Laura Friend, Enterprise Account Executive, Amplitude
18 March 2020
Having heard Kim speak at a Women in Tech event about progressing into Leadership I figured she would be the perfect candidate for my series.
Whilst on stage, I noted that she effused an air of confidence so when we got chatting it surprised me to learn she had only been in an official leadership role for 2 years (confirming my suspicions she was a fast-moving ‘up and comer’). Luckily for me, she was also generous with her time and open to being interviewed.
Deciding to be a Manager
I have often been curious about what chain of events drive people to pursue a management role, as I think these form the foundation of the leaders or managers they will ultimately become.
On probing her about how she moved into that first role, it quickly became apparent it was a conscious yet natural decision. It began with her coaching peers and onboarding new joiners, not because it was part of her day job, but because she simply loved it. Not everything about a management role inspired Kim.
“The idea of a 1-2-1 terrified me”
Kim openly admits, she is not an overly emotional person and the fear of having to listen to people’s problems, coupled with additional admin and less customer-facing contact made her very nervous about becoming a manager. However, she discovered the role was not as prescriptive as she had been led to believe;
“I thought being a leader was one flavour, that you had to take the good with the bad but I learnt that is not the case and you can make it work for your personally”
Empowering People and Giving Feedback
Kim’s leadership style is focused on empowerment and feedback. Unsurprisingly, micro-management is not high on the list (is it on anyone’s?) partly because she doesn’t enjoy being managed that way herself. Interestingly, when someone comes to her with a problem, rather than jumping in with the solution, her initial reaction will always be to say “great, what do you think we should do about it?”.
Her focus on feedback has been a tougher one to implement. Like most people, she recognises the power of both giving and receiving feedback, however this has brought with it, its’ own set of challenges. She confessed that she rarely received feedback from her team so in order to overcome this, has implemented a workaround where she would have her boss ask the team for feedback. It would always focus on something she has been working on, for example her communication style or execution.
“When giving feedback, the biggest thing is, as soon as possible” and Kim is certainly not afraid to give feedback, however small it might be. She believes it is an important part in making her team exceptional.”
As part of that journey to exceptional, she and her team are dedicated to becoming 1% better every day. From shortening their introduction in customer meetings, to being more precise with their answers. It is the small changes that are really making the biggest impact but feel more achievable.
Building Trust
After traveling over from the USA to take up her new role, I was also curious to see how she went about building trust within her team. Something she admits helped achieve this was being overly transparent, sometimes, to a fault. Whilst still taking into consideration the confidentiality of what she shares and what is best for the company, she leans towards oversharing with her team so they can feel empowered to make their own decisions.
Changing Styles
Unsurprisingly, her focus on feedback was a bit of a shock when she first moved over (potentially a cultural difference) and at times overwhelmed members of her team. It became important that they were able to understand it wasn’t personal and was purely in an effort to help them improve. In fact, some of the feedback she has received from the team is helping her develop her own leadership style and how she affects change. Kim is certainly a “get shit done” kind of person and will be the first to admit she doesn’t always think about the change management of her decisions and how she can position them so her team doesn’t feel concerned.
“In my head I think, ok we are making this change, everyone get on board, however it’s not great leadership. I have gotten better at thinking about how my team will interpret the change, how I can soften it, make it clearer and what type of communication should happen”
(I of course suggested Slack)
Therefore, one of her biggest developments over the past couple of years has been becoming more in-tune with people who don’t think or operate the way she does.
Focusing on Diversity
Being a female working in sales engineering and also in a leadership role make Kim a rarity. In order to ensure she constantly hires with diversity in mind, something she has learnt to do is strip away any requirement linked to sales engineering as she feels it can make it an extremely self-limiting proposition if you don’t. The approach she takes is to use a tool called Textio, which gamifies the job spec and ensures the candidates she wants have transferable skills. For example, being customer-facing, a problem solver, enjoying working as part of a team and loving to win. These are all skills which can be found across many industries and have been key to her success in hiring exceptional talent. Proving this formula works, Kim herself, moved into tech from financial services and was a customer success manager before transferring into Sales Engineering.
The good, the bad, the less strong
Wrapping up the interview I had one final question for Kim, what had she learnt from both good and bad leaders?
What I liked about her response was that she didn’t refer to them as bad leaders, just less strong ones. For the less strong ones, it was all about not relinquishing responsibility. For example, if you ask for a raise, a bad manager says, “sorry I have no budget it is out of my control”. A good leader says, “Ok tell me about that, what happens if we can’t get there, let me see what I can do” A good leader owns the decision and then comes back with a plan.
On discussing her experience of good leaders, Kim is quick to reference her current boss (which I promised to include so I hope you are reading). It struck me that the traits she described were very similar to her own. Her current boss empowers her to own her decisions, giving his input, even disagreeing, but ultimately leaving it to her, to figure it out.
And it’s this notion of empowerment which I sense separates Kim (and others) from being a manager to a leader. Moving into management is no accident for them, they have a natural ability to not only feel empowered but more importantly are focused on empowering those around them.
“A leader is great not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others.” John Maxwell