Hi! Welcome to my personal readme, a guide to how I work and what you can expect when working with me. My intention is for this to help new people learn about me and speed up the 'get to know you' phase. Whether you are someone who reports to me, someone I report to, a peer, or really anyone else, I hope that after reading this you feel more comfortable building a relationship with me and know a bit more about how I operate.
(Things about me you can find on the internet without much effort)
- Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio
- Married to my husband Rob for almost 8 years
- Mother to 3 amazing daughters and one happy little guy born Sept of 22!
- Hobbies (when I have time 😅):
- Lifestyle and family photography
- Woodworking and DIY projects around the house
- Gardening - vegetables, fruit, and recently native landscaping
(Things you can find on my resume or LinkedIn)
- B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon
- MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business (graduating May 2023!)
- Started as a full-stack developer and progressed down the managerial leadership track
- All of my experience is in the B2B space, leading product development teams to build products that are SaaS, managed, and on premise and used across a wide variety of industries (healthcare, insurance, government, higher education, etc.)
- I have lead technical and non-technical roles
- My passion is in building amazing teams and leaders, helping individuals to grow and learn, all the while solving hard problems in fun and creative ways (aka building awesome sh*t)
A guide to what you can expect when managing me (directly or indirectly)
Like many engineers, I struggle to turn off my brain. This means I sometimes have ideas outside of 'normal working hours' or hit a creative stride after the kids go to bed and I tend to check slack/email off hours. I maintain healthy work/life boundaries, they just aren’t restricted to the typical 9-5.
I ask questions to improve my understanding, as we all know what happens with assumptions... Jokes aside, I form strong opinions very quickly and I love to solve problems. I ask questions to validate or invalidate those opinions, and make sure I'm solving the right problem (symptoms vs root cause).
I try to be constantly aware of the differences between my spans of control, influence, support, and accountability. As much as I can, I prefer to delegate as much control and accountability as possible, empowering the people closest to the work to make as many decisions as they can and ensuring they have the right information to do so confidently and effectively. Effective delegation requires both transparency and trust and I aim to reinforce this culture by limiting closed-door or ivory-tower decisions that are better made by the amazing people we work with. Through this delegation, I’m able to create many opportunities to teach my team members to become more confident decision makers. I trust (and learn from!) their technical knowledge and experience and help them to improve how they apply it to achieve better outcomes.
I have very little tolerance for inefficiency, waste, and chaos. When I see a problem or experience something hard that should be easy, I can't help but try to solve it or make it better. When I hear someone say ‘that's just how we do things' ', my first thought is "challenge accepted".
I prefer constructive criticism to compliments and reinforcement, and I believe that sharing feedback that isn't actionable can be extremely valuable when it's presented as an opportunity for us to figure out how to make it actionable together.
A guide to what it's like working on my teams
By default, I place a high level of trust in my team members from the beginning and I assume positive intent. I strive to be transparent and clear with my expectations and will let you know when something happens that threatens or erodes this trust.
As a leader, I believe my job is to build amazing teams and empower them to use their skills and knowledge to have a positive impact. I expect to be a sounding board, not an approval board and want to help my team member's develop the confidence to act and be decisive, take calculated risks when necessary, experiment with new ideas, and generally be curious, holding themselves to a high bar. I've learned that this doesn't happen without a strong culture of empowerment and my goal is to make it safe to fail as that is often where the largest growth and innovation occurs.
You should expect a lot of questions from me. They aren't from a place of distrust, but to improve my understanding, to learn something new, to understand or challenge your assumptions, ensure you have the right information to be successful, or to bring clarity to your own thoughts.
Over the years, I have learned that there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. Different people have different expectations and needs, and I expect to adapt my approach to what works best for your own growth and support. This doesn't mean I'll be the best leader for you right away, but this does mean I will do my best to build the skills needed to meet you where you are.
I expect my team members to be open and honest with me, each other, and themselves. This means giving honest feedback, seeking feedback and new, different, or conflicting ideas and being open to making adjustments in approach.
The wrong solution to the right problem is always better than the right solution to the wrong problem. This means I expect us to iterate a lot. Every decision, bug, feature, or enhancement can be thought of as a hypothesis that needs validating. For example, I think this code change will fix this bug, or I think this is the customer's problem. Let's be curious together and act decisively to learn and implement.
Vulnerability goes hand in hand with being open and honest, but I want to call it out separately as I believe there is strength in vulnerability and the approach to being open and honest changes when vulnerability is proudly displayed rather than avoided. Accountability might seem like a strange attribute to pair with vulnerability, but I strongly believe that in order for groups of people to thrive together, they must be capable of holding themselves and each other accountable. A culture of accountability includes: acknowledging and fixing mistakes, having the confidence to stand up for what’s right, being willing to accept criticism as well as self-reflect and improve, and much more. For me, vulnerability is a prerequisite for being able to have and hold accountability.
Much to the dismay of my family and teachers, growing up, my favorite role to play was ‘Devil's Advocate’. As I got older, I learned this skill of being able to argue for a perspective I might not even personally agree with can be incredibly valuable to challenge my own biases and assumptions when making decisions. In team settings, constant conflict is obviously not healthy, especially when it leads to interpersonal conflict; however, I also believe that if a team has too little conflict, this is also not healthy. I work best with people who also see the value of conflict (when done right) and can have a hearty conversation or disagreement, in search of the best idea together. In order for conflict to be constructive, it must be without ego, where everyone approaches the discussion with the same goal of determining the best path forward, not “winning”.
I am proactively and intentionally looking for ways to improve in most aspects of my life. As a wife, as a mother, as a leader, as an employee, and ultimately as a human. If you are relentless in your pursuit of improvement and growth, we will get along really well.
I don’t have nearly as much time to read now as I would like, but the following books have left an imprint on me and have helped to shape the leader (and person!) I am.
| General Leadership | Tech Leadership |
|---|---|
| Culture Code | Team Topologies |
| Radical Candor | Accelerate |
| The Slight Edge | The Art of Business Value |
| Extreme Ownership | How Google Works |
| Crucial Conversations | Project to Product |