 Great engineering managers practice an inclusive management style. What does that mean? And how can you cultivate one? Well, in this episode of the engineering career coach podcast, Jen Bunk, career coach for tech managers is going to tell us exactly how to do it. She's going to list the points that you can use to create and cultivate an inclusive management style with your team. Let's jump right in. All right, and now I'm excited to welcome in our guests, or I should say welcome back our guest for today, Jen Bunk. Jen is a career coach for tech managers and she is the CEO of People Stack. Jen, welcome back to the engineering career coach podcast. Thanks, Anthony. So so awesome to be here today. So for our listeners and our audience that maybe didn't hear the last episode with you and are familiar with what you do, maybe in your own words give them a little bit of a background on, you know, how you spend your days. Yeah. Well, how I spend my days, our mission, my mission and our mission of the People Stack is to help technical managers upgrade their careers, to really walk the path toward whatever it is that their dream career is and that means commanding a premium salary of at least 200k a year if you live in a place, a high cost of living place like, say, San Francisco or the, you know, the Bay Area. It's going to be higher than that. Maybe it'll be a little bit lower in certain parts of the country. But it's really getting paid for the value that you're adding and doing that with with a zen like work-life balance. So that's really what it is that we do. We focus exclusively on coaching technical managers. That's awesome. And you know, like you said, everyone can give some kind of value and I think a lot of engineering managers, technical managers, they, you know, they're giving value, but they're not necessarily getting in what they should in return and sometimes they're just not comfortable making it clear what that value is. And I don't think you need to do it in a way that is, you know, necessarily like they're bragging. But I know even like in my life as a consulting engineer, you know, it was important to kind of let the to let the clients understand the value that we provided to them so that they knew that what differentiated us from maybe other consultants or other engineering companies. And some people are uncomfortable with that. But if you're uncomfortable with that and your competitors are not, then you're kind of going to lose out. So I think what you're doing is very, very important. And I'm really happy you're doing it. So thanks for doing it. Yeah, thanks a lot. All right, so we're going to talk today about an inclusive management style. We're doing a lot of research at EMI. We've identified kind of four key drivers of great engineering managers being an inclusive management style, providing career growth opportunities for their team, interpersonal engagement and the ability to manage projects. And we're going to talk to Jen today. We're really going to touch on two of those, the inclusive management style and interpersonal engagement. We're going to focus a little bit more on the inclusive management style. And so, Jen, let's kind of dive right into this because it is an interesting topic. It's certainly something that listeners out there can start to do in their careers if they want to, you know, kind of create that kind of atmosphere that's much more comfortable for their team. And I know that one of the first things that you like to focus on or kind of enlist the points that we're going to go through is building trust. So maybe we can start with that. Yeah, absolutely. So it has to start with trust. So when I think of inclusive leadership, I think of how do we include everyone who we possibly can. And that means not only making sure that you're communicating to everyone that you possibly can and including them in conversations, but it also means empowering everyone that you possibly can. So if you're an engineering manager and you have a team, that means empowering everyone on your team and hopefully even everyone in your organization to do what it is that they are great at. So you can't do that and you can't create that space for making sure that everyone's included and has their room to shine and show their superpowers. You cannot do that if you don't have trust. So it has to start with building trust. And it's not just a one time thing. That's the other thing that I would add for now that we can talk about this more and unpack it even more. But like, it can't just be one conversation that builds trust. You've got to start somewhere and so it starts usually with one conversation, but it's really about a series of conversations that are going to happen over weeks and months and often years. And that's how trust is built. Yeah, that's great. And I like that point there at the end of how, you know, it can't be a one time thing. I think that with these four key drivers, I mean, we can tell an engineering manager, a technical manager like here for drivers that if you do these things well, you're going to become a great manager. Your team's going to love you. So that's great. But you can't then take those four things and go through them like an engineering punch list and just say done, done, done, done. It's more like something that you need to cultivate habits. Like I always tell my kids, build better habits, build better habits, build better habits. So you got to cultivate these habits around these four drivers all the time in your career and all the conversations with your team and all the emails with your team and all the correspondence with clients and different things. And so I think that's an important important thing to highlight here at the beginning of Jen and I's conversation because as we go through some of these different points. These are things