Decoding Leadership

Jade Rubick

Decoding Leadership - where we break down the intersection of effective and humane leadership, especially in software product development (engineering, product, and design).

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20 episodes
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Avg 43 min
English

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#38
July 29 · 46 min
38. Damon Kornhauser on experience mapping and building resilient work cultures
Damon and I worked together a few years ago, and he conducted a fascinating practice called experience mapping. He goes over the practice and why it can make such a big difference in how a company coordinates its activities to offer exceptional experiences. We also discuss how to build resilient work cultures.
July 8 · 42 min
37. Ankit Jain on killing code review and solving the new bottlenecks in engineering
Ankit Jain is CEO of Aviator, and veteran of many companies. He's active in the developer experience space and maintains several online communities. He's in the middle of the conversation about where software is heading, and building some of the developer tooling to support it. We had a fascinating discussion where he covered: How to kill the code review. How to verify intent and validate at machine speed. Why he thinks all businesses are becoming developer tools companies. The paradox of automation and how it applies to increasingly automated systems. Will AI reinforce existing practices or explode them? Advice for building and supporting online communities.
#36
June 24 · 41 min
36. Jason Yee on technical and developer advocacy
Jason is a veteran of the technical advocacy and developer advocacy space. I thought it would be useful for people to better understand these roles. He shares how advocacy roles have shifted over the years, where in the organization they belong, and teaches about how to do storytelling well. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
#35
June 10 · 53 min
35. Rebecca Hinds on designing the best meetings
Rebecca Hinds, Ph.D. is a world expert on meetings. She's released a new book on the topic (Your Best Meeting Ever), packed with ideas for how to improve the way your organization focuses, communicates, and works together. We discussed incentives, mechanisms for shaking up ineffective use of time, how to build a culture of effective meetings, and power dynamics.
#34
April 15 · 54 min
34. Todd Etchieson on radical alignment and what great product strategy looks like
Todd Etchieson and I were counterparts at New Relic. Of all the people I've worked with, he is one of the best at getting people radically aligned. This is often a huge challenge for product leaders -- the CEO and product leader alignment is notorious for being problematic. He breaks down how he does it, and how he learned to do it so well. We also discuss great product strategy and what it really looks like. We also talk about a new product we canceled because it was off strategy.
#33
March 4 · 48 min
33. Seth Engelhard on being the head of engineering
Seth Engelhard has worked at some of the more interesting companies in the world: GitLab, Netlify, New Relic, and now Observable. He goes into a lot of detail about what practices he learned from these companies, and what the transition to being the head of engineering has been like. We cover topics like building a support network, transparency, career transitions, running meetings well, and being in an async and remote by default company.
#32
January 14 · 50 min
32. Matt Otis on training that works
Matt Otis has spent his career around building effective training programs. Training is one of the most important aspects of building a successful organization, but it's often not well understood. Matt had a ton of insights on how to make training really land, and set up people with what they need to succeed. This is useful not just if you're doing training programs (for example, how do you train someone on something you don't know?) He also digs into how training is evolving in modern organizations, especially with the advent of AI.
#31
Nov 25, 2025 · 1 hr 4 min
31. Diana Larsen on retros, team liftoffs, agile fluency, and more
Diana was a delightful and insightful guest. She is a well-known expert on agile retrospectives, team liftoffs, agile fluency, and building resilient learning teams. She's probably the best in the world at these topics, so learn from her perspective!
#30
Oct 29, 2025 · 43 min
30. Elaine May on making change and the dangers of SCRUM
Elaine May joined Decoding Leadership for a conversation on how to effectively make change as a leader. Elaine was an early agile practitioner, using it in very non-agile environments! She wrote about using agile methods five years before the agile manifesto. She taught me about a concept she calls change budgets. And shared how to deal with critics and naysayers. And then we talked about SCRUM and some of the downsides in the way it's practiced.
#29
Sep 24, 2025 · 44 min
29. Charity Majors on building organizations you can believe in
Charity and I had a very personal discussion about the tremendous growth you can make personally as a leader, and the meaning you can derive from having an impact on the lives of the people around you. Full of nuance and perspective, Charity shares how her views have evolved over the years, and how her core values as a leader show up in the work she does. Such a pleasure to share this with you!
#28
Aug 18, 2025 · 48 min
28. Lena Reinhard on making space for leadership that matters
Lena shares insights on making space for leadership work, addressing the issues leaders face, and strategies for more thoughtful and rewarding leadership. With experience as a CEO, startup founder, and former VP of engineering, Lena offers a wealth of knowledge on overcoming challenges. We discuss managing energy levels, embracing productivity, and the importance of community and self-awareness in leadership.
#27
Jul 30, 2025 · 45 min
27. Beth Adele Long on reliability and leadership
I sit down with Beth Long to discuss her extensive experience with reliability engineering from working at companies like New Relic, Jeli, Gruntwork, and Adaptive Capacity Labs. Beth shares her insights on the role of executives in incident management, the balance between product development and reliability, and how different organizations approach incident coordination. We also explore reliability as a product and the importance of organizational culture in effective incident response. I learned a great deal, and thought about some aspects of reliability in completely new ways. I hope you do too!
