“When your name is mentioned, what are the characteristics that people implicitly jump to in a millisecond?” This week’s show peels back the curtain on leadership, authenticity, and the role of a CTO. Sri Shivananda, CTO and EVP of Product and Platform Engineering at PayPal, joins Etienne de Bruin to discuss a variety of topics all centering around his experience as CTO. Sri explores building effective teams, the intricate inner workings of a company, and the impact of a brand. 
Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:
At the end of the day, leadership is really about building great teams. It’s not an act of one - it’s the act of many passionate people that come together. 
Communication channels are critical in leadership.
The CTO is the pulse for the customer. Their role allows organizations to continuously evolve the experiences both consumers and merchants have. 
Authenticity is foundational for creating trust in any relationship. It’s about ensuring that the way you express yourself and the way you interact with people is in harmony with your core value system. 
Leadership is about serving people, but it often gets clouded by worrying about what other people think. Concerns like, “Did I sound stupid?’ are common, but they ultimately don’t improve your leadership. It’s important that you give yourself permission to not be perfect.
You become much more productive collaboratively when you learn to stop judging things and people around you on a continuous basis.
People who have a habit of reflecting during the weekend have an advantage in going into a new week with new learning.
Within a company, the primary operating system involves the reporting relationships such as manager to employee, but the real information and work actually gets done through a secondary operating system of experts connecting with each other.
Networking is very important for both personal and professional growth.
Resources
Sri Shivananda on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter
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