60: Building Leaders in Your Team with Greg Skirving

Charlotte Ward: 0:12

Hello and welcome to episode 60 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is Building Leaders in Your Team, so stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome to the podcast today Greg Skirving. Greg, would you like to introduce yourself?

Greg Skirving: 0:41

Absolutely. Hey Charlotte, how are you? Yeah, Greg Skirving. Currently I'm a support manager with uh Broadcom, the Semantec Enterprise Division. I've uh uh been doing support for probably about 15 years, but in my career I've been uh fortunate enough to uh have uh sold and and done uh implementation and professional services.

Charlotte Ward: 1:02

Awesome. Thanks, Greg. Lovely to have you. The topic for this week is building leaders in your team. Um and I'm curious how you identify those leaders and how you encourage leadership qualities and skills in your individual contributors.

Greg Skirving: 1:21

Yeah, firstly, I think um having uh an actual team lead or even a de facto leader within the individual contributor group is uh is uh critical to the success of the overall organization. And and it's a tough role. It's tough to be a pseudo manager and yet still be one of the folks that's uh that's that's doing the doing the job, taking cases, dealing with customers. So it uh takes a very special, very special person. I find that uh um leaders naturally um um bubble up. You'll notice them over time. They they get the respect of of their peers. Um they typically have a long line at their desk with uh looking for uh looking for help. And it's not just the technical part, the core part of the job. Um it may be dealing with customers, it may be uh other administrative parts of the role. Um, you know, you see that over time. What I like to do when I have uh people that that are in that position um and want to really uh embrace that and move forward is uh provide opportunities for challenge. Uh um, you know, have them cover for me when I'm uh when I'm out. Um uh in my role, obviously, I fill a role, but when Greg's out, the role doesn't leave. So who's Greg when Greg's not here? And uh great opportunity to have people actually get in the saddle and and and see what it's like. That also provides a different perspective. Managers deal with uh with their individual contributors, and uh and we know why it's you know typically to maybe take a call or can you handle this case or there's an escalation, but the perspective of the individual contributor is is why is that manager always pinging me? So um I think when you when you find and and uh uh can develop a leader who's actually one of the individual contributors, um they actually get to see what it's like on the other side and and can help uh propagate that message as to as to why, and there is rhyme and reason why your your manager might be reaching out to you and no, he or she's not picking on you. It's uh we've got business to do here.

Charlotte Ward: 3:33

Yeah, I think that's really really true. The the perspectives differ wildly from IC to manager, and uh if you have people who are able to see both halves of that coin, that that really does uh that really does build that bridge, doesn't it? And it enables you to have those conversations. That potential leadership is uh often flagged by those cues of people at someone's desk, and it isn't just for the technical aspects of the role. And in fact, quite often your best leaders, your best potential leaders aren't your best ICs, right?

Greg Skirving: 4:09

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. And and that is um, I think a common mistake viewpoint, typically your best technical resource doesn't have the overall leadership skills. That doesn't mean that they're not your best technical resource. And I've seen in my career in succession planning where um we need to move somebody up to take over the managerial position. And well, um, you know, Bobby or Sally is the the best performer on the team. Let's make them the manager. And and that has two effects. It puts that person in a situation where they they might not be cut out or or or even worse, want to pursue that managerial career. And number two, you take your best, uh, your best performer uh out of the pool. So uh, you know, that's not to say that that people who are overly technical can't be leaders, but you know, it's we're we're we're looking for the ability to um um influence people, have have people look up to them. And and one other critical thing I've I've found is to perform at that top level, you you you have to perform with only having downside. You know, it's easy to be somebody new and you can make mistakes and you know you may you might have a have a good day, but when you're seen as as as that top person, um, there's a lot of responsibility. And um if something goes wrong, you you know you're gonna hear about it. So that's another quality I look for in in uh in leaders being able to perform with with only having downside because you're the best and we only ever expect the best out of you.

Charlotte Ward: 5:40

I've got one more thing I want to touch on, which is something you said before, which is that when you when you find that person to step into your shoes when you're out, are you are you always calling on that one person or do you share the love around?

Greg Skirving: 5:55

Typically I will have uh you know one or two or maybe three people that are in that uh that uh de facto team lead or or literal team lead role. And uh yeah, I do like to I do like to spread it around.

Charlotte Ward: 6:09

Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously a lot depends on the size of the team, but you you use the right word there. It's quite often a de facto leader. It's somebody who doesn't necessarily have the title, but that has you've spotted those qualities in and you have that level of trust with, right? To deal deal with things while you're out. Yeah.

Greg Skirving: 6:28

In my current role, we we don't actually have a literal org chart team lead, but I've always had a quote unquote team lead or two.

Charlotte Ward: 6:39

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash sixty for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.