Authority Issues

By Rachel Perkins and Kendall Miller

Welcome to Authority Issues, a podcast about leadership, management, and competitive prescription writing.

Hosted by Rachel Perkins (aka piebob), and Kendall Miller... more

4.6

88 ratings

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FAQs about Authority Issues:

How many episodes does Authority Issues have?

The podcast currently has 100 episodes available.

Authority Issues episodes:

July 18, 2019Episode 30: Nadyne Richmond (Grand Rounds)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Nadyne talk about:
An early career transition from software engineering to user research via human factors training
Equipping sharks with lasers
How weird it was to work on a military base as a civillian and not be the lunch lady
Arriving in the SF Bay Area just as the first dot com bubble burst
How it's easier to communicate concerns when there is a framework for it
Doing the job AND talking about the job
A high school paramedic?!
Looking into the eyes of it (American healthcare)
The difference between being trained how to use management tools vs how to actually manage
How to handle it when someone is intimidated by you: be more personal (and vulnerable)
Giving your team opportunities to build leadership skills by allowing them to support you when you need it
Going to all kinds of live shows and why that's awesome
Kendall's penchant for ruining things
You can find Nadyne on Twitter and Instagram as @nadyne :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
48min
July 04, 2019Episode 29: Anthony Jules (Robust.ai)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Anthony talk about:
Feeling the need to run a business
Blowing your life up every few years
The need to evolve communication processes as a company scales
Hiring pipeline planning for the longer-term
Recommended communication practices at various points of scale
The importance of perceiving someone's weaknesses as well as their strengths
The inspiration of making things, building machines--which can be organizations
Questions to ask yourself when deciding whether to take a job
The endless struggle of balancing learning vs doing, achieving stress homeostasis
Being able to make decisions across a large scope of influence with limited knowledge
Broader definitions of leadership
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable as a leader opens up greater possibilities of trust
The role of understanding your motivations
Drones!
You can find Anthony on the internet at LinkedIn under "Anthony Jules" :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
52min
June 20, 2019Episode 28: Nik Knight (UK fintech)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Nik talk about:
How much it sucks to be a recruiter
Finding out the hard way just how much your boss does that you don't know about
The Dark Times, aka the Trial By Fire
Resisting the call to management
Growing through 1:1 coaching
The realization that a leader doesn't have to know everything
Pivoting the industry toward culture change
What Release Management means
Not putting off the hard conversations
It's not paranoia if people really are out to get you
Managing managers often means teaching them how to manage
Showing your human side as a leader, but not making it about you
Having a healthy disrespect for authority
You can find Niks on Twitter at @kninki, and on LinkedIn as Nicola Knight.
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
47min
June 06, 2019Episode 27: Christine Ramirez (Kapost)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Christine talk about:
You can get paid to do this? Turning an avatar design hobby into a graphic design career
Disrupting Wall Street marketing
Not choosing engineering
Being The One Who Says It
Learning to think about the goal before Saying It and passing that knowledge on
The difference between showing your passion in your arguments vs showing up for your team
How the ability to communicate with words is underrated in the design world
Being uncomfortable when there are unstated concerns
Difficulties with having faith
How leveling up means...more questions
Frustrations with directional flow of information
The awkwardness of managing people who used to be your peers
Christine's recommendation for Design Department's Design Leadership Fundamentals workshop
Christine's recommendation for the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
You can find Christine on LinkedIn under her name Christine Ramirez.
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
47min
May 23, 2019Episode 26: Johnny Sheeley (Fanatics)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Johnny talk about:
The location of rachel's socks
Career growth via dissatisfaction
Johnny's path through tech-art school, bus driving, web advertising, high-end apparel customer experiences...and the common thread of communication
The complexity of the hardware-sofware interchange
MEEP MEEP! And other tales of brute-forcing things
Why an interpretive dance is the last thing Johnny would ever want to do
Why providing IT services for a non-technical org is harder than it looks
Managing one's ratio of dedication to good work-life balance, and seeing it more clearly from the manager vs individual contributor perspective
Kendall's evil overlord tendencies
The stress of over-accountability vs authority
Dispassionate leadership and when it's right to focus on the outcomes only
Johnny's enjoyment of recreational falling down and cookie baking
How obvious it is that Kendall has never cooked anything
The butter and sugar of leadership: giving a shit about people
You can find Johnny on Twitter at @johnny_sheeley
