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Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
I've held leadership roles at Google and Facebook. Here are the top skills I'd urge the next generation to focus on — none of them are technical.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Jennifer Dulski, the CEO of Rising Team, from the San Francisco Bay Area. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I've held several leadership positions in Big Tech. I was the director of product management for Google Shopping from 2011 to 2012, and head of groups and community at Facebook in the late 2010s. Now, I run my own leadership coaching software company. I don't subscribe to the narrative that younger generations lack key skills. As a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching early-career students about management, I'm always really impressed with my students. When I consider what it takes for early-career people to succeed inside big companies, I think it's more important to focus on soft skills. The hard skills you might need change so quickly that you can't make a list, but soft skills are the real needle-movers to a career. Skills like adaptability, relationship-building, and taking initiative helped me in my early career and are essential for young professionals to grow their careers and become good leaders. Adaptability is important, particularly in Big Tech My tech career began in 1998 with an internship at Yahoo. I joined full-time in 1999 in the marketing org, where I worked my way up. If I think about what helped me climb the ranks in my career, the first piece was adaptability. The phrase, "the only constant is change," is a cliché for a reason. Things change so often. My career started when the internet was nascent. Messaging, mobile, streaming, and now AI have become part of our work and personal lives. I needed to adapt to new market products and what was being asked of me in my role. In Big Tech, there are constant reorganizations. Macroeconomic changes like tariffs and trade can influence large companies to change their strategies or sometimes lay off employees. To succeed inside these companies, you have to be adaptable. At one point during my time at Yahoo, I switched roles. Listening to and learning from the people around me was key. I asked to sit in on meetings with other teams so I could understand more about our core audience and adapt quickly to the new role. There are sister skills to adaptability that can help One is learning agility. If you can learn quickly, you can adapt faster. AI could change everything about work. The people who are actively trying to learn and use AI will be the most adaptable. Don't wait until your company says you need to learn AI and offers you training. There's lots of free training available, just go do it. Early on, I taught myself HTML by practicing coding web pages. Learning to speak the language of the engineers I worked with helped me advance in my career. Another important sister skill is relationship-building. When you get to know your colleagues as human beings, it's much easier to adapt to big changes, because you have a support network within your company. Relationships can also help as you're climbing the ranks at a company. Early in my tech career, I developed relationships with engineers in my office because I wanted to get to know them. I remember wanting to test a hypothesis and needed a technical colleague to build a process to test it. When I needed help, I could go to someone I already knew and ask. I was able to show executives what we built together, helping both of us advance our careers. Take initiative Sometimes, people early in their careers believe they need permission to do something, like bring up a big idea. The most successful people in large companies are what I call hand-raisers. They see things that need to be done and think, "How can I help?" These people will often be given more responsibility faster because they take initiative. Early in my career, a colleague and I had an idea to boost sales between holiday peaks. We pitched the idea to senior leadership, got the green light, and successfully executed the plan. This earned us the right to continue pitching big ideas. I really encourage people to bring creative ideas or recognize where pain points are and volunteer to help, even in junior roles. You can learn the hard skills that you need at any given time I started my career in marketing, and I've worked in commerce, then marketplaces, then social impact, and now I run a SaaS company. To navigate a career like mine that has so many varied elements, focusing on soft skills — the things that aren't specific technical skills — is really important. I've learned hard skills like reading a balance sheet. I do use this skill as the CEO of a company, but it's not what's helped me advance in my career. It's been a check-the-box skill and not a needle-mover. Soft skills are those needle-movers. They're more valuable in the long-term and are necessary complements to the hard skills. Right now, AI is a hard skill that I believe people should absolutely be learning. But even if you learn it today, tomorrow there might be something else you need. Adaptability and the ability to learn quickly are way more important than any given hard skill you will learn.
Fast Company
18-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
What is a ‘snowplow manager?' How to deal with this type of toxic boss
Does your manager hate to delegate tasks? It might sound like a good thing—after all, that means less work for you. But, just like having a micromanaging boss is no fun, having a manager who takes on much of your work can create a work environment that is both stifling and unproductive. We asked three experts about what causes some bosses to act this way and how to encourage your supervisor to step aside and allow you to do your job. What is a 'snowplow manager'? A 'snowplow manager' is a supervisor who takes on excessive work themselves rather than delegating to their team, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of videoconferencing tech company Owl Labs. His team recently came up with the term, says Weishaupt, after noticing this trend in management, which 'resembles snowplow parenting, where a parent removes as many challenges from their child's life as possible.' Signs that your manager is snowplowing can include micromanagement, not letting you lead projects or calls, excluding you from meetings with senior leadership, and stepping in to do work they had previously assigned to you, says Jennifer Dulski, CEO and founder of software company Rising Team.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Workplace incivility is spiraling as companies rile up employees with RTO and layoffs, and new research warns it's a $766 billion problem
Shaming, gaslighting, and excessive micromanaging at work is making a comeback—and it's all thanks to unpopular policies like return-to-office (RTO) mandates and mass layoffs. Failure to act costs employers over $2.1 billion each day, or $766 billion annually. The American office is becoming a microcosm of toxicity due to unpopular internal policies like RTO and layoffs and external stressors like politics—with some workers acting out more than ever. Instances of workplace incivility—like shaming, gaslighting, and excessively micromanaging others—are up 21.5% in the first quarter of 2025, according to SHRM's Civility Index. And it's doing more damage than just hurting workers' mental health, it's carrying a hefty price tag for business owners. Due to reduced productivity and absenteeism, incivility costs employers over $2.1 billion each day—or $766 billion annually. 'Civility isn't just about how we interact. It's about how we succeed,' Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of SHRM, tells Fortune. 'The latest SHRM Civility Index shows we're making some progress, but incivility still takes a massive toll on our workplaces, costing businesses billions in lost productivity and disengagement.' Unpopular policies that companies are adopting to try to save money and enhance collaboration are only making matters worse. Employers with return-to-office mandates experience a 63% increase in incivility compared to those without; companies that initiate layoffs or mass terminations see a 67% rise in inappropriate behavior. Changes to workers' daily routines naturally bring stress and could be a cause for greater outbursts, said Derrick Scheetz, a researcher at SHRM. 'While they navigate this change together, these workers are also being exposed to more in-person interactions that will bring more encounters with and opportunities to act uncivil than virtual settings often offer,' Scheetz said. In the first quarter of 2025, over 208 million instances of office hostility occurred in American workplaces each day. Employers aren't solely to blame. Differences in political and social viewpoints are among the biggest drivers of workplace incivility, according to SHRM—and it's no wonder, considering the divisive nature of the 2024 election. In fact, nearly 3 in 4 employers report being in a low mood due to politics and current events, and roughly an equal number of workers desperately desire mental health resources to cope with global political turmoil. However, the behavior of managers can be make or break when it comes to supporting their employees during times of instability. 'People are upset, but it would have happened either way. And so the key for employers is to think, 'How do I navigate this?'' Jennifer Dulski, CEO of Rising Team, a workplace software company, previously told Fortune. Providing flexibility, lightening workloads, and resharing the available mental health services can be great strategies, but workers report that not enough is being done. Over 70% of workers said that incivility is going unchecked and that their supervisors could do more to prevent it. Taylor tells Fortune that change must start with showing empathy. 'This means leading with respect, listening to understand—not just to respond—and fostering inclusive cultures where differences drive innovation, not division,' he said. 'The bottom line? A more civil workplace isn't just good for people—it's good for business.' This story was originally featured on