that have to just become normal for you that have to just become all the time things and it happens for great managers. It happens even if you go into sports and you look at the teams that tend to win consistently over and over it's because they're building better habits and doing all the right things. So that's something to keep in mind. So Jen, the next point that we want to dive into a little bit is, you know, getting to know your team. Talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of times people say, okay, great, I understand that I need to build trust. How do I do that? And there's no, there's no easy way like we just talked about it's about developing those habits and that happens over time. It's really about thinking about your career and building the path to leadership mastery as a marathon. But how you start is with conversations and how you start is really by getting to know every single one of your team members, every single one of the people who you work with. All of the stakeholders, all of the decision makers for the projects that you're working with. And so when I say know them, often what I tell my clients is know them, know them to their bones. And what I mean is like know them, like know their soul, like see the inside of them and enter their world and really understand where it is that they're coming from. And then you even take it to the next level and you say, okay, I can actually even appreciate where they're coming from. Like, because it's one thing to keep an intellectual and say, yeah, I get it. Okay, especially if you've been there before, right, and you've experienced something that they've experienced before or been on a similar project before, or have a similar personality. It's really easy to build trust with people and to know people and to appreciate people who are the same as us and those similar backgrounds and who have been on similar projects as we have or if it's a project kind of project that you've been on before. And that's really easy. The challenge comes when it's people who are different, different backgrounds or maybe there's something new and contextually it's new kind of project or a new kind of challenge to tackle. So it's really then it becomes even more important to really know where everyone is coming from and appreciate that, like really understand who they are as a person, their personality, their beliefs, their values, their experiences, their triggers, like what might trigger them, like the negative and the positive triggers, like what might trigger them to like just be very, you know, to get angry or to get maybe even hostile or aggravated or demotivated. And then also like what are the things that tend to put them in those kinds of states, but then also the positive side of it as well. What gets them motivated, what really gets them in place of joy and I want to do this and let's do this together team. And so that happens over time but the only way that you can really do that is again is through a series of conversations and a series of communicating with people and really asking the questions and listening so that you can really appreciate where it is that they're coming from. Yeah, and again, it's another one of those things as you can see which is a pattern here that you know you have to do on a regular basis you have to continue to do it. You're not going to get to know someone overnight right so you're constantly doing the learning. And another thing that this I think really kind of highlights is one of the bigger challenges of engineers and technical professionals becoming successful managers is the variable that gets thrown in once you become a manager which is people. People are like totally different. It's not like an engineering equation. It's not like a problem you can solve. Every person is different. Everyone acts differently. Everyone has different communication patterns, different responses to different things. And so unless you know people and you get to know people well, you can't learn their different patterns and work with them the best that you can. I mean, you know, part of management in my opinion is, you know, you have to know kind of the strengths of each person on your team, some of the challenges they have, and you know, things that they like to do or don't like to do so that you can kind of manage effectively. And so, you know, to Jen's point, when you get to know people, you can much better manage kind of the relations between you and the different team members and really get the most out of everybody and put people in the best positions to succeed. Which I guess kind of goes in well to our next point, which is making assumptions or not making assumptions. Right. Right. And so sort of dovetail out of this. Like we're talking about, and to tie it back to the larger idea of inclusive leadership. Right. There's no way that you're going to empower others to be their best and make sure that they're actually included as part of this game, as part of this fabulous journey of building whatever it is that you're building together. There's no way that you're going to be able to do that without trust, without really knowing that, and if you make assumptions. Okay. So a lot of the times when clients come to me with challenges or problems, it's not all the time, but there's a pattern that comes up is they're making an assumption about what other people are thinking or feeling. When really the way to kind of solve that problem and just nip it in the bud is just ask, like, I'm curious, why did you say that? You know, I'm curious, why did you make that decision? You know, you can get up all in all up in your head about like, oh man, they, they decided to put this other person on the project and not my team member because they hate me and they know they're against me. Right. And you can go there. Right. And, but