GitLab Learning & Development, 20 Jan 2021

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From YouTube: Individual Contributor Leadership GitLab - CEO Handbook Learning Session

Description

Sid (co-founder and CEO) and Josh (Learning & Development) discuss individual contributor leadership and Managers of One at GitLab

Learn more about Managers of One: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/#managers-of-one

Learn more about Leadership: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/

Learn more about GitLab Values: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/

A

Everyone, my name, is josh zimmerman. I am the learning development manager here at get lab. I'm joined with sid c brandy, our ceo to do a ceo handbook learning session and today we're going to be talking about individuals, contributors role in leadership at the organization, so sid thanks for joining us here today, yeah thanks for having me awesome. So what are you know? Team members role with leadership in leadership overall, like at gitlab as an individual contributor, even if they're not per se, a manager.

B

Yeah we list a couple of things, so I think where some organizations say, hey leaders should give the right example. I think in gitlab. We want that from everyone, including the individual contributors.

B

I also think, because we, we are remote, there's a higher expectation of being able to perform your work without direct supervision. That means that you take responsibility for like communication like structuring decisions that have to be made and deciding many yourself and then just communicating that for taking responsibility of your workload like because work remote, it's harder to see what your workload is. So it's important to signal like hey. I have too much on my plate.

B

I have too little, and this is what I propose doing extra, or this is what I propose doing less of and making sure that bad news travels fast. If there's something that goes wrong, highlight that as soon as possible, with remediation that your you see.

A

Yeah, I think that's really important, I think you know, and also just because you're, not a manager and you're, not quote unquote a people leader doesn't mean you can't display leadership at get lab. It doesn't matter what role you're in or anything you're still a leader in a lot of ways and there's there's so many avenues to do that and sid rattled off a lot of them. But I think also just being ambassadors of our values is a really clear line uh to being a great leader in the organization.

B

Yep- and it goes from the from the simple things and uh tanya uh see your shadow this week. I want to call you up. You frequently remind people this week of when their audio was off or their video is bad. That's super important in a remote organization, because we don't have an intuitive sense for that. We cannot.

B

We don't know when the microphone volume is too low or something like that. So that's a that's great and that's expected out of every individual contributor. It shouldn't take a manager to do that, but there's also bigger things when someone's not being inclusive and don't speak up, don't suffer from the bystander effect. Don't think oh well, if this is bad, there will probably be someone else speaking up, um and it's also like take control of your own time, start meetings on time. Hold leaders accountable, who don't start their meetings on time.

B

um It's a work practice. We we sat together and everyone has a role in that including individual contributors.

C

Yeah, I think, if I can jump to my question, because I think it relates well to what you were just saying sid. um I hear the example that you wanted to highlight about tanya. You know recognizing when people's audio isn't working and how that is something really pertinent in a remote work environment. I'm wondering what other examples you could share of ways that team members can demonstrate them leadership, specifically in all remote.

C

So I was doing some thinking and thought of you know someone who stands up to advocate for fewer meetings or say: do we actually need a meeting to talk about this or someone who in meetings is taking really great notes, is following up and posting and sharing recordings interested to hear what examples you might have to add.

B

Yeah, I think those are all great examples and what I did was not not just if the audio wasn't working, people will speak up, but it was like it was too low. So everyone was just amping up their volume to hear it, but it we need that person to say hey. Your volume is too low turns out. Probably zoom was managing his audio settings or something like that.

B

um So you, you mentioned all great things and the last one I want to tack on to the last thing you said was like how distribute things like information flows or to many channels. Many different people like taking the time to share that slack message with another channel taking the time to post that recording in the relevant issue like those are things that are a lot of work, but a huge payout for the people who will be able to consume the information.

A

Yeah, those are those are great points. I also think too, you know just to follow on with that. We talked a little bit about um meeting cadence and trying to avoid meetings that are unnecessary.

A

You know I'm curious sid. If you have any sort of tactics you could share about meetings and when they're necessary and when they're not.

B

Yeah, um brainstorming should almost never happen in a meeting. Everyone can give proposals upfront most of the time meetings should be about like hey, we we couldn't. We couldn't agree on this, so, let's, let's try to figure it out and have a higher bandwidth or quicker interaction.

B

So meetings are almost like an escalation of things that could be resolved in other ways and then, if you have a meeting think about the impact like if there's people who might be it's hard to say whether other people might be interested in the meeting before you have it so just to be sure record it or live stream it, and then also that you scheduled the meeting for all that time. Does it mean you have to fill that time?

B

I think that's a super tough one, but um I see it all the time where the meeting is kind of done and and it's it's kind of hard to pull the plug on it and that's something where I think we all have a role.

A

Yeah, just because the meeting's uh 25 minute long and it ends at 20 minutes, you don't have to keep everybody there for five extra minutes. Just to you know talk about personal things, yeah.

B

Well, personal things is fine, that's maybe time was bad, but there's this one issue, that's kind of detailed and not relevant to everyone say hey. I want to discuss this with josh, but everyone else feel free to drop.

A

Yeah, no that's a great point.

C

A

C

Just add one more thing that came up for me talking about these meetings too, and thinking about demonstrating leadership at an all-remote company. I think that there are. You know these examples that we just worked through, make me think of meetings that you're having with your team or other teams to solve problems, and I also think that we have a lot of interesting types of meetings at get lab where individuals can be leaders without necessarily a conversation about work. So I'm just thinking about coffee chats.

C

I think that you could demonstrate yourself as a leader at gitlab by initiating coffee chats um just wanted to throw that out there as an example of a meeting where you can still be a leader, even though you're not talking about work, yeah.

B

I totally agree and then make people feel welcome. So if you do a coffee chat, do it with someone who's reasoned recent to ask someone from an underrepresented group if they're interested first there's there's ways to lead, even even when doing that. But great example. Thanks for adding it.

A

Yeah, that was great, I think um I know for me as like my calendar gets busier and busier. Sometimes coffee chats get pushed to the side, but I think it's on all of us to continue those and do as many as we can.

A

You know sid also just uh jumping to question three. You know: are there any misconceptions of a team member's role with leading at get lab that you'd like to share? We touched on a lot of things in this call. I.

B

I think we have this concept of a dri and I think sometimes I've heard people kind of say something to the effect of well. It wasn't clear who the dri was well, if it's not clear to you, it might not be clear to others. So have that conversation explicitly and if no one's sure like there should be at least one person responsible. So.

B

If there's always a dri for any decisions, and if you don't know who that is, try to figure it out with the with the people you're talking with.

A

Yeah, that's a great point. I think um you know, I think the dri is something we need to continue to focus on and reinforce. You know, maybe maybe samantha. It's us looking at the onboarding issue and improving our abilities to train people on how to be a good dri.

A

And is there anything else you'd like to share just overall on this topic just for team members and the broader.

B

Community, I think um it's you should see yourself as a ceo of your own time um and it's.

B

It's much more empowering to yourself to do it like that, and.

B

um I think, as soon as you're, a good manager of yourself you're more likely to be a good manager of others, because then you know how hard it.

B

B