Laura Friend, Enterprise Account Executive, Amplitude
28 October 2020
For my next interview, I had the opportunity to pick the brain of the brilliant Julie Liegl, our Chief Marketing Officer at Slack.
For context, this came about because I, very luckily, have Julie as my Executive Sponsor, having been selected for a Slack programme called Rising Tides. This unique programme is the brain-child of Jeunée Simon our diversity engagement and belonging manager at Slack, and it is designed to invest in women and women of colour on the verge of leadership roles. It has been central to my professional development journey. Conversations with Julie have been easy, insightful and always thought-provoking – long may they continue!
I first gained a genuine sense of who Julie is as a leader when the pandemic hit and, overnight, all of Slack’s workforce began working remotely. Shortly thereafter, in an all-hands held via video, leaders reassured employees that this was uncharted territory for Slack, for our customers, and for the world. When it was Julie’s turn to speak, she appeared on screen with her two children sitting on her lap, interrupting and causing adorable disruption. As an employee, this human moment cemented Julie’s authenticity and the belief and feeling that we, as Slack employees and as humans, were all in this situation together.
Too often, leaders shy away from showing vulnerability and put on shows of unwavering strength and professionalism to the detriment of being relatable. Funnily enough, when speaking about her own leadership challenges, she was quick to reference the pandemic. Specifically, finding the right balance between showing up as a leader and giving people confidence, whilst also being authentic in sharing her own fears – after all no one has lived through a pandemic before.
Taking a step back and digging into Julie’s early career, she entered into Tech Marketing after graduating from college with an english literature major. Julie didn’t choose the tech industry per se, but rather recognised qualities in marketing which aligned with her own strengths. Further, she was drawn to the industry by its fast pace and open culture — which suited her way of working — and focus on constant innovation.
When discussing the moment Julie decided she wanted to be a manager, it was refreshing to hear that she didn’t have a plan. Instead, she had a desire to be successful at what she did and clearly the skills to deliver on those expectations.
“I certainly thought I wanted to be successful, but that didn’t mean I wanted to manage a team. It was more like ‘Julie’s good at this, let’s give her four people and have her teach them what she does.”
Becoming a manager at the spritely age of 22 and not having many leaders to learn from gave Julie the opportunity to make mistakes. One of her hardest lessons was learning to relinquish control of what she was good at and coach others to achieve it themselves. Understanding that everyone was wired differently and that she needed to create space for various approaches was a valuable, if not hard, learning curve.
“I didn’t know how to relate to them, I thought my job was to drive results, which it absolutely was, but I was not a holistic manager. I was not looking at them as people and understanding their motivations. I was very much thinking this is what worked for me and everyone should work the way I do.”
This early move into management arguably made Julie an excellent leader in the long-run because as she says, “I made all the mistakes you’d expect new managers make.” What she learnt was that to be a good leader, you needed to be empathetic, you needed to ask questions, you needed to understand differences, strengths and how to work around challenge areas. This is reflected in her leadership style today, which is very much people-first.
“Most of my job is to help the people who work for me. The exchange is that they also help me by doing good work and arming me with the information I need to represent them well when they are not in the room. It is my job to help set the direction, but mostly it’s removing blockers, asking questions to help people get through things and providing guidance.”
Julie views herself as someone who leads from the front with positivity, a true rally-er of the troops! As a sales person watching her org from the outside, and snooping on her marketing channels, this certainly rings true. She has an incredible capacity to inspire and energise her team because she is naturally a motivational person. Watching Julie’s weekly Top of Mind videos in a Slack channel with the entire marketing department is energising, in part because she is quick to share kudos where they are due. However, when there are problems or areas for improvement, Julie rolls up her sleeves and identifies them so they can be addressed. This works because she has earned the respect and trust of her team.
“What I have been successful at is, because my teams know I have their back, even when we have difficult times where things are messy and need to be fixed, people know I am in there with them and that it’s really serious if I am getting involved and they take it really seriously because they know I am not pushing them unnecessarily.”
It’s no secret that Marketing and Sales orgs typically bash heads in any company. However, since Julie joined, there is a notable change in the way the teams engage and partner. One challenge she admits is different when you move to the c-suite is pivoting to work with other cross-functional leaders. Whereas previously your decisions are mainly made within your department where you are speaking 75% of the same language, in the c-suite the disciplines are very different and it’s crucial to understand where there is common ground. She approaches this by identifying shared goals to ensure continued alignment and, more importantly, puts time and effort into stakeholder engagement. This has been tougher during covid, however she credits her success to making sure her relationships are not just transactional and her team delivers on expectations.
As it is for many women, diversity is important to me. At Slack I have witnessed the commitment our leadership has taken to encourage it. No company is perfect, however, from my perspective there is a notable difference at Slack and that is echoed by Julie. Having worked in the Bay Area her entire career, Julie is positive about how the diversity conversation has evolved. But she recognises there is much more work to be done. As a very direct person, one of her points definitely struck a chord with me:
“I am very aware as a woman who can be pretty direct, who definitely has a loud voice, I got a lot of feedback early in my career that I was aggressive, or that it feels like I know it all. At the beginning of my career it didn’t occur to me that feedback was very gendered and the men who were acting similarly were not receiving the same feedback”
Having this awareness has made Julie change her approach during promotion reviews and interviews. Now she will consciously assess and advocate as to whether people are looking at someone through a biased lens.
As humans we are naturally drawn to those who are similar to us and it takes effort to purposefully adjust our mindset. I have noticed there is a popular profile of what we think makes a good leader, which was confirmed by an amusing Ted Talk I watched recently called, “Why do so many incompetent men become leaders?”. Finishing up my interview with Julie she articulates this well;
“I think in a perfect world, not only would everyone get to have different styles and it would be ok for women to be as hard charging as men, we would also recognise different kinds of leaders and not every leader would have to be a type A driving leader.”
These past few months in the Rising Tides programme have been incredibly rewarding and having Julie as my guide and mentor has been eye-opening. It is certainly a reminder that if I am in a similar position one day, I will make sure to support valuable programmes like these.