Allyship For Senior Engineers: Using Your Position to Support Others (LCPS01E11)
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Episode Summary
"I don't think about being an ally as a badge or a thing... I start from the point of view of wanting to be a better person and be good to the people around me."
While many discussions about allyship in tech focus on company-wide initiatives, what concrete steps can individual contributors and technical leaders take to create more equitable environments? How can you use your influence, expertise, and social capital to support colleagues from underrepresented groups?
In this episode, Lena speaks with Leo, an experienced staff engineer who shares practical, behind-the-scenes ally actions that senior technical contributors can implement, regardless of their management status.
This conversation explores:
Understanding the socio-technical systems that shape workplace dynamics
Simple meeting tactics that create space for more voices to be heard
How documentation can serve as a powerful tool for influence and recognition
Building relationships and trust that enable you to advocate effectively
Learning from missed opportunities and growing as an ally
Using established credibility to challenge unfair practices
Whether you're a senior engineer, tech lead, or individual contributor with influence through tenure, expertise, or connections, this episode offers actionable approaches to supporting colleagues and creating more inclusive environments.
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We want to hear from you! Email us with feedback, questions, or topic ideas; I can't promise we'll always respond, but I can promise we read every email! At pod@lenareinhard.com.
Full Episode Transcript
INTRO
Lena: How can I use the position that I'm in to support others? This has been a question that's accompanied me throughout my own career. I've given talks about it over 10 years ago already, but it's also often come up in coaching conversations. Like when people ask me, Hey, we only have one woman on our team.
How can I support her? Or there's only one person of color on our leadership team. What can I do to support them? This episode of the podcast is a bit different from others we've done so far because it's explicitly not about managing people, but about things that everyone can do to support their peers.
This episode is for every one of you who has some form of influence or power in your organization and wants to use it to support others, no matter if you have direct reports or not. We talk about about allyship, the practice of taking actions to support, amplify, and advocate for others, especially people who have a different identity and experience working in tech from yours
This is leadership confidential with Lena Reinhardt. Real talk on more than two hard things in technology, finding community and becoming the engineering leader you can be. Today, ally actions for senior engineers and tech leads. I wanted to speak with someone who's quite senior in his career and has been thinking about this topic a lot, as much as I have, and who's also tried things to lend some of the capacity he has to others who are at different points in their career.
This episode is especially for you, if you have some capacity like that, that you can lend to support others. This capacity can come from things like tenure, like you've been in the company for a long time, or you have experience, like knowledge of a certain area, people respecting your opinion because of them.
Maybe your experience is also quite rare, like you're the only person or one of few people who have the specific expertise. Maybe you have informational power, like. You know, the organization and its processes, culture, people, and history quite well. Networks or connections can also be a factor that gives you that kind of capacity.
Like you have good relationships with important people in your company, like leaders or executives. Titles or roles can also help. Like even if you're not managing people, if you're a tech lead or architect or have another role, like staff engineer, that can come with a certain status and also give you other people's respect.
Your identity may also be a factor. If there are more people in your company who look like you, then it's different than if you're, for example, the only black woman on your team. Your location may even be a factor as well, like being physically close to people and working a lot from the office in a hybrid organization, for example.
And then there's something that's called referent power, like charisma can be a factor there. You may just be someone who connects easily with others and is liked. Many of those things also can mean that you have some form of power, like a social status or relationships that you can utilize to help others.
By the way, that doesn't have to mean that your work is always easy for you and just sunshine and rainbows all along, but it can mean there may be an opportunity there for you to look at how you can use some of those things to support others.
Because the tech industry is still a pretty homogenous place, 22 percent of people in tech currently are women and around 63 percent of employees in the US tech sector are white. Those kinds of statistics, unfortunately, don't exist globally. And while many people, regardless of their identity, really enjoy working in the industry, the daily experience of being in tech can also differ a lot for people who are members of underrepresented groups in our industry.
I regularly hear from women and people of color we report team members ignoring them or speaking over them or being the expected coffee maker or person who brings in cake when it's someone's birthday. Or being called bitchy if they're calling out that they're being talked over. Some people also mentioned that they're struggling to get their work recognized or male colleagues taking credit for things they said, and those things aren't just anecdotes.
There are huge statistics about pay inequality and a lot of members of unrepresented groups also leaving our industry in parts, at least as consequence of that. Now, I also want to be clear, companies need to do better. Diversity and inclusion have taken a backseat in the last couple of years again. A lot of initiatives in that area were launched with grand PR campaigns in the 2010s and early 2020s, and then were quietly shut down again over the last few years.
I do not think and do not believe that individuals can and should fix that by themselves. Companies, leadership, and especially executive and senior leadership teams need to build systems, structures, as well as policies that create an environment where everyone is treated equitably, fairly, and respectfully, but at the same time, that also doesn't mean that individuals shouldn't or can't do anything.
And that's why I'm really excited about my conversation today, because we talk about what you as an individual person can do to support your colleagues. My guest today is a staff engineer. He's worked in similar roles like this over the last 15 ish years. And he shares some things that he's done to support others along the way.
Recalling my guest, Leo, that's not his real name, but the name we'll use in this episode. Leo and I decided to have him here as an anonymous guest, because it was important to him and also me not to make it about himself or about trying to get cookie points for having tried these kinds of allyship actions that we'll talk about.
But we wanted to focus it on encouraging others to do the same and give some real examples from someone who's done it. Here's real talk on allyship and engineering with Leo.
MAIN
Lena: who are you? What roles have you been in and how long have you been in the industry?
Leo: I'm currently working as a staff engineer, and i've worked at similar roles with Well, different titles over the, over a number of years, I've been a sort of middle manager, been a software engineer. So that general sort of middle management type area is where I've spent most of my career, and I've been doing this for maybe 15 years or so, of which most of those years I have been some sort of middle manager.
