Introducing Leaders in Tech
Leaders in Tech (LIT) is opening up our website publicly today after two years in stealth. You can learn more about what we do, including meeting our first 3 classes of Fellows, volunteers, and founding sponsors. The rest of this post is about how we started and our unique approach to leadership development.
Our beginnings
Leaders in Tech started in 2017, during a maelstrom of coverage around toxic workplace cultures at some of the fastest growing tech companies. Tech became infamous for #metoo, flaunting regulations to grow at any cost, wage fixing, and polarizing the electorate.
All of this came on the heels of many years of tech leading the way on creating the aspirational workplaces of the future, from redefining parental leave policies to equitizing employees.
Tech companies are among the largest and most influential companies in the world. What these companies do and what their leaders value concerns us all. For better and for worse, others watch and learn from the example of our sector’s most prominent leaders.
Our mission
Our mission is to grow a community of leaders committed to building high-performing and culturally healthy organizations.
Our belief is that a small group of committed leaders can set a new standard for what it looks like to build a successful company while leading in the service of others. Our programs offer intimate peer support, accelerated leadership growth, and a sense of community to our participants as they strive to make a positive impact through their work.
We have a strong internal mandate around diversity and inclusion. To date, around 40% of our Fellows have been women and 40% have been non-white. Over the next 10 years, we intend for our efforts to meaningfully contribute to diversifying the leadership community in the tech startup ecosystem.
LIT is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. We run our programs near break-even and most of our executive team donates time as volunteers. In keeping with our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and by the generous support of our sponsors, we offer some scholarships to exceptional participants who are unable to pay the full amount for our programs.
The program
LIT curates and professionally facilitates intimate peer groups for executives who have made a commitment to their own growth and to working in the service of others. Typically our participants’ companies have found product-market fit, and the executives are attempting to simplify problems and lead their growing teams. We also offer a separate track for VCs.
LIT focuses on helping leaders answer one central question:
Why should anyone follow you?
The “it” quality that distinguishes great leaders is the authenticity with which they work in the service of others, and the excellent self-awareness and interpersonal skills they employ toward this endeavor. We call this “referent” power, to distinguish it from the power that comes from a person’s title, expertise, and ability to offer rewards. LIT peer groups help people understand and grow their referent power.
The program begins with a 4-day intensive retreat and is followed by 10 monthly half-day peer learning group meetings, where participants meet with the same group each month.
In these peer groups, participants hone the skills through which they manage themselves and lead others. You discover:
- how and when you are most interpersonally influential
- how others really think and feel about how you act
- how to receive and deliver feedback effectively
- how to connect with others across differences
- your limiting mental models and biases
- how to manage yourself through the ups and downs of leadership
- how to be authentic and vulnerable among peers, to forge deep relationships and receive the support you really need
This experiential group learning is based on the legendary Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is led by LIT co-founder Carole Robin, longtime teacher of the Stanford program.
What it’s like
LIT Fellows are accomplished leaders at every stage from Series A to pre-IPO.
The role of our professional teachers and facilitators is to create a deeply intimate space where these leaders can bring their whole selves. LIT groups are a place to be real. In a confidential setting of peers, everyone can drop the salesmanship and work through their most pressing personal and professional challenges.
Fellows receive both heartfelt support and extremely candid feedback from their peer learning groups. Then when they return to their companies — where they have a responsibility to lead — they are once again prepared to be their best, most effective selves.
How to apply
While applications to the yearlong Fellows program aren’t public, founders can access the application if they’re nominated by someone in Leaders in Tech’s extended network of volunteers who are listed on our homepage.
We’re still a very small program — we typically review several hundred applications for 24 Fellows spots in each cohort, with far more highly qualified candidates than we have room to accept.
Beginning in 2020, in addition to the Fellows program we are excited to offer a limited number of 4-day intensive retreats, as a way to serve a greater number of people in a shorter format. Leaders can apply for those programs directly here, but anyone who applies for Fellows and passes our screening process but is not admitted will be given priority access.
We’re excited to get to know you,
Carole, Sue, and Joe
