Tokyo Tech Leads Circle reposted this
Tri-lingual Data & Decision Analyst | Applied Data Science Manager at dunnhumby | Accredited Data Professional
How to Be a Better Leader in Tech(?) Yesterday, the Tokyo Tech Leads Circle held their 7th "quarterly" meetup at the Google Japan office in Shibuya, Tokyo. Three tech leaders shared their insights and experiences, and attendees enjoyed plenty of networking opportunities over food and drinks. ✨Ann Kilzer✨, Director at WiSE JP: Ann's talk, "Be the Leader You Wish You Had," covered the balance between "calling the shots" and empowering your team through delegation. She emphasized moving from the drama triangle to "leading from presence," acting as a coach to motivate your team. During the Q&A, Ann advised aspiring leaders to start building leadership skills through mentoring inside or outside of your organisation. She highlighted that mentoring fosters empathy, accountability, and skill development—advice that resonated with my own career journey. Alexander Nicholson, SRE Manager at TableCheck: Alexander addressed "The (False) Challenges of a Remote Team." He shared personal experiments and experiences in making 100% remote work successful, including virtual Christmas parties in VRChat or Second Life. He stressed that all teams, remote or not, thrive on three principles: Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. Alexander's insight into the manager's role in fostering these principles was a highlight of the evening. He concluded by suggesting that the cost of maintaining an office could be better spent on team retreats—a point I'll definitely discuss with my manager! Doug Cha, Engineering Manager at Google Japan: Doug shared his career journey from tech to banking, to consulting, and back to tech. His main takeaways from consulting included the importance of prioritizing client needs, placing key information on the first slide, and honing presentation skills—albeit with long hours but good pay. In tech, he noted the typically slower pace in bringing a feature to the product (unless in a startup), balanced work life (unless in a startup), and good compensation. Banking in Japan, he described humorously as "Coding in a suit" under a traditional, high-pressure environment (“Showa style”). Doug's insights into client-first thinking in consulting resonated with my own experiences, and his light, sarcastic presentation style made for a memorable closing. A big thank you to the organizers Christine Gerpheide from Google Japan, Benjamin Price from Slalom Build, and Clément Chidiac from Mercari, Inc. Japan. Thanks also to Google Japan for hosting the venue and TableCheck for providing the food and drinks. #Leadership #TechLeadership #Tokyo #RemoteWork #Mentoring