I was like promoted quite quickly when I first got into industry and then I've kind of, you know, Decided not to go any further since then, really.
Lena: It's probably the reasons for that are probably an entirely different conversation.
Leo: I suspect so, yeah.
Lena: But when you say middle manager,does that mean you currently have direct reports or you
Leo: So I don't currently have direct reports, but I do sit across two teams, and I have like sort of technical or socio technical influence across those two teams. And that's generally been the sort of sweet spot for me, is like one to two teams, like, you know, five to fifteen people or so, anything more than that, and I find like the sorts of things I have to do are not the things that I'm best at or the things that I enjoy the most.
Lena: Yeah. But I think the socio technical influence is a really good, framing. Before we get into that, is there anything about your identity that you find important to share that you want to share?
Leo: so I suppose for the purpose of this conversation, I guess the most relevant thing is I am effectively a straight white male. I guess I'm not technically white, but I pass for white in most situations. and I'm English and I live and work in England. So I'm a native speaker as well, which,can affect the sorts of things we're going to talk about as well, I expect.
Lena: Good call out. thank you. and so yeah, what are we actually here to talk about?
Leo: well, so we're here to talk about allyship, which I find a weird topic to talk about because I think. Certainly in my philosophy, part of being a good ally is not making it about yourself. and then I think because of that, you don't hear conversations about this sort of thing very often.
but yeah, you sort of twisted my arm into this a little bit. So I thought, yeah, interesting to explore, like what are the useful things we can talk about or things I can share about what I've done well, or what I haven't done well.
Lena: and again, I, especially because this is something that's not talked about as much, I extra appreciate that, like, yeah, you, consented to my twisting your arm, I guess, like she showed up to this. cause I, I will say, like, We can also figure out, you know, where to go with this, because it's definitely something that, I'm talking with like, as a white woman, and I guess I'm, I have some areas where I'm dealing with structural disadvantages.
This whole allyship topic is something that I've been wrestling with a lot since I got into tech. and like, the question of how do I use the privileges I have and whatnot. and again, like, I don't want to make this self aggrandizing either. It's like. at least one of us is going to be here by name.
And, so, we don't have to, like, yeah, I don't want to make this a collectively just patting each other on the back, kind of a thing, which is going to be interesting.so since, you know, you mentioned part of allyship is kind of not talking about it, like, let's talk allyship actually mean to you?
Leo: oh, I didn't really prepare for that one. Um, so what does it mean? I guess it means, I think the phrase you used just now there about trying to sort of share your privilege or use that around, I think that is, I guess that's the crux of it. It's, I don't know, I think, I guess to me it's seeing things that aren't fair or equitable and trying to improve the situation, trying to do something about them.
I think quite early in your career, you're very much focused on, okay, how do I improve? How do I get better at things? You know, you're not established. You need to, you know, get a foothold, you know, am I safe? Am I secure in this job? and then I think once you're sort of beyond that point then kind of You know, owe it to the people who helped you get there or the people who didn't help you get there to make it easier for the next round of people.
I'm very much, I'm not a gatekeeper kind of person. I'm very much not a pull the ladder up behind you kind of person.and so, yeah, I guess, I guess partly it's trying to make the world a bit fairer, which sounds a bit grand, I suppose. But, yeah, philosophically, that's what I'm kind of, that's what I've got in mind when I'm thinking about being an ally.
And. I guess for the most part I don't think about being an ally as like a badge or a thing. and I think that's how we got started talking about this was I described some behaviors that I do which, which do fall into that bucket. But I don't necessarily start from a point of view of I want to be an ally.
I start from a point of view of, I want to be a better person. I want to be good, you know, to be good to the people around me.
Lena: And I, I'm also honestly realizing, like, I'm very happy to really, like, make this a conversation, not just something where I'm interviewing you, basically, because,I get something that I've thought about a lot. I remember when I got into public speaking, like over 10 years ago, one of the topics I regularly spoke about was that, like I talked a lot about, diversity and inclusivity or the lack thereof in the industry.
and initially in the context of open source technology and communities, because that was a lot of like the context that I was involved in at the time, but then also much more broadly. And, one thing that, I often talked about in this context, it's like, yeah, encourage people to be allies. I didn't often go into details on that, but one thing that stuck out for me is that, it's a process.
I feel like being an ally is, it's. It's never done, like, for myself, at least, I've always framed it as just becoming an ally as the perpetual goal.because that also means, like, there will be times when I'm not doing as well, or there are areas, like you alluded to earlier where, like, yeah, I could have done better or where I'm missing.
And,yeah, it's not a badge that I assigned to myself and that it also sounds like. not assigning to yourself either, but it's something that I just aspire to. And I think the way you just framed it in the end around, I just want to treat people decently and, use paraphrasing slightly, but like use the power or the status that I have or the experience to help others.
I think that's a big part of
Leo: yeah, I mean, when I was thinking about this conversation, an anecdote came back to me, which is almost like an origin story for this whole set of behaviors. I think where, so quite early on in my career, I was a manager of a team of about six or seven people. and then, we had a terrible gender balance as a team.
Pretty much everyone I knew at the time did. but one of the other departments or like one of the other verticals in our engineering departments They had a better gender balance than anyone else in the department, you know, they were doing better not great, but certainly better. and I remember they were getting a new like head of engineering manager or something and this guy sort of came in early on like a Trial day or preview, you know get to know the new team But anyway, he came and he had just ended up on a desk sitting next to me.
So i'm I don't know, early twenties, I'm technically a manager, but I'm not super experienced. and I remember, I just have this real distinct memory of, there was a woman who I worked with who she was like the sort of scrum master delivery manager type person. And I can't even quite remember what it was, but I remember, I clearly remember this guy turning to me and saying, she's not pretty enough to swear like that. And I remember thinking, whoa, but I just thought that I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. I didn't like go to. Like the person who would have been his manager, who was like a colleague of mine that I had a good working relationship. I didn't flag that up or anything. I just went, Ooh, that's dodgy.
