It is natural to feel anxious before big, pivotal meetings, but remember, no one else in the room will know your product/solution better than you. Trust what you know and trust that they will find it valuable. You’re there for a reason.
Are leaders born or bred? The debate goes on and the point is, anyone can be a leader if they really want it. Being a leader requires the skills (which you can learn) and the will (which you cannot) to lead,
Leadership qualities can be cultivated nearly anywhere, professionally sure, but also in a family, and life in general.
Something as simple as being a good older sibling (we’re biased, but particularly being an older brother) requires you to be a leader to your siblings.
Being the captain of a sports team requires you to be a leader.
You don’t just wake up one day and decide to be a leader, you live and breathe it every day in all contexts of your life, and you could have been for a long while. Only you can decide if you want the responsibility.
Peter’s distinction of leadership vs. management.
Management is carrying out someone else’s plan, whereas leadership is knowing the ultimate mission and implementing your vision of how things should be to support that mission.
If you find yourself in a leadership position and don’t like it, recognize that it isn’t for you fast because the longer it takes, the more you and those around you will suffer.
Sales Engineering requires a very unique understanding of the engineering side of the business as well as the sales side (hence the name) in combination with the management of relationships, expectations, and deliverables which can lead to stresses that are not felt by anyone else in the company.
It is important for an SE Leader to cultivate the understanding of other SEs of the community they are all a part of (even if it is within just your organization) and to collaborate and support each other in order to deliver the most value to the organization.
A good leader should always be visible, be communicating, be the voice of reason and be leading the team down a winning path – even when things aren’t going their way.
Diversity in leadership is extremely important.
You don’t want to be led by a leadership team made up of the same (type of) person. In dynamic times, in uncertain times (such as due to a pandemic), having a wide breadth of perspectives is key to steering the team through times of trouble.
Diversity here means diversity in gender, age, experiences, backgrounds, geographies, etc.
Think of the Turf Horse vs. Mud Horse analogy – these are not necessarily mutually exclusive among people but any good leadership team will need to possess the qualities of both.
Peter’s Tips for Resume Writing:
- Make sure you hit the requirements of the job description, but not at the expense of not being you.
- Ensure that your resume is reflective of who you are and not who you think the recruiter wants you to be.
- The job description you’re reading may not necessarily be what the hiring manager is looking for.
- If you get an interview, make sure you are you (don’t fake your personality)
- “We don’t hire resumes, we hire people.”
The same type of qualities that make people loyal to leaders can be applied to companies too.
It’s always a two-way street/a dating game between people and companies. Some people are right for certain companies at certain times in their careers, and some companies require certain types of people to achieve the goals they need to achieve.
If you’re not loyal to your company, it’s really hard to be an effective leader. These need to be in alignment.
Some of the Unique Considerations of a Global Leader:
- Time zones.
- Cultural differences between markets.
- The nuances of different business geographies.
- (Check out Geert Hofestede’s cultural insights and the GLOBE Project for more info on the last two points)
Peter introduces the idea that the best place to build a global program is from EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) since they already have to cater to a much more diverse market. This can then be most easily applied to other markets vs. having a very North American or Asian strategy be tailored to the rest of the world.
If you want to be a leader in your organization:
- Be vocal about what you want.
- Make yourself visible to leadership.
- Take training and develop yourself to be a better leader.
- Operate two levels above what you’re doing now, but always know how to do the position below you.
- Seek out mentorship opportunities.
