Myths That May Be Holding You Back from Pursuing Engineering Leadership

When exploring leadership career paths, there might be some myths holding engineers back, some of which are completely baseless. My talk will cover such myths,

Myth number 1: I need to increase my visibility (the worst advice one can give to someone to explore the leadership career path is ‘increase your visibility’) I will explain with examples how it’s an absolute myth
Myth number 2: Only extroverts can succeed as managers (I will explain what are main areas of success for a manager and how being extrovert isn’t one of them)
Myth number 3: I’m expected to never say no (I will explain how saying No to requests from outside the time can help a great deal in success of a manager and how saying yes all the time can be dangerous)
Myth number 4: I’ll spend most of my time in meetings (I will explain how this role can influence a lot of changes on ways working in / out of a team including the number of meetings)
[Bonus] Self Doubt: I’ll be viewed as technically less competent (I will challenge this notion with examples)

Key takeaways and learning points
Deeper understanding on what actually is a job of an engineering manager, what are the key skills required for the role, what are they key areas that will make the person successful

Experience level with the topic
Expert, I am head of engineering in my current role and hence I have several years of experience delivering features and leading teams.
In addition to my experience, I believe that my perspective as a woman can contribute meaningfully to this topic. I will do this talk in the Droidcon Berlin this year as well.