And then I kind of sat on it and he then became the manager of that, sort of the other departments. And within a year, all of those women had left and that was a very clear sort of, okay, yeah, I, had an opportunity where there's something I could have done differently there. It wouldn't have cost me anything.
Like it wouldn't have been something I was, comfortable doing, but certainly I had enough clout to say something, maybe to influence that, and I didn't do anything, and I mean, that was over a decade ago now, but I still remember that, you know, that exact phrase he said to me so distinctly, and I think, damn, I, you know, I can do better than that.
Lena: And it's so striking how that, I guess, stuck with you. cause I did want to ask you kind of, you know, how your, what your motivation was or how you kind of got started, like wanting to do this kind of, okay. Take these kinds of steps, right? These kinds of actions, I guess. and that sounds like this was a really big driver.
Leo: Yeah, I think it's sort of learning from failure, and like, and I guess almost the worst thing was, like, though I feel like I failed. I personally didn't suffer no ill effects from that situation apart from I lost out with, but I didn't get the opportunity to work with a bunch of colleagues I liked working with them previously.
And, you know, and those were people I didn't interact with on a day to day basis. So that's kind of played out in another room on the other side of the building, but from a distance, I can kind of see it happening. I think, ah shit, you know, like what could I, you know, and maybe if I'd said something, everything would play out exactly the same, but I'll never know.
But yeah, certainly that is Yeah. As an origin story is, is a big motivator for me thinking, right, okay, what can I do? What can I check? Like, what can I not walk past to try and like reduce the amount of times things like that happen? and you know, I was like 20 something. I was really into like technology and computers and things.
And, you know, starting to discover that, you know, there's more to the world than just computers. There's like people, the people are the important bits. and so, yeah, I think A lot of it all stemmed from that point. I I remember that same, in that same job, sort of months later, there was a woman who worked for me, came to me and said, you know, do you think I'm, as good as, the other men that I work with and I was like, yeah, if anything, you're better.
And she's like, well, why are they all like senior tester? And I'm just testing. I was like, oh shit. Yeah. Okay. And then we fixed that. And, but yeah, it took her pointing out for me to see that I wasn't going out looking for those things. And I think there's just like a few little things like that, that I've experienced and gone, okay, I've, I've learned from that.
and I guess. One of the things is, you know, people starting out in their career, like, you know, can you go out and read those stories and learn from other people's stories rather than having to experience that failure yourself before you can do anything about it?and I think that comes from people, well, A, listening to people who are affected by these issues, but also B, not relying on those people to have to do all of the education, like going out there and learning from yourself.
and that's something I, probably still don't do enough of, but you know, there's, I follow, there are some people I do follow on Twitter or not Twitter anymore, but somewhere else, but, you know, share their stories. And ultimately, I think, especially when you're young, you see the stories and you think, nah, it's not really like that.
So like, no, oh, that can't be, can't really be that bad. but I guess the more you've experienced things like that, then you see their stories and you're like, yeah, sure. That definitely happened. I can believe that, you know, I don't, You know, I don't need to see receipts. Yeah, I, and next, if I see anything in that direction, you know, I want to try and do something to stop things progressing that way.
Lena: this is a really important point. The sort of like, I, spoke about this a lot. And again, the 2014 ish, time, like I gave a conference talk call to talk about nothing. And the whole premise was essentially I made it around, you know, nothingness in like physics and math and whatnot, sort of really diving into the nerd side of things to really get people hooked.
Because I also had to get. audience of people who were mostly not looking like me, like on the same page as me, and then talked about how that essentially is like very similar to privilege. Like there's the idea that like the way that you experience the world is just not how everyone else experiences it.
And I feel like that is such a mind boggling concept,
Leo: Yeah. I mean,
you hear that thing where people go like, oh, I worked hard. I was like, well, I'm sure you did work hard, but that was not sufficient. That wasn't the reason. Like, it might've been necessary. It might not have been necessary, but not everyone who works as hard as you has achieved the same things you have for a variety of reasons.
Lena: Yeah. And I, I feel like ultimately, I think sort of these terms aside, like the point that it's about is like acknowledging that, like, yeah, other people have different life experiences and There are systematic issues. Like I think the point that you made about understanding the history and like knowing especially how the tech industry functions and the dynamics that exist, like I've been in tech for like 15 years now and like my career is approaching 20 and like I'm getting into it.
Realizing that, especially this year, I so often want to, like, I talk with people who I basically want to give a history book of the tech industry. because like, I, and I understand that you're new to something. And as you mentioned earlier, like, you want to build your career and figure out how things work for you and how to make them work for you.
And I think that's entirely legitimate. but at the same time, I've met, Especially so many, like, women of color or, you know, black women, for example, or other, like, you have women out, who are dealing with, like, Being discriminated against people who are dealing with harassment in the workplace and shit like that.
and like, I know that those things are not solved. but for many of them, they think that it's, just them and they're making these, you know, they're the only person experiencing those things. And it takes them, like, they don't necessarily have big networks. And yet, I don't really know a lot of people in the industry to talk about those things with.
and like, I sometimes like, it makes me so angry to then see that, like, yeah, I'm, There are so many people who've been talking about this shit since the 80s or like the paid pay disparities or the issues in like promotion rates between like yeah white men and other like anyone else or like yeah the freaking meritocracy debate that will not die on freaking hacker news like there's so much from like we've been over this so many times and like including so many people way before I even was born and yet here we find
Leo: you do find yourself wanting to go like, just read a book.
Lena: Yes.
But that's where I think, you know, your, your point, or like your call for people to understand, yeah, understand how the, industry functions, understand like the patterns and issues that are there. So you can then also spot them in the places where you're at. I think that's really important.
That's the main thing I wanted to say with my long rant.
