74: Ami Vora - Unconventional Lessons in Senior Leadership

Ami Vora, CPO at Faire, brilliantly lays out a lot of concepts about how she views senior leadership:

How to build a strong bench of performers, balancing authenticity and urgency. How do you make yourself care about boring topics and find joy in work?

Why feedback loops and building team connections become more important as an organization scales. How do we deal with weak performers, skip-level meetings, and when to invest in strong performers?

Why growing others is always paying dividends and make you more secure.

Takeaways

• Balancing authenticity and urgency is a challenge in leadership, but it is important to be true to oneself while maintaining a sense of urgency.
• Transitioning from an operative role to a product leadership role involves a shift in power dynamics and the need to build connections with team members.
• Managing weak performers can be challenging, but it's important to depersonalize the conversation and focus on finding the right match for the role.
• Skip-level meetings provide unique insights and opportunities for career development.
• Generosity and supporting others in their growth are key qualities of a secure leader.

Sound Bites

• "Invest in what you think the future looks like"
• "Recognize and address mistakes, then move forward"
• "What I do like is like calling everyone on the phone and saying like, 'How are you? What's going on with your career? What can I help with?'"

Chapters

00:00 Investing in the Future: Building a Strong Bench

06:03 Balancing Authenticity and Urgency in Leadership

08:19 Forgiving Oneself: Learning from Mistakes

18:13 Finding Motivation: Understanding Why

25:08 Building Connections: Fostering Unity in Scaled Organizations

26:03 Navigating the Shift in Power Dynamics

27:28 Building Connections through One-on-One Conversations

28:55 The Importance of a Growth Mindset and Feedback

31:20 Managing Weak Performers with Empathy

32:17 The Role of Skip-Level Meetings

34:07 Investing in Strong Performers for the Future

36:27 The Power of Generosity in Leadership 

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