Join us on a journey through the transformative moments that pave the way to leadership greatness. Explore the profound impact of seemingly small actions and subtle nuances that can make a monumental difference in your career trajectory. From navigating challenges to embracing opportunities, Mahnaz Tavousi. VP, of Architecture & Engineering Services, at Manulife and Mamta Sethi, CIO, Group Functions Technology at Manulife share their most significant learnings en route to leadership.
Discover the power of the little things that, when combined, create a tapestry of leadership wisdom, offering valuable insights for anyone aspiring to climb the career ladder. Tune in to this episode of Spilling the T to glean practical advice, personal anecdotes, and strategic approaches that will inspire and guide you on your own path to leadership success.
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Speaker 1:
Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in. As always, I am Kaye Batesman, the content director at she Can Code, and today we are discussing biggest learnings en route to leadership, the little things that make a difference in your career. Today, we’re going to explore the profound impact of seemingly small actions and subtle nuances that can make a monumental difference in your career trajectory. Now I’m lucky enough to have not just one, but two incredible female leaders from Manu Life with me today. I have Manas and Manta, who are here to share their most significant learnings en route to their leadership positions. So welcome, ladies. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:
We’re going to kick off with a bit of background about both of you to set the scene. If that is okay, Manta, can we start with you? How did you get into tech? Can you tell us all about your role and your journey?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I graduated in finance and analytics in my undergrad and moved into consulting and always thought that I’m going to be a trader or I’m going to be something pretty big. Even though I had a minor in computer science, I didn’t really know what was going to happen there. I did my undergrad in finance and analytics and I thought I was going to go. I went into consulting risk consulting, to be specific and thought I’d be like a trader at some point in time, or continuing consulting or do something along the lines of finance, with the undertone of having technology there, and I had done a lot in that space. Then I went to do my masters after being in consulting for a couple of years and when I came out of that again did my masters in a similar respect and added strategy to that. But I went to Royal Bank of Canada so it’s Canada’s largest bank and moved into their internal consulting team. But everything that was there and I did various roles for 12 and a half years at RBC everything had an undertone in tech. So for the first, every program that was implemented internally I was a part of that. I went to Trinidad for a little while was consolidating systems and doing integrations. So just it was being nudged and forced into a direction that I was saying, okay, I understand it. I know it because I’ve done it.
Speaker 2:
And then six years into my career at RBC I moved. I was asked to move into a senior role in infrastructure and kind of help with all of that. Now I help kind of build the infrastructure team and how they work with the application development team, because I had the consulting background. That was something I knew because I understood systems and finance and integrations and all that stuff. It helped. But I think the bigger part for me was is this where I want to move my career? Because now I didn’t even just start and go into digital or app dev, I went straight to infrastructure and then moved around. So it was very it was and for those who know infrastructure, I’m sure you all do it was a boys club. It was a male dominated area.
Speaker 2:
And I really felt that that’s where I’m gonna learn a lot and also learn some life skills on how to. I was always kind of mainly the woman in the room now is really the only woman in the room at times so went there and then moved after that into DevOps and let the DevOps team, essentially internally at RBC, and it was honestly the biggest learnings. Those two roles now that was like a total of about six years. But I had to reskill myself in some cases because I knew the old languages, like sharp and stuff that was never used. But like now it’s like Python and all these new areas that I had to get acquainted with and also work with a bunch of developers and teams that I had worked in a periphery. But now I’m leading these teams and understanding it. So that kind of got me in and it got me excited and it was the reason I thought this was so exciting is that I’m now part of an outcome for someone like even though it may not be like I’m leading creating apps for the teams, like the retail teams, for the commercial teams, for all the groups around the organization. So that was really exciting. And then I had tapped on the shoulder as headhunted, as they say, for a role at Manulife, and it was a role previous to the one I have now. It was the head of strategy and engineering transformation. I did a lot of the engineering transformation where we see an infrastructure as well as when I was helping our engineers get up skilled, and so it was cool for that.
Speaker 2:
And then for me I always thought now I wanna get into the CIO role. Is this the role that I wanna be in? And the way that it’s structured at Manulife is a very kind of you work directly with the global CIO, who is still my boss, and you get to learn a lot about how global organization is structured and how technology is moving around. So I kind of got that exposure and then two and a half, two years later took on this role, which is the CIO, chief Information Officer Group, functions Technology. So that’s all the internal tech here and that’s think of functions any function HR, finance, legal, like all those areas running kind of the tech for that, and it’s been a great journey.
Speaker 2:
I don’t regret one little thing I always felt sick to my stomach taking every new role, but when I started moving into tech it was like even sicker and sicker to your stomach and. But I heard from a mentor once that that’s the best roles to take when you actually feel sick and you don’t know what’s gonna happen the next morning. But then you always prosper. So I think it’s. I think for everyone I can give advice. That was it and it’s been great so far. So thank you.