Leo: well, as you were saying that it made me think of a kind of metaphor, which may or may not work. I don't know, but, so maybe this will get cut. But, I was thinking about it in terms of like, as a sort of staff engineer with my, like, sort of, Day to day job, technical hat on. Like if I come into like a new company or a new code base or a new project, like you get in, you kind of get a sense, like I'm going there to do something good, to do something positive, to build something.
But in order to actually do that, I have to understand how does the system work? Why does this peak component talk to this component? Why does this architectural decision made? Why is there all this technical debt over here? Why is no one cleaned it up? And I think. I guess to some extent there's parallels there in terms of like organizational structures, the way things have always been done, like existing power structures, the way people are used to working, the fact that thermostats are set to the temperature where men can wear jackets, but women will get cold shoulders, like all those little things add up.
And I think, I think maybe there's some analogies to be drawn there, or maybe there's the sorts of, there may be some like practices that we can draw from. Okay. Well, you know, in order to make a change somewhere, we want to look at the history and what we see. in a software system, you get perfect version control history with commits.
So maybe not perfect, but you know, you get a hint of why things are the way they are, whereas if you, especially in a large company, that's been around for many years, or I guess maybe even in a startup where they've just made a bunch of decisions in a short space of time. What, why do things work this way?
Well, cause you know, they picked it up off someone senior who they worked with, who picked it up somewhere senior, who they worked with, picked it up on someone senior they worked with and they learned it in the fifties. Like,
Lena: that I think that's a. not even a perfect metaphor. I think that is 100 percent it. and I say that as someone who's like, I've spent the majority of my career, like, yes, looking at those technical systems, but mostly focusing on the sociological side of things. and It's always exactly this way.
And like, to the point, right, I've been working, you know, on things like due diligence, or organizational assessments with companies. You can always see those things mapping out in parallel. And like, you know, then if you go back in terms of how has the technical system evolved, you can see, oh, you know, here were manager changes or here was the point when a whole team quit.
and suddenly all that knowledge was lost and had to be built up. Like the parallels are just. Like, yeah, striking to the point where I really think it's not even a metaphor.so, this might be an interesting, like, I think it's an interesting point to dig into a little bit. It's like when you, you know, go into a new company, because you also, actually, sorry, I want to backtrace briefly.
but, I heard you earlier when you described your role as sort of, you know, looking at the socio technical systems, and navigating those. tell me a little bit more about that. Like, what does that mean to you?
Leo: So, I did a talk recently about like staff engineering in general, and I sort of described it as like, so this, the term staff engineering seems to become really popular in the industry over the last like four years or so. And before then, I'd never really heard it. And actually I was a bit disappointed.
I looked at where I went, where's this come from? And it's a direct like military analogy from a staff sergeant. I was like, Oh, surely we've got enough military
Lena: Again?
Leo: We didn't need another one. But, but I'd been doing a similar role at, you know, tech leads I'd never, I've managed to never, I've managed to avoid never being called an architect, which I'm quite happy with, but I don't know, like type things.
For, you know, maybe a decade, 12 years or so. And I think the way I was always able to get into a company and then get promoted or get influenced or be listened to was always, I would look at what is the. Like why is the company here? What's it trying to achieve? What's it trying to do? And in most cases ultimately it's like make money, but you know, you can work a little bit down the the value chain from there and then I would say okay What am I doing and can I draw a line from what i'm doing to what the company cares about?
and I think I adopted that mindset quite early on it was I probably picked it up off of a colleague or someone like that But I think that's what's really helped me in my career be have influence You It's because I don't care about the technology. I don't care like, you know, I'm quite good at technology.
I do the research, but it's always in service of what is this company for? and has led to me trying to work for companies that, you know, have a mission that I actually can get behind. so I think as a sort of, as a staff engineer, when I'm looking at a system and I'm saying, okay, well, here's what it does.
And you're like, okay, well, you know, we've got this project, we've signed some contract or whatever, you know, what are we trying to achieve? What's the shape of this system in an ideal world? And how do we tie that to business outcomes? And then we say, okay, what is the effective change we can make in the system to get us closer to that?
and maybe that doesn't apply as well to say that the general topic of this podcast, where like, I think sort of, and a fairness is rarely high up on a company's agenda in terms of things it's going to prioritize.
Lena: when you come into a company, like, how do you, what do you do in terms of complete steps to kind of, you know, understand that socio technical system?
Leo: Yeah. So I think the first thing I start to do is I start to ask questions about, Iwho cares, right? who has influence, who has, I remember I was, so I worked as a, as a contractor for a while, which meant I got to do like a job for a month or two or three months at a time. And by day to day, I'd be working with the teams as part of the engineering and I got good at onboarding quickly.
I got good at figuring out what are the sorts of things I need to know quickly. And, I think one of my later contracts towards the end, before I ended up taking a firm job, I was like, literally on day one, I was like, right. Who has a stake in this? Who cares? I just, you know, don't try and be subtle about it.
I'm just going to ask that question directly. Like, you know, who, who stands to benefit from this working or this succeeding? what are the motivations of my sort of directors, my VPs and so on, I guess ultimately it's incentive structures. I think is the answer to your question is what are the incentive structures and do those seem to be aligned?
Do I need to, like, if I feel like, you know, the task I've been given or the goal that I believe we're working towards matches the incentive structures of the company, great, we can start doing that. And if I don't, then, okay, now I'm going to have to go start talking to senior management about saying, okay, can we tweak these incentive structures a little bit?
Because. Otherwise, everything we do is going to be hamstrung by people having the wrong incentives.
Lena: Do you have some examples of like wrong incentive structures that you've seen? Mm
Leo: well, I think the classic one is like, directors and their fiefdoms. It's like building up headcounts, uh, you know, having influence. I think like controversially, I would say platform engineering, like, Ultimately, like, you know, if your goal is to be a great director of platform engineering, then you're going to start trying to build a platform, whereas maybe like the ideal platform is not to have a platform at all is to not require a platform.
