AGP Ep 17: Jen Bunk—Perfecting your ‘people stack’, all top performers have a coach
Jen Bunk is the Founder of People Stack Academy a leadership development consultancy for technology leaders. Her passion is organisational and leadership psychology and putting that into action to help new leaders grow.
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Show notes
- Jen’s links
- GTD (Getting Things Done) by David Allen
- Turkish Getup exercise on YouTube
- Slack for distributed team communication
- Headspace app and Andy
- Reading for tech leaders
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Credits
- Music by David Cutter
Topics/Transcript
Topics discussed
- Jen’s background in organizational leadership psychology
- The importance of tech leadership
- Challenges facing tech people moving into leadership
- On meditation to overcome distractions
- Engaging and motivating remote staff
- GTD methodology for personal productivity
Questions asked
- 0:26 What do you like about the field of organizational leadership psychology?
- 3:24 What was it about leadership that you fell in love with?
- 8:44 Why do you think technology leadership is so important?
- 11:15 What do you think the key challenges are that people come to you with who are new to leadership in the tech space?
- 14:45 What do you think the one biggest challenge that faces leaders in technology at the moment?
- 19:13 How do you deal with digital overwhelm?
- 40:00 What would you say your favorite achievement is?
- 42:11 How do you think about motivating and engaging staff and partners?
- 45:26 Tell us a bit more about your tools and routines that you created for developing yourself and your skills?
- 52:20 Are there any books or tips you recommend for technical leaders?
Quotable
- 10:17 “The number one thing tech leaders tell me is: I don’t need help with technical stuff. I need help with people stuff”—Jen Bunk
- 12:10 “Leaders and managers tell me ‘I want to be a better communicator’”—Jen Bunk
- 15:55 “The challenge today isn’t just how do we get staff with tech and people skills in the door, but how do we keep them?”—Jen Bunk
- 18:52 “To avoid getting distracted, I focus on who I am trying to serve and what I can do to help them”—Jen Bunk
- 31:00 “As I started my own business, not only did I have to be supportive of my team, just as in academia, but also I had to be equally supporting the sustainability of the business”—Jen Bunk
- 32:05 “If there is anything that’s anti-marketing, it’s academia”—Jen Bunk
- 35:24 “As an entrepreneur is to is to make sure your partner is a 1000% supportive of you”—Jen Bunk
- 44:50 “When leading virtual teams, the most important thing is to check in, even if you don’t think you need to”—Jen Bunk