Episode 17: A unique leadership journey and avoiding swirl with Sally Lait
Mar 16, 2024
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Sally Lait, Engineering Director for Trust & Safety at Bumble Inc., shares her non-traditional tech journey and managing managers. She discusses leading beyond her expertise, avoiding 'swirl' as a manager, and advocating for empathy and inclusivity in teams.
Transitioning to a manager of managers role involves balancing directive leadership with empowerment and coaching new managers.
Being mindful of unintentional communication ripple effects is crucial to avoid creating unnecessary work or misunderstandings as a manager of managers.
Deep dives
Challenges of Transitioning into Managing Managers
Transitioning into a managing managers role faced challenges of balancing directive leadership with empowerment, coaching managers who were new to their roles, and navigating the shift in relationship dynamics, especially when managing a former peer.
Building a Support Network
Building a support network involved maintaining relationships with industry peers, forming close ties with adjacent roles within the company, and seeking support from coaches and therapists to manage the demands and challenges of a manager of managers role.
Navigating Differences in Managing Manager Roles
Differences across managing manager roles included variations in company size, industry, management philosophy, budgets, and the need to quickly adapt to new domains and technologies when transitioning into different roles.
Minding Communication Swell as a Manager of Managers
As a manager of managers, being mindful of unintentional communication ripple effects is crucial to avoid creating unnecessary work or misunderstandings, ensuring that requests and interactions are clear, concise, and considerate of the broader impact on the team and culture.
I have worked with so many people who have followed a non-traditional route into tech and so really enjoyed hearing Sally’s journey into tech and how she found herself managing other managers. Given her experience, it’s also great to understand how she leads and manages areas of tech that are beyond her own individual contributor experience and love the concept of swirl and to be wary of this as a manager of managers.
Guest Biography
Sally Lait is an Engineering Director for Trust & Safety at Bumble Inc. – encouraging kind connections that demonstrate integrity, equality, confidence, and respect during all stages of any relationship, through our apps like Bumble Date, Bumble For Friends, Badoo, Fruitz, Official etc. Prior to that she’s been VP of Engineering at Farewill, led engineering in Operations and Financial Crime as well as Monzo’s web discipline, ran a digital transformation consultancy, and worked for a global digital agency. What’s really important to Sally is building a strong culture, and creating supportive and inclusive environments for people and teams to thrive and do fantastic technical work. She’s a strong advocate for building software and teams alike with empathy, responsibility, and accessibility in mind.