Accidentally in Code

Tag: leadership

  • Strengthsfinder 2.0

    Strengthsfinder 2.0

    StrengthfinderI’m taking a leadership course at work just now, and one of the exercises was to take the StrengthsFinder (Amazon) test.

    At first I took the test and thought it was a bit rubbish. I didn’t really have strong preferences for a lot of things (much of which came from me being very ambivert) and so my summaries were as a result full of not very definite statements “on occasion, it’s possible that you…”

    I also didn’t really like my strengths – I got Input, and Learner, but they seemed to be the same thing, so why have that twice? And Significance, which is all about needing to be liked, which made me not like myself very much. And then Arranger and Individualization.

    I’ve been reading the StrengthsFinder book, though, and I’ve come round to things more. Reading the general summaries has been more helpful, because it’s less fuzzy. Also, seeing other things I’m definitely not has made what it identified me as being make more sense. I’ve also been picking out strengths that I think particular colleagues have, which makes it easier to relate to them.

    In the course, we were talking about how we thought our strengths helped us do our job. One of the things I found interesting about mine, was how I have two pairs that enable me to do different things. So Learner/Input are about engineering, and Arranger/Individualization are about organizing things and other people (like GGD, or AF).

    At the first session of the course, I wondered whether I read so many personal development books that I wouldn’t get much out of it – like, it was a course for people who didn’t do that. But taking the StrengthsFinder test and subsequent discussions made me revisit that thought. Now I wonder if I can get the rest of my team to take it as well…

     

  • Leadership =/= Control

    Leadership =/= Control

    Trapped
    Credit: xkcd

    Currently, I’m reading Tim Harford’s Adapt (Amazon). It’s a fascinating book, quite different from the Undercover Economist (Amazon) – which is also excellent. He writes about the importance of experimentation and feedback, and the insanity of centralized military planning – where an individual soldier can shoot to kill, but the General running the base can’t approve a few thousand dollars needed spending.

    Seriously fascinating. And timely for me, because lately I’ve been thinking about how we see leadership as being in control, where in fact it’s the opposite.

    When you are appointed, or step up, to lead other people, it’s because you’re trying to achieve more than one person can alone. Giving up control and trusting other people to get stuff done is crucial, otherwise you’re just a bottleneck. And it doesn’t matter how hard you work or how brilliant you are, ultimately you will be limited by the fact that there are only 24 hours in the day, and you are just one person. Maybe you trust one sidekick. Still doesn’t scale. Two people and 24 hours each is not double the control, unless you’ve mastered telepathy.

    In which case, ignore me. Clearly we live in different worlds.

    Aside from the time issue of micro-managing, it’s soul destroying to the people being micro-managed. Nothing seems to destroy someone’s ability to make decisions as much as the feeling that whatever decision they make, it will never be the right one.

    Of course, as a leader, you need to know what’s going on. Being too hands-off won’t do either. Looking at people who I think are great leaders, it seems that their strategy is to be approachable, non-judgemental, and supportive. They don’t need to micro-manage because they create an environment and build relationships such that people will come to them if there is a problem.

    This is hard work. And it takes time. There’s people who hate to seem less than perfect in any way, and it’s really, really tough to get them to trust you with their failings. And you have to learn to be open with your own, too. You need to be awesome enough to inspire respect, but not seem so awesome that someone feels that you would never understand screwing up.

    There are the people who want to tell you how awesome they are. Can’t stand those people. Then there are those who will tell you how they’ve screwed up. They are the genuinely awesome, I think. They are the people who others feel they can turn to when they screw up.

    The other day I spent some time talking to a new grad who was feeling inadequate. I told them about the myriad of ways I feel inadequate too – in this circumstance it was this, in this circumstance it was that, now it’s something new. My message – OK, you feel like you’re not doing great right now, but that’s normal. Now you need to figure out if you change your circumstances, will you just feel inadequate in a different way to how you do now?

    The message of the book? You need to fail to figure out what works. As a leader, you need to allow for failure in order to build something bigger than yourself. Micro-managing and control-freakery might eliminate failure, but they also eliminate great success.

  • Should all women aspire to be entrepreneurs? In OSBR

    Should all women aspire to be entrepreneurs? In OSBR

    from Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day"
    Credit: flickr / academy of american poets

    My article is out in the OSBR, in the issue on women and leadership. I was trying to make a point about how we should take a broader view of what leadership is, and be supportive of quieter forms of leadership, as well as talking about why I personally don’t want to be an entrepreneur.

    The word “entrepreneur” comes from the French word entreprendre, meaning “to undertake”. While all women should aspire to be someone who “undertakes”, they should not all aspire to be someone who creates and runs a company. Not every woman’s skills, interests, and ambitions are well suited to this task.

