Participating In A Leadership Panel
28/06/2024In November 2023 I was invited to participate in a Leadership Panel with the theme of Recruit, Retain, Develop for Women In Tech Dorset.
The panel was made up of 3 other professionals: Saba Rubaei, Vivienne Palmer & Ian Glen.
The panel topic was How companies can improve the future and help women grow in leadership positions?
There were 3 main questions put to the panel:
- What did you notice about the difference between teams with women and without?
- Why in your mind is it important to have more women in tech teams?
- What are the challenges in attracting and retaining more diverse talent?
My thoughts as a Software Team Lead on each of those is as follows:
What did you notice about the difference between teams with women and without?
Teams that are solely populated with men can be very static, and quiet and uncaring.
Teams with both Women & Men are always more kind, caring, funny and friendly teams.
Because of those things, the teams are more productive, happy and they work as a cohesive team!
Working with anyone who is in some way different from you (Gender, Race, Upbringing...) challenges you to overcome your possibly stale ways of thinking and consider alternatives.
Diverse teams are more likely to constantly re-examine facts and remain objective!
Why in your mind is it important to have more women in tech teams?
It allows a team to build more meaningful relationships and create successful work processes.
Research has shown that diverse teams produce more effective results, learning opportunities and task mastery.
Women don't get stuck on a persons technical prowess, they get to the core of the person and their abilities, often showing the person those abilities they are not necessarily aware of.
It is easy to be stuck in your ways in the tech world, diversity breaks that out - No longer are you a "borg drone", you are challenged.
What are the challenges in attracting and retaining more diverse talent?
I find that Women under-rate themselves, where as men will over-rate themselves. So a women won't just apply for a role unless it is a perfect fit on paper, which means it is extra hard to recruit a women when the technical job specifications tend to be a huge list of skill requirements. A man would just apply.
Engineers often overlook the soft skills, and then get promoted to leader ship roles. It is important to have soft skills as a leader, to be empathetic and show willingness to listen, this is very important for retention, people who feel listened to and rewarded are loyal.
It is daunting to work with a male focussed team/department when you are the "different" one. It is hard to break the comfort zone for those incoming into a team, and those within the team too.
We also see some people can be overtly hostile to new people and especially those who are different to them.
Wrap-up
I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of participating in this event (I am an introvert), and would recommend others to do it. The hosts were very welcoming, the attendees were all very encouraging and wanted to listen and participate and had great questions.
Even though I have lead successful software engineering teams for 10 years, I still felt I was the least experienced in the group (Imposter Syndrome was in full force). But we shared a lot of views and I still had something unique to provide to the panel as the only Software Team Lead.
I guess that just gives more credence to the need for Diverse Talent.
Thanks go to Seemin & Sharon of Women In Tech Dorset for inviting me.
Thank you for your time.
If you want to reach out, catch me on Twitter!