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
46min
May 09, 2019Episode 25: Get to know your host--Kendall "not the Jenner" Miller (ReactiveOps)
In this episode, rachel and Kendall talk about:
Yet another life ruined by PHP
Being a coder by 5th grade and seeing a terrible future for himself by 10th grade
Getting management experience young and moving to China
Addressing cross-cultural communication difficulties when delivering and receiving feedback
The weird and mixed feels around selling the company and no longer being CEO
Strategies for transferring the trust your team has for you to new leadership
How leaders can have both major skills and shocking shortcomings
Realizing that as a leader, your job is not the deliverable, your job is the people
When Kendall thinks it's necessary to tell one's boss they need to leave
Walking in and assuming you know how to fix something without asking questions
The power of being widely-networked and what it brings to leadership
What it means to be an out-of-practice extrovert
Doing this podcast so he can talk to people who intimidate him
How having authority is like keeping control over your large vehicle
What working for religious organizations/family businesses can be like
Making time to smoke pipes and write things down
You can find Kendall on the internets at this fine podcast :) and on twitter as @blatanterror
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
49min
April 25, 2019Episode 24: Dana Jones (Abstract)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Dana talk about:
Becoming a coder via editing books about programming
Missing being able to be more focused on your own work
Kendall's near-miss at preempting Google's success
The value of 360 feedback in a review process
Squad goals (I had to say it)
JIRA hate
The need to walk a line between uncritical approval of decisions from higher-ups and allowing for disgruntlement in a safe space to maintain credibility
Dana's book recommendation: "Thanks For The Feedback" about receiving feedback
The unnecessary anxiety of project time estimation and productivity metrics
Getting your leadership experience outside the workplace first
Normalizing failure
Firing your kids :)
When academia doesn't match reality
How great the sound insulation is at Kendall's house
The difficulties of co-leadership
You can find Dana on all the internets as @danabrit
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
50min
April 11, 2019Episode 23: Kate Taggart (Hashicorp)
In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Kate talk about:
Bailing on tech at the get-go...
...And getting back again in to be the change you want to see
Strategies for teambuilding for remote teams
Understanding the weight of your voice as a leader
How formal training isn't always necessary
Whether it's possible to maintain a company's culture through rapid growth
Interview logistics for big hiring pushes
Code review for your review paperwork
Yet another time when rachel is wrong about our guest being introverted vs extroverted
What ethical authority looks like
Learning to work within the management/corporate ecosystem without letting it eat you
Approaches to dealing with frustration with your teammates
Being put on the spot with new music recommendations
Bringing a ukulele to work!
You can find Kate on twitter at @qkate :)
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
42min
March 28, 2019Episode 22: Christina Noren (CloudBees)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Christina talk about:
Being born fully-formed from the head of the executive suite (or not)
Enjoying enabling makers and doers
Iterating through trials by fire
Understanding the build-vs-buy dynamic and why open source tools matter
Our first official dirty secret!
The particular foibles of product management
Explicitly re-processing past events to learn more from them
Tactics for managing impostor syndrome
Leaning on written communication when your colleagues are distributed
The classic tensions between product management and engineering
The role of product management in selling the vision to engineering
Not being able to dabble
Funding the cycle of art projects and the joy of the plan
You can find Christina via her initials most places, including cfrln on twitter
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
47min
March 14, 2019Episode 21: Silvia Botros (Twilio-Sendgrid)
In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Silvia talk about:
How nobody ever reads documentation beforehand
The sad state of education
What terrible handwriting might offer us in terms of improving our communication habits
rachel's inability to remember the term "career ladder"
The importance of identifying and codifying hierarchies as your flat org begins to grow
Discovering the Individual Contributor leadership track
What leadership means for the Principal Engineer and how this varies at scale
The value of providing historical context for your colleagues
Dudes on Twitter, an eternal plague etc
Becoming comfortable about delegation as a method of self-preservation
Making the choice to remain an Individual Contributor
...and realizing you're a leader anyway
Wielding authority for good, not judgement of errors
Transferring incident response skills to one's home life
Why leadership does not equal management
You can find Silvia on twitter as @dbsmasher
You can find Silvia's recent blog post here: https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-engineer.html
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3
...more
45min

FAQs about Authority Issues:

How many episodes does Authority Issues have?

The podcast currently has 100 episodes available.