GMH Senior Summit Breakout –

Leadership Survival Skills

Group Leader: Maria Klawe

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Charge
• Charge: How to be more effective leaders
individually and collectively as women in
our field?
• Process:
– Explored leadership challenges
– Discussed strategies and best practices

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Leadership Challenges 1
• Broadening perception of leadership beyond conventional
styles
– How do we achieve in the current landscape?
– How do we evolve the landscape?
• Extra challenges and responsibilities of being women
leaders in our field
• Managing enthusiasm to promote women/political
correctness vs. readiness for new positions and
responsibilities and development of the skills to succeed
– How to decide when to take/seek new opportunities

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Leadership Challenges 2
• How to “feel” like a leader and place oneself within the
technical, political, social framework
– “Entitlement” issues
• Role of women leaders in computer science with respect to
furthering the representation and agenda of women in
computer science
– Energy management and burnout
– Where are the “sugar mommies”?
• How to encourage agencies to invest in maintenance of
good outreach projects vs. seeding outreach projects
• How to weather transitions successfully (going from one
culture/institution to another)
NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices
• What have you or others done to be an
effective leader?

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 1
• “Power of rhetoric” If you want things to
change, declare success about it
– Raise visibility by having things be part of the
language
• Take time for reflection – leadership by
introspection
• Values: learning to be adaptive, flexible, agent for
change

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 2
• Be able to articulate your vision in an easily
understood way
– Provides a focus for your leadership
• Get a core group of people working with
you
– Buy-in is critical.
• Build on people’s strengths and passions
– Invest people in forwarding your/their agenda
NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 3
• Be willing to lose openly and often
– Accepting loss speaks to integrity and leadership
• Use a group of key people in your life whose
advice you trust
• Be willing to change your thinking
• To be a leader, you need to be able to get people to
follow
– You need to get people working together and engaged
with a mutual agenda

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 4
• People follow leaders with vision
– Vision must be simple, focused and compelling
– Leader must do their homework
– You must be able to sell your vision
• You need to master when to use influence and when to use
power
– You need to know how to use both
• Actions are at least as important as words
– If you think something is important, you need to demonstrate it to
your reports wrt your priorities, how you spend your time, etc.

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 5
• You need to be able to work in a number of
different time scales
– You need to be able to plan far ahead
• You need to be able to manage both self-
confidence and self-doubt
– Take enough input to question yourself
• You need to be able to create new leaders
– Good organizations have bench depth

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 6
• Stay at the table – don’t give up on people or what
you believe in
• Leaders should listen
– Be obliging in the way you refuse
• You have to be respected even if you or your
decisions are not liked
• Be a role model for your organization
– Interact with your staff consist in the way you want the
culture to be

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Strategies and Best Practices 7
• Make your goals about your team’s success rather
than your success
• You need to get good at managing both up and down
– With direct reports, it’s useful to foster communication
among parties
• Strategy: Each person can explain the other’s point of view
• Value the idea and not just the status of the person
who said it

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD

 Action Items
1. Maria and Robin and Fran B. will organize leadership
short-course, sponsored by IWT and available to senior
women
• Focus: Development of skills applicable to our day-to-day
leadership roles
2. Summarize leadership challenges and strategies for
senior women in computing
3. Susan and Fran A. will organize a senior women’s
summit around the idea of women being catalysts for
change in society
• Focus: Strategies to use leadership to change society more
broadly
NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER, UCSD