Decoding Leadership

George Sudarkoff is an experienced engineering leader who has made a consulting business out of coaching leaders with ADHD. We had a fascinating discussion relevant for leaders of all types: those who are neurodiverse, and those who work with them. We discussed his leadership journey, how to support ADHD employees, some of the challenges people with ADHD face at work, self-disclosure, focusing on your strengths vs covering for your weaknesses, and how to handle when a coworker is undiagnosed. I learned a ton, and hope you do too!

Damon and I worked together a few years ago, and he conducted a fascinating practice called experience mapping. He goes over the practice and why it can make such a big difference in how a company coordinates its activities to offer exceptional experiences. We also discuss how to build resilient work cultures.

Ankit Jain is CEO of Aviator, and veteran of many companies. He's active in the developer experience space and maintains several online communities. He's in the middle of the conversation about where software is heading, and building some of the developer tooling to support it. We had a fascinating discussion where he covered:
How to kill the code review.
How to verify intent and validate at machine speed.
Why he thinks all businesses are becoming developer tools companies.
The paradox of automation and how it applies to increasingly automated systems.
Will AI reinforce existing practices or explode them?
Advice for building and supporting online communities.

Jason is a veteran of the technical advocacy and developer advocacy space. I thought it would be useful for people to better understand these roles. He shares how advocacy roles have shifted over the years, where in the organization they belong, and teaches about how to do storytelling well. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Rebecca Hinds, Ph.D. is a world expert on meetings. She's released a new book on the topic (Your Best Meeting Ever), packed with ideas for how to improve the way your organization focuses, communicates, and works together. We discussed incentives, mechanisms for shaking up ineffective use of time, how to build a culture of effective meetings, and power dynamics.