Introvert to Director — Leading in Your Unique Way
My path to Director would have surprised a younger Dave. I had a particular view of what being a leader was, and I felt my personality didn't match. I was wrong.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers, and specific leadership advice.
I was a lucky teenager. One summer, my parents sent me to a sailing summer camp. For a week, a group of kids sailed around the Florida Keys, learning a bit about sailing, swimming, and sunburn.
I don’t remember anyone from that sailing trip. I remember sitting on the front of the boat in a bit of a storm. All the other kids were below, laughing and playing card games.
The camp adult came up to me, and confirmed that I was having a good time. I was. I love the water and boats and nature and the sea. But I was also sensitive to the fact that I was “not normal” because I was sitting by myself.
“It’s great that you’re so comfortable being by yourself.” he said, and then walked back below deck.
That comment stuck with me. Because I was very comfortable being by myself. It was an element of my personality. One which I thought as a kid was strange, and as I grew up, I realized was just… me.
This side track story leads me to my main point. As I grew up, I mentally attached extroversion as a characteristic of leaders, and my introversion as a characteristic of a follower. Which it turns out is wildly inaccurate.
I’ve repeatedly talked to people early in their career who are absolutely convinced that leadership / management is not for them. “Oh, I really don’t want to do that.” they say firmly.
When I ask for clarification on what “that” is, they’ll often state things which are not requirements for leadership roles. Because the true requirements are frequently different from our expectations.
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My impression of leadership positions.
When I was in high school, I remember being asked to join the student council. To this day, I have no idea how that came about (I’m moderately curious). But I rejected the offer. I felt nothing like a leader. The idea of being on the council felt ludicrous. Who was I to lead people? I didn’t like being in groups of people, let alone being a leader of them.
As I looked at potential careers, I ended up in computer science. And at no point during my career planning, or first year of writing code, did I consider leadership / management as a direction I’d go in.
Why wasn’t I considering leadership positions?
Leaders looked like social leaders. In my experience, leaders spoke in public, organized big social events, and walked around shaking hands with people. That wasn’t me.
Leaders looked controlling. While I, personally, appreciated people leading me, I didn’t apply the same logic to others. I felt that a leadership position would somehow put me in control over them, which felt uncomfortable.
Leaders looked confident. While I knew my stuff well enough, leaders looked so confident. They declared their opinions confidently, and it made it easy for me to follow them. I, on the other hand, always knew I could be wrong. How could I confidently ask a team to do something, if I wasn’t sure it would work?
It turns out that my experiences didn’t tell a full story of what was needed from leaders.
My first experience with leadership.
I was a software engineer with a few years of experience. Our small engineering team was being lead poorly. Our manager wasn’t communicating requirements or goals or vision clearly. I asked our skip if I could manage the team instead.
Even at that point, I didn’t picture myself as a great manager or leader. I simply felt that I could do this job better. I wanted to get those requirements for our team, help set our goals and vision, and communicate directly with our customers. Not because I wanted a different job, I just wanted that job done well.
While not immediately, I was eventually given the position. And once I was in the role, it became apparent that leadership didn’t need to be what I’d imagined. I didn’t need to change my personality to become a decent leader. As I grew there, and at Amazon, I built my own leadership style based on the things I experienced, and my personality.
I wish more people had a chance to realize that their personal leadership style could be a unique thing.
Here are a few things I learned along the way.