There's some, so I think, yeah, things like that, I guess, or you can look at like, I mean the whole VC funded startup scene is based around like, what is the outcome this company is trying to get? Well, it's returns for investors.and you know, in the early stages, maybe that is aligned with a successful company, but you see it a lot of times now where a company that's like being a hot startup for a while, you sign up for their plan and then they keep trying to push these enterprise features on you.
They're jamming AI in there. And you're like, but I, you know, I just want feature flags. Just let me have feature flags and pay you some money every month. But you know, they've got to hit a revenue multiple year on year. Like, you know, they're on the treadmill too. Maybe they're not happy about it, but they've stepped onto this treadmill and they keep having to hit those revenue figures.
So they keep trying to get me to pay more. And I'm like, I just want an if statement in the cloud, like leave me alone.
Lena: Yeah, or things like, needing to push a big project through on your own to get promoted? It's a big one.
Leo: I mean, Google chat is the quintessential example, isn't it?
Lena: Yes. Like the hero mode, such a, I guess such a good one. or, yeah, I think honestly, a lot of things around promotions are where incentive, incentive structures often just
Leo: So this reminded me actually, so I was working at this company where, so I think when I was hired, I was like maybe one or two steps down from the CTO. So, you know, I was able to get into meetings, have a bunch of influence, but as I was there, the company scaled up a lot, hired a lot more people. And then I find myself like three rungs down and I was like, well, okay, well, in order to, enact the sorts of changes I want to see, like, I want to be in this meeting.
And they were like, well, actually that meeting is for like level five and above only. And I was like, okay, fine. So then I basically spent like nine months building a promo packet to get promoted, to get back into this meeting in order to actually, you know, drive the sorts of changes that I wanted to see.
And it was all this sort of ridiculous like layout, but I mean, it worked, but it was like, Oh, you know, could you not just listen to me anyway? Like,
Lena: Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. The ways of getting things done, I think fall apart very quickly as companies scale. Um, so, let me see where we're, we've talked a bit about,like socio technical systems, how to navigate them. shall we get to like concrete things?
Leo: yeah, I was thinking I was trying to come up with a good segue, but it doesn't really, it's like,
Lena: I couldn't find one. So yes, exactly.
Leo: sorry, the system is broken, but, maybe there's some small thing you can do to make it
Lena: Well, and that's, I think that's the thing that I want to figure out a little bit as part of this. It's like, because especially as someone who doesn't have direct reports, like you don't have a budget, you don't have a serious say in whatever management meetings, promotion discussions, whatnot.
I believe there are still things that people in those positions can do, like more in, you know, in very concrete terms. And I would also love to talk a little bit about systems things like, you know, are there things where you can at least try and influence, um,
Leo: it's interesting, actually, like, I think the thing I find that I miss the most from not having direct reports, or, I guess, not having one to ones with everyone, which maybe I could just set up a bunch of one to ones, but, is that I don't have a clear picture of what people's goals are. so I ended up actually like I ended up asking their manager, does this person, are they trying to like improve technically socially, like meeting, are they just happy where they are?
They just want to get on with their job. Like, cause I think when I'm thinking about like, say a sponsorship opportunities or encouraging someone to take on a big project, like maybe they want that career growth or maybe they're like, no, just, I just want to get on with it. So that's such the, I find the biggest gap I have when.
Pitching things or trying to help grow people is like, I don't know which way they want to grow without going and asking them, which is not something that is happening day to day anyway. Whereas I think when I hadn't been a manager and I've been talking to people and I knew what sort of things they were wanting, then when I'm looking at the roadmap and planning out things, I can start to like make those connections.
Lena: I think that's a great, you know, we can get some action items for you out of this.
Leo: Yeah, I think so.
Lena: But I feel like, it's one of the pieces that I did want to ask about, because I do think in order to be an effective ally, I think there are some things that you can sort of guess at, but a lot of things, it is really helpful to understand where people actually want to grow.
and like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think regular one on ones could be one, but you could also just, you know, tell your teams, like, Hey, if you want, send me your current development goals so I can keep them in mind.
Leo: Yeah. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. I think actually that sort of dovetails nicely with the, so before this prep for this, you were asking me like, you know, what sorts of allyship things have you done, and I was looking at the list of. Things that people do in general. I was like, Oh, here's a big gap here. Like I don't do any of this stuff.
and it was mostly the stuff around sort of sponsorship and mentorship where I think historically I've not been great at that sort of stuff. It's not been something. Like, I don't know, I don't like to direct people too much. I don't like to be like, okay, yeah, you do this or help with this. Or I guess I'm much more of a sort of behind the scenes kind of person.
Like, you know, I, hopefully I make, you know, I try and improve the systems and the people's environments, but without necessarily being explicit. I think maybe part of that is around like credits. Like I've always preferred negative feedback. I don't necessarily need to be applauded for when I've done something well.
So, and I think obviously if you're directly giving someone advice or coaching or mentoring sponsorship, then. Like you almost have to take credit.
Lena: Yeah. I mean, I think that's fair. I will say the like telling people what exactly to do of sponsorship, I also find very uncomfortable. I will say like, I've done it. but like mostly when I've had a sense that like, someone's keeping themselves, they're holding themselves back.for like, you know, and we have like, and I'm in sort of a coaching role in a lot of cases, I've also done some sponsorship or like mentoring engagements with folks in different, like over the years.
But, it was mostly then talking, okay, you know, why do you, for example, you know, what makes you not want to apply to speak at this conference or stuff like that? and then at some point telling people, like, Like, you know, working through the surely valid reasons, but then at some point being like, okay, I want you to do it anyway.
but that's also, you know, it can also be a form of like sponsorship. Um, but I, I understand that. like, yeah, having some reservations around that. But so, you know, when you mentioned that sort of the influencing the environment or sort of doing things behind the scenes is more, it's like, what are the some things that you've done?
