The best managers are those who are clear about where their team is heading but trust their direct reports to get there themselves.
At least, that’s what effective management looks like at Commerce, an AI-driven commerce ecosystem provider. Senior HRIS Administrator Madison Buchmeyer said that the managers she has had at the company have given her direction and challenged her to grow, motivating her to excel in her role every day.
“It makes me more solution-oriented in how I approach my day-to-day work, more open to taking on new projects, and more collaborative in how I learn,” Buchmeyer said. “That’s had a real impact on how I show up.”
While effective leadership is defined by trusting employees to drive success, it also comes down to clarifying priorities and expectations. At ChowNow, a platform that enables independent restaurants to offer commission-free ordering, Customer Support Team Lead Madeline Caña and her peers are supported by leaders who create clarity through consistent communication, including regular one-on-ones and weekly team meetings.
“These help create space to align on priorities, share goals, talk through challenges, and make sure everyone understands where to focus their energy,” she said.
With this focus on clarity, ownership and individual support, leaders at Commerce, ChowNow and six other companies enable team members to thrive in their day-to-day roles. Read on to learn how leaders at each organization manage their teams effectively.
Featured Companies
DigitalOcean’s full-stack cloud platform is designed to help teams operate AI applications at scale more effectively.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
Effective management at DigitalOcean for the Infra::Fleet::Machines::Design team is basically being a pressure regulator towards the team, ensuring they know there is urgency, but ensuring that the workload they’re carrying isn’t overwhelming, that they’re able to maintain a sustainable work-life balance, and that the demands of other competing priorities don’t distract them from the targets they’re currently aiming to hit. At DO, we call this “shark wrangling:” DO employees are called “sharks,” new hires are “guppies,” and our virtual machine product is named Droplet. We love the fun of playing into our ocean theme.
Spending a lot of time grooming the backlog, ensuring that new efforts have their priorities and scope of work clearly defined, and coordinating execution to align with the team’s available cycles are how we ensure that folks are aware of the massive backlog of work awaiting them but don’t feel like they have the individual obligation of bearing that burden. They instead know the team is there to carry it with them. “No shark swims alone” is part of our ethos, captured in the DO Love tenet that is foundational to our company values.
How do leaders at DigitalOcean create clarity around priorities and expectations?
Leadership at DigitalOcean is very effective at their communication to the workforce. Our CEO and chief product and technology officer both articulate clear and attainable high-level targets, and our middle management dissects those targets and farms out work to constituent teams with the advice of the various platform architects. This frequently happens organically. Senior leadership will communicate a direction change, and individual teams will surface their strategy for hitting that target, align pairwise with peer teams, and ensure that all gaps are closed without the direct engagement of senior leaders, only architects and technical project managers. This aids velocity by reducing friction.
Senior leaders are very direct in their messaging to emphasize exactly how important each initiative is to the continued success of the business. This can be intense but is extremely effective at setting direction and motivating delivery. The directness of the commentary can require some messaging from middle management to ensure that “sharks” are comfortable with and cognizant of the direction being set and don’t feel overwhelmed by the scope of what’s being asked.
“Senior leaders are very direct in their messaging to emphasize exactly how important each initiative is to the continued success of the business.”
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
When I landed at DigitalOcean, the Infra::Fleet::Machines::Design team was lacking many tools required for success at hyperscaler levels. Many product and solution development processes were very manual and required swivel-chair execution leveraging tribal knowledge to complete, resulting in a massive volume of toil for “sharks” working in this discipline. After a month onboard, I started the campaign for a product lifecycle management system. I worked with a peer to write a request for comments, we submitted it to leadership, and we spent about a year convincing leadership of the need to move into a PLM system.
After some time of wearing away at the senior vice presidential level, we were able to convince leadership of the value of a PLM to scale our fleet and in reducing friction/manual error/delay in product design, qualification and onboarding. They subsequently created a business-wide initiative to implement the PLM system at a cost of millions of dollars, and we are about a third of the way through implementation now. This contrasts with past experiences, where the price tag of PLM implementation was assessed to outweigh the cost to the business in toil and friction.