you could and that's fine. And you recognize it. We're human. We feel things like fear and anger and disgust sometimes. But to move out of that, a lot of times the best way is just not make an assumption about it and ask the person with curiosity, with compassion, hey, I'm curious why you put this person on the project and not my team member. Because I thought my team member would have been a great fit for this project. That's cool. You know, this other person is going to rock it. It's going to be awesome. But in the future, I'd love for you to consider my team member for this. So can we start a dialogue dialogue about this? Sometimes it's that simple. But like you were mentioning in the beginning, Anthony, that sometimes people feel a little bit weird or don't want to open up these conversations, like especially when it's around like self promotion or anything like that. But anything resembling self promotion or talking about, like even promoting somebody else who's on your team, but it's often about saying and asking the hard thing. That thing that you don't want to ask that person, right, that that thing that you don't want to ask that conversation that you don't want to have is very often the exact conversation that you need to have. Yeah, for sure. And I think that goes into the next point, I guess just to drive it home a little bit more is was asked a lot of questions, which is, you know, kind of what you're framing out there. But I think, you know, this is something, again, that happens consistently. Like if you get into a staff meeting, you know, what happened on this project, we had some trouble, let's talk through it a little bit, tell us, you know, what worked, what didn't work. And you have to keep asking questions. I think one of the challenges sometimes with leaders is that we tend to think like maybe we reached a certain level, which means we know more. More than the people that were leading, but a lot of times they have more answers than us. That's definitely part of it right and that's definitely part of not making assumptions, especially as we get more and more removed from what our team is doing and that just naturally happens as you as you become more and more experienced as a leader. Like it may start to be it's two, three, five, sometimes even 10 or 15 years since you've been doing what they're doing on a daily basis. You're developing as a leader for sure, you're developing leadership skills, but not making assumptions about, you know, the way that something should be done or how it should be built, for example. But it's also about just it's really a key to building that trust is asking for questions than making more statements. And really, like my favorite question to ask if you're like, okay, I want to ask more questions. Can you just give me one. It's why. Because often what's missing from this whole equation of making sure that people are truly included as part of a mission is that there's no mission. And there's no way to include people in a mission if that mission isn't there or if it's not clear. And yes, the onus is on senior leadership to make sure that that mission is there and that mission is clear. But the onus is also on the managers and the team members to if they're not sure what the mission is to ask, right. Why are we doing this. Okay, I get that that's why why are we doing that, like the five wise, you know what I mean. Right. And you can really get to the heart of why am I here in the existential question of why am I here in this seat eight plus hours a day. Like it's not just to build stuff. Right. If there's a larger mission here and if people and if you could help people get connected to that and ask those why questions more often to team members to senior leadership to everyone, then that's also going to create a more inclusive environment as well. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think a big part of an inclusive environment is including your team in the bigger mission or vision of the company or of the project that they're working on. So, if you tell me to go and you know design this roadway or portion of a roadway and I'm doing that all day, three weeks in a row. It can become a not in this, but if I understand that this roadway is going to, you know, get people safely one place to another, whatever the case may be, you know, it takes on a bigger meaning because I'm being included in what the overall picture is. And I know that that's an important part of it ties into a bunch of these four drivers is, you know, connecting people with, you know, the bigger picture of what's what they're working on so that they do feel really a part of that. So I think that that kind of all comes together there. For sure. And then the other thing that I would add on there before we move to the next point is that what a lot of people miss because, you know, folks like you folks like me we talk a lot about organizational mission like know the mission of your organization like why are you going to work? Why do you? Why are you building the things that you're building at the end of the day? But the other thing that I would add to that that so many people miss is what's my mission in my career? What's my individual mission as a leader and knowing that that that's going to help you show up better as a leader and be a more inclusive leader as well because you're going to be able to behave according to that mission and get people on board with that mission as well. And you're going to be more motivated to do better and to always show up as the best that are possible. So that's the other thing that I would add in terms of mission is yes know what your organization's mission is but also make sure you know what your mission is for your career and what kind of leader that you want to be. Yeah great point and that's something too