Leo: so I think most of the examples I can definitely point to are sort of, I guess, behaviors around meetings.mostly like, you know, that's, I guess the most common situation where you've got a whole bunch of people together and the sort of power dynamics are coming into play. The sort of the people who are like confident speakers, usually men are dominating the conversation.
I mean, I've read that study where, what was it? Like, when men and women think women are talking half the time, they're actually only talking 20 percent of the time because of, you know, What's become the baseline. so I think, yeah, just like trying to find like a few like little hacks where you can do to try and get around that.
So especially me, like I, you know, as you maybe tell from me talking on this podcast, like I like to talk, um, I'm quite, you know, I like to be quick off the mark. I like to get in there quickly. and so my default instinct is if somebody is saying something then, and I understand their point. Like, I don't really want to wait for them to finish their sentence.
I want to like, I want to be getting in there. We'll be bouncing off them. And you know, that can very easily take over a conversation. and so my, I mean, my top tip for that is actually is just take minutes. And I'm not even just offered to take minutes. It's just open up a Google doc during a meeting and start typing.
and I find that has like two effects. I mean, one it's improved my typing. but also it's, it sort of forces me to listen to what people are saying. And somewhere, like, I'm not just transcribing. I'm trying to. Very quickly, like summarize what they're saying as they go. and that is forcing me to think about it.
And then because I'm concentrating on typing and listening, I don't have enough brain cycles left to be speaking. so, you know, it's just like, that was a hack that I can't remember. I must've read it somewhere. I can't imagine I came up with that myself, but I found it's been really effective. especially when you're like the most senior person in a meeting.
It's just right now I'll take the minutes like, yeah, because then. I mean, there's some tricks as well in that if you can sort of, like, Because you're taking the minutes, like you get to apply the editorialising, so if there's some really senior higher ups, you get, you know, you're taking the minutes of what they're saying, and paraphrasing that slightly, but in general, it's a good way to take, to sort of yield the floor and let everyone else have to say their piece while you're sort of making notes, and then at the end, you can be like, okay, well, You know, I've heard what everyone's saying and now I'm going to jump in.
And actually I find now that there are, there's a few regular meetings I have at the moment where I'm not taking the minutes because the meeting format doesn't pay that high and. I just immediately start talking more because I've got nothing to stop me. Um, so yeah, maybe I should take my own notes in those
Lena: I was gonna say, yeah, exactly. I also like the explicit call out of just like shutting up. I do think that in itself can be a great action to take.And or at least not speaking first, like I think especially once you have a specific like title or even just like power that comes through tenure or you have like specific experience or whatnot, you easily have much more power than you realize and power in the sense of also like making people just like, yeah, making other people shut up.
And it's like speaking later in itself can also be really valuable.
Leo: yeah. And I, I just really love bouncing off people in a conversation. So it's a, it's an instinct I really have to sort of stamp down on because you know, somebody speaking, I start trying to converse with them, but then, you know, there's five other people in the room and they're getting frozen out because, you know, I'm too quick, which is, it's not, it's not leading to a good outcome for everyone.
Lena: one thing you can also, I don't know if you've done that during while taking minutes, but you can also like add in the notes who said what, like, there is a whole thing of like, people taking credit for things that other people have shared and stuff like that. Like, and that can help kind of counter that a little bit as well.
Leo: Yeah, and I think that's the other sort of like meeting hack that I like to try and do is like if I've noticed someone's like given their idea and I want to like Double down on that idea. Like, you know, that's a good idea, but, you know, I don't want to be stealing their idea.
I like, I'm conscious that is a thing that happens. So I will explicitly back reference. Okay. Yeah. You know what? Like Jane's idea was great. Let's, you know, as Rob said or whatever, like, you know, you just say like, okay, I'm building on their idea, but it was very much their idea.
I'm not taking it from them and making sure that, you know, they feel like, yeah, that they're getting the credit. Cause I think, especially now where I am in my career, like, you know, I'm at a level where I don't feel like I need to go any higher. Like I'm okay with where I am, so I don't even need the credits.
Lena: right.
Leo: Whereas, yeah, like I can imagine like earlier in your career, like you, you're trying to build your success, your kudos. So even like without thinking about it, you're going to sort of take credit for things that you can. And. Yeah, I think,
Lena: That's important. And, you know, for the, you mentioned the promotion cases earlier, like being credited with an idea, even if it's like during a meeting or at some point, well, you know, it might be that the staff engineer, they built something and it had an input from me in it that can become part of someone's promotion case, even if you're not even aware of it. So I think that's really cool. it's like meetings. big, opportunity. What other, what other areas have you found
Leo: so I think documentation is a good one. so there was a, it was a talk I went to a couple of years ago about documentation and it was described as scaling influence, which was a frame I never really thought of. But ultimately, I guess, similar to what I've said about editorializing meeting minutes, like if you write the doc, not only does it have your name on it as the person who wrote it, it's, it is the doc, it becomes the way things are done.
and so, Like if you want to, if you start writing down the way things are done, then you get to decide how things are done to some extent, because it's especially when things aren't written down and these days, nobody writes anything down and everyone always wishes it was written down and say, well, it's actually not that hard to just write down what it is we do today.
And then, so, you know, I'm not saying like, don't be technical, just write all the documents, but like writing down, here's how we do things today, here's how we should do things. Here's how I think we should do things. Here's my proposal for how this project is going to work. and I think especially like, I mean, there's a lot of different power axes you can have in a meeting around sort of introvert, extrovert, senior, non senior, privileged, unprivileged, but when you're just reading text, A lot of those sort of fade into the background a little bit.
I'm sure there'll be biases with the readers, but ultimately if you're just reading a document, like you can't interrupt the person who wrote it in the middle of a sentence, you have to read to the end. So, and I have heard, like, I think there's some studies I've seen around like remote work in general, being a bit of a leveler, like, you know, it's no longer just, you know, the guy who you get on with well at lunch is the guy getting the promotion.
