Leadership

Leadership Roles

This led us to define another very important role in our structure: Tech Leads.

Managers vs. Tech Lead

While a manager is responsible for their department's career management, a Tech Lead as the name implies is the leader of a department when it comes to operations. This position is assigned to a subject matter expert that masters the department's processes and tools. It's under their responsibility to manage the department's standard operating procedures in Confluence, our internal wiki, and also to ensure cross-department processes are well-documented and understood on an organizational level.

A Tech Lead can be a coordinator, an Individual Contributor, or even a manager and because they are accountable for knowledge transfer, they are also responsible for onboarding new employees in their departments and managing the department's Knowledge Hub which is part of Secure Group Knowlegde.

In terms of structure, in simple words, each department has a manager and a tech lead to support them and to ensure we are getting the work done effectively while progressing in our careers.

Leadership	Responsibility	Activities	Focus
Manager	Growth of Individuals and Teams	Provides 1:1 coaching: based on data Responsible for Career Development and Performance Reviews (with inputs from Scrum Master and Tech Lead) Levels up a functional skill set Organizes communities of practices that encourage members from different cross-functional teams to share knowledge through regular meetings, raising the bar in their area of expertise Protects teams from distractions and unrelated or unnecessary work Understands, teaches, or sponsors the software and hardware engineering skills needed to support the development of high-quality code, components, systems, and solutions	Processes Improvement Identifies and addresses process inefficiency: Ceremonies (Sprint review/Demo) Provides the necessary tools Establishes Standards and Best Practices: Ceremonies (Sprint review/Demo) Provides training Helps to build Agile Milestones and Roadmaps, and the plans to enable them Helps to develop, implement, and communicate the strategic framework Supports teams by helping them remove systemic impediments and by implementing continuous improvement backlog items Ensure the department’s Knowledge Hub is correctly documented and up-to-date
Tech Lead	Technology (Subject Matter Expert)	Provides expert opinion and direction regarding projects: Sprints Transfers knowledge to others: Tech-session	Get work Done Resource Allocation Task management and tracking: Data Fire fighting

Traits of Leadership

We have seen that by setting the right context our employees can understand our mission and vision and create a great product.

The leadership styles in the company support this. Regardless of your role, to ensure effective people management and growth, we strive to shift away from “controlling activities” towards a synergistic relationship between team members.

What makes a good leader is a concept that can vary per team, organization, and people’s personal opinion. At Secure Group we recognize that and that’s why we decided to define what makes a good leader in our company considering our specific reality and unique teams.

In a “Context, not Control” environment, you still need people to coach and provide directions, but this is not the traditional role of a leader. That’s why we are looking for the ones that can embrace the core principle of caring for others and giving up control rather than seeking control.

In Secure Group everyone is treated equally. Employees gain a chance to learn, and to set and accomplish goals with the support of their leader.

The leadership traits and levels

We already explored the differences between a Manager and a Tech Lead. Besides this definition, we currently have four leadership levels for managers with different expected traits but similar objectives: lending support to addressing the needs and wants of the people and the organization. This is our priority. This contrasts with the leader-first perspective, where a person aims to gain control quickly, often driven by material gain or influence but it’s our way to ensure autonomy, accountability, innovation and high-performance.

Level 1 – Our pace setters

The core duty of the Level 1 managers is to get the work done through process management, which means they have an input and an output and they have to ensure the effective execution of these processes. They are in contact with customers, suppliers and employees of all levels, therefore they need to navigate frequently between difference audiences to set-up the right context.

Level 1 managers are required to deliver fast results. These leaders are primarily focused on performance. They often set high standards and hold their colleagues accountable for hitting the department’s goals.

The fast-paced work environment fostered by them can also create miscommunications so to ensure effectiveness they have to be able to provide clear instructions and have an outstanding ability to manage adversities, chaos and change.

Level 2 – Our coaches

Level 2 managers are responsible for the performance of their teams. They are involved in strategic decisions and are required to anticipate technical issues and complex and ambiguous problems or opportunities that are often systemic with no readily understood answers. They are responsible for identifying these situations in their teams, requiring a change of mindset or attitude, and providing the right corporate context.

