This episode is brought to you by 📊 Swarmia, the engineering effectiveness platform for modern software organizations.
🙋♀️ Today’s guest
Lena Reinhardt has dedicated her career to helping technology leaders build successful engineering organizations.
Her background includes roles such as VP of Engineering at CircleCI and TravisCI, along with being a co founder and CEO of a SaaS startup. She now works as a leadership coach, management trainer, and organizational developer.
Lena has supported a diverse range of companies across the globe, from early stage startups to scale ups, corporations, and NGOs. In our chat, we discussed the current state of the tech industry, the role of leaders, and the importance of staying human.
Here are some topics and takeaways from our chat:
📉 Challenges in the tech industry
We talked about layoffs, the effects of the COVID pandemic, and economic downturns. We explored the role of venture capital and interest rates on the industry.
Shifts are also brought by younger generations (e.g. Gen Z) demanding different types of workplaces and environments. All these changes are predicted to impact the industry over the next few years.
🏡 Creating a healthy work environment
The culture set by a company dictates the kind of employees it attracts and retains.
There may exist different approaches to running a company, which may or may not prioritize employee well-being. However, prioritizing well-being shouldn’t mean sacrificing profits, as many successful companies show.
Leaders have a responsibility to push companies to do better, even though their ability to do so may be limited.
❤️ Taking care of yourself
Leaders need to practice self-care in order to effectively manage their teams.
Sometimes it’s hard to put on your own mask on first, or even to figure out how stressed you are. In the chat we discuss how important this is, how to identify burnout, and how to decompress.
🎙️ Episode
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🙏 Thank you
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See you next week! 👋
Luca
Leading and Human-ing in 2024 — with Lena Reinhard (CircleCI)