Reviews for Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership
I came in to this training with high hopes. I was hoping the training material would be practical and not all-too specific in the context of the company I work for. I wanted the training to apply to life in and out of work; as most principles of leadership apply to many angles in life. The Co Leadership team hit a freakin' home run in this regard. Also, the pace of their delivery was very easy to follow and digest. The visuals were so good and painted the lessons easily in to my brain. I walk away from this training with some honest-to-goodness nuggets of practical wisdom that I've already put in to use. If ever I got the opportunity to attend this course again, I would totally jump on the chance!!!
Tech Lead at Dropbox
This course is definitely a must-have for engineers transitioning into a leadership role. I was always focusing on my technical skills for making my impact and didn't think too much about my social and relationship skills. This course made it perfectly clear that those skills can easily be learned. Edmond and Jean packed so much valuable information together and the frameworks they provided made it easier for me to plan, prioritize, and communicate clearly in my day to day responsibilities.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
I used to think that a tech lead role was less structured than a more technical role like engineering. This workshop taught me that making the implicit explicit reveals the tech lead role as highly technical and structured.
The course has given me the ability to practically form-fit my role as a tech lead based on my strengths and passions for the good of my team’s needs. I now see a clear path to being effective at my role and helping my team to be effective at theirs.
Senior Data Engineer at Shipt
The course's content is delivered in such way that helps a lot of us engineers to systematize and actually apply tools to skills that seamed unreachable — in particular, soft skills belonging to other kind of people. And now we can own it.
Software Engineer at Zoom
Having little in the way of mentors, I had no clue what I was even supposed to be doing as a leader. Seeing Jean and Edmond apply techniques live and workshopping some of the situations facing my team back home, I was able to see the leadership in what I was already doing. Learning the techniques boosted my confidence even further, because now I have a clear roadmap how to apply my strengths and passions to shape my role into what works best for myself and my team.
Senior Software Engineer at Collective Data
Having worked through Edmond and Jean's workshop on the foundations of technical leadership, I now feel empowered to work through the challenges of technical leadership in a more intentional and deliberate way. There are patterns in the things you can do to be a more effective tech lead, and there are ways to understand, discuss, and execute on them systematically; I am much more confident in my ability to do this going forward.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Before the course, I struggled with a lot of self-doubt based on my perception of what a Tech Lead is supposed to be. The course showed me that I'm in charge of defining what my role as a Tech Lead looks like. This allows me to focus on my passions and skills that bring the team the most value.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Prior to this course, I didn't have a good handle on what technical leadership looked like for me personally. I knew what other people thought of as technical leadership but I didn't see myself entirely in terms of those limited archetypes. This course gave me the tools to define what tech leadership for me and authentically pursue it. The biggest shift in mindset for me has been from thinking "tech leadership looks like X, Y, or Z; pick one" to "tech leadership looks like A-Z; pick all you want." Now, I can participate in team planning responsibilities and feel like it's part of technical leadership instead of detracting from it.
Senior Software Engineer at Dropbox
The workshop helped shine a light on the often murky depths of expectations of being a tech lead. Jean and Edmond provided the space and tools to explore the what, why and how of technical leadership. I greatly appreciate their gentle yet insightful approach and how they blended the material with practical exercises. I can’t wait to see how my team will be inspired and challenged to conquer higher peaks even as we put these lessons into practice.
Engineer at Dropbox
This is the training that I wish I'd received years ago when I first started working on my leadership skills. Before the course, I wanted to improve my leadership skills but wasn't quite sure how or where to start. The 2-day course provided a great mix of frameworks, principles, and practices that actually feel useful — and an environment that gave me the opportunity to absorb the information and see it in practice. Since taking the course, I've been genuinely excited to start applying what I've learned. I've found myself seeking opportunities to have more explicit ownership conversations for projects I own and more actively applying the effective leadership mindsets to my team's direction and efforts.
Site Reliability Engineer at Dropbox
Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership crystallised how important it is to understand the strengths and passions of people on my team, and it gave me a framework for making these discussions highly effective. Before, I was shy about delegating. Now, I see that it's really a two-way conversation about finding the best person to do the work and giving that person the requisite trust and autonomy. I highly recommend this course for anyone looking to move into a leadership role. Hell, I wish I would have taken this course before I mentored my first summer intern!