Speaker 1:
Incredible and it’s really nice when you hear ladies that start up in one industry and then you realize quite quickly that you said there was always an undertone of tech and then you found yourself in tech and that’s the story of so many of our ladies who find their way into tech somehow, and that you can come from any different route and at any point in your career as well, you can make that decision to move into the tech industry. So brilliant journey.
Speaker 3:
Manas. What about you? So for myself, after I graduated with a degree in software engineering, I started my career as a developer and I focus on my technical skills and deepen my understanding of the complexities in software development world. So when I led my first project, it had a significant turning point in my career because it expanded my perspective beyond just coding and tools and frameworks. It helped me to understand the broader impact of technology solution on business objectives and user experience, and this experience was instrumental in realizing the importance of aligning technology strategies with business goals.
Speaker 3:
So as I progressed into leadership roles, the importance of effective, more effectively listening, be open to ideas, clear communication, stakeholder management, team collaboration and so many other things became more clear to me. And when I started managing the accomplished projects with diverse teams provided invaluable listening, leadership, conflict resolution and strategy planning. And another pivotal experience was my involvement in a largest digital transformation project in one of the organizations that I was working for. Them was basically challenged me to stay abreast of emerging technologies and drive change within the organization. That was very, very exciting opportunity for me and it was again very challenging for me, and it highlighted the importance of being adaptable and continuously learning in technology leadership and right now, in my current role as a global chief enterprise architect, my responsibilities are shaping a game technology vision of organization, driving initiatives for platform and tool standardization, simplify our technological landscape with collaboration across enterprise, working with great CIOs like Manta and basically taking us to the next level of maturity in the context of the technology, while we make sure that we’re managing the cost effectively and we manage the risk effectively.
Speaker 3:
I have to mention that my journey for as a developer to become a leader is always been basically focusing on learning more, adapting more, be more flexible, communication, collaboration and also strong commitment to matching technology with business needs because, at the end of the day, we, as the technologist, we are enablers supporting the business and at manual life, again, I am focusing on the same objectives and is a great place to be. As Manta mentioned, it was at the beginning kind of very challenging managing expectation from CIOs. With the support that I receive every day, we try to add value and enable business to meet their objectives and goals.
Speaker 1:
Vanessa, just want to quickly ask you when you said there that you suddenly had to start thinking about, you know, aligning technology with business strategy, is that something that you knew you were going to do when you first went into tech, or did it kind of, as you started moving more into leadership, you started to think actually, it’s not just the techie skills I need. I need all of these other skills as well to be able to communicate to our board, for instance, about you know how this aligns with our business. Did you know that was going to happen at the time?
Speaker 3:
What I have started as a developer. I just focus on coding, learning the technology, and didn’t realize that it’s not just this. I have to expect my knowledge and I have to understand what is going on beyond this technical space because at the end of the day, the technology is for a business to use it and basically generate more revenue or manage the cost and other different objectives. So as I grew into architecture role and eventually as an enterprise architect, I realized that understanding technology is one aspect of this role. However, I have to make sure I understand business so that whatever we recommend in the technologies space as a solution should enable the business in order to achieve what they are aiming for. So gradually I realize it, but when I realize it, I just focus to make sure that I understand business more than what I understand in the technology space.
Speaker 1:
Yes, definitely yes. It’s always interesting to hear how people develop their skills as they grow in their own career and whether or not you know sometimes you don’t even think of those when you come in and you start quite early in your career and what it’s going to turn into. On that note, I wanted to talk to you about crucial lessons and ask you where there’s some crucial lessons that you learned in your early stages of your career that set the foundation for your leadership journey and I’m tough, so we start with you.
Speaker 2:
Sure, yeah, there’s been quite a few inflection points where you learn lessons and it helps you become a better leader. And one of those was actually very early on. I had just started, I was at Deloitte in consulting and back then and I hope it’s changed but consulting was not easy for a new consultant coming in that was just fresh from undergrad. You were yelled at, you were working along around the clock, you were, you know, you got the exposure that you needed with senior folks and whatnot, and you also got exposure with executives and senior folks at appliance site. So you learn from the folks you’re watching, but you learn very quickly how to kind of lead a session and lead what you need to do. So that’s a positive thing. The negative things were more like the negative learnings. You’re learning along the way.
Speaker 1:
Where it’s, it’s do I want to get?
