What are the key milestones on your path to leadership?
I lead the Learning team at Airbnb where I strive to help our teammates step into the challenges that Airbnb presents them on a daily basis. Today, we focus on management and leadership skills, knowing that people leaders have an outsized impact on their teammates. This is done with a particular emphasis around belonging, both because it's the mission of the company, and also because we believe that creating a sense of belonging enables our employees to reach their fullest potential and achieve the greatest possible impact in their work.
Before I was here, I was at Apple where I worked at the intersection of Apple University and HR to consolidate and oversee the company’s executive coaching practice. Prior to that, I was at Lucasfilm for many years, focused on providing education and training to people working in visual effects and animation based in the US and Singapore.
Lucasfilm, Apple and Airbnb all have one thing in common - they combine art or design and technology to impact people’s lives. And my work at each of these organizations was really about creating cultures of learning that would enable their teams to learn and grow.
What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader?
The rewarding thing about leadership is that there’s no end to it. The challenges are ones you could never imagine - and yet they present themselves, time and time again - and as you grow and develop as a leader, your perception or capability around those challenges evolves.
I have always been pulled toward innovation - which means that I am often sharing ideas that might seem a bit risky compared to the others around me. Earlier in my career, I had little patience for others who didn’t see it my way. I had a passion for debate and being right. And it took me a while to realize that this wasn’t going to be particularly successful!
I worked slowly but surely on my influencing skills so I could better understand the perceptions and needs of those around me. But one particular bit of advice stood out - one that I received in the context of parenting, but that nonetheless applies here - which was the importance of “striking when the iron is cool.” Meaning - no one in an elevated state is going to hear another point of view. People aren't able to hear it in that context. Instead, if you approach people when they are in a more reflective state of mind, the chances of your being able to put something forward that they can be receptive to is significantly greater. If people perceive that you're looking to help them solve a problem, even better.
Secondly, I don’t believe in cutting edge for cutting edge’s sake. Innovation should always seek to solve a shared problem. Innovation is exciting but it’s hard, and it requires energy - especially for those who are less comfortable with the risk it presents. It’s important to pick your battles, and reserve your energy for the most important moment.
Describe your leadership style / what are your core values as a leader?
My leadership style was born directly out of my experience at Lucasfilm - where I took on a role managing a group of people who were deep experts in what they did, and frankly knew much more than I did about their individual areas of focus. So from the very beginning, I had to figure out what I was going to be able to offer these people - people I deeply respected and admired. When you work with people whom you deeply respect and admire, it compels you to really step up your game. You have to deliver something that's actually going to be meaningful to them. If they're the very best in the world at what they do, then what value can you offer?
In retrospect, I’m grateful that this is where I started, because it helped me avoid the trap that so many first-time managers fall into - which is to cling to the expertise that got them there in the first place, and then micromanage the team to their level of expectation. Because my team knew so much more than I did, I had to create an environment that set my team up for success and then quickly get out of their way so that they could get out in front and shine. This was long before I knew anything about psychological safety or coaching or high-performing teams, but really quickly, my style became very coaching-based. As it turned out, it worked really well and has continued to pay off since then. I tend to lead with trust and empowerment, which I now know has all sorts of very positive outcomes both for my teams and for our work.
What advice do you have for women who are trying to establish themselves as leaders?
I think the beautiful thing about coaching-based leadership is the fact that you don't have to be in a leadership role to start to practice it. While it sounds kind of cliché to say leadership can come from everywhere or anywhere, I totally believe that it's true.
The question for anyone in their current position is, “How am I going to strive to bring the very best out of the people around me?” That's what really great leaders do. They help people rise to levels they didn't know they were capable of. They ask great questions. They offer feedback. They listen for inspired thinking. Frankly, it’s the kind of thing that I would hope any team member of mine felt empowered to do, and I expect them to offer the same to their teammates, whether I'm in the room or not. To do this, you need to listen deeply to those around you and enter into conversations with a deep sense of inquiry and curiosity for others. If you want to be someone who leads innovation, you truly have to be open to this notion that innovation comes from anywhere and everywhere.
How would you advise organisations who want to foster diversity and gender equity in leadership?
There's so much data out there that indicates quite conclusively that diversity leads to more innovation and better business outcomes. Often I’ve observed, when women talk about this, they're not always equipped with all the data they need to make the argument. They have their personal experience to draw from, or might be well-read on the topic, but they don’t go the extra mile to recall the research that lays bare the case they are trying to make.
Sometimes they mistake their personal experience as being representative somehow of the broader one. It might be, but it might also feel like anecdotal personal experience, which can be powerful for storytelling, but doesn't necessarily do a good enough job of explaining the business opportunity in driving greater levels of diversity.
What advice has helped you most in your career?
Learning agility helped me to understand how I lead. It’s a funny thing. It was developed by Bob Eichinger, a very well-established person in our field, who was basically interested in understanding some of the things that lead to really great leadership. He saw a high correlation between what he coined as learning agility and leadership roles. He saw learning agility as exactly the opposite of deep, deep, deep subject matter expertise, and the two as being in conflict with one another. It's a conflict that I still struggle with a little bit. When I came across the theory of it I was like, “oh my gosh, this explains my whole life.” I feel like I've been the master of nothing and yet been in a leadership role for a long time now, and maybe this is why the master of nothing makes sense. But certainly there are a lot of leaders who do have to become the masters of something. Otherwise, you don't have credibility in your role.
What advice would you give to a mid-level career woman?
This is true for anyone, but I think it's especially true for women - it's all about who you work for. Sponsorship is a very real thing. We know from research that sponsorship is something that happens more regularly for men than it does for women. And yet when it's offered, it has profound effects on someone's mobility, their career opportunities, their learning, their growth, all sorts of things.
Sponsorship is about someone spending their political capital on you. They need to take risks to place a bet on you and advocate on your behalf. To identify who the right person to work for is, the kinds of questions I would ask if I were sitting down with someone would be, “Tell me how you've developed someone on your team.” And if I'm not hearing any stories about women having been developed on a manager’s team, then I would be wondering, does this person pick and choose who they develop? Or to ask the question more directly, “Can you tell me how you've developed women on your team? Can you tell me a story about how you've opened your network to the women on your team? Can you tell me a story about a woman who has now moved on to a bigger and better opportunity because of the advocacy you provided for her?” Things like that. For someone who's aspiring to have impact in innovation, these are perfectly reasonable questions to ask.
