Unlocking Leadership Confidence With Syte Project Manager Liz Alvarez

Our own Liz Avarez was recently interviewed by Lauren Glynn on the Unlocking Leadership Confidence podcast. Watch and listen for Liz’s insights on how leaders can create an environment for success, what key leadership skills have become even more important since the pandemic, and her best advice on leading through tough times.

 

Transcript

Lauren:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to my channel. Today we’re going to be talking to my friend Liz. She is an experienced project manager and business owner, and she is here to tell you all about her experience being a leader in both of those. So Liz, why don’t we start by you just telling us a little bit about yourself?

Liz:

Thank you for having me. I have been working as a project and program manager for about 20 years. I started my career at Dell in Texas, where I was there for about seven years and then have moved to Apple and Whole Foods and a variety of other companies and industries over the course of time.

But I’ve been running my own project management consulting practice for the last three years where I provide guidance and contract work for medium to large companies where they need assistance, which could take a number of different forms. It could be that they actually need someone to do the project management or they need someone to help give them guidance on building a project management office. It really has run the gamut.

Lauren:

And again, thank you so much for being here. Let’s jump right in. Let’s talk a little bit about your transition, you know, from being an employee at some of those other companies to now being sort of your own manager, managing teams as you step into, you know, contract roles, talk a little bit about that transition and what that was like for you.

 

Liz:

That’s a really great question. Over the course of my career in terms of like working for other companies, I had experience as an individual contributor and as a manager and as an official manager, as we say, leading without authority, you know, having direct reports, not having direct reports.

And that experience has really prepared me for the work that I do on my own, because I have to step into existing teams and be able to provide them with guidance and leadership on their projects right away. It’s a very interesting transition because you have a lot less time to build credibility when you’re doing consulting work.

You have to kind of go in with either giving the client visibility to the portfolio that you’ve done before, whether that’s through a resume or any type of, you know, conversations that you’ve had or by coming in and right away being able to basically provide them a plan to start with. It’s a lot different than it was working for other companies because in those instances, you kind of have a little bit more time to build, I guess your reputation or to build your credibility, but in the consulting world, you have to come in with it. You have to start with it. That has been a really interesting transition. You have to have a lot more confidence in your abilities when you’re in the consulting world. You have to project less uncertainty, I think, than if you were an individual contributor.

Lauren:

Yeah, as someone who has been doing consulting roles, I totally understand kind of having to step in and just be the person who knows it all. In that vein, what mistakes did you make maybe early on into that transition or maybe earlier in your career as a new manager or leading without authority?

You know, what mistakes did you make? And then, you know, what did you learn from it? How did you grow from that?

Liz:

So many mistakes, so many mistakes there. I can think of, I guess, overarching themes of mistakes, right? And one of those was … I was always the youngest in my group. If I was hired in with like another group of project managers, I was usually the youngest on the team.

That came with a lot of maybe overconfidence in my abilities, right? Just kind of a little ego, right? Like a little too much ego would come from that. And that would lead me to listen less because I would think, well, I’m at the same level as these folks who have a lot more career than me and you know, I’m the young and the new and I know better, right? That type of thing.

Looking back on it now is incredibly embarrassing. And I’m no longer in that space. I’m no longer the youngest. And in a, in a lot of cases, I’m now the elder of the group. It’s a very interesting transition to that. I also think that there’s a level of maturity that just comes with age, right?

Age and experience, you learn a lot, and it, it keeps your ego in check, because you realize, I think, at least for me, as I’ve gotten older, I just realize how much I actually don’t know. And there’s also an aspect of leading a team when you’re young, again, at least for me, where I took a lot of things personally.

That really shouldn’t have been taken personally, right? I would have either managers or other people that I was working with trying to give me feedback and I, I wasn’t as receptive to it as I am now.

Those are, those are pretty, pretty big mistakes. I also realize now that people’s personal lives really impact their professional lives.

And when I was going through some pretty serious issues in my personal life, I did not realize the impact it was having on my professional life. And I had a couple of friends try to tell me that there was like, something was going on and I didn’t listen.

What that has taught me is you just don’t know what’s going on with people personally and to try to be as empathetic and give people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.

Lauren:

Yeah, you know, when I started at Apple, I was the same way, which is where we met. I was the youngest person on the team, so I obviously knew everything. And I didn’t need to hear all that feedback. And then I went through a similar personal situation. And also was younger and didn’t really realize the impact that it had. And so, yes, totally agree with all of that. Thank you so much for sharing that part of your journey.

