You'll Manage

What do you do when you feel like an imposter or feel inadequate? Fake it till you make it? Or be forthcoming with your shortcomings? Our guest Charlene Leung shares how when she first transitioned from individual contributor to people manager (less than a year ago!), she felt the pressure to project all-knowing confidence in order to earn the respect of her team, even when that confidence was false. But she came to see that putting up this false front was counterproductive, and that when she was willing to be vulnerable with herself and her direct reports, it brought her team together, built trust, and eased the anxieties that had often kept her up at night.

“No one is unreasonable.” That's one of the 10 principles that Eusden, an engineer-turned-product guy lives by. In this episode, he shares how having carefully crafted a list of principles has helped him lead teams at companies like Hulu and Pinterest. We learn about some of his top 10, including “trust is the foundation” and “focus on few things well,” and how he puts them into practice to manage and collaborate effectively.

We were electrified by two simple words in this interview: "community leader." We've all felt how much more enjoyable and effective work can be when we're collaborating with people we have mutual trust, respect, and care for. By extension, Charlene Lee, head of product and design at Radar, points out, building effective teams means building community.

CEO and founder of Remote Job van der Voort has a message for all of us still adapting to working and managing from home – being forced to learn to operate remotely might be a blessing in disguise. Once the VP of Product at GitLab, another fully-remote organization, Job was so passionate about empowering people to work from anywhere that he left to start a company that specializes in helping other businesses go remote. In this episode, he tells us why – and the lessons all managers can learn from managing remote.

Early Uber employee Tomás Campos circled the globe launching the service in new cities. Managing teams from different cultures, he discovered how essential it was to ask a simple, yet critical question: “What are your expectations of me as a manager?” Listen in to hear Tomás share some of the painful consequences he faced before he learned to always ask – and why when he did ask, he says it was “one of the most interesting exercises I've ever gone through in my life.”

Ever been called a micromanager? Or been told you're too hands off? Startup founders Vic and Maggie learned the hard way to strike the balance — and they revealed to us their secret to empowering a team and unlocking their superhuman strength to tackle new, daunting challenges. What frameworks helped them foster a culture of empowerment that enabled them to build the world’s most successful pet camera company? Press play to find out.

Do you know what your direct reports want out of their careers? Leadership & development expert Steph Wong makes the case that it is your job as a manager to know. Steph shares with us the approaches and tools she uses to guide people in developing their careers, and how meaningful career conversations can help your team do their best work – at their current jobs, and beyond.