They are quickly to recognize their team members’ strengths, weaknesses, and motivations to help each individual improve. They assist team members in setting smart goals, ensure quality and efficiency through processes management and provide regular feedback with challenging initiatives to promote growth. They’re skilled in setting clear expectations and creating a positive, motivating environment.

Level 2 managers promote the development of new skills, innovation, free-thinking and empowerment while building high-performing teams.

Level 3 – Our visionaries and servant leaders

The core duties of our Level 3 managers are strategic and high-level. They are responsible for providing direction for different teams and at the same time ensure there are no knowledge gaps in them. They are constantly monitoring the market and Secure Group strategy to ensure our competitive advantage. They have a powerful ability to drive progress and usher in periods of change by inspiring employees and earning trust for new ideas. They are also advisors in establishing a strong organizational culture by fostering confidence among direct reports and colleagues alike.

Level 3 managers live by a people-first mindset and believe that when team members feel personally and professionally fulfilled, they’re more effective and more likely to produce great collaborative work regularly. These leaders are exceptionally skilled in building employee morale and helping people re-engage with their work.

Focused on the big picture, they have capacity to boost employee productivity, improve employee development and decision-making, cultivate trust, and create future leaders. Level 3 managers help the company to grow, unite teams and improve outdated technologies or practices.

Level 4 – Our transformational leaders

Our Level 4 managers are responsible for setting strategic direction, developing context, and fostering our corporate culture on an organizational level. They focus on clear communication, goal-setting, and the company’s productivity.

Instead of placing the majority of the energy into each employee’s individual aspects, they are driven by a commitment to organizational objectives. However, they are also committed to developing the next generation of Secure Group leaders and build a strong relationship with our shareholders. The level 4 managers also value the company's ethics and teams while focusing on high-performance in the long-term.

Key concepts

• Level 1 managers are responsible for coordinating processes and stakeholders.
• Level 2 Step 1 and Step 2 managers are involved in the operation and execution of their department's processes while Level 2 Step 3 and Step 4 are responsible for process management on a higher level of report, design, automation, and monitoring.
• Level 3 managers are responsible for coaching and ensuring people's growth in more than one team or department.
• Level 4 managers focus on the organization's performance, growth and alignment.

Qualities of our Leaders

Even though each level has specific leadership traits that are expected according to their core duties, there are some qualities you can find in each one of all our leaders:

• Values diverse opinions

Values everyone’s contributions and regularly seeks out opinions.

• Cultivates a culture of trust

People are comfortable to go about their activities in an environment of mutual trust and support. There is no back-stabbing and sharing is encouraged.

• Develops other leaders

Our leaders provide opportunities for learning and growth, demonstrating by example and teaching others to lead. They give up power and have deputies lead, replicating this mindset through the organization.

• Encourages

The hallmark of our leaders is encouragement. The true leader says, “Let’s go do it,” not, “You go do it.”.

• Sells instead of tells

An effective leader, for us, is the opposite of a dictator. The aim is to persuade rather than command.

• Thinks you, not me

There’s a selfless quality about what we expect from our leaders. Those who only think, “How does this benefit me?” are disqualified. 

• Thinks long-term

Our leaders are constantly thinking about the next generation, the next leader, the next opportunity. They make continual tradeoffs between what’s important for today versus what needs to be done for the future.

• Acts with humility

Secure Group leaders are not concerned with job titles. A title is not a way to show he/she is in charge or “better than everyone else”. Instead, they act in a caring way towards others. Nothing is beneath them and they may be seen picking up trash or cleaning a table. They set an example of service. For us, it is not about the leader, it is about others.