    Read the rest of it here. As ever, feedback welcome!

  • Secret Lives of Superheros

    Secret Lives of Superheros

    Superhero's ..... (198/365)
    Credit: flickr / Steve Tolcher

    The wonderful Serena invited me to join her for a panel at a women/tech conference in October. We’re still working out the details, but essentially we’ll be talking about role models – our own personal superheros. if you will.

    Some points that I’m thinking about:

    • It’s great to see really successful women in tech, I adored Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement speech and the WSJ had an article about women at Google recently which was encouraging.
    • But what about the superheros you know who not only inspire you, but you can call in a crisis?
    • What about the superheros who call you in a crisis? I know a lot of awesome people, many of them women. I know all of them have setbacks, periods of doubt. I know all of them have failed. Knowing this, doesn’t make me think they are any less awesome, it makes me appreciate what they achieve all the more.
    • There’s always a flip-side. Failure. Weeks living on Cherios. Days with too much wine/vodka (what’s your poison?). Mornings where getting out of bed is just too much. Mostly, we don’t see them – and so being a superhero looks easier than it is.
    • Recent talk I gave, someone fabulous gave me quite an introduction. Honestly, I didn’t think I could follow it. She says, “here’s this amazing thing about Cate” and for each one I think about how that was really the result of me screwing up in some way (the flip-side).
    • So what’s your super-power? My friend Maggie called it on mine. She said, “I think the main thing you got out of grad school was learning to make the best of a shitty situation”. It’s true, my super-power might be the pursuit of an interesting life. Good things have come as a result of that – and bloody hard work.

    Core messages:

    • Superheros are everywhere (and, actually, they are human).
    • Get to know as many superheros as you can.
    • Don’t underestimate yourself – being a superhero doesn’t mean that it’s not hard, or that you won’t fail.

    Looking for feedback and ideas. Particularly, I’d love to know:

    • Tell me about your superheros. What do they do that makes you think they are extraordinary? In what ways have they struggled? What have you learned from them as a result?
    • What’s a key piece of advice you’d like to tell you at 20? (or at any point?) For me: those arrogant boys are not as good as they think they are, and you are doing better than you think.
    • What’s your super-power?

     

  • But, I Don’t Want to be an Entrepreneur: Permission and Choice

    But, I Don’t Want to be an Entrepreneur: Permission and Choice

    Achievement: You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To When You Have Vision, Determination, And An Endless Supply of Expendable Labour
    Credit: flickr / dullhunk

    Tina Seelig, author of What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (Amazon) teaches courses in Entrepreneurship and Creativity at Stanford. I was fascinated as to what teaching entrepreneurship would consist of (you can see the course list here). The big message I found in her book was about giving yourself permission – permission to do the things that you’re passionate to achieve, and permission to fail, and learn, in the process.

    IBM’s Extreme Blue program is described as a “Leadership Development Program”. As a result, it gives the teams (with the technical students and an MBA) permission to explore, create links across functions, ask questions of people – some teams even of Sam Palmisano. I learned a lot about leadership in this program, but mostly it wasn’t directly taught – it was found, and nourished.

    The education system, in search of conformity, smothers leadership. At 10, I learned to write in the same joined-up cursive as my peers. At 14, I read the same book in class and learned the meaning that my teacher said was there, but I never saw. At 16 I dressed in the same hideous uniform as all the other girls, and shared a tiny identikit room. Leadership positions were defined, and assigned – be a prefect (ick, no), or soloist in the choir. No, you can’t go kickboxing.

    Ken Robinson asks, do schools kill creativity? It seems like the structure could kill leadership as well.

    Government workers too, have a lot of structure. It’s a very well-defined, slow moving, system. Living in Ottawa, everyone talks about the waste and bureaucracy of the government. I’ve noticed, when talking to a government worker, how they always say – yes, but my department is different. And then, shortly after, start complaining about one of their colleagues whose incompetence and lack of productivity is legendary.

    What’s all this got to do with being an entrepreneur? It’s that we should have a choice. Do we need to teach entrepreneurship and leadership to give that choice back, because schools and governments have crushed it with structure?

    I challenged myself, every month this year, to lend $100 new dollars on Kiva (I also reloan repaid funds). I loan to women, because they tend to use the extra money they make to reinvest in their families – in education, and health. In developing countries, the opportunities aren’t there, unless they make the opportunity themselves. Their option for lifting themselves out of poverty, is to be an entrepreneur.

    I was lucky to never be in poverty in the first place. I’ve been getting defensive because I’m told so often that I should want to be an entrepreneur – but I don’t. But, I think given different circumstances and pressure I could do it. Luckily for me, I feel that I can do what I want to do where I am, and whilst I don’t have any kind of “title” of leadership, I don’t feel a lack of leadership opportunities. There are so many in the gaps.