Speaker 2:
yelled at. Do I want to Do? I want to do that when I’m like a partner or something or someone very senior director, do I want to make people feel the way I feel? And I think those are things that really helped me think, okay, is this normal? Like I’m not sure, right, because you’re just so, so fresh in the game and you’re learning and you’re getting all these great things. And there were some great people not everybody’s yelling at you, but, like you know, there’s some great people who are teaching you along the way. So that’s when I, when I took a step back, when I started doing, when I went to do my MBA, I said let me like understand. I would talk to my friends, I would understand what else is out there, what else can I do? And if I want to go back into consulting, is this it’s not going to. You know I’m going to go from one place to another, right, and like I want to make sure that I’m doing the right things.
Speaker 2:
When I met other folks and I started talking to different career professionals, like folks not in business, not in other places, you really learn from them what they value and as, and what they got out of it. I was still young at this time. So when I went to RBC I was able to see what is the balance and understand like what does good leadership look like and I’m great. I mean I can’t say I had bad leaders in consulting, I’m just saying in general it was a different environment because you’re under so much pressure and it is what it is and you just have to learn for yourself what you really want to do. And so I chose the path of going into industry, as they called it, and stayed at Royal Bank of Canada and learned a ton and we had a great career, a bunch of phenomenal leaders that just to this day I could say I have, like these mentors that have taught me things.
Speaker 2:
And there’s so many inflection points along the way, failure being one of them how to deal with that and how you learn to lead in failure. But you know and it’s because you saw the leaders and what you wanted to emulate Also, negative learning. I’ve had leaders who are not so great and what is it that I don’t want? And through that failure, how did I get out of it and how did they get out of it and how did we kind of communicate those changes? So I think for me you know a lot of these kind of career choices that I’ve made have helped me through the years on milestones and when you get to that point where you don’t think you’re learning anything more and that’s how I lead now Like I think, when you get to a point where you’re you’re, you’ve learned all you need to learn and your leader has taught you as much as they can, I think it’s okay to ask for something new and a change.
Speaker 2:
And you’re always learning Don’t get me wrong, whether it’s from your leader, from from, from not. I think that’s another kind of inflection point for you is to you know, in my leadership messages is other leaders will teach you more and they will teach you something different and you will you know if you’ve learned enough from your team and whatnot. You know. Let’s move on. So that’s something you know as an RBC, that was a great learning for me is like, every two years, they actually would promote that kind of growth and change and and help you become a better leader.
Speaker 2:
If that’s what you choose to be a people leader, and which I chose very early on and I think the last thing I’d say is I think you have to learn early on if you really want to be a people. You’re always a leader, you’re always being seen, but a people leader is very is a little bit of a different than just being an individual contributor leader. So I think that was that inflection point I do believe comes kind of early in life where you think when you get that opportunity Sorry, let me do not say early in life you get that opportunity to lead for the first time, you really understand is this what? Because I’m shaping other people like I’m actually helping role other people in different ways. Is this what I really want to do?
Speaker 2:
And I, you know, as you think of teachers in your career, teachers were always someone. You remember that they taught you something, you learn something. I’m going to be something like that to someone. I’m going to learn from them too. But that’s what’s so you have to really. That was when I first became a people leader. I thought I’m so good at being an individual contributor like this is now different. I have to, you know, help these people grow and help that. So that was another really big inflection point for me. On do I want to continue this journey and keep going? And it was and it was, I think, a great decision, because I thoroughly know that and then it’s okay if you don’t want to.
Speaker 1:
As well, I think a lot of people do. You think that, don’t they? You naturally have to move to manage management position and then you might get there a dick. Actually, this isn’t for me.
Speaker 2:
And it’s okay, like I think it’s a lot of people make those, you know, they just feel that it’s that’s what they have to do, especially, especially in tech. Especially in tech, a lot of folks don’t want to read. They’re so good at what they want, they’re their developers, they want to sit behind their screen and do what they want to do and do a really good job at it, right, and so you got to understand that and you have respect that and figure out how to lead those folks too, right, and that’s there’s so many different ways you’ve got to. You’ve got to do that. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
I love the fact that you said as well about learning at different points and learning from from different bosses and also choosing not to learn from from some leaders as well. I found as well that more recently I’m still learning from leaders that I had in the past, because things that they’ve done, it now dawns on me why they were doing that and at the time I didn’t, I didn’t quite realize. But now I look back and I think that’s why I had a boss that was quite elusive and didn’t really say much and actually realized now it was because he didn’t want to let on when things were wrong and he didn’t want to panic people and he was very calm and you never really realized. You know, actually there’s something going on here. You know he was just very chose not to say much and it kept it.
Speaker 1:
Kind of the mystery was there, but none of us ever panics. We always move forward and I didn’t realize until, you know, only recently. So you’re always learning, even when you’ve left those companies, rene, it’s yourself. Have you? Have you got any crucial lessons that you learned in your early stages of your career?