Let’s take a step back and talk about kind of leadership as a whole. What are the top three skills that you think a new leader should really focus on developing when they either want to become a leader or they just stepped into a leadership role for the first time?

Liz:

I think the top skill that a leader needs to have is emotional intelligence. Empathy. I think that’s super crucial. I think we’re beginning to see some of the generational differences in perceptions of leadership, because there’s a, I don’t want to use the term old school, because that’s not really what I mean, but old school thought that if you are authoritarian, that you are a leader, right? If you boss people around, if you really just harangue your team into their work.

Lauren:

Just keep pushing them harder.

 

Liz:

You just keep pushing them harder. If you are working 60 hours a week and you’re demanding that they work 60 hours. Like, all of those things, that’s a very that’s a leadership model of a different age.

And I think now there’s a shift happening, and it’s been happening for a long time, but I think we’re starting to really see a lot more academic research around leadership being more about what people call soft skills, right? It’s building relationships, emotional intelligence, empathy and meeting people where they’re at, right?

A leader. And a manager are two different things, right?

A leader doesn’t necessarily have direct reports. We were talking about, you know, managing without authority. Leadership is really about influence. You have, you know, the emotional intelligence and you also need to have the ability to influence, which means that you have to really communicate well.

And I think developing communication skills, which really is 80 percent listening to what the other person is saying, either through verbal or nonverbal communication, that’s really, really critical.

Another skill that I feel like I’ve developed over time that I find very useful is being able to differentiate between the symptom and the problem.

I think a lot of times managers look at just the symptoms and try to fix the symptoms, but a leader is actually looking at the root cause and looking for the actual problem. The big picture.

I also think that there’s a little bit of. McGregor’s theory of X and Y, right, where basically where there are some people who believe that people do not want to work and have to be pushed. And there’s another group of leaders that think that people do want to work and they want to do good work. And I tend to fall into that category. I believe that people want to be productive. People want to feel valued and if you look at your team through that lens, instead of the lens of these people don’t want to work, it really changes the way that you engage with people.

Lauren:

Yes, for sure. And that also, I think, goes back to what you were talking about before of kind of the generational shift in how we’re approaching management and leadership in understanding that people, like you said, want to feel valued, they want to feel appreciate, they want to feel led and not managed or forced or micromanaged.

Liz:

Yes, definitely not micromanaged. And the pandemic has really highlighted a lot of that shift, right? It’s almost like it was a time warp, right? Where this change, which was kind of coming along slowly. Warped very quickly because of the pandemic. And I think we’re beginning to see a lot of that come to fruition where there’s this whole debate about remote working. You read about companies that are like asking their employees or managers who are asking their employees to take scheduled bathroom breaks when they are working remotely, which is crazy to me.

That level of management is, is not something that I adhere to, right? My concern is, are you getting your, your deliverables done well and on time? And in my case, it’s, are you meeting a client where they’re at? As long as those things are happening, I don’t really care where or when.

Lauren:

Right. As long as the job gets done, what difference does it make?

Liz:

Exactly. What difference does it make? And most of us well, at least, let’s say, again, using kind of an aged term, but white-collar workers, right? We’re sitting in front of a computer all day. And I don’t need to have my eyes on a team member to feel like they’re working. I expect kind of the same courtesy.

In the world that I’m in now where it’s me, I am my own manager, so to speak, but I still work with a team. I have clients, I have other partners that are helping my clients implement the solutions that they’re trying to implement. It’s still a team. It’s still a team of people. The engagements that I enter into come in with a set of ground rules, right? And those ground rules look like everyone is responsible for their own action items, everyone is responsible for reading the meeting notes afterwards. Then you let folks do their work.

If you start to see delays or issues, it’s more about reaching out to that person one on one and saying, “how can I help you? I know we’re struggling. Were the instructions not clear? Do you need help? What can I do to support you?”

And you do really have to build those relationships and help your team understand that you’re looking after their best interests.

Lauren:

That’s really crucial. The whole role of a leader is to be there to help the team look out, like you said, for their best interests, kind of protect them and, and help guide them, but it’s not there to tell them what to do or how, I mean, maybe tell them what to do a little bit, but not, you know, look over their shoulder and how to do it and, you know, micromanaging.

Liz:

Right. And I think that there’s, there’s a big difference between providing feedback and micromanaging.

Those are two very, very different things. Feedback is a collaborative experience, it should be a collaborative experience.

You have given me this deliverable and I think X. What do you think?

It should be a conversation. It shouldn’t just be kind of a one-way delivery of criticism. That usually doesn’t go over very well. I know that for myself, I don’t like to be criticized.

