out
00:41:32.640
what they do other leaders do too it's faster for me to do it myself right or I it's my chance to get into
00:41:40.320
the code so I want to get back into the code or oh this is too challenging for them
00:41:46.859
I'm putting too much on them I don't want to put it on them but people learn through challenge so if you take everything you're actually robbing them
00:41:53.160
of an opportunity to grow and again every leader has to figure out how to do this whether you manage or not
00:41:59.579
every leader has to do this I talk by the way I talk about this all the time with one of my senior ICS like
00:42:06.359
this topic comes up about once a month or so so it happens for everybody
00:42:11.880
and the last one is we have to know how to handle conflict
00:42:18.240
I think a lot of times we look at leaders and we think oh they're so conflict aggressive and they're confrontational but what I see is
00:42:24.780
actually a lot of leaders who are pretty conflict avoidant and by the time we talk about something
00:42:30.240
some things they'll say it's been going on for two or three months four months
00:42:35.700
no six months at the most I'm like okay how much have you talked about oh we
00:42:42.060
talked about it once in passing okay that's it's hard but we have to
00:42:47.339
understand how to how to have conflict but also not only how to have conflict but we have to know how to do what is
00:42:53.880
I'm known in relationship coaching as repair so it actually comes from John gottman
00:43:00.000
who wrote an incredible okay more now it's great I love it you all have read some great books
00:43:05.700
um John gottman writes about marriage and he has a really incredible lab and
00:43:10.740
he's just incredible work on this and the relationship training I went through borrowed his principles and the
00:43:16.800
principle that they borrowed in particular is um what happens after a rupture
00:43:22.859
what's a rupture maybe we exchanged words in a meeting or I said
00:43:28.020
I don't think you care about your job or I said it on Slack
00:43:33.540
what happens afterwards do we repair or do we just like
00:43:40.260
so anyway how about that deliverable what happens that's hard to trust somebody so do we know how to repair
00:43:46.980
after a rupture can we say oof I lost it that day I'm sorry or you know
00:43:53.819
what I'm frustrated but I shouldn't have shared it in that meeting with 30 people and if we can't do that that person's
00:43:59.760
going to lose trust right it goes back to the first one of this which is we stop creating trust in psychological
00:44:04.980
safety and again we're operating at the organizational layer so if we miss somebody it's it's tough that person starts to
00:44:12.300
recede from us and it makes both of us have a harder time repair is really hard by the way because
00:44:18.599
it means that we have to be vulnerable we have to admit when we're wrong we have to maybe put ourselves out there
00:44:24.480
they call them like repair attempts um and we have to hope that someone's going to take our repair attempt
00:44:33.000
in fact I was actually just coaching somebody on this today and they couldn't figure out how to get
00:44:38.400
this repair attempt with somebody and it finally was just somebody in senior leadership said I'm sorry you had a
00:44:44.880
really hard time that was a really bad experience and the person literally started crying
00:44:50.460
because they were like Ugh thank you
00:44:56.579
and last strategy and vision how many of you are wondering where is the strategy and vision when is she going to talk
00:45:03.180
about this one this is the one that people come to me for workshops and coaching all the time
00:45:10.380
people will say um I I don't know if I'm a good leader
00:45:15.780
I'm terrified of this I don't know how to do this I I'm not a good leader I don't I I'm not experienced at this
00:45:22.280
strategy and vision is incredibly important however it is not the reason why most
00:45:30.180
leaders fail or struggle on its own it is not the reason and there's plenty of
00:45:35.819
work out there um Camille Fournier does a great talk on it lead dev has a great talk Erica
00:45:41.880
Stanley just did a great talk through lead Dev about um some strategy stuff there's great
00:45:47.520
material out there that you can learn on it it's important but it's not the reason the other reasons are why people
00:45:52.920
struggle more and why they're lost but the other second thing about that is that when we're doing strategy and
00:45:58.680
vision remember that organizational layer we're not doing it on our own and if we are
00:46:03.900
doing it on our own I'm not sure we're doing it quite right you might do engineering but then you got to make sure that you're marrying it with the
00:46:09.660
other pieces of the business so we have to know how to do business
00:46:15.900
planning how do we take what we're doing and marrying it up to the business and again not just what technology can do
00:46:21.780
but how does it fit into the rest of the plan we have to know what are the priorities
00:46:28.140
what's the strategy and what are the priorities that we're going to pick we have 10 things we can do but we all know
00:46:33.359
if you have 10 priorities what you have no priorities right how do we know which
00:46:38.940
ones to pick how do we know where to focus our attention the last thing is we need to be able to
00:46:47.280
um translate the vision we need to be of the company that high level soaring
00:46:53.880
Vision we need to know how to get people to translate it so that people know how to execute on that vision
00:47:01.020
so these are the you know the things that
00:47:06.119
we need to do right we need to know how to get others along on the journey with
00:47:11.160
us how to work at the organizational level how to be able to create culture