Software Engineer at Dropbox
This course was the best 16-hour investment of my professional career. The most valuable takeaway for me was the frameworks Jean and Edmond presented to actively think about my role as a technical leader. As an engineer I would rather focus on writing code, and found it really easy to procrastinate on communication and planning. The frameworks they taught and the chance to practice them in class served as excellent prompts. The second takeaway was identifying the various roles a tech lead can take and being conscious about which role one is operating in. Actively thinking about this allows you to guide conversations so that everyone walks away with a positive outcome.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
As a Tech Lead, I always found that the successes of my projects were directly correlated with how well I was able to communicate, delegate, and prioritize. However, it was never very clear to me whether and how I did these things well or poorly. Co Leadership made these unknowns tangible for me. What's clearer to me now are the specific tools and talking points I can use to be a clear, effective communicator and leader.
Senior Mobile Engineer at Dropbox
One of the biggest insights I took away from the workshop is that there is no right or specific way to be a tech lead. In order to really be effective, you need to find a balance between your passions, strengths, and the needs of your team.
What helped me the most was the communication tools that we practiced. They made me think about things more productively and helped me come up with concrete action items. This leadership workshop gave me great insights on how to leverage my strengths and better influence my team.
Software Engineer at Dropbox
Prior to attending ‘Foundations of Effective Tech Leadership,’ I had always looked at leadership in particular and soft skills in general as an art or just plain natural-born talent. After attending this course, however, I am convinced that there can be an element of structure for soft skills as a whole and that there are efficient tools to be an effective technical leader. I highly recommend this course for all aspiring and current technical leaders and look forward to attending other forthcoming courses by Co Leadership.
Senior Principal Data Engineer at Novartis
I enjoyed the workshop thoroughly! One of the things I usually struggle with is being explicit. The tools Edmond and Jean taught me in this course made it much easier to make assumptions and expectations explicit and are helping me to be more successful as a tech leader.
Senior Software Engineer at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
I have never been completely clear as to what Tech Leadership meant. I am happy to say that this course helped clarify it to a great extent and helped me identify a personal path for progress.
The most important personal change since the course is that I am more deliberate about things now. Whether it's team meetings, retrospectives, or simple 1-on-1s, I find myself being more explicit about common goals and trying to understand everyone to establish a common ground. All in all, this course has greatly accelerated my progress towards being a better Tech Leader.
Software Engineer at Coinbase
With the Foundations of Tech Leadership course, it was great to meet and practice with like-minded peers on some topics that have been difficult to discuss. I learned how to have better conversations with my teammates, to better understand what they want to accomplish, and how I can help them. I learned new tools and lots of specific ideas around how to collaborate with teammates and then got to practice with them immediately, to actually cement them in my mind.
Site Reliability Engineer at Yelp
Prior to this course it was easy for me to feel parallyzed when facing ambiguity. A cross-functional need would come up, and since I didn't have a clear relationship to the team on the other side I would waste time wondering what I'm supposed to do, rather than what I might do. The course showed me that there is always another step to take, or a question I can ask to drive solutions and have a better result. Also seeing how much my experience resonated with the other folks in the course was enlightening - these are hard problems for most people, but now I feel better equipped.
Senior Software Engineer @ Coinbase
The workshop helped me structure key aspects of navigating the landscape of tech leadership. I realized the value of explicitly defining the often implicitly defined tech leadership role. I loved the structured approach to building designed alliance and impactful collaboration. The training material was insightful and the hands-on sections were practical and engaging. I would recommend the Co Leadership course to any new or experience tech leads!
Tech Lead at Uber
Our cohort continues to meet and use the skills introduced, where they discuss gaps in the organization and how they can impact them. I’ve also seen members of our cohort design alliances with others in the organization when they join a new team or project. These trainings not only taught our leadership vital skills, but also continues to drive them to action in a way that continues to positively impact our organization.
Head of Engineering Operations at Medium
This is the training that I wish I'd received years ago when I first started working on my leadership skills.
Engineer at Dropbox
This course was the best 16-hour investment of my professional career. The most valuable takeaway for me was the frameworks Jean and Edmond presented to actively think about my role as a technical leader.
Software Engineer at Dropbox