Lessen LLC aims to make it easier to care for and improve real estate properties, offering a platform that provides data-driven insights for investors, owners, managers and service providers.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
Effective management on the product design team at Lessen looks like leading by example through transparency, strong communication and the ability to move through ambiguity confidently. The managers on our team consistently model how transparency builds trust, how effective communication creates alignment quickly, and how navigating ambiguity with confidence helps our team stay focused and adaptable in our fast-paced environment.
“The managers on our team consistently model how transparency builds trust, how effective communication creates alignment quickly, and how navigating ambiguity with confidence helps our team stay focused and adaptable in our fast-paced environment.”
This culture on the design team that’s fostered by management has a direct impact on day-to-day work because it creates an environment where we feel trusted to propose new ideas and challenge assumptions thoughtfully. That trust reinforces a strong culture of ownership on the design team, where designers are encouraged to take initiative, think strategically, and help shape product direction. Our designers are always thinking about new ways to contribute meaningfully to how work processes evolve and ideating new and better ways of cross-team collaboration at Lessen, and that mindset definitely starts at the management level.
How do leaders at Lessen create clarity around priorities and expectations?
Leaders at Lessen create clarity around priorities and expectations by being highly communicative and accessible, which makes it easier to stay aligned as work evolves. In our fast-paced environment, that accessibility is especially valuable because priorities can shift quickly, and having open communication helps the team adjust without losing momentum.
As a design team, we also share weekly priorities as a group, which helps keep everyone focused and grounded in what matters most for that week, ensuring that our efforts are aligned with what’s most important that week. When priorities do change, our managers help us reassess scope, weigh tradeoffs, and identify what is needed to move forward confidently and effectively. Designers are also always empowered to advocate for the time and resources required to deliver designs at a high standard, whether that means additional discovery research, stronger data or more time to execute thoughtfully. That support creates clarity because our expectations are shaped around what is realistically needed to deliver thoughtful, high-quality work.
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
One example that stands out was early in my time at Lessen, when I was working against a tight design turnaround that was driven by one of our clients. At that point, my instinct was to move quickly within the timeline given, even if I knew the work might not fully meet the standard I wanted to deliver. However, my manager, Joy, helped me advocate for additional time so there was enough room for proper design exploration and feedback. That support was meaningful because it reinforced early on that quality work sometimes requires protecting time, even in fast-moving situations.
Not only did Joy’s support help me navigate that immediate challenge at a formative point in my time at Lessen, but it also gave me a foundational framework for approaching future conversations with our product managers around tradeoffs, prioritization and realistic bandwidth estimations. That experience had a lasting impact on how I approach work today by giving me more confidence to advocate for the resources necessary to prioritize user needs, think intentionally about scope, and balance speed with thoughtful execution.
360Learning’s AI-driven platform is designed to enable learning and development teams to create content, automate tasks, boost engagement and more.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
For me, effective management starts with really understanding the role of the team you’re leading. I came up through the 360Learning customer success team myself, so I have a very clear picture of the day-to-day demands that CSMs face.
Because of that, I try to lead in a very practical way. Clear communication and accessibility are really important to me. My team knows they can come to me for guidance, whether it’s navigating a difficult client situation or thinking through a strategic account plan. I also believe strongly in leading by example. If a newer CSM is preparing for a more advanced conversation with a client, I’m always happy to hop on the call to help present or support them. It’s a great way to model the approach while building confidence in our team.
“My team knows they can come to me for guidance, whether it’s navigating a difficult client situation or thinking through a strategic account plan.”
At the same time, I try to keep a long-term lens on development. I believe that an essential part of the manager role is helping people grow in their careers. Whether that’s developing stronger consultative skills, taking on more strategic accounts or preparing for the next step in their role, my goal is to make sure my team feels supported in the moment while helping them hone their CS skills for the future.