Speaker 3:
Yes, basically, a couple of a couple of lessons I learned at the earliest stage of my career was that, first of all, be curious and ask questions and especially you know, question the status quo and don’t be afraid of challenging the status quo. And when you identify in the current state, a gap or an opportunity for improvement, presented in a way that we can enhance it or this is the solution. So we have to have this courage to not only identify the gas but also present the solution for the gap or opportunity that we identify. And if your audience disagree with you and if you believe in that it’s something that you have to change it, consider it that maybe it’s you’re dealing with the wrong audience or maybe it’s not the right time to have this dialogue, but don’t give up and just present it in another time with a different group of audience. And when I talk about the audience, I always, even right now, I ask my team members that you have to tailor your message and communication style based on the audience that you are dealing with. And also, I learned quickly, in order to communicate with people, I have to employ very communication methods, because sometimes you need to communicate with people verbally, sometimes with pictures, sometimes with different, basically, tools that you’re going to use in order to have a clear communication method.
Speaker 3:
And the other thing is that if you identify any of team members as a leader that they have the potential to grow, we have to help them to move away from their comfort zone and they grow into the management skills and, as a leader, we build actually leaders among ourselves so that when we leave, we leave a legacy behind that each of the team members who had this potential to be a leader.
Speaker 3:
They continue our journey. So these are the things that really helped me to pivot, and I learned some of these from the leaders that I work with them, and some of them I learned from my teams. Not only did you know you learn from your leaders, but also you sometimes learn from your junior team members in your team. So, finally, the very important one that’s something that I encourage everyone to pay attention to it, because this is what I learned as well at the early stage was focus on your family, because if you have not enough time spending with them, it impacts really into your performance, in your mental health, all aspects of not only in your family, but in your career and in how you perform at work and sometimes we learn so many leadership skills from our siblings, from our brother, from our parents, from parents or as a parent. So these are the areas that I learned that I have to focus, and it really helped me to grow.
Speaker 1:
Yes, brilliant advice, especially about balancing your work life and family life. I love the fact, as though, that you mentioned about being curious and asking questions, but sometimes also having to deal with a knockback there or maybe it’s not the right time or the right audience, as you mentioned. Which leads me on perfectly to how did you handle those challenges and setbacks early on and what did you learn from those experiences? Manas, let’s stay in review on that. When you got knockbacks in your career, whether it was in work or even going for a different job, for instance, how did you handle those setbacks early on and what did you learn? That perhaps you wish someone had told you.
Speaker 3:
So I learned to embrace failure. This is everybody is talking about it. It’s not the easy thing to do, but the reality is that when you learn that this is part of the journey and you look at the failure as a learning opportunity and it helps you to gain a valuable insight from each failure and adjust your strategies and look into a way that it’s going to be another way to grow. So getting to that point is not easy, but this is what we have to remind ourselves, and always in a challenging situation I ask for advice from mentors or experienced colleagues and I recognize the value of their advice and guidance. That helped me to go through the challenging moments. And also, I always remind myself that I myself have to be adaptable, flexible, start pivoting as soon as something is not working, because if we are going to be rigid and stick to the plan and we don’t pivot, it always eventually causing some kind of failure. So if you learn that you adapt, change, be flexible quickly, then you probably can prevent from future failure in your path.
Speaker 3:
And the other things that really we have to focus on is time management and prioritization, because that’s another thing. It’s very, very crucial to skill and sometimes challenges often arise from over commitment or full prioritization, and learning to manage time effectively and focus on priorities is another crucial aspect. And also, we need to have a support network, because it’s very valuable and, when we have some challenging situation, by reaching out to them and having this robust, professional people around ourselves, it’s going to support us to go through those moments. And finally, it’s very important to have a strategy and some help in order to manage a stress effectively. Stress is part of our life. Stress is a part of our day-to-day job that we’re doing, but it’s very important to really have an approach and have some strategy in place to help us to manage the stress.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yeah, I love that you tagged that on the end there. Even though it was tagged on, actually, it’s a priority. Yes, definitely, matt. What about yourself? How did you find that you worked to handle challenges and setbacks early on, and did you learn anything in those challenges?
