Leadership at a Software Startup
Essay Preview: Leadership at a Software Startup
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1. Company Background
Phoenix Systems is now a leading software firm which develops financial software solutions in Pakistan. In 1998, David and Sohail both around their early fifties left their salaried jobs as senior consultants in a financial multinational and invested their entire savings to start their own software firm. The twenty employee firm was based in Karachi and had no financial backing; therefore, it was under stress to produce profits. The firm positioned itself as a high quality Automated Teller Machine (ATM) software provider. Sohail tapped on his previous employer and was able get the firms first product deployed at two local banks at a competitive price. These revenues were able to sustain a breakeven point for the company within the first six months of its inception.
A firm with enormous growth opportunities
Software demand grew sharply as the entrepreneurs opened up the firm to Middle Eastern offers. The company started growing both in terms of number of employees and product lines. A natural ad-hoc divisional organizational structure surfaced. However, this growth came with a set of problems; very few software engineers knew ATM programming and those who learnt it from the entrepreneurs were unwilling to share it with new comers. They did not want to be replaceable and the organizational culture slummed, software quality fell, support costs increased and it became much harder for Phoenix to recruit quality employees most of which were programmers. There was no vision for newcomers.
Cultural Issues
Two kinds of programmers emerged, Support and Feature engineers. Support Engineers had monotonous jobs and had a very high turnover rate because they felt stuck in the same position while their friends in other firms experienced growth. Feature Engineers did the actual designing and were perceived slightly better growth opportunities. However, their seniors often hid core designs from them. The team leaders would very seldom network together and there was no informal networking within hierarchies. Some of the newcomers would complain that their
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bosses were competing with them. The directors were perplexed on what was to be done. The firm desperately needed leadership development and alignment. Perhaps most long standing organizations have continuity in leadership.
2. Ailish, the Visionary Newcomer
Background
Before joining Phoenix, Ailish was working as a Senior Team Lead for a financially stable and old software firm. She held a well respected standing in the emerging IT sector of Pakistan; she was a legendary programmer, her teams turnover rate was zero since her joining in 1996 and she was well known to effectively nurture true knowledge worker skills and systems in her teams. Those who had worked with her spoke with great respect about her. The aging entrepreneurs approached her in a technology training session in which she was teaching taught a new development methodology. They were impressed by her personality (discussed in much detail later) and advised her about the potential issues and challenges faced at Phoenix. They requested her to come aboard offered her an Operations Manager position. Soon after, Ailish accepted the offer and joined Phoenix.
Purpose
Ailishs self purpose in life was simple; she believed that without adding value in this world, life was meaningless. She wanted to make the world a better place for those around and would look for opportunities where she could make a difference. Her path was that of a transformational leader. She was effective in developing processes in small and medium sized firms by reorganizing them into aligned systems.
Ailishs Business Strategy for Phoenix
From conversations with the owners, Ailish knew that she alone could not grow the company. She had to nurture future managers and leaders so that the firm could deal with the vast amount of management needed take advantage of the growth opportunities in Middle East Asia. She fully understood that human capital was the most important asset in such service driven firms. Phoenix
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had to improve its product quality and decrease its turnover rate to become a leader in ATM software. Ailish saw both these as linked tasks.
3. Emotional Intelligence, her key strength (Concept # 4)
Self Awareness
Ailish understood that the actions, style or characteristics that make a leader “good” in one context may be ineffective or devastating in another. Phoenix was a typical software firm with most of its task force comprising of very capable knowledge workers who were desperately in need of a culture; therefore, value driven leadership was more suited for its leaders. Luckily for Phoenix, Ailish was a value driven leader who preferred leadership by example and management by objective. She accepted that she would make plenty of mistakes down the road and that her perception of employee interests may become misaligned with reality, therefore, she had to regulate herself all the way. I must say that she used the lunch table and evening get-togethers to their fullest. She often candidly showed a self-deprecating sense of humour during lunch with us juniors (This sent a clear message to the disconnected seniors: Network!) and asked us about our work. She truly wanted to connect with us to understand our different thinking styles and mental maps. Whenever an ongoing issue was discussed, she took multiple perspectives at hand and encouraged us to think in terms of solutions. She would integrate all our solutions and present us with one which made sense to everyone. It made employees more involved in what started becoming an informal information network. Every other day, she would talk about this new cutting edge technology which was near release and would patiently hear what we had to say about it. She would frequently remind us that great opportunity was coming ahead, and we had to prepare ourselves with the best tools and systems to deal with them. She wanted to know what kinds of training we needed to effectively handle tasks. For once, employees felt as if someone was bothered about their good. Ailish was actually mobilizing support for change.
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Motivation and Self