🤸 Personal user manuals, the 4 pillars of integrity, & ideal weekend plans

Hey — it’s Cristina & Jenni.

Each week, we share leadership reflections, resources, and laughs to help you excel in your role (+ have fun along the way).

As two tech leaders, we’re here to “lead in public” by sharing what we’re learning in our day-to-day roles, encouraging others to do the same, and learning and growing as leaders together.

Enjoy!

What we’re reflecting on this week

Julie Zhuo, former Design lead for the Facebook app, faced a startling revelation when she reviewed the results of her company's anonymous employee satisfaction survey.

Despite caring deeply for her team, the chart displaying the responses to the question, "How often does your manager show care for you?" was overwhelmingly red.

She was shocked to learn that the majority of her team felt that she didn't show care for them.

Feeling confused and disappointed, Julie vented to a friend who posed two simple yet profound questions that changed her outlook on how to work with her team in the future:

1. Have you ever told your reports that you care about them?

2. Have you asked them how they'd like to be cared for?

They helped Julie recognize that we all have different cultural backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences, and investing time to better understand how your team members like to operate and be treated can make you a better manager.

Similarly, the more your colleagues understand how you work, the fewer misunderstandings you’ll have.

And that’s where the exercise of creating a “how to work with me” guide comes in.

According to Julie, this guide should detail how you work, what you value, how you approach problems, what your blind spots and areas of growth are, and how to build trust with you.

It’s kind of like a user manual… for you!

By creating this living document, your team members, new reports, bosses, and close peers will have clarity on your role, what to expect from you, and how to work with you effectively.

Julie has even provided a template that you can use to create your own guide, and her example serves as a helpful reference.

Here are 2 others that we like:

• Claire Hughes (ex-COO of Stripe) unauthorized guide

• Steph Smith's (a16z podcast host) guide 

We love this concept because it highlights the importance of investing time and effort into understanding and being understood by your team. This helps to build a culture of clarity, trust, and collaboration that will lead to greater success for your team and company.

→ What approaches have you taken to get to know your team members (and vice versa)? Does your company do anything like Julie’s user manual?

What we’re learning this week

• 👀 The Knowledge Project | Jim Dethmer | Take Charge of Your Life - This podcast video ep is a game-changer. As the founder of the Conscious Leadership Group, Jim shares both theoretical concepts and actionable exercises to help us become better leaders (and humans!): the 4 pillars of integrity, the 4 core wants everyone has, and much more.

•  🎙️Setting up the people function and training for empathy — Lambda School’s Chief People Officer - Mark Frein is a seasoned pro in setting up people organizations in a range of different companies. I loved his tactical advice on teaching your team how to resolve problems themselves and how to gather employee feedback.

• 📝 How Leaders Can Get the Feedback They Need to Grow - Any article co-written by Kim Scott (radical candor queen), Liz Fosslien (illustrator extraordinaire), and Mollie West Duffy (organizational development expert) is bound to be great. Easy read with examples and illustrations.

What we’re laughing at this week

That’s it for this week — thanks for reading.

See you next Thursday! 🤸‍♀️