Speaker 2:
Yeah so. So a lot of what menace has kind of resonated with me, but I would say a lot of the things that learned early on. And it was not just me experiencing it, but there were setbacks, let’s say, for the team as a whole. So there are people that may have gone, have gone through something, whether it’s personal or even professional. It’s something failed, like we deployed something. It just didn’t land. Well, it’s how they dealt with it. And I was saying how would I deal with this? Right? And? And I would look at them so mean, and then I would be put in a similar situation and then how do you handle that right? So I remember we to deploy something at RBC for the branch network and we had a developer working on this, this program. So I’m working directly with the developer, giving the requirements, working with her and figuring it out. And we, we said we’re gonna launch a beta version to like the Ontario folks, the Ontario branches, and we did and Nobody liked. They gave us the worst thing ever and the developer and the the AVP at the time Was very shocked, like they didn’t understand, like we all can use it, we all did this and da, da, da and we did some. We did all the communication, all the change management. You think you could possibly do kind of did everything right, if you in theory right think. The one thing that was missed was the fact that it was in Ontario. You have regional nuances, you have all these things that that are there, and we didn’t consider some of that right. And so when the feedback came back to senior director which is AVP equivalent on what went wrong, they were very defiant, saying that I I’m sure I did it all right and da da, da, da da da. And like I Went out and I asked, she did. In her mind she went out and asked for feedback, she asked for the requirements from each of the areas. It just still didn’t meet the mark. At the end of the day, if someone doesn’t like your product, it’s not meeting the mark. And in my head, thinking she actually did do pretty much everything right, like I would have done the same thing, but how am I gonna? How did she respond to it and how would I respond? And so then I think that was one big. There was a huge setback. I have to say this was a massive setback. A lot of money down the drain. They fired the developer because they thought that the there were some glitches, but anyway, and so I, I Think, and so when we had to do something similar again the following year with someone else, I think the one thing I tried to do differently was all the things that she did right, all the things that I could have that were given in terms of feedback. And then I said at the end of the day, if it’s, you know, I’m going to make sure I personally go and, you know, ask the branches what we need to do and how we’re gonna make it. It didn’t land very well.
Speaker 2:
The second time this is again. So I went through the whole challenge all over again, but this time I’m kind of more leading it than than it was in the last previous year, and this time around I I said I’m gonna lead with humility here and go forward and say I thought we did all these things right. We took last year’s Issue and kind of use that feedback. The difference this time was we didn’t consider that there’s French speaking folks that you know that are in Ontario, like there was just a few nuances that we actually didn’t put into place. So what we did is we sent out an apology and said you know we are, we are committed to making sure we work with you, one on one, to make it work.
Speaker 2:
Though For me it was, that was the first time I realized I got humility is probably the biggest way you’re gonna win Win votes, and that helped that. Those challenges helped me figure out that that’s the kind of leader I want to be. I’m okay, admitting I’m. I’m okay when I do something wrong and and it’s fine. There’s people make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes and they always will and they continue to, and so, no matter what level you are and you just have to figure out how you’re gonna make that work. So I think that was the one Big thing, the big hurdle, like you know you, the arrogance, the confidence. It’s the leading with humility.
Speaker 2:
And then there’s this whole new program that they start authentic leadership, like that’s. It’s important. It’s just it’s because you need to be related, you need to be able to relate to the leader and learn from them, but also make sure that they understand how to make it, how to translate that forward. So I’d say that, in addition to all the great things that Manas said, like on having the right Kind of thinking about your health, your family, all that, like all of those things are very important, but I think it’s how you deal with the failure and what, what you learn, how you come out of that and what makes you who you are, because there’s those inflection points, there’s gonna be those one big failures that you know You’re always gonna tell people, like famous, our collective boss myself in Manas. He tells us one story about the one time and like you know, that’s how he learned to do x, y, zed, and like these are things that will always stay with you and so I think that that was one of my earnings.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that’s. That’s a brilliant example and you’re right I, the way that you deal with a failure can also really make or break a team Sometimes, and how you band together as a team or all apart and I’ve been on some great teams I’ve really turned in woods to try and make sure that we all stick by each other and try and fix what is happening, and I’ve also been on some teams where everybody turned out woods and threw each other under the bus and said, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t do it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you have to, and it’s. I think it’s that you’re right. It’s like I Always, whenever anything goes wrong and things always go, it’s it I always say let’s get all the facts of everything first before anything happens, right? So let’s ask my and I’ll ask my team what happened. I’ll ask Partners what happened. Get all the facts together now, how are we gonna respond to this?
Speaker 2:
You got to protect your team, also to us, to the extent that they, that they feel that it’s not under in their realm. But you also have to think of, well, if they did make a mistake, how do we Show that humility and figure that out? And that’s coaching folks to do that, because they’re scared and they’re always gonna be scared. That you know. I’m admitting I made this mistake. You did, we have to. You got to come out of it. People, everybody makes mistakes and so, but if I think it’s that balance and finding that balance is is important, but the one piece of advice bag is always cause yeah, a lapped, you calm about it, figure it all out, and then yeah, yeah, and then yeah, yeah that’s brilliant advice and on that I wanted to ask you can you recall a specific instance for a relationship or connection has had a significant impact on your career?
