An Episode of The Supermanagers Podcast from Fellow.app with Scott Williamson
Interview with Scott Williamson, CPO at GitLab | Fellow.app
In episode 88, Scott Williamson, CPO at Gitlab, breaks down what it means to be a servant leader and how to manage synthesizers on your team.
Mistakes to learn from:
Left people up with giving direct feedback.
Advice > Getting better at delegation is a key to growth
Find what you should keep on your plate and what you need to split and give it to someone.
Handbook
Code, test and deploy with GitLab. Everyone can contribute!
Servant leaders
Servant leadership is a leadership style and philosophy whereby an individual interacts with others—either in a management or fellow employee capacity—to achieve authority rather than power.
The servant-leader main jobs:
Provide clarity, examples:
- Written product strategy as an example
- Clear KPIs that review monthly
- OKR quarterly
- Measure performance
Remove obstacles, examples:
- Weekly 1on1 with everyone.
- The weekly team calls to provide clarity.
- Providing direct feedback is the best thing for them.
- Use the meeting agenda, keep it live and give people to write their questions before the meeting.
- Have a block to go through your meeting agendas
Task... Create a readme file on how to work with me.
OKR vs KPI
KPI is more durable/ongoing and always will be there. OKRs is about change
First-class hiring
- Have a great job description
- Have an interview team who knows the job.
- Conduct frequent retros to find blockers.
- Give a high priority to the process and time.
- Use metrics.
- Ensure a diverse pipeline.
Books to Read
Principles
#1 New York Times Bestseller “Significant...The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York Times Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to…
Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition
The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller that changed the way millions communicate “[Crucial Conversations] draws our attention to those defining moments that literally shape our lives, our relationships, and our world. . . . This book deserves to take its place as one of the key thought le…