Hi, I am Angeelika.

I am eager to understand who you are as a person! To make it easier to get to know part of me, here are a few key topics to describe how I work.

My role as a leader

Think of me as a facilitator for our team.

1. I work on supporting your career growth, provide you with opportunities and room to have ownership, and encourage you to make memories, not dreams. Basically, I make sure you are successful and happy in your role, in our team and in the organization.

2. I will help you understand the direction we are supposed to move and keep us aligned with our organizational objectives. All of that so you would know we are creating an impact and doing meaningful work.

3. I am here to make sure our team is getting what we need from other teams, and that other teams are getting what they need from us. I'm also here to help make sure we are working on the right things, which is not necessarily everything we're asked to do.

In making sure the environment allows you to do your best work, I also strive not to be a bottleneck for our team. I encourage you to take ownership over some parts of our objectives and make decisions. Yes, I am accountable for the decisions the team makes, even if I’m not the one making them most of the time. Nevertheless, I trust you, as my job is not to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it.

Link to my leadership manifesto from 2020.

My expectations to my leader

Have a vision. Back up your vision with knowledge and experience, or give space for experts around you to support you. Value smart work and encourage finding and implementing scalable solutions. Respect your people. Be human first. Align your virtues to your values.

Feedback

Difficult truths over comforting lies - that is what I expect from people who are around me. Will I also return the favour? Yes, as that is my way to support your growth.

Feedback is a guide or reflection of someone else's perspective on the same situation you also were part of. Meaning it can help us see things that we ourselves are not aware of. And If we like the feedback, we will know what to continue with. In case we do not like the feedback, we have an opportunity to consider adjusting our behaviour or approach.

Either way, things you like and want to see more of, or the things where I completely messed up, or anything in between - share with me! To make feedback actionable, please help me understand the "why?" behind your feedback.

1:1's

I value 1:1 meetings with my leader and team members. The default with my team members would be a 45-minutes bi-weekly unless you and I are new to working together. Then we would start with 30 minutes each week.

As 1:1 meetings are your time, therefore I encourage you to bring topics of discussion you really care about. Use it as an opportunity to let me know how you're doing, what you need from me, what you wish could be different, how you feel about our team and your teammates, what your career goals are...etc.

Let's agree not to make these syncs about status updates, as we will have our separate space and time to catch up on ongoing projects.

Performance

Having expectations toward others can be a disappointment. Therefore I highly recommend doing this magical thing called - communicating, so the one holding expectations of other's performance shares them with the other individual. And then they no longer are expectations, but defined goals for performance. Help me understand how you think I can create an impact and I promise to return the favour.

If you ever feel unsure about how you are performing, please let me know.

My schedule

I am one of those who are not too much office-bound. Yes, you can sometimes find me from the office, but it is not a rule. I overall do not have a clear schedule for my location - on some days I work from the office, on others from home, from a cafe, from another country etc. Therefore I usually mark on my calendar where exactly I am now.

I love mornings, especially when I can keep them for myself. I function best if I can start my workday at 10 am, as I like to sleep late, wake up slow, take time for my morning routines, have dedicated time for myself. The danger of expecting me to be productive around 7-9 am is not getting the best of me. I am a bit slow in the morning and feel uncreative with early morning collaboration.

Work preferences

• It can come off that I dislike meetings. In fact, I have a problem with poorly planned and run meetings. Especially I dislike those which do not have an owner or an agenda. I am happy to participate in one if you can articulate what problem are we solving or what is the purpose, why am I involved and how can I contribute. Please share that info before the meeting, so I actually can prepare and contribute. What I said about meeting in 2020

• I prefer to keep my calendar open for anyone to see. My aim is to create transparency, so you know what are the things I am working on. With this access, you should be aware that I have an approach to how I utilise my time and plan my calendar. If you have a question about a meeting on my calendar, ask me.

  • Whenever possible I keep my first half of the day free of meetings. This is usually my focus time to get work done.