Speaker 1:
I suppose that that that can be somebody that was senior or junior. It could be somebody that was, you know, within your company or in your wider network and Minas, is there somebody for you that are a specific instance that you can think of? So when I was in one of the organization.
Speaker 3:
Working with one of the executive senior exit executive he gave me the opportunity to work on establishing the enterprise architecture practice, which is kind of New to me and also it was a very exciting opportunity.
Speaker 3:
It was very challenging because there was no foundational aspect of the enterprise architecture as a whole, because usually enterprise architecture is an elephant in a dog room, so Nobody truly understand what is it about.
Speaker 3:
And because he somehow Somehow trusted in my competency and he noticed that I’m very excited about establishing this practice, he trusted me and assigned me this task. So eventually he was side by side, working with me, helping me and mentoring me and helped me to think beyond the technology in the enterprise architecture work on the business aspect of it, which is a business architecture with relationship management. And again I get back to other points that I made, that how you have to collaborate with these stakeholders, starting from business, going to the technology at different layers, from the data, from the infrastructure, from the network, and looking to everything holistically and think strategically in order to build this practice. So eventually it was a very successful project and not only it added value to the organization as a whole, but also it helped me to progress in my career and it was very successful, basically milestone for my career, and this is the moment that I really truly understood that this is what I want to do moving forward. So that’s my story.
Speaker 1:
Amazing. Yes, it sounds like it’s a very good sponsor for you as well. Perhaps if you were missing and he was talking about you know, talking about you when you’re not in the room it sounded like he would have been a very good sponsor for you as well. Mam, to yourself, can you recall a specific instance where a relationship or connection had an impact on your career?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I will say probably when I moved to infrastructure. Well, right before I moved to infrastructure, I was in a group where I was working with infrastructure as one of their like, helping them figure out their operating model and their strategy and and how they were going to be structured and all those things. And so the head of the group at the time she was the head of strategy and operations for infrastructure. I’m literally like, if you think of it as a consultant, but internally but not really like I was in a group that could help with that. She’s the one who said to me you know, you would be amazing in technology, right? And I said I’m not, I can do the periphery. I’m good, undertone is good, I like that. They’re like. She’s like no, no, they need the diversity of thought and experience. I’m a woman first of all, so there’s one diverse tick, but then also someone who’s not. I’m of South Asian descent and so you know, diversity of thought and experience. I mean there’s no shortage of South Asian descent in technology, but I guess being a woman and adding to that, that becomes kind of one one, one asset. So and then I said you know, I’m sure you get a lot of that she’s like not really, and that’s something you should really consider. So I started thinking about it. I’m she was herself a diverse female in technology as a VP at the time, and I said, and so I? I said, okay, I’m in my head. I thought I’ve never had a leader who I could look at and say it’s similar to me, right, like in a way, like she was of a different background but like a diverse person. So, um, I said, yeah, this kind of makes sense, like maybe I’ll go there anyway. So I, you know she became at that time then, like now, my boss, right, because I got a promotion, I got moved in and and and it was awesome. So it’s my first ABP role they they call it senior director at RBC and I’m getting to getting all this exposure with different people.
Speaker 2:
But the the biggest learnings were, like in my meetings, how I handled myself in those meetings because there’s a all men, all men, more than majority and how I remember little nuances of like, um, she would say, well, you don’t need to wait for full consensus, it’s not, that’s not how it works, that’s a thing that you’re trying to do because it could be, uh, something that you’re used to because of the culture earlier that you’ve come from or things like that. You got to remember that you’re trying to get to the point. You got to get an outcome. Things have to move fast, like little tidbits. It’s like I used to just say, oh my god, like I would.
Speaker 2:
I didn’t even think, I didn’t even realize all these subconscious things you’re doing and I just was like eating it up every single day, like on things that make me a better leader but also help me understand who I am.
Speaker 2:
And like that person is the one who showed me all of this and I feel like it was. I would never have gotten something like that if I didn’t really like I had great leaders, but like I never had someone that I could say, oh my god, she this. I’m learning from someone who’s gone through this and she’s giving me like a sneak preview on things that I I should expect. So I I always say, always have different types of leaders all the time, because they’re always going to be your advocates. But I think the bigger thing is is like sometimes it’s it’s good to see yourself in the leader as well. Right, and being a woman in tech, you don’t always get that opportunity you, you really don’t. So it’s, it was just like something that to this day she’s phenomenal, she’s doing amazing things, she’s a great leader and mentors, still to this day.
