Nearly 60% of women are worried about job losses due to AI, but only 22% are actively adopting it. This reflects a broader pattern of workplace inequality, where tech revolutions risk leaving women behind.

The solution lies in leadership, embracing vulnerability and authenticity, focusing on short-term clarity, and not pretending to have all the answers. But does it also lie in Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” philosophy, or does this encourage women to behave more like men in order to fit in?

This episode’s guest is Sheela Subramanian, who has had an extensive career in tech leadership, including roles at Google, Slack, and Salesforce. She's the co-author of How the Future Works, a bestselling book about flexible work and teams, focusing on how leaders can navigate change. She's a mother of two young daughters and balances multiple roles including being a wife, mother, daughter, and speaker.

Three reasons to listen

• Learn about the gap in AI adoption between men and women
• Understand how leaders can navigate workplace uncertainty by embracing vulnerability and acknowledging when they don't have all the answers
• Discover perspectives on burnout in the modern workplace, particularly how it affects women trying to fit into systems that weren't built for them

Episode highlights

• [00:07:32] How the Future Works
• [00:12:45] Life through, and after burnou
• [00:18:14] The Personal User Manual
• [00:20:20] Team level agreements
• [00:21:22] Team rituals
• [00:22:40] Self-awareness in leadership
• [00:24:07] Non-negotiables for leaders today
• [00:26:04] Where to start
• [00:28:18] Sheela's media recommendations
• [00:29:44] Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Links

• Connect with Sheela via LinkedIn
• How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to Do the Best Work of Their Lives, by Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian, and Helen Kupp
• Track and improve your team performance with Squadify
• Leave us a voice note

Effective leadership in tech means crafting a collaborative culture where growth happens through real-world challenges and strong interpersonal connections – not individual technical accomplishments.

Rob Dinsmore has an extensive background in leadership and team development, particularly in technical organisations like Cisco. He built a highly regarded programme for top engineering talent, helping these specialists expand their leadership skills and integrate them across the company to produce meaningful, business-driven outcomes.

Three reasons to listen

• To find out how to enable technical leaders to work effectively as a team
• To learn why leadership for technical experts is as much about collaboration and influence as it is about technical proficiency
• To hear how Cisco integrated senior technical leaders across departments, forming partnerships that transformed business initiatives

Episode highlights

• [00:09:34] Leadership at Cisco
• [00:14:39] Global Tech Leader Program
• [00:20:26] Using data to save the rhinos
• [00:25:27] Helping technical leaders build interpersonal skills
• [00:29:42] Learning the business and how to pitch it
• [00:32:18] Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Links

• Connect with Rob via LinkedIn
• Track and improve your team performance with Squadify
• Leave us a voice note

Effective teaming requires intentional design and can’t be achieved simply by putting people together on a project.

Teaming by Design emphasises the importance of embedding team effectiveness skills within the context of real work, rather than teaching it as a separate subject.

This approach recognises that valuable teaming skills are often developed through practical experience and reflection, rather than through theoretical instruction alone.

For this episode, Dan and Pia are joined in-person by Sara Beckman, who developed the concept of "teaming by design" while teaching MBA students. Sara works on integrating team effectiveness training into various courses, particularly in innovation, design, and new product development, and has conducted research on team dynamics, including studies at Hewlett Packard.

Three reasons to listen

• To discover a unique approach to teaching teamwork called which embeds team effectiveness skills into project-based courses
• To explore goal congruence and its critical role in team performance
• To learn about the challenges of bringing about psychological safety in teams and how it relates to conflict management

Episode highlights

• [00:09:29] Teaming by design
• [00:14:42] Teaming in corporate vs academia
• [00:19:00] Conflict
• [00:19:59] The University of Unlearning
• [00:25:59] The importance of shared goals
• [00:29:55] How students view leadership
• [00:32:11] What is the future of teaming?
• [00:36:22] The benefits of teaming by design
• [00:38:05] Sara's book recommendation
• [00:40:07] Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Links

• Connect with Sara via LinkedIn
• Books by Claire Keegan
• Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
• Rough Sleepers, by Tracy Kidder
• Track and improve your team performance with Squadify
• Leave us a voice note