that I can see from managers that can some can fall through the cracks because you're thinking about your projects you're thinking about everything else and you're not thinking about and you're thinking about maybe you are thinking about the bigger mission of the company and you're not thinking about you know what is this person interested in specifically? Where do they? Yeah and the more that we connected get connected with our own missions then that's how we're reminded oh wow people on my team have career missions as well. Like I know one of the things one of the pillars is is about career development right like really making sure that you're talking about the career development of your team numbers so that's going to overlap with this and so if you if you don't really have a sense of how you want to develop your own career and you haven't done that intentionally you're not really going to be able to help somebody else do that. But if you're doing it for yourself and you've been on that path and you've made some mistakes along the way like that's actually even better because then you can help your team to do that as well and be empowered to have the careers and build the careers that they want to build. Yeah which is also goes to a larger point that if you are a manager and you're focused on these four key drivers and you are practicing them your team members are also by habit learning them and they're going to exhibit those drivers and their management styles and they're going to become great managers as well and then you know that's how you cultivate you know a very positive leadership culture throughout an organization it starts with you know the managers building habit. So Jen talk about compassion and empathy and how they're tied into an inclusive manager. Yeah they're tied into it because of trust right. So we started out talking about trust. How do you build an inclusive team and inclusive organization. Well it all starts with trust. How do you build that trust you have to have empathy. And this kind of touches on what I started to talk about before around. Yeah you have to know them you have to understand them. But it has to go beyond. Yeah I get it right. It has to go beyond the intellectual understanding of yes I under I get it. I can give you a five step plan on how to get through this. That's important like that's the strategy and that's the tactics. But when we're talking about empathy it's really about that heart to heart connection feeling their pain. Like literally for a second feeling what it is that they might be feeling because then that's really when you're going to be able to enter their world and say oh wow I don't just get it up here I get it here at my heart as well. And now we can move forward from a place of having that that heart to heart understanding because especially with engineers right engineers and you're super smart right here super motivated. But we live up here most of our day because we have to right because if we make mistakes then then the bridge collapses then then the road isn't built as well as it could be or whatever else it might be. And that's an that's an important part of our jobs as engineers and as people who build stuff right like safety is is important and mitigating and mitigating risk is important. So but that's so that's why we stay up here why we stay up in our heads. But it's really kind of cultivating that that muscle and that habit of learning how to move out of your head and into your heart and having that empathy and having that feeling for for another team person for another team member for another person that that's you know if there's a number two thing that clients comes to me the most with it's you know how do I deal with this person I can't I don't get it right so number one is don't make assumptions. But then number two is really kind of feel what it is that they're going through right like for example a team member might be underperforming right. And for some people where we might go and what's going on like you're not you're not motivated you got it you know you got it you got to just start working harder. And like you might start to get frustrated with them or who knows right there they're underperforming and you just start to blame them and it just it just becomes this this whole thing when so you notice how you might be making assumptions there without having a conversation with them but when you do have the conversation about OK you're not performing up to party or what's going on. It's really about listening to them and understanding where it is that they're coming from. Now I'm not saying to make excuses for anyone like we have performance standards that we want to meet right and it's about getting them back up to those performance standards. Like for example they may be going through something at home like maybe their mom just died and they didn't and they didn't tell you and you don't know that. And by the way they're not going to tell you that unless there's that trust. But let's say let's say something catastrophic happened in their family and they're in their dealing with something outside of work. You want to create that space for them to be able to share that with you. And then you could say OK I'm going to give you a couple of days off so that you can go grieve and spend some time with your family. My heart goes out to you and then you can you can come back after a couple of days. And so we can all sort of experience that and feel that in our hearts because even if you haven't experienced that exact thing. We have that capability as humans to have that hard to our connection. So that's what the empathy is really about. Yeah and I think while empathy can be difficult and you need to really practice it. I do think that what engineers have going for them often is that in most cases they've been