Speaker 1:
And and it’s, it’s, she’s just, you know, you think like if you’ll work mom at times like that became kind of like a working mom, you know, and you afterwards, after she was my boss anymore and you’re right, and ladies at different levels as well, because you, you just nailed it there perfectly with seeing yourself in that position and sometimes it’s really hard to see yourself say, you know, immediately in an exit in an executive position when you’re really young, and that’s, that’s hard. You’re just thinking, yes, the next role and the next one.
Speaker 2:
It’s always the next, it’s always the next and and I remember early, early, early on in my career, I’m like yeah, when I get to that level, I’m happy. I’m like no like, and so it’s just, and that’s why I think that question comes up in interviews, like what are, what is your next two lines? And then? Then you can figure out that you know anyway, so that’s yeah yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:
Um, I wanted to ask you, minnaz, um, can you share a specific mistake or failure that talked to a valuable lesson and contributed to your growth as a leader? Mamta shared a brilliant example of failure and how to, how to deal with that as as a leader, and what, what you wanted to do differently. Is there something that has come up in your career that was, you know, a mistake or a failure that really taught you something about yourself and your, your career?
Speaker 3:
yes, always. You know, if I, if I say there was no mistake or failure, definitely there’s, something was not right. So definitely one of the failure that I remember, the mistake that I made and I learned from it, was basically I was the accountable responsible to deliver an outcome, that impact, to the large number of people in our organization. In one of the companies that I was that I worked for and I really let that project and I over committed and underestimated the challenges and I missed the deadlines and, um, basically, when I paused and I try to pivot and understand how we can change it in order to uh, basically we get the result that we want, then I realized that I totally forgot really have a regular checking with my teams and listening to them, because I was really focused on delivering and at that moment I was scared of the impact that what if we don’t deliver? It’s gonna have to the organization and because of that, everybody was under stress and and we couldn’t perform.
Speaker 3:
So that that, because of that initiative and that experience, I really learned that uh, first of all, regular checking, listen to the feedbacks from your team and people are closely working with you and trying to uh basically work toward the same objectives. Uh, if he’s not going well, speak up, it doesn’t? It’s okay. Uh, sooner than later, if we communicate with the leadership, it’s gonna be better. And, um, just, you know, make sure that if something is not going in the right direction, quickly react and fix it, rather than just postpone it and forget about the you know what is happening in your team and just focusing on the outcome and the impact of the organization. So I learned so many things from that lesson that, as I said, I have to listen to my team and pivot, pause and come up with a new strategy in order to meet their goals and objective that we set for ourselves.
Speaker 1:
That’s great advice to share. I have had a few ladies on this podcast tell me that they made the mistake of when they got into leadership. They thought that everybody on their team expected them to know everything and that they almost had to carry the weight of that team on their own. And it sounds like you did something similar where you just you know what. I could have just asked the team instead of just thinking you know what am I supposed to deliver. Yeah, it’s a common problem and, yeah, definitely something that a lot of ladies on this podcast have experienced, and brilliant advice on that one. Memte, you mentioned a little bit earlier about humility and being humble and trying to find that humility in your leadership. So I wanted to ask you striking the right balance between confidence and humility is crucial in leadership. So how do you navigate this balance in your career?
Speaker 2:
That’s a great question because it is. If you’re too humble or too you know it’s, it does offer the opportunity for what’s the word strike, showing like you know you’re one of them and you’re not sure if you’re able to actually lead your you’re becoming too soft. I guess it can be perceived that way I’m not saying all the time, but it can be perceived that way. And if you’re too confident, it’s arrogance, right, confidence and arrogance has that fine line, right, and I cannot stand that at all. My view is you always have to find, like each situation has a way to relate. Each person has a way to relate, and I learned this from my father. He was a salesman for most of his career. Then he came here into Canada and then he did a bunch of different things, entrepreneurial things, but the one thing is he’s an extreme extrovert like me and he he always found ways to each me like the best way to deal with a situation or handle something or even lead is where I took. It is relating to each person and understanding them and how you can make them understand what to do. So what’s the right level of humility is how much am I going to share with this person and how much am I going to help them understand so that they know that I get them? But at the end of the day, I am still trying to lead this team, whether it’s from behind or from the front, but usually it’s from behind. Because you want to empower your team, how are you going to show that I’m confident and I know what I’m doing? I’m just going to give you my share. So it’s a value of many, while sharing your humanity, sharing enough of your humanity to show that you’re relatable, you are somebody. You’re not this ivory tower, but it. But then also, you know enough. You understand, you’re going to figure out where things went wrong or things are going right and how walk them through that journey. And it’s really that discussion, understanding and that way of making sure that you can, they know what you know what level they need from you on that balance between humility as well as confidence.