How do leaders at 360Learning create clarity around priorities and expectations?
One thing I really appreciate about working at 360Learning is the level of open communication across the organization. There has always been a strong culture of transparency that helps ensure people understand not just what the priorities are, but why they matter.
360Learning leaders are very intentional about clearly articulating goals and expectations, whether that’s through company-wide updates, leadership communication or team-level conversations. This clarity makes it easier for teams like customer success to align our work with broader company initiatives.
This level of transparency has created a culture of trust that I have not experienced elsewhere. When priorities shift, leadership does a good job of communicating the reasoning behind those changes. Their transparency helps our teams stay focused on what will have the biggest impact for customers and the business.
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
One example that stands out to me is how leadership has continued to invest in providing a strong customer experience. When I joined 360Learning five years ago, our North American team was very lean as we broke into the market. Our global leadership committed to ensuring the team had the structure and support required to provide the level of service expected in the North American market.
They followed through on their commitment by evolving regional team leadership, investing in processes that help us better support customers, and encouraging strong cross-team collaboration to ensure our product met shifting needs. The 360Learning leadership team was actively working with the team to build solutions.
What stood out to me most was how leadership remained engaged with the team and our customers as we evolved. There was ongoing communication, opportunities for feedback and a genuine effort to make sure the changes were helping both employees and customers succeed. The level of follow-through expected of 360Learning leaders continuously reinforces the culture of trust and collaboration here.
Commerce’s e-commerce platform is designed to help both enterprises and small businesses grow their operations.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
Effective management, to me, is when someone is clear about where we’re going but trusts you to get there. The managers I’ve had at Commerce have done both: They’ve given me direction and challenged me to grow into it. And that honestly makes me excited to come to work. It makes me more solution-oriented in how I approach my day-to-day work, more open to taking on new projects, and more collaborative in how I learn. That’s had a real impact on how I show up.
How do leaders at Commerce create clarity around priorities and expectations?
Leaders at my company create clarity by giving clear direction quarter over quarter — we know what’s expected at the company level and how it ties to the “big rocks” our people experience team is focused on. My leaders are great about one-on-ones and keeping me informed regarding priorities and how projects impact the business. But, they also make a point to listen to what’s happening at the boots-on-the-ground level, bringing in perspective from across the team, not just from the top. We have clear roadmaps, transparent conversations about how the company and team are actually doing, and regular pulse checks with me and the broader team. That openness to feedback — both giving it and receiving it — is what makes the direction feel real.
“That openness to feedback — both giving it and receiving it — is what makes the direction feel real.”
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
One example that stands out is how leadership actually acted on employee feedback rather than just acknowledging it. When people expressed they wanted more transparency around how the company was doing, leadership took that seriously, rethinking how our company all-hands meetings were run and introducing “Ask Me Anything” sessions so employees could get real answers directly from leadership. The same goes for benefits: Feedback was heard, and real changes were made. That kind of follow-through is what builds genuine trust.
Cedar’s AI-powered platform is designed to improve the healthcare financial experience for both providers and patients.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
For me, effective management starts with making sure everyone understands what we’re trying to do, not just at the project level, but in the context of the business. I lead product security, and we deal with patient financial data. My own healthcare data lives in Cedar, so it’s personal. We have a moral responsibility to protect everyone’s data, and that framing creates a values alignment.
I give people space to ask questions and challenge the vision because at Cedar, we’ve created a culture where people really do care, want to do well, and take pride in their work. Once that alignment and buy-in is there, ownership becomes the core principle. If you’re the directly responsible individual, you truly own the decision. I’ll provide context, ask questions, and push on the thinking, but I won’t dictate the outcome. That trust is important; people want to be granted the leeway to exercise their expertise. And it gives space for everyone to contribute in the way that’s best for them. Even when the result isn’t perfect, the learning builds stronger judgment. Day to day, that balance of clarity, challenge and autonomy keeps people engaged and motivated in their work.
