Transforming Yourself into a Technical Leader

From Anita Borg Institute Wiki

Transforming Yourself into a Technical Leader Note Taker: Kathy Pham

== The Fabulous Panel ==

Microsoft, Linda Apsley: Director at Microsoft, cross functional team, incubating new services for online services. Passions around women and leadership- Growing Women.

- Ability to influence, help people feel they can do things they didn’t think were possible. As a manager, be passionate about people and about what people do.

Intel: Ramune Nagisetty: Principle Engineer – Cross Intel Strategic Programs. Work with people across companies to develop strategies and talk with CTOs across the company. Help answer- Do we belong here?

- Leadership is about changing what people thing is possible. Requires passion, inspiration, ability to motivate and show the path.

Google, Ira Pramanick: Software Staff Engineer at Google. Just joined Google… before that was a Technical Leader. Founded MAGIC to mentor middle and high school girls.

- To be a technical leader, the first prerequisite is that you’re strong technically. Set an example. Take part of the work and make it a partnership.

- The next time someone is looking for a good technical problem, they’ll come to you.

IBM, Cathy Lasser: VP in IBM research. Hit 30 years with IBM. Started as Programmer… talk about leadership, not just management. Many people want to jump into management really early. Easier to go from Technical to Business.

- Get out of your comfort zone and take risks

- It’s ok to fail.

- Learn from mistakes

- Management and leadership are not the same thing.

- Collaboration is important. Technical people have to understand business in future.

Cisco, Monique Jean Morrow: Distinguished consulting engineering. Report to CTO who is also a woman. From “punch card” days. Look at disruptive technologies … years from now… to see how technology can change the world. Want more women technology leaders in the industry.

- Leadership is about passion. Ability to challenge status quo and feel good about challenging status quo and inspiring people you work with.

- Leadership is about taking risks. It can’t be taught.

== Questions from the Audience ==

Developing Influencing Skills:

- Linda: Influencing skills can be taught. Everybody needs to be seen. Everybody needs to feel like you see them, you feel them, you understand.

- Ramune: Leadership happens through interactions. Be aware of influences and opportunities. Have conversations with people you wouldn’t have talked with before

- Monique: You can learn language of leadership, toot your own horn, don’t be ashamed of calling out the work that you do.

Apply Feminine Strength to being Women Leaders, How to grapple with this balance

- Monique: Only woman engineer in a very Swiss Company. Book: If you want to be successful, you have to be married with 2.5 children, you cannot be a woman

- Cathy: Never gets frustrated.. When she does get frustrated, people listen. Be true to yourself. Men said I don’t believe in quality time.. I believe in quantity time. Relationship and collaboration of women is a benefit. Give everyone a piece of leadership.

- Linda: Boundaries of behaviour.. make a point with a smile on your face. Gain respect by telling people what you think.

- Ramune: People KNOW that you are in the room. If you meet them in a conference, they remember you. Personality characteristics: Technology is very complex… coordinating laterally across functional groups… Different style of interaction with different people

- Ira: Persistence. Be confident, think that you can do it. Put 12 technical people in the room… no one agrees on anything. Technical people like to argue.

• • • Moderator: Power of the Pen. Male colleagues are not more comfortable… they just have better masks.

Desire to bang out code sometimes. How to be technical AND be a leader

- It can be done to do both.. be aware that there are people you are leading. Never give up on technology passion.

Cathy: Keep the deep technical.

Linda: Be technical enough that you’ll be respected.

Cathy: You need the bits and bytes.. but also how they work together. Global Innovation Outlook: Bring people froma round the world together around different topics.

Monique: Learning never stops. Impact of technology to society. How to educate women in Sudan….Look at bigger picture and connect the dots.

How to deal with disrupt of the team that is already there

Monique: Don’t disrupt… built a team!

Ramune: Identify something that no one else did

Linda: Look for places where you can move the team to a different place and change the dynamic of the argument.

When was the time that you decided to move to leadership position?

Monique: Always kept up with technology

Ramune: Technical path and management path at Intel. Don’t actually have to go to Management path. Stay as technical as possible.

Cathy: was at IBM 8 years before 1st management position. Wasn’t first leadership position. Can lead projects without being a manager.

You all exude Confidence… Is there hope for confidence?

Cathy: Build a good mask.

Ramune: Confidence has to be built… everyone has misgivings and doubts.

Monique: Don’t be afraid to say what you think? What’s the worse thing that could happen?

LAST THINGS

Linda: Don’t ever give up. Couldn’t break into consulting world in a Southern town. Find success with your passions

Ramune: Put yourself in a position where you can learn as much as possible is important. Don’t let it get to you that there are not other owmen in the room. Everyone struggles with self confidence and don’t let it stop you. Learn languages and study culture.

Ira: Hold yourself to high standards

Cathy: Be life long learners. You are all leaders. Think of the inspirational leaders. Make their challenges and dreams a reality.

Additional Notes

Very practical advice for pursuing a technical leadership career path.

All panelists agreed that first and foremost, your technical skills/background/performance must be solid, so get this done before pursuing a leadership role.

Which projects you demonstrate your technical abilities on matters! E.g. many of them “proved themselves” by taking on challenging, high-impact projects that others did not want to take on, or that others had claimed were not doable.

Important to distinguish between projects that are undesirable because they are difficult but very useful vs. undesirable because they are not worth doing! So choose wisely and most importantly, consult your colleagues, teammates, allies before you take on this challenge so that you have a team of people who already buy into your proposal.

Managing a group of engineers can be tricky, especially given that engineers love to argue on principle. One panelist told a story about having to pull together a group of engineers to tackle a difficult problem with no obvious solution. At the first meeting, the engineers spiraled into arguments that never led toward a solution. So the technical leader laid out a strawman plan (she had come prepared with this “flawed” plan to help structure the argument). From here, the engineers began to actually visualize a true solution, picking apart the strawman but improving it and working together to come up with a viable solution.