It's a little bit more egalitarian, certainly I like to believe that's the case. maybe I've been, Sort of, um, there's a bit of confirmation bias when I saw that particular study, but yeah, I think there is something in that.
Lena: Yeah, there's a, there's obviously another layer of complexity to it. And then like, it does remove some of the proximity bias that goes into promotions. For example, think, Oh, the boss sees people at their desk. So of course they must be working and working on something important that decreases, but on the flip side, what increases then is, the degree to which things like microaggressions or harassment or so become less visible.
like literally because they then happen, you know, in one to one chats or sort of behind closed doors in, in virtual meetings and whatnot. so like Because of like the physicality that gets reduced, at least, like remote work can be helpful, but on the flip side, it does have like some caveats and that it also means that things like promotions are especially in hybrid settings.
That's the tricky part, like, um, the remote work, can then become a bit of a negative factor again, but they're currently aren't at least to my knowledge. There aren't a lot of good studies on it yet, but it's. As a lot of those things, it's very complex, unfortunately. And unfortunately, there's always a way to, like, make things shit for some people involved.
Leo: Yeah, I guess, like, I suppose it's the same as any sort of like, sociology type research. there's so many factors. you know, I hear lots of stories about, oh, you know, how remote work can be bad for junior developers because they don't just get that training, but like, did we ever really train them?
Like, maybe we could actually train people explicitly as make it part of people's jobs.
Lena: great, yeah.
Leo: yeah. I suppose in remote in general, there's an intentionality which you have to create. Which you can get away with an office of just going. Yeah, people are in the office. They'll hang out They'll have lunch something will happen.
Whereas, you know, like my company at the moment every month we organize an explicit social For everyone that is online. because he otherwise we wouldn't all get together in a call and chat about stuff Like this month we all painted something like I painted an emu like
Lena: Nice.
Leo: i'm terrible at painting but
Lena: I was going to say like,
Leo: just to get people together
Lena: yeah,
Leo: so I think yeah, I guess You I've been big on remote work for a long time just because like, I don't want to go live down in London. Um, so
like,
Lena: So it is an equalizer in some form. And like, I think that the point that I heard from you was basically like, it also like, there are opportunities in like documentation, for example, for people to make a name for themselves in some way, or kind of quote unquote, be assertive or sort of claim a space in ways that like allows them to kind of bypass some of the dynamics of, for example, meetings.
Leo: yeah, I think so. I think like you can write a document and then you can sort of, if you've got like an ally, someone, a mentor, a sponsor, someone with influence, they can then shop your document around and, but it's very clear that your work, whereas I think that's, you know, when everything's just done at word of mouth, it's, that's the sort of thing can get lost in the shuffle quite a lot easier.
Lena: Yeah. Yeah. and I do want to, sort of connect back to the, cause you're, I guess, aspiring ally origin story to not call it your villain origin story, but, you know, in the sort of, observing things that are wrong or they are at least unfair or unjust like, are there, have there been areas where, you know, you've either called things out since, or where you at least like have, you know, recommendations for people for things that they can do.
Leo: I mean, God, I hope so. I'm struggling to think of concrete examples right now, but, yeah, I think, I guess a lot of it is. And I suppose that in my book, at least one of the keys to having successful work professional life is having a high degree of trust with your manager or the person you report to.
And I think basically, if you don't have that. Like everything's going to be fucked like, whereas if you do have that, then, you know, that is the channel where you can talk about those things where you can say, Hey, you know what, you know, I'm worried about this. I can see this coming on. I think that person's, you know, been working too long hours or whatever, and those sorts of looking out for those sorts of things.
yeah, I mean, beyond that, I don't have a good example. Like I was, I think I was giving some advice to some like new staff engineers recently, I was saying like, basically don't just rely on your direct manager, like build good working relationships with. The most senior people you can get, because if your relationship with your manager sours, or you end up under a different manager, you don't get along with, like you, you ultimately need to be able to play that organizational politics game to, to get around them, to get, you know, to have a healthy.
Working life. Like if you get an opportunity to like, go meet the CEO for dinner or something, do it like, yeah, like try and build those things, get your face in front of people. You know, I wish that wasn't a thing that people needed to do. I wish every, like, managerial relationship was just good, but, you know, that's.
You can't rely on that.
Lena: No, and I, do really like the call out of thinking explicitly of your relationship, like, to your manager or like other leaders in the organization, like also as an asset, like not, and not just for like your personal advancement, or even just, you know, for your, the sake of keeping your own job, but also as like, as something that can be helpful to get point out things that aren't going well in the organization or where you have concerns or things that someone's being treated unfairly or whatever that is.
Leo: Yeah, exactly. Like I've been fortunate enough to be able to curate those sorts of relationships with leadership at a number of companies where like, I'm known as someone who's good at their job or someone who's like, says stuff that's important. So, you know, I've got that clout so I can call out some bullshit.
And like when you start a new job, like you probably can't really call out like serious bullshit and day one, but you can build up the sort of the clout to be able to do that. And I guessThat's a key thing you can then do is building up that level of trust, that sort of level of confidence so that when you do see something you, you are able to say it and be listened to.
Lena: Well, I do understand the side. Okay. Maybe not on day one thing, but I also would say that especially for people at your level, like usually as a staff engineer or principal or whatever, like you're usually hired because you've proven that you can do stuff, companies likely gotten your like references and whatnot for you.
and like, they're also likely paying you a ton of money. And so I, like, at least, you know, when I've hired people at those levels and like other leaders I've worked with, it's often also like, I want people who come in at those levels to tell me that kind of shit. Because like, I'm, I'm usually, if I'm in a VP role, it's like, I can't see everything I'm trying.
And I usually, you know, have systems set up that help with that, hopefully, but there's always a bit of, there's always going to be a blind spot in the organization. It's like the sooner, I also know that people are going to tell me things that, you know, I might not like, or that are not my favorite thing to hear.
