Successful tech companies have a knack for spotting, retaining and developing leaders. This last point is especially important as leadership isn’t some latent trait that transforms a person once it’s been identified.
Yes, some people are more natural leaders than others, but managing people is still a skill, and like any other skill it needs to be developed and honed. In addition to providing professional development opportunities for managers, companies also need to ensure that they’re empowered to do their best work and not simply passing orders down the chain of command.
This is more difficult than it sounds and requires busy executives to commit themselves to the growth of the leaders they lead, both through direct mentorship and by ensuring formal training and development opportunities are available. We were recently able to sit down with three such tech execs in the Bay Area to find out about their approach to leading leaders as well as the professional development opportunities their companies offer management.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent move to remote work has tested leaders throughout the tech industry, including InfluxData’s CEO, Kevin Kaplan. According to Kaplan, the pandemic is a reminder of just how important it is for leaders to hone their emotional intelligence. However, Kaplan said he’s always placed a high value on getting to know his employees as people and that doing so has made it easier to both understand the decisions they make and find ways to challenge them.
First, briefly describe your management style. How do you like to work with your direct reports?
It’s always been important to me to know and care about the people I work with, not just their CVs, but who they are in the world and how that intersects with who they are at work. Work isn’t everything in people’s lives: We’re all products of our families, relationships and environments. I want to understand how they became the people they are and how they “show up” in the world generally because this can help me understand how they think and might have come to a certain decision. All of this enables me to be more supportive, empathetic and, even more importantly, to challenge them in productive ways.
Social intelligence shouldn’t be underestimated. Good leaders and managers know and are attuned to their team members. This has been especially relevant over the last year as we’ve been 100 percent remote. For example, if someone is slower to respond than usual, it may be that they’re stuck on a difficult project and need extra support. Maybe a usually warm and collaborative employee is getting frustrated with their peers — this could be a sign of an underlying conflict that needs to be addressed. People aren’t simple and there are special circumstances to consider, especially with an all-virtual workforce.
Social intelligence shouldn’t be underestimated. Good leaders and managers know and are attuned to their team members.”
As a leader of leaders, what strategy have you found to be key for empowering the managers below you and supporting them in their growth?
Align and empower. I spend most of my time focused on alignment — between departments, but mostly ensuring that everything we do aligns with our overall business goals. I hire smart people to run individual departments so I don’t need to get involved with every detail. When it comes to my direct reports, I want to remove obstacles and clear a path for them to execute. I’m both supportive of who they are as people and challenging of their ideas at the same time.
Leaders and managers must be able to articulate their plans and give me a sense of how they’re thinking about things. I ask them to clearly describe plans with context and justification, and through that process they typically come out with a strong program. This, combined with a very deep understanding of how their functions fit into a global view of our business strategy, empowers them to execute at a higher level.
I ask everyone who works directly for me to spend 80 percent of their time managing their function and the other 20 percent managing the company. This achieves two things. First, it prevents us from optimizing a function at the expense of the greater enterprise, and second, it forces them to think about the entire organization like a CEO would, which really helps to move the whole business forward.
What formal training does your company offer developing leaders to help them grow and thrive in their roles as people managers?
We have a number of avenues available to managers for developing their people-managing skills, all of which are grounded in our core values. For example, executive leaders mentor department managers, and our HR team provides training on how to hire and retain great talent. We are always looking for new ways to support our people managers’ growth and actively encourage them to pursue external educational opportunities as well to help further develop these skills.
Deep Varma, CTO at Varo Bank, takes a practical approach when it comes to the professional development of his managers. To Varma, the key is understanding what motivates a person, both professionally and personally. Armed with that knowledge, Varo Bank’s CTO said he’s able to challenge managers in a way they’ll respond to and grow from.
First, briefly describe your management style. How do you like to work with your direct reports?
Managing leaders is truly the most important aspect of my role. To start, I always look for leaders who are aligned with our overall mission and in particular how that mission impacts our end customers. To lead high-performing teams effectively you must be comfortable with operating at both the micro and macro levels, which is what I call an “operating range.” No one can do it alone, and to be effective you must rely on a capable team of leaders who can roll up their sleeves alongside you and support big picture, strategic decisions.