“I give people space to ask questions and challenge the vision because at Cedar, we’ve created a culture where people really do care, want to do well, and take pride in their work.”
How do leaders at your company create clarity around priorities and expectations?
At Cedar, we’re compassionate, but we’re also very data-driven. We regularly ask, “Are we doing a good job, and how do we know? Does it make Cedar a more secure place, or a better place for developers? How have we moved the needle?” That mindset shows up in how we set priorities. Each quarter, we step back in what we call a “State of the Union” session to look at the full landscape. We talk honestly about what’s working — or what isn’t — and we’ll push each other to have clear measurements to evaluate our projects and know if we’re on track.
From there, we define a focused set of projects and, importantly, what success looks like. We break work into milestones and keep tight feedback loops so people know where they stand, and we check in regularly to see whether someone is stuck or needs help. That structure creates clarity without micromanagement. Everyone understands the goal, the metric and their role to communicate and support each other while preserving that autonomy.
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
An example that comes to mind is our encryption rework. It’s a pretty massive project because encryption is at the heart of our data protections at Cedar. It touches analytics, reporting and really every system, so the margin for error is small. From the beginning, we were very intentional about scoping it appropriately, defining milestones, and asking, “How do we know we’re not going to break anything when we make this switch?”
As we moved forward week by week, we uncovered a performance concern that involved another team. The DRI on my team started going deep into optimizing that issue. During one of our check-ins, another team member stepped back and asked, “Are we sure this is required for our minimum viable product for this quarter, or are we going off into the weeds?”
We looked at it together and realized we could defer that optimization. That moment reflects leadership following through on its commitment to ownership and peer challenge. We preserved autonomy, but we also relied on the structure we’d set up to reassess priorities. It ultimately increased the likelihood of delivering meaningful impact and set the tech lead up for success.
ChowNow’s platform enables independent restaurants to offer commission-free ordering, build branded mobile applications, simplify their takeout operations, and create marketing campaigns.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
For me, effective management really comes down to communication, teamwork and personal responsibility. When communication is clear and consistent, everyone understands what the goal is and feels comfortable asking questions or sharing ideas. This kind of open dialogue makes a big difference in helping the team stay aligned. Through my time at ChowNow, I’ve seen these values practiced regularly. For example, when new processes or updates are introduced, leadership does a great job explaining the reasoning behind them and encourages collaboration and feedback. This builds trust and helps the team stay aligned, making it easier for us to support changes and lead our new initiatives effectively. Overall, that kind of environment encourages people to feel proud of their work and confident in their role.
“When communication is clear and consistent, everyone understands what the goal is and feels comfortable asking questions or sharing ideas.”
How do leaders at ChowNow create clarity around priorities and expectations?
One of the biggest ways leaders create clarity is through consistent communication and check-ins, like regular one-on-ones and weekly team meetings. These help create space to align on priorities, share goals, talk through challenges, and make sure everyone understands where to focus their energy. This also helps ensure expectations are clear and that team members feel supported in reaching those goals. Another aspect that really helps is breaking larger goals or initiatives into smaller projects. When priorities are framed that way, they feel much more achievable, allowing us to focus on smaller steps that move us toward that goal.
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
One example that stood out to me was during a period when support volume was higher than usual and the team was starting to feel overwhelmed. Leadership acknowledged the challenge and communicated that they were looking at ways to improve coverage and processes. What I appreciated most was that they shared the plan and followed through. They made adjustments that helped distribute the workload more effectively and improved coverage. It showed the team that leadership was listening, thoughtful about solutions and willing to take action, which made a big difference for morale and helped us continue delivering strong support.
NinjaHoldings’ suite of digital banking and lending products are designed to help everyday Americans take control of their finances.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
Effective management at Ninja Holdings means being fully present and actively engaged in the team’s day-to-day work. A big part of my role is ensuring engineers can maintain momentum by helping remove blockers, whether that means coordinating with stakeholders, engaging vendors or aligning priorities across teams.
