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You are Not Pushy; You are a Leader

Getting your voice heard as a woman in data science to drive valuable actions for your team

Women in Data Science

Photo from ThisIsEngineering on Pexels
Photo from ThisIsEngineering on Pexels

I wrote this article from the perspective of a woman in STEM who wants to share her experiences with other women in STEM who are starting in leadership roles.

If you have read my previous articles, you would know I am a product owner and team lead of a Tools and Machine Learning Platform group. I started this role a year ago, and it has taught me many valuable lessons. Today, I want to share a significant one with you.

Ladies:

✗ You are not pushy.

✗ You are not bossy.

✗ You are not demanding.

Instead:

You are doing your job.

✓ You are leading a team.

✓ You are making an impact.


The Process Updates

The past few months, I have been having an issue at work. I had released an update to a process through email to the team. In October, I emailed one half of the team to complete the update. The next month, I emailed the other half to complete the update with a reminder to the first group. The goal was that by the end of each month, the groups would complete the tasks so that starting in December, we would be moved over to the new process. I had assigned deadlines in both emails and waited to hear back.

By December, I had not heard back from over half of the individuals. Meaning, they had most likely not done what I had asked, and we were behind schedule. At this point, the team asking for the process update decided that all individuals need to convert to the new process by the end of January. At this point, I was at a loss. I felt like no one was listening to me.

I didn’t know what to do, and the response I was getting back from people was the task was not a priority to them, so they would not do it. At this point, I asked for help. I went to my manager for advice, and he taught me a valuable lesson about leadership.

Just because you are nice doesn’t mean you people should walk over you or ignore your asks. People should respect the decisions you are making, listen to the actions outlined, and follow through with the expectations to drive the work’s completion.

We continued to talk, and he advised me to send another email. I told him I had already provided a call to action, a deadline, and the expected output. In the next email, he recommended I add in a list of names and highlight the ones in red who have not completed it. Call out the individuals who had not confirmed the completion of the task. I had seen others do this on my team, so I took the recommendation and tried again. Within the hour of sending the email, I had a handful of individuals reach out to confirm they had, in-fact, made the change, bringing the total to 75% completing the request by the end of the day.


Lessons Learned

Stepping into this role has come with its challenges, but my biggest challenge was getting people to drive action to my requests. After talking with my manager, I sat with his advice for a while and thought upon it.

If you are stepping into a leadership role and requesting something from your team, you are simply doing your job. You are taking action on the work you need to do, asking for updates, and expecting results. When requesting something of others, here are the steps I now follow:

  1. Call Out Your Action – Call out the action you need to be completed. My team uses Agile methodologies, so items are commonly called out in Features and User Stories. If it is an email, state precisely what you are looking for.
  2. Provide a Deadline – Provide that action a deadline that you want to see the result by. For User Stories, the outcome is expected in 3 weeks, and for Features, it could take months. When sending an email, note the deadline next to the action item.
  3. State the Output – State the output expected from the action. For User Stories, this is where acceptance criteria are essential. What are you looking for as a result of this item? In an email, I will either link to a user story or request a specific output.
  4. Follow Up and Escalate – If you don’t hear back by the deadline, follow up and ask for an update. I do this through two methods. (1) First, I individually reach out to people I believe in having completed the task I asked for. I want to confirm my assumptions before sending my email. (2) When I send my email, I have a list of all team members, and those who had not confirmed completion are highlighted in red. If by the deadline there are people still highlighted in red who had not confirmed, those names are given to the next level of management to deal with the problem through the proper channels.
Image created by the author to illustrate the steps above.
Image created by the author to illustrate the steps above.

Final Thoughts

I did not expect to become a team lead this young, but it has given me insights into management and leadership types roles and responsibilities compared to technical capabilities. Ladies, as you traverse your leadership roles, remember, you are doing your job. You are leading your teams, driving practical actions, and expecting results. You will face struggles as you learn to navigate the role, but there are always those who can help.

Allies to women in Data Science and STEM, don’t sit quietly. We need you to provide feedback and support to your colleagues where and when you can. Become a mentor to a woman taking on a leadership role. Those who have been the most helpful to me when navigating this role have been my mentors and manager who advocate for women in STEM and want them to be their best.

Ladies, what have you learned as you navigate your leadership roles? Have you faced similar challenges where people do not prioritize your asks? Allies, how do you support women getting into leadership roles within your company or field?


If you would like to read more, check out some of my other articles below!

5 Technical Behaviors I’ve Learned from 2 Years of Data Science and Engineering

12 Reason Your Code Built-in Isolation is not Production-Ready

5 Leadership Behaviors I’ve Learned from 2 Years of Data Science and Engineering


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