Welcome to Day 18 of our 30 Days of Career Growth! Today’s task is focused on leadership. Whether you already have experience in leadership roles or if you’re new to them, this task offers a valuable opportunity for personal growth and reflection.
Task 18
Register for the Masterclass: Save your spot on the “Learning To Lead Before Becoming a Leader” Masterclass with @prescottlewis707. This free online webinar focuses on developing people management skills, even if it’s not part of your job description. Gain insights into techniques and self-reflection exercises to enhance your leadership abilities. Discover how your everyday activities as a tester can already demonstrate leadership qualities.
Share your leadership experience: If you have prior experience in leadership, take the opportunity to share your own experiences. Reflect on the challenges, successes, and lessons you’ve learned while leading teams or projects. Discuss how these experiences have shaped your growth as a leader and influenced your career. Remember, leadership is not limited to formal positions or titles. It encompasses a range of qualities and skills that can be developed and demonstrated in various contexts.
Share leadership qualities you value: If you haven’t had direct experience in leadership roles, don’t worry! You can still contribute by sharing the leadership qualities you value in others. Reflect on the leaders you admire, whether they are colleagues, mentors, or public figures. Discuss the specific qualities or traits that inspire you and explain why they are important for effective leadership.
Complete this task to gain valuable insights, learn from others, and develop your leadership skills. Let’s embrace this opportunity to enhance our leadership abilities!
I honestly have very little leadership experience within the Testing space. But some things I truly value in some of the best supervisors that I’ve had are:
Willingness to collaborate
Ability to provide objective feedback
Vested in my success
Open communicator
Great sense of humor
Strong moral compass
Great work ethic/willingness to share the load
All of these qualities made me feel very much like my ideas and input was an important part of the team, and that I was valued within that team. Also, it helped lighten the mood when mistakes were made, and made it easier to address and solve issues without so much of it being linked with ego. Lastly, having a supervisor that was actively vested in my success made me feel that it wasn’t a stagnant position, and that my career growth was valued by more than just myself.
I’m looking forward to the masterclass. I’ve had a few leadership roles in my career. Just participating and completing the roles make me label them all as successful. Here’s some of my experience along with memorable challenges:
People Manager at Instacart–I enjoyed the coaching part of the job, but not disciplining employees. I don’t have the desire to be in charge of other adults. Also, I had to tell my staff that they were all getting pay cuts. It was a lot of responsibility with very little actual power.
Mentor with The Collab Lab and LaunchCode–It was exciting to root people on as they started careers in tech. I shared SDLC institutional knowledge, how to pair effectively, etc. The only down side was that I never “got” React, so that made coaching and code reviews difficult.
QA Lead for Women Who Code DFW – I love doing this! It’s fun to share info and lead meetings with this group. I listen a lot and learn from the group.
Internship Project Management–Fun to flex my PM skills and support career changers with their first paid tech role. The folks at work really appreciated how I shaped the project.
Qualities I like in leadership is knowledge of my role, empathy, directness, supportive of my career and learning, and a desire to work across the organization to develop a high quality product.
30 Days of Career Growth! 
Today’s task is focused on leadership. Whether you already have experience in leadership roles or if you’re new to them, this task offers a valuable opportunity for personal growth and reflection.
