By: Sudha Kannan, Engineering Manager,  Engineering Operations and Tools

 

The year 2020 was one to remember. COVID started taking a massive toll on all the countries across the globe, making us all understand and appreciate the value of normalcy. Things changed drastically in my professional life as well – I took a short career break to focus on my creative side, that helped me recharge myself for the next chapter in my life. 

I joined my current company as an Engineer Manager. Not only was I officially responsible for a team, but I also had to learn & be a manager over Zoom! Before joining, I talked to some of the leaders I had worked with and asked for their advice on how to be successful in my new role. One thing that was consistent across all the suggestions I received was the importance of finding the right mentor early on. 

The nature of my job routinely requires me to have cross functional interaction with various leaders, within as well as outside of my organization. Out of the various leadership styles that I got to witness firsthand, there were two that strongly resonated with me – one was from a senior woman leader within my own organization, and the other from a senior leader in a customer organization.

It is said that there is absolutely nothing like emulating a leader whose style resonates with you! I learnt (and continue to learn) several valuable lessons in the process which I am sharing with you readers here. 

 

Seek regular feedback from your team. My mentor shared some insights on how helpful it was to him, to get feedback from someone who was two or three levels below him, in his org. I have since prototyped the idea in my 1:1s with engineers. I’ve seen this method to be very helpful, especially when you take charge of guiding the course of conversation such that the focus is more on what you can do better. This is important, since in a manager- employee relationship, there is a natural tendency for the report to shy away from discussing real opportunities for fear of retaliation. Providing psychological safety IMO, helps address this.

 

Ask for help and offer help. We are often encouraged to ask for help when needed, but how often do we get talked about the importance of offering help? This one piece of advice has really helped me build and nurture authentic relations with my colleagues. 

 

Hire right and retain right. Effective delegation, something every manager struggles with, becomes a lot easier when you have the right team. As one of my senior leaders loves to say – “Hire right and retain right”. I find it fascinating to observe how she focuses on keeping the compositions of her teams properly balanced. You need a diverse mix to keep the creativity level high. 

 

Listen with an intent to understand, not test. This one is inspired from a book my mentor recommended, called ‘Turn the ship around’. The book explains the importance of phrasing your questions in such a way that they show genuine curiosity, and not make the opposite party feel intimidated.

 

Discourage mediocrity and get yourself out there! The only way to ensure that we all perform to our full potential is by asking the right questions and by pushing ourselves to go beyond superficial levels of knowledge. My manager does this well. You can encourage this mindset on your teams by role modeling as well as reminding the team every now and then, that regardless of levels, everyone should feel free to take charge and be a leader. Provide opportunities to your team to explain their work and shine in front of senior leadership. 

“If you cannot explain it well, then you don’t understand it enough” should be the mantra. 

Lastly, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this saying from Sheryl Sandberg, that goes: “Don’t expect that you’ll get to the corner office by sitting on the sidelines.” Speak up!

 

Mandate diversity. Good leaders are great role models. When I looked at my own org’s structure, I noticed how leadership in my company, walked the talk when it came to diversity and inclusion. That motivated me to be intentional about the effort. As a result, I now manage a team that is 80% diverse, out of which 60% are women and 40% underrepresented minorities. Yay!

 

Cultivate inclusion. As leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that everyone on the team feels included. Of what use is diversity when inclusion cannot be guaranteed?! These are some of the things I have done and observed others do:

• Acknowledge holidays of all cultures. Recognize & celebrate days with significance to other communities. 
• Ensure that restaurants chosen for team lunches have enough vegetarian/gluten-free options.
• Accommodate requests to not have meetings at times when it is inconvenient for those who are parents. 
• Have real-life get-togethers (not over Zoom!) at least once a quarter. Fly in your remote employees now and then. Make them feel part of the team. 

I enjoyed jotting down my thoughts around this topic. Hope you found it useful, I would love to hear your thoughts.