I focus on being highly available to discuss technical approaches, delivery risks and anything else needed to support the team. By embracing a servant-leadership mindset, I work to ensure our engineers have the clarity, resources and autonomy they need to succeed.
“By embracing a servant-leadership mindset, I work to ensure our engineers have the clarity, resources and autonomy they need to succeed.”
I’m fortunate to lead a team of highly skilled, motivated engineers who move quickly and care deeply about delivering value. My job is to help create a clear path for that delivery so they can stay focused on building, innovating and moving our platform forward.
How do leaders at NinjaHoldings create clarity around priorities and expectations?
Leaders at NinjaHoldings create clarity through frequent, highly collaborative operating rhythms. Each week we hold an operations review where all levels of leadership align on critical project delivery, revenue performance by line of business and product, compliance considerations and resource needs.
What makes this process different is the level of transparency and engagement across the organization. Our leadership team, including the C-suite, has direct visibility into the work each team is delivering and how it contributes to revenue and business outcomes. That shared understanding allows us to quickly adjust priorities, remove obstacles, and keep teams focused on the work that matters most.
We also hold a monthly town hall, where financial performance and strategic goals are shared openly with the entire company. This level of transparency ensures everyone understands what’s at stake and how their daily work directly contributes to the company’s success.
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
Our industry is highly regulated, and the legislative environment can change quickly. When the Small Dollar Rule was announced, it introduced several new requirements that impacted both our company and our banking partners.
Leadership immediately prioritized the initiative and clearly communicated its importance across the organization. Resources were aligned quickly to assess the regulatory requirements, identify the necessary system and process changes, and develop an implementation plan.
Within two weeks of prioritization, our engineering teams had already begun development. We built the capabilities using feature toggles so they could be safely deployed and then activated when the rule officially took effect. It was a great example of leadership setting a clear direction, aligning the organization quickly and enabling teams to execute efficiently in a complex regulatory environment.
ABN AMRO Clearing USA LLC is a global clearing firm that offers a variety of financial services, such as clearing, execution, stock borrowing and lending, and settlement.
What does effective management look like on your team, and how does it impact your day-to-day work?
For me, effective management means setting clear direction while giving people the space to operate independently. My team works in a complex environment across technology, risk and multiple regions, so clarity and trust are key. I try to be very transparent about priorities, especially when it comes to things like control maturity, audit readiness or regulatory commitments, so people understand not just what we are doing but why it matters. Day to day, that means regular alignment, removing blockers and making sure the team has the context they need to make decisions themselves. When that works well, the team moves faster and people feel ownership over the outcomes rather than just executing tasks.
How do leaders at ABN AMRO Clearing USA LLC create clarity around priorities and expectations?
Leaders create clarity by consistently connecting our work to the broader strategy. In our environment, that often means translating high-level goals, like strengthening resilience, simplifying the technology landscape or improving risk posture, into practical priorities for teams. I try to do the same within my team by breaking those objectives down into concrete initiatives and outcomes. For example, when we work on improving the IT control framework or preparing audits, I make sure expectations are very clear in terms of ownership, timelines and what success looks like. That alignment helps avoid confusion and allows the team to focus on the work that moves the organization forward.
“Leaders create clarity by consistently connecting our work to the broader strategy.”
Can you share an example of when leadership followed through on a commitment or navigated a challenge successfully?
One example was strengthening our IT control environment and preparing major audit requirements. Leadership made a clear commitment to improve the maturity and consistency of our controls globally. From my side, that meant translating that commitment into concrete actions with my team, clarifying ownership, improving reporting on control performance and working closely with different stakeholders across technology and risk. It required coordination across regions and teams, but leadership stayed engaged and supported the effort, which made it possible to implement real improvements rather than treating it as a short-term compliance exercise. It was a good example of how leadership commitment with execution at the team level can lead to meaningful progress.