The better. And of course, like, I don't want to say that every organization works this way. I'm unfortunately also not hiring right now, but like, I do think there is also, like, I do want to just, you know, I didn't want to turn this into like, oh, you know, you need to really build your credibility and whatnot
Leo: no, yeah. And it comes
Lena: and and at the same time, you Like, yeah. And at the same time, if you're at this level, like at some point, you're also going to have to think about like, what do you stand for as a leader? Like, you know, what are the things that like, if you observe things going wrong in the organization, can you still stand behind them even if you quote unquote, you know, just are a technical leader and don't have direct reports.
Leo: Yeah. Like, and I think especially like when I was a contractor, I had like this sort of privilege of like, I have a track record of, I keep getting contracts, people keep paying me to do this job. All right. Therefore, if I get really pissed off, I can just like table flip and walk out and I'll go get a different job.
Like that's an immense amount of privilege. but that like in most jobs, like if you need that job to pay your bills, you know, to survive, then there's a limit to the sort of stuff you can do. Whereas if you know you can get another job, then, you can call things out that, and like, you know, okay, worst case scenario, you know, I get Managed out, you know, I can deal with that.
that's not a problem for me right now. That's a good place to be in. and I guess maybe that's why we've seen this, these huge waves of layoffs in the past few years, because, you know, the, uh, the people in charge weren't too happy with too many people being able to just move around.
Lena: Uh, I agree. Um,on that note, I realized we're basically at time, so I just want to check, you know, is there anything else that you would really like to say? Or any important area that we haven't covered?
Leo: I think the, I guess my closing thought really is, especially when like, I think when you first asked me to do this, I was like, Oh yeah, that'd be great. And then in the last couple of weeks, as it's running up to this, I started making my notes and thinking about what sort of thing I'm going to say. and I started to get a little bit of imposter syndrome, which, like unfortunately enough to not generally worry about most of the time.
but it almost felt like. Can I really call myself an ally? Can I really speak authoritatively about allyship in a meaningful way? Do I have enough to say about this? I think like, maybe I don't, maybe not, but I don't see a lot of people talking about this. And I think like back to, going back to what I said at the start about like, Certainly in my mind, being a good ally involves not taking the spotlight, not taking credit for these sorts of actions, then, think it's still good to talk about these things, like, okay, you know what, I've done a couple of things that I thought were good.
I've seen things that I thought were bad. You know, that's enough. It doesn't have to be perfect to say, right. Okay. And I think maybe the sorts of people who do like to talk about their allyship are maybe the people who. Are really good at it or believe they're really good at it, but yeah, just more normal people saying, yeah, we've done some good stuff and other people can do that was probably a good thing.
OUTRO
Lena: I really appreciate being able to have this conversation with Leo, and I want to summarize the couple of points that he made and add a few of my own. So first of all, allyship is a continuous journey. It's not a destination. Don't call yourself an ally. Say I want to become an ally and also act that way.
Building trust with your colleagues is really important for effective allyship. Don't just assume what people need, but ask them. I also really enjoyed Flynn's recommendation to use something like documentation as a powerful tool for influence. I think that's really easy to overlook actively listen in meetings to make sure to amplify others voices.
You can also really help creating a supportive environment by being intentional, especially in a remote setting, regularly check in with your team members to uncover their growth aspirations, especially when they're not reporting to you be aware of power dynamics and that can also really help in advocating for others.
A few tips about becoming an ally that I wanted to add. The first part is more about indirect actions that are not directly targeted at the person who you're trying to become an ally for, but more at the system around them. Specifically, usually to their manager. So give input during performance reviews when you're being asked, for example, during a 360 review of a colleague, give your input, share both praise as well as really constructive feedback and focus on behaviors, make it good feedback.
It's good and useful for their growth. Another really impactful thing you can do is to give praise outside of review cycles. Like when you've seen them do something great, write an email to their manager and say, Hey, I was really impressed with this thing. This person did. And here's the impact that it had.
Those kinds of small gestures can have huge impact. It can also be really valuable. If you observe things that are going wrong in your company, to shut them down or call them out. Like, for example, if someone's cutting off a person during meetings, or if you see comments in a pull request that aren't okay, shut those things down or address them.
It can also have an impact if you share, for example, mental health challenges or other health issues or things that are a little bit more vulnerable. Either, you know, in a team or in this other setting that you feel comfortable with, because it can be really helpful to normalize talking about those kinds of things, and again, using your power and influence to help with them.
a couple more direct things that you can do are to give feedback to this person directly. It's extremely valuable if you're in a more senior position and you are invested in someone's growth to let them know when there are things that they're doing well, as well as things that they can improve.
You can also like Leo mentioned, become a mentor or a sponsor for them. A sponsorship meaning getting invested in their growth and getting behind that by suggesting them for opportunities that are coming up. A very impactful thing that someone did for me at some point was to practice salary negotiations with me. I found that really difficult. I was socialized in a way to basically, you know, just take anything that I was offered. and at some point, a former colleague of mine sat me down and. Walked me through a 90 minute salary negotiation, and it was really one of the most impactful things someone's ever done for my career.
It can also be really helpful if you share what you're making, because pay inequalities are still very real and people who are at your level may not get paid the same thing that you are, even if they have the same or even more experience than you do.
And lastly, you can also use your own capacity to influence structural things like the system around you that can mean, for example, advocating with your boss or other senior leaders for better processes or structures, for example, clear role definitions, career frameworks, or other things that help people understand better how to do their job well, as well as how to progress. But most importantly, I still want you to remember allyship is a practice and it's an action and it's about becoming constantly.
You may mess up, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
This was leadership confidential, which was created, produced and presented by me, Lena Reinhard. Theme, original composition and mixing by Esteban del pino. Production assistance, guest support and social media by Sly Stark.
Thank you for listening. We'll hear you next time.
