This week at the two-day ABI TechLeaders “Power and Influence” workshop, hosted by Amazon, a panel of senior technical women spoke to attendees about their experiences, lessons learned, and ways they’ve dealt with challenges of their own careers.
Aparna Lakshmiratan, Program Manager at Microsoft’s Live Labs; Molly Boose, Technical Fellow at Boeing; and Nadia Shouraboura who is a Vice President, FC Systems/Ops Tech Coordination at Amazon.com all hail from very different backgrounds and shared their own unique brand of advice.
Aparna Lakshmiratan’s Advice
Lakshmiratan has developed a reputation for being an enabler and make useful things happen across functional areas by bridging the worlds of research and engineering, which drives the innovation process from conception to commercialization.
The skills she sees as important to build as an enabler are leadership, clarity, and communication. She recommends acting as a translator rather than a gatekeeper in this role and emphasizes leadership and influence by understanding the complexities and varying priorities of research and engineering. Lakshmiratan sagely told attendees to drive for clarity and be involved in all parts of the pipeline, be an engaged listener and adapt to changes happening around you.
Her advice on being effective is to focus on building synergy, momentum, and mindshare by getting clarity on goals, accountability, and decisions. Before the meeting, individually talk to people who don’t agree with you. It’s easier to drive to a conclusion in a large meeting with multiple stakeholders if you’ve spoken individually to people (especially those who don’t agree with you).
Molly Boose’s Wisdom
Boose says that she doesn’t mimic male behavior. Though many technical women find this is one way to fit in, Boose says that wouldn’t work for her because it’s not authentic. Rather, she has used some simple strategies to increase visibility:
- Volunteer: If a presentation slot opens up, offer to fill it and then do a bang-up job
- Network: Try to find places in your organization where your work will benefit others and vice versa. Spend time building relationships across organizational boundaries.
- Teach: If you have knowledge or skills that would benefit others, put together a class as an efficient way to transfer knowledge and leverage what you know. Everyone in the class will recognize your expertise.
- Communicate: Let your management know that you want greater visibility (which will lead to greater responsibility). Don’t just ask for greater visibility, suggest specific ways.
Boose suggests that building credibility by doing what you say you’re going to do and being a great communicator. Always assume that people around you have something to teach you, so be agile, flexible, and willing to learn new things.
All leaders are different, noted Boose, so be authentic and focus on the attributes that are natural — don’t change who you are.
Nadia Shouraboura’s Insights
Finally, Shouraboura — who was born in Soviet Russia — said that growing up she was taught not to have any opinions. Though she is now a senior leader at Amazon, she was told from an early age to listen, not speak up, and that her place in the world would be very small. This, she said, in turn fostered a lack of confidence. Yet that’s the most important quality of a strong leader.
So how did she make the leap?
She learned her lessons the hard way: volunteering for too many tasks, always offering to take notes in meetings, even being afraid to ask questions or talk to coworkers. Yet, as she built her skills little by little, she began to embrace the qualities of a strong leader.
Her leadership advice was wise, tongue in cheek, and genuine. She told attendees to get lots of rest, take bubble baths when times are tough, and above all, hire really good people. And when your team does really well, you give them the credit and as the manager you look really good, too.
“At Amazon, you work with people who are a lot smarter than you. They all know some crazy numbers you don’t know about; it’s not comfortable.” Shouraboura realized that out of all this vast array of data, there are only a few facts you need to know. So know them well.
She sees being one of the few technical woman as a plus and an enormous advantage because she stands out in the crowd. “You are different. If you develop self confidence, are well rested, and not bogged down, it’s great!”