  • But, I Don’t Want to be an Entrepreneur

    But, I Don’t Want to be an Entrepreneur

    This is not a photo opportunity
    Credit: flickr / gravitystorm

    Recently, I was asked to write an article on women and leadership for a women in entrepreneurship edition of a publication. I was really flattered to be asked, of course, and was intelligent and articulate (well, I like to think so) on the phone about what I would be writing about – the idea of leadership in the gaps that I started exploring in my inspiring woman (hah) talk earlier this year.

    And then, I didn’t write anything. Because I was working, and prepping another talk, and travelling, and organizing girl geeks dinner…

    But mostly because I felt woefully unqualified to write anything on this topic. I see myself as a doer, and maybe a leader by example, never by telling people what to do. I take a wider view of leadership, drawn and inspired by books such as Leadership and Self Deception, The Anatomy of Peace, The Leader Who Had No Title, Making Ideas Happen, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (all Amazon), not because of being in any kind of “leadership position”.

    Most of all, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. I don’t have any desire to start a business. I don’t want to deal with cashflow, with HR “issues”, with PR. I don’t want to temper my love of building things by trying to build things that are monetizable. I don’t want to deal with tax law, with employment law, or really any law at all. I don’t want to write a business plan.

    I want… to build things that are beautiful, or functional, but preferably both. I want to work with smart people and learn from and be inspired by them. I want to be mentored, and in time pass on what I’ve learned in mentorship of others. I want to spend time and energy on getting more women into CS because it’s important.

    The financial upsides of entrepreneurship do not appeal to me. I don’t dream of early retirement to a desert island, I don’t want to be a VC. I barely want to take a holiday – I like what I do. I like not having to worry about money, but I’m not motivated by the idea of having more of it. The “freedom” of being an entrepreneur comes with too many tedious-sounding responsibilities and not enough world-changing to make me want to earn half as much, working twice as many hours.

    Wikipedia defines “Entrepreneur” as a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome.

    The word “entrepreneur” comes from a French word meaning “one who undertakes”. Undertake means – commit oneself to and begin.

    I undertake things, frequently. Many characteristics of an entrepreneur, such as, creativity, calculated risk-taking, management of resources, are all useful characteristics of any kind of leader. The biggest reason to use these attributes in setting up your own business seems to be not being able to do what you’re passionate about otherwise, or not wanting to work for someone else.

    Once upon a time, everyone was independently operating. Humans hunted and killed their own food, made their own clothes, raised their own children. But, trade allowed us to specialize. I’m really good at killing things, and you make stylish outfits, so let’s trade. Companies take that specialization further – I’m an engineer, and so I work with a UX designer to create intuitive products. Meanwhile, human resources and accounting take care of those aspects and we don’t have to worry about them.

    There’s a reason why that specialization happened. Collectively, we get more done when we don’t try to do everything ourselves.

    Personally, I love that I get to focus on building, learning, and collaborating. I don’t want to be an entrepreneur because it seems like that requires a lot of distractions from that, and lonely. I miss my teammates when we’re in different cities, the idea of having no team at all is horrifying to me.

    For all I’ve heard, multiple times, from multiple people, that I should want to be an entrepreneur, I just don’t. The desire isn’t there. The biggest reason why is “I’d have to do stuff that I don’t love”, but none of those reasons are insurmountable given a sufficiently compelling reason. For me, that reason just isn’t there.

  • What is Leadership, Anyway?

    What is Leadership, Anyway?

    Follow the leader, leader, leader
    Credit: flickr / RuiPereira

    The harsh truth is that no-one cares about your idea the way you do.

    I tell you this, not to be mean, nor to suggest your idea is not brilliant, or that you are somehow lacking in your communication of it… just because if you think that someone else is going to fill in when you’re lacking, you’ll be disappointed.

    There’s a lot of great ideas that don’t come to fruition because the person who came up with them is not pushing them forward. Seriously, one of my friends is an idea machine, but she lacks follow through. This post is the result of a conversation where she admitted, that she thought she’d come up with this idea, connect some people, and those people would take over and make it happen.

    You don’t need me to tell you this: that project has not yet got off the ground.

    Another friend, who describes himself as a “spark lighter” (love this) and I interrogated her ideas of “leadership”, and it seemed like she was confusing leadership with effectiveness.

    Here’s what I think leadership is: it’s being able to articulate a vision. But more importantly, it’s putting in the blood, sweat and tears that are needed to make that vision a reality. It’s accepting that the only person who is passionate enough to take what you’re doing to the next level is you. Ironically, this is the only way (I’ve found) to get people on board and helping you.

