How to Leadership

Building Leadership Presence

Developing Yourself

1. have to know your skills
2. self reflection skills
3. core leadership skills - recognition → core leadership skills → time management → negotiation → delegation → work/life → emotional int. / empathy / compassion → manage up → feedback loop → communication
4. developing your leadership strategy
5. succeed together fail alone
6. allowing people to fail
7. creating boundaries
8. imposter syndrome
9. Leading By Example & determining the example - what are the tools you can use for growth

• leaders have to negotiate, threaten, be nice, communication, vision
• setting boundaries - juggling other people's emotions
  • open door - but managed
• what got you there isn't going to be what gets you to next level or be an effective leader
  • many more factors
  • can be jarring
  • especially first move into leadership
• "not everyone will like you"
  • can't get everything done by being nice
  • make unpopular decisions
  • can be tricky when switching companies - driving change and encountering pushback
• "you're going to be wrong"
  • learn how to recognize it and deal with it
  • be flexible and ready to listen
• ongoing mentorship - get a mentor or support network
• more autonomy and less feedback
  • you're driving - you're responsible
  • can be isolating
• no longer the expert (like an IC)
  • can mess with your identity
  • surround yourself with people who are better
• it's not going to be what you expect it to be
• new thing that came up - imposter syndrome
  • wish someone told you - it's self doubt telling you not to be certain or confident about what you're doing
    • talk through confidence and experience and what you have to contribute on this topic
    • your are the own of this thing so people need you to do it
    • fake it until you make it
  • "managing self doubt"
• being comfortable with assertiveness, comfortable with being uncomfortable
• appropriate assertiveness
  • be more or less, depending
  • wild assertions without plans to implement or fulfill

Getting the Most Out of Your Team

• prepping other leaders: important/helpful to ask them "why do you want to be a leader"
  • examining motives helps understand what you're going to get out of it
  • also ask: how would you manage shifting from a peer relationship to a leadership relationship
  • ask this of other you are guiding up and ask of yourself
• how effective delegation is
  • "hardest thing to learn"
  • you could do it in 5 minutes and you give it to someone else and it takes 5 hours
• you get what you inspect (not what you expect)
• empowering people
• Individual contributor can out hustle or out perform - not the same for leaders - instead it's how to get the most out of your teams
• wanting to collaborate but they're looking for agenda setting and goals - to inspire action
• How to motivate people
  • Pink motivation should be requirement
• geo and culture make a huge difference
• not everyone is fixable
• difficult conversation - don't avoid
  • have them early
• Succeed together, fail alone

Developing Your Team

• Communication
  • listening
  • set expectations
• Evaluation
• Mentorship
• Accountability
• Team Culture
• Leadership is a people skill

Communicating Strategy and Vision

• strategy and vision
  • not everyone need distinct visions - know where to start and stop and align to others visions
  • align to organizational vision
• communicating vision: 7 times 7 ways
• you have to market what your team does
• team advocate / motivator
• have to mange up down and across
• change - constant communication, rule of 7,
  • "so ongoing"
  • change = differentiates manager form leader
  • change is part of the definition of leader
• being transparent
  • sure it's on spectrum
  • don't steamroll
• What I wish I knew as a new leader
  • Empower/delegate others to do more
  • It’s hard for people to express what success looks like - what outcomes do we expect, it’s hard to turn that into real outcomes vs as we go (Defining outcomes & ensuring its tied to company strategy/goals & the value you deliver)
  • There is a big storytelling aspect to it; don’t be dry and boring. Make it relatable. Communicate clarity
  • Set a consistent story, which includes short term and long term goals
    • Big blocks can be the same for more than 1 year
  • Be Clear on the definition of your strategy
  • One size does not fit all
  • Involve stakeholders in identifying what we are trying to solve, and getting alignment before execution

Navigating Ambiguity

• managing/navigating ambiguity
  • decision making
• Navigating Ambiguity
  • urgency of decision-making
    • less context available
  • Relationship to risk
    • part of decision is making assumptions
  • Get a mentor/support network
  • understand/articulate/examine
  • more autonomy/less feedback
  • geo & culture make a huge difference
  • communication strategy
    • identify appropriate targets/goals
    • identify plans for each stakeholder
    • bring it all back to how these goals serve the larger organization goals
  • you make the decision on the direction first
    • be ready for feedback from team members if it doesn't work
    • you need to start somewhere
  • how will you measure success?
  • your team will look to you for direction/clarity (give it to them)
  • clarity & alignment
  • leadership fight club #fightme: 
    • do something... "start somewhere" and go

Potential future section: common misconceptions / common pitfalls

Structure thoughts:

• skills needed to do each thing has overlap - do they go in individual sections 
• or
• each section says what to do for developing others and what to do for others
• list of what you need, how to assess yourself, what resources are available to do the developing