Are you ready for the C-Suite?

Ready to have more influence, and help make your team or organisation make better decisions? 

Are you itching to build a better way, lead more effectively and get your opinions heard in a meaningful way?

I’ve been there.

In 2016 I was desperate to make real change and have a positive influence. But I was stalled in my career. I felt stifled, and held back. 

Four years on I’ve worked in the C-Suite, led an international charity spanning 65 countries, influenced the Supercomputing industry for the better and now run my own business. And today, I’m lifting the lid on what I did to get here. Spoiler: it’s not what you might think!

So let’s dig into my story…

Are you wondering if you have enough, or the right data for your decision making?

As we rise up in our leadership careers, the one defining feature of all leadership is that we make more and more decisions. But how we make those decisions is crucial.

In today’s Leading Women in Tech podcast I’m interviewing Dr Linda McIver, the founder and Executive Director of the Australian Data Science Education Institute on the power of data driven decision making, her three principles for making decisions, and the danger of confirmation bias when we use data. We dig into everything from decisions in organisations to decisions about COVID, and of course, we can’t help but touch a little on decisions around building an equitable, diverse and inclusive workforce.

So let’s dive in.

Are you feeling stuck with how to handle those difficult people at work? You know, the people who seem to always put roadblocks in your way. And after 10 roadblocks you are wondering, surely this cannot be accidental. The people who are resistant to your ideas and make life problematic for everyone in the team.

Are you wanting to build real personal resilience, so that you feel confident with those difficult conversations, instead of feeling anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed, and on the verge of burnout? 

Perhaps you are an ambitious change-agent, motivated to inspire others into a better way of doing things. But finding the time and energy to get the buy-in you know you need is, well, exhausting. 

Are you left feeling overwhelmed, drained and depleted? 

Perhaps you know the theory of leading, but it doesn’t seem to play out that way for you, and management seems to take up all your time, so you deciding to stick with the tech role you started with, despite your desire to influence and create positive change.

If you are ready to be full of confidence and be that influencer you crave, then I have one thing you need to know. The one thing that is not talked about enough when we are taught about leadership or leadership is ‘shown’ to us by those above. This one thing: it is the glue that makes great leadership happen.

Curious? Let’s go to the show.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Do you ever feel like you are drowning in decisions. Demanded to choose between things minute to minute, hour to hour? By the end of the working day are you so done from decision making that you can barely handle choosing what to do about dinner?

The job of a leader, is above all, making and communicating decisions. Providing clarity on focus, direction and exchanging information. Reviewing data, and making informed decisions based on it. Evaluating alternatives. Prepping plans and their alternatives for critical analysis and escalation.

Decision making just intensifies as we progress in our careers.

But the one thing we don’t reallise needs to change is how we make decisions. Moving from the action based decision making in our first management roles to more strategic decision making as an executive. And what got you to where you are now, won’t just fail to get you further but could be damaging your reputation right now if you aren’t adapting to the needs of the decision-making required of you in your current role.

So what can you do? In today’s episode of the podcast I”m diving into how do you get out from under the weight of these decisions, avoid the ‘you aren’t communicating well’ spoken or unspoken criticism that is often a symptom of decision burnout, and learn how to level up your decision making alongside your other leadership skills.
Ready? Let’s go to the show!

Are you actively managing your leaders? 

Training them, working with them to hone their leadership skills? Helping them to figure out the road to great leadership?

Or do you just let your team of managers get on with it because you are hands-off?

If you are a hands-off manager of managers, even if that is the style of management you liked at that level, you are leaving opportunity on the table.

Despite what you might hear, no one is born a perfect leader. Some do have more intrinsic leadership skill than others, but everyone needs to develop and hone their leadership and management. So leaving your new managers to figure out how to navigate a new role as a team lead, a general manager or even a VP is a recipe for many bumps along the road or worse. 
But having an attitude of ‘my door is open, come to me for help’ doesn’t work either. Remember: they feel the need to prove themselves to you, and will try their best to not bother you.

It’s time to round the square peg so you and your team of managers all up-level, learn how to effectively lead in the way that works for them, but with your guidance as someone who was there before. And hint: using team meetings which focus on exception reporting won’t achieve this growth and development. 

In today’s Leading Women in Tech podcast I’m diving into how to help your managers remain autonomous, keep their new found confidence as a leader, but boost them up quickly and effectively so that you, your managers, their teams, and the entire business division benefits. It’s time to stop leaving the benefits of great management and leadership at every level of your organisation on the table, simply because you had to figure this out yourself.  And instead, let’s use your emotional intelligence to help your managers become great leaders in their own right.

95% of people think they are self-aware, but only between 10 and 15 percent really demonstrate high levels of self-awareness.
That might be shocking. But consider that far more than 50 percent of people that drive also think they are above average drivers… clearly that can’t be true.

The irony with self-awareness is that the more self-aware you are, the more likely you are to realize whether you are actually as self-aware and in control of your emotions as you think.

In today’s episode, I’m continuing the emotional intelligence journey and discussing how to use your newly awakened self-awareness to build great leadership. It’s time to lean into pausing, reflecting, listening, and reacting in a constructive way. To realize when your outbursts are negatively impacting your team. Taking us all from needing to be liked as a leader, or assuming that to be great at what you do you need to be feared, and instead, learning how to show up as an authentic and transparent leader that builds team productivity through understanding others around you, and acting in full knowledge of that awareness, instead of irrespective of it.

Because when we act and react with knowledge of how our actions will be received we are able to boost productivity, create greater impact, boost creativity, empathy and so much more.

Ready to step up your emotional intelligence and lean into your high-performance leadership? Let’s dive into part two of emotional intelligence as we turn our focus on social awareness and relationship management.