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes you walk into a meeting, and especially with somebody who is like a super senior, like super duper senior, right, and in our case it could, it’s our CEO. If he’s in a meeting, you know there’s a very. They want to, they want to see your confidence, they want to see what you’re doing. They want to know what you’re getting out of it, right. Of course you want to share your humanity, but that’s the balance you want to give them. Sometimes, when you have a teammate who has gone through something or a colleague that’s going through something pretty awful and you want to, you just you know you have to get an outcome there, but you really want to show like you need them to understand that you are there for them. You got to show some humility yourself and then get to the point right, so I think it’s it’s really the situation, as well as as the discussion with the person getting to you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and you mentioned there that it’s in manualised values. I think as well it comes down to that as well being in in the right company culture and a good company culture that allows you to to to be able to balance those two things. Because sometimes if you find yourself at the wrong company and actually you think this culture seems a little bit toxic to me and and I can’t get on as a lady here because you know, actually I found, you might find that everybody is a little too arrogant or you know, they, they show, are a little too humble. So it’s finding that perfect balance and it’s nice that you mentioned that actually humanity is in manualised values to allow you to do that. Menaz, what about yourself? How do you think you can strike that balance between confidence and humility in in leadership?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I have to acknowledge that we are very lucky that we have it. You know in our culture that. You know that MAMTA mentioned is part of the manualised DNA, which is great, but I love what MAMTA said. I 100%, you know. I agree with her. But and what I wanted to add here is a couple of other areas that I usually leverage in order to maintain this balance and encourage my team also to maintain this balance.
Speaker 3:
Number one is really self-awareness is what I think that we should always think about ourselves understand ourselves, strengths and our weakness and our limitations as a human, even though sometimes we want it to be very confident, but we should not forget that we have some limitation and we acknowledge it.
Speaker 3:
Active listening is another one, and having empathy in compassion is another one that really helped us to go through some of the challenges that not only we are facing, but also our team members and all the other stakeholders that we’re managing facing. With Active listening I mentioned. Recognition of others is another thing that sometimes it really helped them. You know to feel as a human, that you know they really are adding value, and it’s not just about the work. There are so many other things that we can recognize them for being open to feedback as a leader and also admit our mistakes, not only in front of our team, but sometimes it’s okay admitting the mistakes when we are interacting with the other leaders and senior leaders because, again, as Mamta mentioned, we as a human, we all make mistakes, and having a vision and being decisive is another thing that I should emphasize that it’s going to help us to maintain this balance between new confidence and humility.
Speaker 1:
I love the fact that you touched on empathy as well. I know it’s something that is so, so important in business and something that isn’t spoken about enough as a topic. Ladies, we’re almost out of time and I wanted to go to you one last quick question. Mamta, let’s start with you. If you could go back and give yourself your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 2:
This is my favorite question. I think I would say don’t be afraid to reach out to people that are more senior than you or not. I think that’s a big thing. When I was younger and it was advice that was given to me that I didn’t take it as much right at the outset I did later still early in my career, but not as early I used to feel that they’re so senior, like, oh my God, how can I reach out to them and how can I ask them for a coffee just to talk or get advice or network?
Speaker 2:
It is very important, not because it’s a senior person and not because you’re networking for the sake of networking. The amount that you learn from them and the amount they want to help is now, looking back at when people will coffee with me and get so happy about it. It makes me feel like, yes, of course I’m going to take the time, I’m going to make the effort, because people actually did that for me. But right at the outset it was just such a fear I had. I don’t mean face time is face time, but it is important to get that connection and learn from so many different people because in just a coffee you learn that it doesn’t have to be your boss, it doesn’t have to be a senior person on your team, it can be anybody. So I would say that’s the advice I would give. It’s in it for this day I feel will be valuable. Even now I do that.
Speaker 1:
And even outside your company as well, is so valuable to find lots of different people from different backgrounds.
Speaker 2:
I would say it’s even more important outside your coffee.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Because you’re just in this.
Speaker 1:
Yes, definitely Minnes yourself. What would you say to your younger self if you could?
Speaker 3:
Yes, I’m going to say life is not a race, it’s a journey, and this journey is unique for everyone. And work hard, but also play hard throughout this journey and stay focused and curious.
Speaker 2:
This is what I’m going to say to myself oh my god, that’s like a prophetic statement. I love it.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I love it I love it, I love it.
Speaker 3:
This is what I tell to my children all the time.
Speaker 1:
I love it. It is lovely positive advice to end on as well, because we are already out of time, ladies. So, minnes and Manta, thank you so much for taking the time to have a chat, for Spilling the Tea today. It’s been an absolute pleasure chatting to you both.
Speaker 3:
Thank you for having us, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Everybody listening, as always. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