through the engineering ranks like the people on their team are going through now. So they kind of do have somewhat of an understanding what they're going through in terms of the career ladder and what they're dealing with on some of the projects and with some of the clients and some of the stressors involved in that. Which I think for me was always helpful in management as an engineer because you know I felt like in those ways I could relate. But I agree with Jen and that getting to know them also more in the personal side will help you even more with that because you'll be able to relate to some of their other situations and circumstances. So that's very helpful. So our last point here Jen before we jump into our take action segment is talking about controlling people what we can and can't do talk about that a little bit. Yeah. One of the things so if we're talking about inclusive leadership and really the larger larger goal here is how can I be the best leader I can possibly be how can I show up as that superhero leader. And make the largest impact that I possibly can. And one of the larger concepts that often comes up when people ask questions around this is control. And often where people get stuck is they're focusing on things that they cannot control. Oh my God. My boss is hasn't given me a promotion right I've tried and tried and tried for the last three six nine months two years my boss just won't give me a promotion. And if you focus on it from that perspective and have that internal dialogue going on what you're focusing on is in the way that you're looking at it is what you can control. Because at the end of the day. Let's just say in this case it would be your boss's decision whether or not to give you that promotion. You cannot control you cannot like control your boss like a robot and just make him give you and like reprogram your boss to give you a promotion. But instead you can focus on what we can control which is how we show up. So what we can control is how we respond to other people. So yes your boss may say I'm not really sure there's still a few more skills that need to you need to get upgraded before you before you get a promotion. So you can choose in that moment to play the blame and shame and how dare you game. But if you do that then you're focusing on what you can control. But if you say OK I get it there's still a few skills there's still a little bit more measurable impact that I need to give and show in these areas what can I do how can I show up. So like that's one bigger example that has much more higher stakes potentially higher stakes results there. But even if it's just like I don't know someone someone like blows you off or something like like you're supposed to meet with them. You're supposed to meet them at 10 o'clock and you're sitting there and you're like where's where's Jane like Jane's supposed to meet with me. If you play the blame and shame game. Oh my god. Jane's always late. I can't believe she's such she's so terrible. How can she do this to me. But like you can't control whether or not James on time like that's James choice. Poor Jane. If there's James out there we love you. But instead you can say all right gee. I wonder what's going on like again turn on that compassion and that empathy. I hope James okay. I hope everything's okay. And then just focus how you can respond in that moment. All right. Cool. I got I can spend 15 minutes I can I can respond to some slack and messages I can respond to some emails and if she's not here in 15 minutes I can just decide that she either forgot about it or something else came up. So it's focusing on what we can control versus what we can't we can control other people. We can control our reactions and how we show up. Yeah that's awesome and I'm actually rereading this book that I like a lot right now called Zen and the art of happiness by Chris Prentice and there's a great line in the book where he says stress is not doesn't come from the events that happen to us they come from how we respond to those events. That's how stress is created so you know exactly to your point you know something happens to you inevitably especially in the world of engineering on engineering projects things happen all the time. And you know the way that you respond to those will have a major impact in terms of your success overall. Absolutely. Certainly interact with people too. Yeah. And then the other thing that I would stack on top of that is there's a difference between reacting and responding. Because where a lot of people might go here is like well I'm going to feel angry like if James Lee I'm going to feel angry right like that's okay you can like there's there's that knee jerk reaction. Right. Like when when the doctor hits your knee it's going to it's going to there's going to be a reaction it's almost physiological. And that to a certain extent we may not be able to control that because we're human we feel things right we can't always control what it is we're going to feel in a given moment. So it's like allowing yourself to have that reaction of yeah I feel angry I feel sad I feel worried I feel fearful I'm scared like allowing that sitting with it for a moment. Giving it a label like yeah I'm scared. I don't know if I can swear or not but right but like I'm really scared out of my mind right now. And then you can choose how you respond to that right that's what we have control over we can then say alright I can respond to this fear and like curl up into a ball and cry and like never come out of it right. Or I could say alright the fears there. Why is the fear there. How can I turn that fear into an opportunity. Or whatever it is you know so it's it's really like distinguishing between the reaction that knee jerk like gut reaction that we're going to feel because we're human and then what happens in the