#26
Jun 4, 2025 · 9 min
26. Jade Rubick on reflecting power
Reflected Power is a way to use power you don’t have. Join me as I introduce the concept of Reflected Power. Reflected Power is using the authority of those above you to amplify your influence and achieve your goals. We’ll cover the nuts and bolts of how to use the positional authority of the people around you to be more effective. Curious to hear your thoughts on this approach! 00:00 Reflecting power: leveraging the power you don’t have 00:17 Introduction 01:26 What is reflecting power, and what does it look like? 03:14 They need to be aligned and view it as important 04:04 Can be done with peers, other leaders, and in a networked way 05:14 Don't overuse this tool 05:32 Delegating up, delegating laterally 07:24 Hierarchical thinking can limit us 08:18 Creating space for others to use your power 09:28 Conclusion
#25
May 21, 2025 · 48 min
25. Molly Graham on Google to Glue
I had the opportunity to interview Molly Graham, who has an impressive background working at Google, Facebook, and Quip, among other places. In 2022, she founded Glue Club, a community for startup leaders to learn from each other. Molly is best known for her concept of 'giving away your Legos,' which she developed from her experience with rapid organizational scaling. We discuss the emotional and practical aspects of change in startups. Molly also shares her (provative, deliberate, rare!) approach to organizational design, executive team dynamics, and her experience giving a TED Talk on the topic of cliff jumping versus ladder climbing with your career. It's a fascinating conversation full of insights for anyone interested in leadership and growth in fast-paced environments.
Apr 23, 2025 · 48 min
24. Brent Miller on team health assessments
In today's episode, we dive into the fascinating world of team health assessments with Brent Miller. Brent, who held the title of organizational architect and worked as a principal engineer at New Relic, shares insights on conducting team health self-assessments and their impact on organizational improvements. We explore the concept of team reviews, the challenges faced during initial implementations, and how self-assessments revealed critical patterns such as stakeholder misalignment and workload issues. Brent also discusses the value of an annual organizational retrospective, the role of leadership buy-in, and the potential for smaller, more frequent check-ins. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in organizational observability and leadership experiments.
#23
Apr 9, 2025 · 57 min
23. Jim Gochee on banning "prioritization", and getting functions to work together
In this episode of Decoding Leadership, host Jade interviews Jim Gochee, a seasoned expert in the software industry with a rich career spanning roles from engineer to CEO. They cover the controversial decision to ban the word 'prioritization' at Blameless, and go into some detail about how to get people to work well across departments. They discuss anti-patterns and common ruts in product and engineering interactions, the significance of clear goal-setting to unify teams, and the impact of understanding different roles within a company. Finally, Jim offers advice on leadership transitions, the role of curiosity and growth mindset in career progression, and the value of coaching and mentorship.
#22
Mar 26, 2025 · 46 min
22. James Shore: what if we scaled our teams to unreasonable sizes?
Jim and I sit down and talk about his successful engagement at New Relic, where he brought modern autonomous team approaches the company. Jim shares how he has been doing it differently over the last few years, using an approach called Fluid Scaling Technology (FaST). We explore some parts of implementing FaST that I don’t believe are discussed anywhere else, such as how management works differently in an environment using FaST. And Jim shares how his recent engagement as a VP of Engineering has shaped his recent leadership work.
#21
Mar 12, 2025 · 41 min
21. Jayanthan Bhattathiripad on introducing yourself, XP and Scrum, and waste
In this episode, we talk with Jayanthan Bhattatharapad. Jay has a very interesting way of introducing himself to his teams and organization, and I asked him to demo it to us. In doing so, he shares not only this interesting practice, but lots of tidbits about how he sees leadership. We had a fascinating discussion, can't wait to share it with you! * Jay's career journey from consulting at ThoughtWorks to Expedia, to his recent role at Cisco. * The importance of mental health and psychological safety in teams. * Why Extreme Programming is harder (and better) than Scrum. * The impact of lean principles on software development and tackling waste. * The influence of cultural differences on communication and leadership.
#20
Feb 26, 2025 · 26 min
20. Margaret Le on technical leadership and building strong engineering cultures
Join us as we welcome Margaret Le, VP of Engineering at Facet, to discuss her experience from software engineering leadership roles at New Relic, Heroku, Slack, and Facet. We dive deep into the engineering leader's role in technical direction, and building teams and culture. Margaret shares her insights on defining and executing technical vision. She also explains how to cultivate a thriving work environment by clearly defining core values. She talks about the value of psychological safety, transparency, and vulnerability.
#19
Jan 29, 2025 · 12 min
19. Jade Rubick: using task forces to solve complex leadership challenges
In this episode, we delve into the concept of task forces and their crucial role in addressing organizational challenges. Discover when and how to employ task forces effectively, and learn from real-life examples, including a case at New Relic to rapidly deliver a complex feature in six weeks, and another involving a complex merger that spanned every department. I share actionable tips on how to set up a successful task force, including the importance of a solid kickoff meeting, selecting the right team members, and how to leverage the power of other leaders.

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