My leadership Document — 2021 edition

June 28, 2021

#43 – June 28, 2021

this week's favorite

Leadership is a loaded word. We attribute a lot to it; we expect a lot from it; we know when we see it, and yet, we don’t have a concise way to describe what it means to be a great leader due to its many facets.

Before joining HubSpot over five years ago, I was an entrepreneur for 13-plus years and leader of multiple small companies with no more than 40 employees. While I fancied myself a leader at the time, I can now look back and see how limited my leadership skills were and how much HubSpot has pushed me to grow. Many of the lessons I learned were about how to communicate effectively as a leader. If you’re a new manager, especially if you’re also joining a new company that may have a different culture than you're used to, this post will be especially helpful for you.

Although there is no shortage of reports on overall software testing trends, the state of testing at the organizational level—particularly at “household name” brands—has historically been a black box. On the one hand, large organizations often have access to resources far beyond the reach of smaller businesses (for example, commercial as well as open source software, access to consultants and services, etc.). But on the other hand, they face daunting challenges such as:

Encourage them to go big, to step into something that they aren’t fully comfortable with. One way to think about any kind of growth is as a series of calculated risks. You don’t get better at riding a bike by just pedaling along on your Peloton.

I have found it useful to bear these in mind while I coach. I’ve passed them on in various forms to people who are learning how to be better leaders, and suggest that leaders pass them on too.

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