I prefer to have someone say, Hey, I have a question, right? I have a question about like this approach, or I have a question about what you have asked, right? Or, I have some thoughts like. It really ought to be positioned in that way as opposed to you did that wrong. That usually that brings up people’s defenses and a leader should really work on the skills, the communication skills, the emotional intelligence to be able to initiate a conversation around feedback that isn’t going to immediately bring up people’s defenses, and if their defenses do come up being able to recognize it and reevaluate your approach.

I’m not saying that a leader should always be responsible for other team members feeling defensive, but you do have to be able to recognize it and you have to know how to diffuse it. And sometimes that means you need to stop, and back up and maybe, let’s talk about this later, or let’s talk about why we’re having this conversation.

Lauren:

And that’s one of the things that I really, you know, emphasize to the leaders that I work with and teach is focus on the why, you know, why is this happening? Why is this person reacting this way? Why are we doing the work that we’re doing? If you really focus on coming back to the why for all of this. It really puts you in a much better place as opposed to, like you said, getting defensive or, you know, making someone else defensive and, and helps kind of guide those conversations a little bit better.

Liz:

It really does. And, and just thinking about my own experience of the way that your personal life can impact your behavior in your professional life. And even that concept of a personal versus professional life, that’s, I don’t think that is real anymore. It is just your life, and everything blends together.

Because of my own experience, I feel a little extra sensitive to what people may be going through at home. And I aim to develop rapport and trust with the people that I’m working with, whether that be people that I manage directly or people that I interact with at a consultant level. So that ideally, they can have a safe space, not to give me all the details of their life because that is certainly not what I’m asking for, but to be able to say, you know, I’ve had a rough couple of days, can I come back to this later or I need a mental health day? That’s really important to me because I’ve had my own mental health struggles. Totally fine, you know, do what you need to do.

It’s really about looking at the people that you’re working with and assuming the best. Going in with assuming the best of intentions.

 

Lauren:

When I started at the store before I worked with you in corporate at Apple, that was one of our core values is assume positive intent.

Assume that everyone is doing the best that they can with the information they have in the moment. And I think that that is really key to being a good leader is making those assumptions because everyone, you know, everyone has their own thing. Everyone has a lot of things going on. Like you said, personal and professional lives, there’s really no line anymore.

I think assuming that positive intent, assuming that everyone’s doing the best that they can really helps you as a leader come from an empathetic and understanding place, as opposed to this, why aren’t you doing your job? You know, getting really angry about it and trying to control it and command it.

Liz:

I also think a leader understands that other people’s actions do not have to be a reflection on you. I think a manager, somebody who, especially someone who wants to micromanage, they are very caught up in how other people’s performance impacts their perception or the way other people perceive them. And I think a leader is actually able to put some distance there.

A leader more recognizes that people have autonomy and that other people’s challenges do not have to be a reflection on your leadership.

Lauren:

And I think that it also takes an evolved organization to be able to do that as well. Like, it’s not just up to the leader, it’s up to the whole organization for them to be able to make that distinction as well.

So as leaders, we should strive to make those organizations, to create those environments, and help for other leaders or newer leaders coming up to be able to make that distinction in that separation.

Liz:

I think that’s a really good point, that there is a difference in being able to live a lot of the values that we’ve talked about when it’s a smaller organization.

It’s just a lot easier to do that because you aren’t, hopefully fighting a lot of the bureaucracy or politics that can come in with some larger organizations. In larger organizations, it takes a commitment from the institution to live those values. And that is very, very hard to do.

The space that I’m working in now over the last year has been primarily supporting small to mid-sized companies with implementations of ERPs or work management systems or whatever it is. And I have found that there’s a lot of reward in working in some of these, you know, smaller organizations because they are more apt to want to also build those relationships because their entire business model is based on building relationships.

It’s definitely a different audience.

Lauren:

Yeah. I suppose. Yes. I have experienced the same thing in different size organizations. I totally agree. It’s a lot easier to steer a smaller ship or change course when the ship is smaller than it is to change course when the ship is giant.

A couple more things to cover before we wrap up. You know, we talked a little bit about having empathy and understanding and, you know, focusing on the person that you’re working with as you’re as the leader.

How would you recommend for new leaders to lead teams through difficult times? Say that the economy is going poorly and things are not looking good and, you know, projects are getting deprioritized. How would a leader approach that with their teams, you know, coach them, help them to move through difficult times like that?