Perspectives of Leadership

We have four levels as per the Management Path and to move up from one level to the other in the four roles, it’s evaluated the authority and involvement regarding:

• Technical Leadership
• Business Leadership
• Career Management Leadership
• Adaptive Leadership

Technical Leadership

Technical Leadership refers to the ability to anticipate and find solutions for technical challenges. It’s completely related to our Process Management, Team Management and Knowledge Management strategies. In this perspective we created two definitions: Completeness and Achievement.
Completeness are related to your core duties and it refers to setting-up, improving and adapting processes in order to cover all aspects of our business. In terms of knowledge it’s related to ensuring that all the set of knowledge in the company is mapped, defined, covered and with ceremonies defined for structured communication.
Achievement, on the other hand, is related to your performance and how you guarantee the teams are accountable for the company’s processes and constantly improving and applying the needed technical knowledge and communicating effectively for us to have competitive advantage.

Business Leadership

Business Leadership is all about strategic management. It’s defined as the ability to overcome strategic challenges and the ability to set up context for the teams. In this perspective, we defined one matrix with two aisles: Capability and Opportunity.

File:Capability opportunity.png

Capability

Capability refers to their ability to execute their core duties and it's divided into two categories:

• General Factors: owning the technical knowledge needed for the role, understanding the team's domain and the feasibility of their team's technical knowledge, and the needed technical knowledge at a company level.
• Internal Factors: the leaders' Secure Group Knowledge in terms of who we are as a company, what we offer, what's our market and industry concepts.

Opportunity

Opportunity refers to three criteria that enable our leaders' high-performance:

• Experience: the majority of people's learning and knowledge comes from on-the-job experiences that equip them with the opportunity to discover and develop job-related skills, address challenges, and learn from their mistakes. Through working in cross-department projects, contact with stakeholders, and complex tasks, leaders build the knowledge of how their role reflects on and is affected by the roles of others.
• Exposure: Shared-based learning sees the managers working closely together with team members and other managers, under a more collaborative and cooperative approach, with constant support, monitoring and feedback providing. This supportive element assists in making learning self-driven and more autonomous.
• Education: a smaller portion of knowledge comes from a more formalized approach to learning, with courses, formal training, and e-learning which are contemplated in our Training Benefit Policy

Career Management

Career Management Leadership refers to the ability of the leader to place the people with the right set of skills and knowledge in the team and to help them grow. In this perspective, completeness relates to the core duties of having all the necessary positions in the company mapped so we can achieve our goals. It also includes if the performance evaluations and career pathing are done on-time and according to our Management Model.
Achievement refers to ensuring we have high-performers filling the needed positions in the teams and that they are constantly developing and growing which is also connected to your performance.

Adaptive Leadership

A lot of times in our “Context, not Control” environment, as we mentioned, chaos tend to arise motivated by constant change. The Adaptive Leadership refers to the ability of our leaders to successfully conduct the teams during such moments in which the technical knowledge will not be the solution for the challenges.
These moments require the teams to adapt and usually involve a change of mindset and/or attitude, but that is easier said than done, since each person tend to react differently to changes. In this scenario we considered 6 perspectives:

• Get on the balcony
  

Ability to view distant yourself from the situation and analyze the responses of participants. It’s a mental “balcony”. When in the balcony, leaders can see patterns, minimize one's own emotional responses and react (or not!) in ways that will help the other team members to engage in the adaptive challenges.

• Identify adaptive challenges
  

Ability to identify challenges that require people to learn new ways of doing things, re-think their attitudes, mindset, values, and norms, and adopt an experimental mind-set open for change.

• Regulate distress
  

Ability to act as a facilitator for employees to see the need for change, while ensuring they do not become too overwhelmed by the change itself.

• Maintain disciplined attention

Ability to identify and counteract any type of distraction that could prevent team members from dealing with the adaptive challenges.

• Get the work done

Ability to place the work where it belongs being willing to be part of the challenge rather than directing its solution by providing answers from a position of a leader and ensuring the team is progressing in their work.

• Protect the voices from below

Ability to weigh and give voice to all people willing to experiment and learn. The leader incentives original voices that eventually got discouraged or silenced in the organization even if they are not as articulate as one would wish.  

Leaders in Conclusion

• Leaders support others to serve the needs of the organization.
• They do not seek prestige, status, material gain or control.
• They offer coaching and opportunities for growth, providing a demonstrable example of expected behaviors.