Know Thy Team

My first foray into the tech sector was doing tech support for dial up internet after graduating from high school. I learned (to fake) patience, I learned to troubleshoot, I learned to talk to assess people’s technical understanding and talk to them at their level. These skills have served me more than you can imagine in my long career. I rarely, if ever, see tech support on resumes, but if I did, I’d pull those to the top of the stack every time.

That last skill, understanding a person’s (technical) capability has become a core facet of my leadership style. I need to deeply understand what my people are capable, whether they report to me, are a peer, or higher-ups, and adjust my expectations accordingly. I assign work to my reports according to their ability, with an aim to stretch them a bit and grow them. I try to understand the difficulties that my peers and higher-ups have and accommodate or plan as needed.

You can imagine this is helpful at home too.