  • I always block time in my calendar for lunch.

  • In the second part of the day I am happy to work on collaborative activities, would it be in meetings or any other way. In the case of meetings, I tend to keep 15-minute caps, so I would have time to make final notes on the previous one and switch my mind to the new agenda.

• I never expect you to reply to me instantly. If I would need an asap reply, I would make sure to let you know that there is a time constraint. For any other regular questions or discussions, you are the owner of your schedule and agenda. I hope you keep the same mindset about me too.

If you need something

I believe in asynchronous work most of the time. I think synchronous is habitual but should be reserved for solving very specific problems. Part of my promise, is to block time in each day to make sure to give my input to discussions I am invited to be part of.

In case of urgent questions, I propose to agree on a communication line that works for both of us and we can acknowledge to give that communication line priority over anything else.

Overall, you can always have a look at my calendar and get a quick understanding if I am already booked for a meeting or if I am available. If I am not in a meeting, then for my team I am always available for any form of connection, would it be a brief Zoom, voice message, call or anything else.

What makes me me

• I struggle to respond to high-impact or wider questions on my preference/stance if I am put to it on the spot. That is because I like to take time to gather my thoughts and research. How to make it best work is to brief me in advance prior to a meeting by adding your questions/ideas on the agenda with come context (a sentence or 2 is enough).

• I am obsessed with the "who holds the ownership" question. Meaning, that we can use different terms like RACI, DACI, ARPA etc, but at the end of the day, ownership has to be defined.

Things people might misunderstand about me

• I ask a lot of questions and want to understand "why?". I know some find it intrusive or take it, as I am questioning them/their competence. Let me assure you, I do not think that I know more than you. I am very curious about the how, why, how, why, why to really understand.

• Many classify it as I am slow to respond on Slack. In fact, it is more of a blended outcome of a) I have focus times almost every day for a few hours during which I do not have any notifications on, and b) instead of instant reply I prefer to gather my thoughts and give you a meaningful answer.

Strengths

1. I am amazing at project management and creating systems. I see processes, habits, ways of working, deadlines, goals, information etc in my mind, and it just falls into a functioning and tangible approach. People would confirm that I am the one who tackles chaos and makes it make sense.

2. I back up my opinion, ideas and input with facts, studies, findings, research, data and knowledge. I am not the one to just guess my way through my professional life nor just bluntly copy-paste a solution full of buzzwords without understanding is it actually solving our problem/goal.

3. I execute. I do enjoy being hands-on and love to be where the work happens. It is not in me to run from meeting to meeting to make "big decisions" and then wait for the results. I am the one that sees getting things done as a reward, therefore I aim to work in sprints - a quicker sense of achievement; easier to see if you are on the right track and aligned with the need.

Weaknesses:

1. I am a creative force and can get lost in researching alternatives ways, designing a vision, and dreaming of all the agile and scalable ways of redesigning things. It sounds good, but in reality, it can be difficult for me to reign in and accept and apply a quick random fix. "Get it done and move on to the next thing" is understandable in some parts of startup reality, but not in the People business, as it only can create a sense of unfairness.

2. As you see from the previous point, I struggle with short and direct writing in giving descriptions. I am more of an essay writer than a 1-word replier.

3. Overthinker. I am not afraid of making decisions, but if it is not a "black or white" type of situation, I benefit from having a sparring partner/coach to help me see through the noise.

4. I am in work in progress on my ability to call people out on underperformance, or in other words - I tend to give people too many chances as I can overlook the details of their execution or hold back from directly demanding accountability. Therefore I do active work with myself to successfully work with low initiative and/or underperformers.

Favorite Quote

Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing. May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears!

BONUS! Fun facts about me

1. I learned to ride a bicycle when I was 18.

2. I have a dog radar, meaning I "see" dogs already around the corner while humans can go unnoticed almost to the point of me walking into them.

3. In one of my workplaces, I got the nickname "Mother of Spreadsheets".