    Being effective helps (doesn’t it always?), but it’s not necessary. The real challenge of leadership is not managing todo lists, staying on top of email, or mastering interpersonal-communication. It’s putting yourself out there – believing in something enough that you invest yourself in it, and don’t let up until you make it happen. Honestly, I don’t understand how a person who won’t do that for their own idea can think someone else will.

    If you want to be more effective, read 7 Habits. If you want to be a leader, recognize that it’s not making lists – it’s doing something. So, pick an idea that has the potential to keep you up at night… and start making it reality.

  • On Leadership

    photo Follow the Leader
    Credit: flickr / *clairity*

    They call Extreme Blue a leadership development program. I didn’t get it at first, but by the end I did. I also started to see why I had been picked out as someone “showing leadership” – though I have so far to go there.

    It’s around that time of year when I re-read 7 Habits (Amazon) and try and internalize it. It’s become more clear to me over the past few months that this book is key to good leadership, and so this year the take-aways I get from it will be different, for sure.

    I’m not sure I see myself as a leader – more as an active participant in various communities and the debates that surround them. However having read The Leader Who Had No Title (Amazon), that is one view of what leadership is – whatever position you’re in, whatever title you have, you just work to be the best you can be.

    Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box (Amazon) is another book on leadership – one that I found completely changed the way I look at everything. It’s funny, because in a talk based on that one of my friends was irritated because it seemed like we were being given life advice – but having read the book, it’s true that it is life advice – because (I think) this view of leadership is all about being a nice, humble, respectful, and – crucially – taking ownership of the mistakes you make instead of assigning blame.

    This book shows us a world in which we are all, inside our boxes, desperately trying to justify the actions we take that are less than honorable, less than kind. If you don’t want to be such a person, you can choose to live outside your box. You can see others as humans – with their own motivations, fears, and justifications, rather than as obnoxious objects trying to take you down.

    Recently, I did something really hard. I offered to step down from a position I love and that I’m hugely passionate about. If I wanted to live in a box I could complain that this is not my fault – the situation is the actions of someone else. I have the emails that have been sent, I could forward them to everyone. I have some idea of what her justifications are, but it doesn’t matter – I can’t change them, it’s pointless to address them.

    It is difficult not to do this. After the latest trick for about an hour I was just – in shock, repeating, “why would someone do that?”.

    But – what little I have learned about leadership tells me that this is not the way to do that. All I can do is be honest, open, humble – and try to be kind. Accept that I’ve been in the box towards this person and try and be outside it.

    This is a horrible, difficult situation to be in. I try and see those as opportunities to grow, and learn. I don’t like what I’m learning about power struggles, but learning not to respond in kind? That is probably a good one.

  • 3 Books That Changed My Perspective

    Day 14 - Visual Representation of a Reading List
    Credit: flickr / margolove

    I recently finished reading What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (Amazon) by Tina Seelig. It’s a wonderful and inspiring book, and I’m going to write a little about how it inspired me, but I also want to touch on two other books that changed the way I look at things.

    The God Delusion (Amazon) by Richard Dawkins. This book took away the last residual guilt about being an atheist. Even in Secular Britain, it felt sometimes that I needed to apologize for not believing, or that I was weird because I literally couldn’t suspend rationality in order to feel better about myself/the future/whatever. Since then, I don’t. I think I’m also more optimistic as well – although that was a more gradual change.

    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Amazon) by Stephen Covey. This book showed be the difference between effectiveness and efficiency. The advice in it is so simple, and yet I read it and think about those people who embody the principles and the difference between them, and those that don’t… is profound.

    So, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (Amazon). The biggest lesson? Give yourself permission – to try, to lead, to create… to fail. And I think we 20-somethings need that, because it’s easy to go along, being told what to do. Too easy.

    And really, I think one of my biggest successes has come from giving myself permission. About a year ago, I applied for a more senior position to the one I’d had for two summers. And I had this incredibly strange interview, where the woman kept saying how alike we were and how she disliked aspect X of herself that I had too, and I tried to construct sensible arguments to say “we are not that alike”, but got nowhere. The only constructive feedback I got was that I didn’t have enough examples of leadership, outside my work for that company.

    By the time I was answering that question, I was pretty discombobulated, and knew that in a better interview situation I could do better… but on that issue at least, she had a point. Soon after, this opportunity came up to restart WISE, and I took it. And part of what drove me to do it, was the idea that I would prove this woman wrong. But that reason soon faded away (I have no desire for that position anymore and didn’t apply this year), and I, and other members of the team, have worked really hard to make WISE a success.

    And people seem to be impressed, or surprised by what I’ve achieved in this position of leadership. But I haven’t surprised myself. See – I always knew I could do it, I just waited too long for someone else to give me permission to prove it.