My team are my partners, and to be successful we need to have an open, frank and trust-based relationship. As a manager, first and foremost it’s important to lead by example and build a culture of transparency. I work with my team to set clear expectations, drive toward agreed outcomes and encourage them to ask for help when it’s needed.
Candid, two-way communication is absolutely critical and it’s far better to over-communicate than under-communicate. There is no replacement for constant feedback that is both respectful and constructive. This ensures that our team feels encouraged to keep growing and pushing forward.
Psychological safety is foundational to getting the best out of your team. I foster an atmosphere of openness, respect and support.”
As a leader of leaders, what strategy have you found to be key for empowering the managers below you and supporting them in their growth?
At the outset, I work to understand what drives my team, particularly their ambitions and objectives, both personal and professional. Personal growth at this level has many variables, not just career but also influence, legacy, impact and reward. With that context, I ensure that I am tapping into what motivates them to be truly at the top of their game and crafting the right mix of ownership, responsibility and opportunity for growth.
Psychological safety is foundational to getting the best out of your team. I foster an atmosphere of openness, respect and support that gives my team a safe space for advice, coaching, assistance or thought partnership. I make sure my team knows that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as we are learning and advancing.
As a leader of leaders, I know that I succeed when my team is succeeding. Achieving our objectives comes as a result of active collaboration and teamwork. I encourage my team to ask questions, engage and respectfully challenge each other. No one has a monopoly on great ideas and the iterative process makes our work stronger.
What formal training does your company offer developing leaders to help them grow and thrive in their roles as people managers?
Varo has a series of management learning and development programs to support newer leaders and seasoned managers alike. One of our core values is “stay curious,” and we encourage lifelong learning as part of our culture. Varo has a flexible, allocated development budget for our managers that can be used for seminars, training, conferences and team outings.
Varo’s ongoing “Manager Learning Series” shares key leadership topics supported by our people team. Topics have included best practice frameworks for giving feedback, how to have crucial conversations and inclusivity and understanding bias. We host an ongoing series called “Varo Presents” where leaders and employees can share their expertise on a wide variety of topics. This has been popular, particularly since we began working fully remote due to the pandemic.
We also support specialized learning and development strategies that are aligned to the needs of a team or department. At an individual level, we encourage employees to take charge of their learning and career development by working with their leader on a development plan.
Taking risks is part and parcel of working in tech, but a fear of failure and the consequences that come with it can inhibit leaders from taking chances. Srinivas Bandi, VP of engineering at Harness, has worked to overcome this by demystifying failure. Bandi said he promotes risk-taking by encouraging managers to embrace accountability and consider the possibility of failure and what it might entail when designing their systems.
First, briefly describe your management style. How do you like to work with your direct reports?
At Harness, we believe in developing both managerial and technical leaders who are innovative, independent, empathetic, accountable and take risks. My personal management style is to give the leaders within the group a high degree of autonomy, provide them with all the mentorship and tools required to do the job, and finally help define measurable goals. I encourage leaders to take well-thought-out risks and create a system that allows for failure.
At Harness, we believe in developing both managerial and technical leaders who are innovative, independent, empathetic, accountable and take risks.”
As a leader of leaders, what strategy have you found to be key for empowering the managers below you and supporting them in their growth?
The strategy that has worked for me is to give managers the autonomy to formulate their plans while providing a framework for accountability. I also allow them room to take risks and fail and, most importantly, offer mentorship at the right time.
What formal training does your company offer developing leaders to help them grow and thrive in their roles as people managers?
Harness is a huge believer in sharing practical experience. Over the past year we have invited a number of key industry leaders to talk to our engineering managers and share their experiences in scaling an organization from a startup to tens of thousands of people, the failures they experienced during the journey and the lessons they took from it.
We regularly share books like “Radical Candor” and “Tribal Leadership” with our managers and have exposed them to concepts like the “Founder’s Mentality.” Finally, we have had a number of virtual town halls and fireside chats to understand implicit bias and how to improve diversity in hiring.