five to 30 seconds after that and how we respond. Right and and I know probably a lot of listeners are thinking like well that's impossible everyone's going to have that like knee jerk reaction but what I found myself and just working on this specifically is that. It is again the cultivation of a habit it's a mindset actually you're changing your mindset so that when you when things happen you there's like a little bit more space for you to. You know respond and say like okay let me think about this maybe there's something really great that I could take out of this as opposed to not so. It's again none of this stuff is easy if it was everybody would be doing it so the idea the idea between Jen and I having a conversation here is to bring some points out that you can try to work on if they work for you integrate them into your management style. Yep. So with that Jen's going to stick with me we're going to come back in a minute we're going to wrap this one up with our take action today segment and give you something actionable that you can take and try to become a little bit more inclusive in your style. All right we're back with Jen Bonk Jen is a career coach for tech managers and CEO of the people stack and today we're talking about. An inclusive management style which we found to be one of the four key drivers of successful engineering managers. Real quick I just want to recap some of the points that Jen ran through here and then we're going to wrap it up with you and give you something that you can do immediately. Jen talked about you know building trust with your team members is something that you have to do all the time not just something that you're doing every so often you need to build that trust with them to really get to know them. You know kind of enter into their world so that you can you know build that kind of level of engagement and then inclusive management style don't make assumptions. You know that's something you need to ask and flush things out as opposed to making assumptions and in terms of asking ask a lot of questions because the more information you can get. Then you can have that inclusive style you don't have to guess at things and have people think you're not you know connected with them necessarily. Jen talked about compassion and empathy really putting yourself in your team member shoes if you want to become inclusive and include them in things you need to understand how they think and what they're going through. And then lastly we talked about controlling what you can control you can't control what other people do necessarily but you certainly can control the way you respond to it and so kind of cultivating that mindset so. All great stuff Jen what we want to do now is give our listeners maybe one thing they listen to this and they're maybe on their way into work they're on the bus on the train on their commute and they get there they want to start to be more inclusive what can they do. Ask more questions. Ask more questions and the statements right so take a look and it and be more mindful of. Okay what I just said there was that a question or was that a statement and set a goal that any given day you are going to ask more questions than making statements. Because when you ask questions then that allows you to then build trust and get some no people and make assumptions and empathy for people and control what you can control. It gives you that that perspective that you're not going to have if you didn't ask very often we get into statement making mode so that's what I would challenge everybody to do is get out of statement making mode and ask more questions. Awesome. And again that is something you can do today when you get to the office you know you get into a staff meeting in a conversation with someone. Ask some questions and to Jen's point you do have to be careful because sometimes we go into it saying we're going to ask more questions but we start asking a question we end up with a statement like we ended up saying something so. All of these things all of these things are things that you what you need to just do is be aware of them right changing anything begins with awareness and if you if you catch yourself and say okay I'm making a statement instead of a question let me make an adjustment. As long as you can stop yourself you can make that adjustment and I think that's what management's all about it's continually improving continuous improvement refining your tools your strategies the actions you take. And if you keep working on it there's no doubt that you can develop these four key drivers are developing each one of them and I think the inclusive one is important because it ties in closely with some of the other ones like we talked about the engagement. Providing career growth right they're kind of very layered together so. Jen thank you again for coming on the podcast for a second time we're really taking advantage of all of your your insight here and we do appreciate it and how you really laid those out for people. And real quick before we let you go if our listeners want to learn a little bit more about you and some of the programs or the coaching that you offer what's the best way for them to do that. You can check out our website it's thepeoplestack.com awesome Jen thanks so much for your time we appreciate it. Yeah thanks Anthony had a great time. I hope you enjoyed this episode please leave your comments and or questions in the comments section below this video. Also if you'd like to view the full show notes for this episode visit engineeringmanagementinstitute.org or see the link in the video description. There you will find the key points discussed in today's episode as well as links to any of the resources websites or books mentioned during the episode. Until next time I wish you the best in all your engineering career endeavors.