This quarter, I had the honor of being the project manager for Viking Vision, which created long-form video content to increase current students' belonging and provide potential students with information on what it's like to be a marketing major.
At the start of this quarter, I did not think I would learn as much about leadership as I did. I have previous leadership experience running a National Youth Leadership Training summer camp. I expected to apply my prior leadership knowledge to a marketing lens, but I was wrong. The difference between running a team leading a summer camp and a team creating professional marketing content is greater than expected.
The biggest takeaway from this quarter is that being a leader is not easy and can often be abstract. A big part of being a leader is taking the arrows and giving them the praise. What this means is that when getting feedback on a product that your team did, you are going to need to be the one to take the criticism and feedback and bring it back to them, but when you are getting praised you have to step out of the spotlight and let your team take the glory.
Another difficulty is that people don’t know what you want them to know immediately. Since you have just gone through the whole process, everything is super top of mind but as you try to teach these concepts to your squad, the ideas are super foreign to them. A great example of this is kanbans. Personally, I am a big fan of Kanbans, and I wrote a whole blog about it, which you can read here. When I introduced this to my squad at the beginning of the quarter, it was completely new and it took them a while to pick up the hang of it and think about moving the cards on their own without my reminders. When trying to teach a new concept or idea, move slowly at first and be super open to questions or providing clarifying information.
This one may be obvious to some, but it is still super important. Every leader is going to do things differently when leading a team. The way I ran my squad is different from how I was taught it, and my content creators will probably lead it differently next quarter, which is perfectly ok. Just make sure you find your style and stick with it. If you are struggling to find your style here is another blog that talks about different leadership styles.
I don't want to put a lot of pressure on you, but the first couple of meetings as a team are some of the most important. The way you and your team act can decide how you will act for the rest of the quarter. As a leader, it is your job to set that tone if you aren't open then they won't be either. It is a lot harder to connect with your team if your leader wants nothing to do with you guys because people tend to look for guidance from the highest-paid person in the room and in this case, it is you!
One way to increase openness that super simple is during stand ups ask a fun question with it. Doing this has made doing standups way more enjoyable. Instead of everyone just spewing what they did for IMC the last couple of days, it creates a conversation that gets people talking and connecting. Definitely not required and a little overkill but I kept track of most of my creators responses so I now just have a bank full of fun facts about my content creators. A benefit to doing this is when you want to get them a treat for motivation you know what they like! Since I asked them their favorite candy earlier in the quarter on Valentine's Day I was able to surprise them with their favorites during our sprint planning meeting. Finding ways to bring up those points in the future shows that you are listening and care about them which in turn makes them care about you and put in more effort.
Being a leader is not a walk in the park don’t expect it to be but you also shouldn't be scared. As a project manager, you have a team of executives supporting you that all want you to succeed and will do anything to help you achieve that. All you have to do is put in your best effort, and show you care and the rest will come.
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