Technology leaders and CEOs are finding that they are encountering more and more challenges as they grow their teams and businesses. Here are the top 3 challenges I have been coaching people through and how to overcome them.
Hiring the right talent and retaining them.
A survey carried out in 2020 for Founders showed that one of the biggest issues was finding the right people. Finding people is constantly one of the highest-ranking challenges for technology platforms. Competition is high and retention is tough. Here are some questions to ask yourself when hiring new people.
What do we offer that is different from our competitors?
What would encourage someone to come to us?
If we cannot offer a high salary, what can we offer in return (better work-life balance? Stock options? Autonomy? Training?)
What is the trade-off for paying a reputable agency to help us locate this person vs taking the time to find them ourselves?
What is our reputation in the marketplace? What are people saying about us?
How are we identifying the best top talent? How robust is our process for hiring? What can we do better during assessment?
Being a true leader of people
Many tech leaders have fallen into this role after being excellent at their job technically. Just because you are a great developer doesn’t mean you find leadership easy. This is apparent when you are also promoting someone in your organisation as a CEO or head of a department/ region. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are finding it difficult to lead a team effectively and efficiently and to ask the potential leaders you want to promote.
Do I want to be a leader or can I fill this gap with a leadership expert?
How can I learn to be a better leader?
What can I do to learn about how highly effective teams work together?
Can I get feedback on how I am doing from a third party to help me improve or develop myself?
Ensuring a work-life balance and stress reduction
For many tech leaders in larger and smaller companies, ensuring they spend enough time with their families and keep stress levels at a manageable level is important. A study in 2021 looked at future-proofing startups (including tech startups). Stress management was a large part of this. With rising responsibilities, this can be a challenge. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are having complaints from your family or are starting to feel more stressed than relaxed.
What is the trade-off when I am stressed compared to calm and how does this affect my effectiveness/ efficiency?
What is more important to me right now family time or work?
How can I change the imbalance?
Can I work with my family on gaining work-life balance/ reducing stress? How can we help each other?
Where can I borrow time from to spend with my family or have relaxation/ ‘me time’?
If you cannot find ANY time for family relaxation, how will this continue to affect your mental health and that of the people around you? What happens when you DO make that change? How does it feel for you and the people around you?
After asking the questions above some people decide to make dramatic and significant changes. Taking steps to achieve all of the above can dramatically change the output of your business, the effectiveness of your teams and your stress levels as well as the emotions of the people around you.
Having an unbiased partner to work through these questions with can also help such as a mentor or Executive Coach.
Feel free to message caroline@successCL.com for more information about how coaching can help you.
Caroline Langston is the Co-Founder of Successful Consultants Ltd, an Executive, Personal and Career Development Coaching company in Hong Kong and New York. Caroline is dedicated to coaching people for performance success, wellness and happiness in their careers and lives. She is degree qualified with a Certificate in Professional Coaching Mastery. She is also a Professional Certified Accredited Coach (International Coaching Federation), has a Certificate in Team Coaching from the EMCC and further certifications in Neuro Linguistic Programming at Master Practitioner and Coach level. www.successCL.com