John Mark Nickels: evaluation

Transcript context

…As you talk about this, something that came up and something that I thought about as I was preparing for this episode is this idea of soft leadership, the power of soft skills and just how important that is in success. Is there something there that comes up when I say that? Just the power of soft skills and the importance of those in being successful. Yeah, it's, what was it? Theodore Roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick? Yeah, I think I've evolved in that department. I think when I was younger in my career, I thought it was really important that we got to show up to the meeting and have the right slides and be the loudest, rightest voice in the room, and that's the way to have influence. And there's certainly a place for having leadership in a meeting and presenting a point of view and helping guide the narrative, but to me, yeah, I would say I've evolved more towards sitting back. It's also as I've become a more senior leader, I'm aware that there are power dynamics there. There's imbalances where junior folks don't feel as comfortable speaking up or I say something's not a good idea and then, "Well, I don't want to disagree with J.M." So it's like, back to being more aware of my influence in the world. I really try to spend more time being mindful of that and say, I want to hear from other people first. I want to create space and I don't need to win the argument in the meeting. There can be a follow-up. It's not like this is my last chance to say something, but that's also more true when you're more senior because when you're more junior, it's like, well, this is the one presentation I have with Dara for the next six months. I really got to nail it. And so the pressure is a little bit different. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Pendo, the only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application. Tired of bouncing around multiple tools to uncover what's really happening inside your product? With all the tools you need in one simple to use platform, Pendo makes it easy to answer critical questions about how users are engaging with your product and then turn those insights into action. Also, you can get your users to do what you actually want them to do. First, Pendo is built around product analytics, seeing what your users are actually doing in your apps so that you can optimize their experience. Next, Pendo lets you deploy in-app guides that lead users through the actions that matter most. Then Pendo integrates user feedback so that you can capture and analyze what people actually want. And the new thing in Pendo, session replace, a very cool way to visualize user sessions. I'm not surprised at all that over 10,000 companies use it today. Visit pendo.io/lenny to create your free Pendo account today and start building better experiences across every corner of your product. P.S. You want to take your product-led know-how a step further? Check out Pendo's lineup of free certification courses led by talk product experts and designed to help you grow in advance in your career. Learn more and experience the power of the Pendo platform today at pendo.io/lenny.…

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