Crossing the Chasm From Individual Contributor to Manager to Executive

You're 30 years old. You've been in the tech game for the past eight years since graduating college. IC work for the first four years. Managing 2-3 people for the past few years. You're doing well. You're posting wins. You're failing and learning from it. But, you're frustrated seeing others around you promoted to Director, "Head of", VP, etc. You want to take on more responsibility, manage larger teams, and achieve bigger goals. What do you do?

Here's what you need to do to go from being seen as a strong IC/manager to being seen as an executive.

1. Align your individual goals to the company's goals, not just your department's.

When speaking about how you hit your goals, convey why that matters in the context of your department AND your company. Care about the company's future, not just your own or your team's. Do you think the CEO/Founder wakes up each day thinking just about your department? No. They're thinking about ALL teams: marketing, engineering, product, design, sales, and on. Push yourself to think about how what you're doing influences the company positively or negatively. If it's not helping the company, but helping your department, challenge yourself and your manager: are we doing busy work? Should we stop doing this? Why does this matter? Ask the tough questions.

2. Drive results. You have to win and prove measurable gains.

Talk is cheap. Continue to focus on doing great work. Those who lead are those who know how to get the job done and put wins on the board.

3. Communicate (overcommunicate) wins, failures, and learnings across departments.

"But that's my boss's job." False. Grow up and be a leader. That's your job, too. Find ways to communicate your wins beyond the walls of your department. Don't be afraid to share your failures, and what you learned from them also. A few examples:

• Release notes (product, marketing, sales, etc.). Find a cadence to share wins. If no one on your team is doing this, take the initiative. See what feedback you receive. If live releases become annoying, dial it back to weekly or monthly. Keep all release notes in a master google doc or internal tool so anyone in the company can refer back. Common in product/software teams but works for any team.
• Office hours. Host an open office hour each week on the same day and time (ex: Thursdays at 3-4 PM) and invite anyone in the company to ask questions and bring things that need your/your department's skillsets.
• Monthly (or weekly) lunch and learns. Pick a Friday at noon for an open zoom. Invite people to bring their lunches and learn about what you're doing.

4. Embrace the company's values and practice them aggressively.

Leaders on an executive team should not only share the values of the company, but practice them religiously. Example: two of my values at The Operators are "Bostonian transparent" (tell it like it is) and "move with extreme urgency." All execs on my team need to live these. If not, they won't work at our company. Our values are critical for the successful growth of the business and for servicing our clients. Ask yourself: are there ways I could better exemplify our values?

5. Be a talent magnet. Ask your closest homies for feedback on this.

Are you attracting new talent to the company who have worked with you before? Are you gaining a reputation internally and externally as someone who cares about others and their careers? Are you an empathetic manager? Can you inspire people? Does your team want to tackle the goals you set out and take on initiatives/projects you want to test or launch? If no one is willing to follow you into battle, you don't deserve a seat at the table. This isn't something you can fake. How do you know how you're stacking up? Simple: pull five people closest to you into a room and ask for direct feedback on your strengths and weaknesses. Two coworkers. Two friends. A family member. Ask for their honest opinions. Until you're self-aware of your pros and cons, no one will follow you. You'll be followed when you know yourself.

Go get it.

Durkin