What support do people want right now? We're in the middle of a global pandemic, and my world has been turned upside down. Day by day, I feel a varying mix of emotions. Gratitude that
How to Set Up Your Remote Working Strategy Many people this past week have found themselves suddenly working from home [https://stayinghome.club/] due to coronavirus. Maybe like me, you also found yourself rounding out your pantry with
The Behind-the-scenes Work of Tech Leadership One of my proudest accomplishments during my 5+ years at Medium was a technical project, but it wasn't the technical portion of it that I was most proud
An Easier Path to Behavior Change on Engineering Teams Over winter break, my partner and I listened to 3 hours of a podcast interviewing Matthew Walker [https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker1/], author of Why We Sleep. Our takeaway? Sleep is
A Whirlwind of Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership My heart rate picked up as I sat across from the brave volunteer who had raised his hand to be coached in front of the room. It felt like a
5 Limiting Beliefs That Hold You Back from the Impact and Influence You Want For many years, I thought I had to be tough — and my toughness gave me the thick skin to get through countless computer science classes being one of few women,
What Does It Take To Be a Successful Tech Lead? Earlier this year, we interviewed a few dozen tech leads and asked them this simple question: “What does success look like as a tech lead?”Across small and large companies,
Being a Tech Lead with Teammates More Experienced Than You Many years ago, I was a tech lead on a short but intense 3-week project. It was also my first time as a tech lead, and I had to juggle
Managing Stress in Chaotic Times The team is pushing hard, sprinting towards a launch date. You've been staying late at the office for the past few weeks, submitting pull requests all hours of
How to Make Sense of Your Impact When You're No Longer Coding A few years ago, I was leading engineering on a team that had just finished a challenging quarter. Projects were slipping far past their estimated completion dates, and my manager
The Surprising Power of Visualization on Our Ability to Lead “The more I become conscious of the effect on me, the more I wonder why this super successful thing in the sports world is not more commonly applied to all these other situations.”
Bethanye Blount on Helping People be the Most Badass Versions of Themselves "I think the idea of looking at somebody as on a journey and that you can help them on that journey makes a lot more sense. To me, that's thinking about helping people be more badass."
Camille Fournier on Prioritizing Emotional Energy “Figure out what's important for you to be feeling about.”
3 Impactful Ways to Improve Your Onboarding Process — That Don't Take That Much Time A few years ago, I noticed that one of the engineers on the team had very quickly gotten up to speed. A few months in, she was dealing with external
A Company is Not a Family Two years ago, the company I was at went through a round of layoffs. Members of senior engineering leadership met to discuss — how do we engage the people who are
The Impact of Expressing Gratitude and Appreciation at Work A few weekends ago, I was at Edmond's weekend birthday gathering, lightly facilitating some sharing of impact — what we appreciated in Edmond, what we saw in him that
Asking Questions to Trees: The Power of Mindsets A few months ago, I started working with a coach [https://blog.coleadership.com/what-i-learned-about-investing-in-myself-after-a-year-of-coaching/] . I had seen her masterful coaching in one of the coach training courses I took,
Retrospectives: The Most Important Meeting You Can Run for Your Team At the end of every month, we run a retrospective. It's the single most important recurring conversation that we have. We always leave them feeling re-energized and re-motivated
Finding My Fierce Heart: My Journey in Leadership When I left my full-time tech job as an engineering manager a year and a few months ago, I had crafted a lovely narrative on why I was going into
How to Take Control of Your Own Leadership Four years ago, I was coming back to work from my first maternity leave, and was working 3 days a week. Week after week, I kept my head down and
How to Get Buy-in for Reducing Technical Debt I walk past the CEO in the hallway. “Hey Jean, it's been awhile. What are you working on these days?” Scenario one: I reply, “Oh I'm
How to Lead by Noticing and Filling in Gaps Many years ago, I worked at a five-person startup. I brought crackers and cheese and fruit that I had bought with my own groceries over the weekend and put them
What I Learned About Investing in Myself After a Year of Coaching It had taken me two weeks to write the email, even though it was on my mind constantly as something I wanted to do. She replied a few days later,
How to Build Trust Through Vulnerability I was walking my 4 year-old daughter to preschool last week, and I was noticing some anxiety I had about a workshop later that day. As we crossed the street,
