This is part 2 of my series on learning at SQLBits.

Today I had the pleasure to learn from Adam Jorgensen what it’s like to be a leader and how you can thrive being one. My personal motivation for this ist that I have been doing work as a BI engineer for over a decade now and am currently evaluating how to move on.#

The session was truly worthwile…Adam kept it very interactive and Victoria Holt made sure that the virtual participant’s voice got heard as well in a great way. SQLBits truly rocks!

Adam’s session was really packed with a lot of great things…here are my top 6 takeaways…these are the things which are most relevant to me at the moment in my stage of development….and who says that there need to be five or ten of them :-).

1. Understand what gives you energy and what takes your engery…aim for 70% energy giving activities
2. Strive to ask questions as much as possible while communicating. Ask at least one question before switching into problem-solving-mode.
3. Understand the shifts leaders need to make (for example Soloist to Conductor in terms of focus)
4. Build your plan and track the progress weekly…reserve time in your calendar with recurring events and include a list of the desired outcome in the invite
5. Read about Emotional Intelligence and Crucial Accountability
6. Curate your network
   1. List the people who are most important to you. Also think about learning from others…don’t just list people who do the same you are doing.
   2. Reserve time for actively maintain your network. Send out a message to the people on your curated list once a week. Adam mentioned, that he sends a text message to roughly 100 people once a week which takes him one hour.
   3. My thoughts: This is absolutely something I would love to do more intentionally. I am still overwhelmed about the positive resonance I got from my network as I asked for an appearance in the Code First Girls course.

Impressive quotes from Adam I will think more about:

If you have a plan, things will go better than if you don’t.

Comfort is the enemy of growth.

Any problem can be broken down in smaller pieces and attacked.

Great leaders act be´fore others and do more than others.

Look for others that are different and learn from them.

Give yourself a little bit of grace as a leader and says “It’s OK that I am not perfect….I am not gonna be perfect”

All conversations should have a goal.

Stop replying to e-mails to which you have already received the fourth answer…Reach out to the sender personally instead with a phone call