Liz:

I think honesty and transparency are crucial when an organization is going through a tough time. Business runs in cycles. Very rarely will it be kind of a constant upward trajectory. It’s, it’s really going to be more peaks and valleys over time. And leaders having enough respect to be honest with their teams about this is what’s going on. This is some of the decisions that are being considered. What do you think? And really engaging the team in the problem solving is really crucial because teams respond better if they are part of the solution than if they’re having the solution imposed upon them. There are Numerous examples of companies engaging their teams in some of the decision making and you find a lot of creative solutions.

And I think a lot of it is humility, right? The leader needs to have enough humility to say, I am not going to have all of the good ideas, right? You need to have people on your team that have varying backgrounds, varying experiences helping you look for numerous solutions.

I think that new leaders often feel that they have to have all of the answers, and they don’t.

They need to have the ability, and it comes back to that, that confidence and the communication skills, you know, confidence isn’t always having the right answers. Sometimes confidence is being able to say, I don’t know. And just, and being okay with it, like, just having the ability to say, I don’t know, let’s talk about it, like, tell me what you think, and, and really engaging their teams in that way.

It could also mean that there are some tough conversations ahead. When there are downturns or tough times, you need to be able to have hard conversations, whether it’s with your team or with your client, and have the ability to say no. And sometimes no is the right answer.

Lauren:

Oftentimes no is the right answer too, I would say.

 

Liz:

Yes. So, I think that would be my best guidance. But just coming from my experience and working in larger organizations, often when there are hard times, that means that there are headcount reductions that are coming. In an ideal world, a leader has helped guide their team into a position where they have such valuable skills and experiences that they’re a little insulated from headcount reductions, but that’s not always possible.

Sometimes leaders have to have those hard conversations of there are headcount reductions coming. This is what is being considered and being very transparent about what the process is going to look like. If there’s going to be any post support. What the timeline is. Because you really don’t want to surprise your team.

You don’t want to surprise your team. As we saw a lot during the pandemic of bringing people into Zoom calls and saying, oh by the way, you guys are all laid off. That is not leadership. That is not leadership. That is something else.

Lauren:

The opposite of leadership, I would say.

Alright, well, finally, we’ve covered a lot of gold nuggets today. What is the one piece of advice you would want to give to a new leader just starting in their role or maybe thinking about moving into leadership? What’s that one thing that maybe you wish you had known when you were in that situation?

Liz:

Mentorship is invaluable. Reaching out to people that you admire that maybe were your managers in the past or were leaders for you and reaching out to them and saying, Hey, I’m in this new position, you know, these are the things that I’m challenged by. What do you think? You’ve got to be able to select the right mentor. That’s pretty crucial.

Mentorship could also be not someone you actually know. I’ll just use myself as an example. I have had a few opportunities to work with executive consultants or executive coaching or coaches and those have been fabulous experiences because again, you are leaning on someone and acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers.

I think that for new leaders mentorship is really crucial. You really want to have someone that you can bounce ideas off of and you want to be pretty selective about who you choose to be a mentor to you. And kind of going back to that idea around leadership.

You know, if you are reaching out to someone who’s very top down, then you may not get the results that you’re looking for if you are dealing with a team that is not of that generation. You do have to have a certain level of discernment in who you choose to be your mentor.

Lauren:

And I will say, I wish I had taken more advantage of the people who could have been mentors for me when I was starting out. I wish that was something that I had realized would be helpful and didn’t like you said earlier have that I’m the youngest in this team so I must be great, and I know everything or have that attitude where I didn’t need help. I feel like a lot of young people feel that way so I can understand, but yeah, I wish I had been more proactive about asking for mentorship from people.

Liz:

I agree. And that’s a skill in and of itself, right? Of being able to ask for help, being able to ask for mentorship. I feel the same way. I wish I had taken more advantage when I was younger, of the opportunities to get mentorship and, and mentorship doesn’t necessarily always have to be like this extended relationship. Sometimes mentorship is situational and just recognizing that that’s okay too. I would like to be able to go back and give myself that advice. Like, go back and say, hey, that person right there that is your manager and is really awesome and you really appreciate, ask them questions.

Lauren:

Yes, exactly. Well, Liz, thank you so much for joining me today.

Liz:

Thank you for having me.

Lauren:

I’m so glad we could have this time to catch up. If people want to reach out to you, how should they do that?

Liz: Absolutely. People can reach out at alvarez.consulting, that’s the web address or liz@alvarez.consulting. And they can get ahold of me at either way.

Lauren: Great. Thank you so much again and have a good rest of your day. Thanks so much.