00:47:16.200
where people feel like they belong or they want to come to work and they don't have the Sunday scaries we need to be
00:47:21.359
able to adapt to a changing environment and continue to grow we need to know how to manage ourselves
00:47:27.540
navigate humans and be able to create a compelling strategy and vision to get people on board and coming along with us
00:47:34.800
so we can create these really cool Innovative things that why the reason we came to the company
00:47:41.640
but is it enough on its own no leaders need a support team and this
00:47:48.599
is where all of us come in they need a support team to navigate the
00:47:54.060
terrain and develop a new tool set so there's four things that I think about which is we need to be able to recognize
00:48:00.420
the distinct skills that leaders need so one thing you can do is stop talking about conflating management and Leadership
00:48:06.960
talk about leadership as its own discipline the second thing is we need to talk
00:48:12.839
about what does it mean to be a leader at this company what are the expectations I've given seven competencies that I think leaders need
00:48:19.440
and then you know three sub-competencies underneath it
00:48:24.480
but I think it varies by the company what do leaders need to be at this company by the company stage of business
00:48:31.260
a startup is super different than a scaling startup is super different than a business that's very mature
00:48:37.319
right what are we trying to accomplish who are the people on board so we need to talk about what it means so when you
00:48:42.720
come into a leadership role ask what are the expectations of leaders at this company
00:48:48.839
what is expected of me if you are a leader who has control of that start setting that out
00:48:55.079
come up with some principles and ideas about that the third thing is I'd love to see more
00:49:02.280
specific onboarding of leaders instead of just now a meeting a meeting shows up
00:49:07.380
on your calendar a new meeting and then you're doing a listening tour and now you're in I mean it's like being lost in the in
00:49:14.460
the wilderness I used to always talk at two about it as uh being dumped in the cold dark dark end of the pool deep end
00:49:20.819
of the pool and you're just swimming by yourself on board our leaders develop a specific program for them
00:49:29.460
and last let's create budgets I'd love to see more budgets for leadership I've
00:49:35.880
seen those budgets they're getting better but they're pretty skimpy on leadership there's a
00:49:42.180
lot of manner when I do see budgets for Learning and Development in this kind of area it's a lot of times it's management
00:49:47.460
we're doing leadership and then it's all about one-on-one training for managers I'm like okay but that's not leadership
00:49:53.640
that's great for managers but how are you supporting the people who don't who need other skills who are not managing
00:50:00.780
how do you and how do you support leaders who are managing but also have another set of skills create more budget
00:50:06.240
for it ask for budget for it ask for budget for Executive coaching I'd love to see every leader have an executive
00:50:12.599
coach um conferences
00:50:18.200
workshops uh leadership teams I talked with somebody
00:50:23.880
today who has a whole leadership boot camp at their company great idea figure
00:50:29.460
out how to have a leadership boot camp at your company budget for that that's how we can all help
00:50:36.180
and you know the last thing is I hope that I want you to imagine a world
00:50:42.359
where leaders feel supported they know what they're doing they know what's expected of them
00:50:50.400
they feel supported they feel able to make mistakes
00:50:55.920
they have budget for these things to develop themselves to develop skills because when we can do that then we can
00:51:03.359
have those work environments that we all want we all want a better work environment right who wants a bad work
00:51:09.059
environment none of us not even leaders they really don't so I hope today I've gotten you on board
00:51:16.559
with the idea that we need to care about leaders we need to care about their experience and we need them to get
00:51:23.160
support because that's how we create that work environment that we all want and also
00:51:28.260
selfishly I want that for my dad even though I can't time travel boy I wish I had that time travel I want that for my
00:51:33.900
dad and I want that for everybody else going forward so
00:51:39.359
um be kind to each other this is where else to reach me
00:51:44.579
um I forgot to say in the talk um I do a series with leaders an
00:51:50.280
interview series I guess it's really a conversation series I talk with leaders about a
00:51:55.920
change or a challenge they've faced it's not about like you know
00:52:01.800
like the theoretical idea about what leadership is it is real leaders lived experience and I do it in part so that
00:52:08.760
leaders feel less alone I've interviewed all sorts of leaders I mean we've talked about what it's like to lead while
00:52:14.640
having a chronic illness I.E incurable cancer we talked about Acquisitions what it's
00:52:21.480
like to build trust as a VP in a new company first time you've been at a company for eight years and then you
00:52:26.700
moved and now what do you do um we're turning it into a podcast a proper
00:52:32.819
podcast in the coming year but that's another great resource for you to hear stories about how did people navigate these challenges and you'll see these
00:52:38.760
themes show up a couple of places to reach me I am on the Bird app by my name
00:52:44.280
for as long as it still exists um but you know
00:52:49.980
I'm more increasingly other places so thank you so much for letting me talk
00:52:55.500
to you about leadership today
00:53:01.220
thank you