In this episode Kendall, rachel, and Anca Mosoiu discuss:
Anca founded TechLiminal, a technology salon, on a fairly sketchy block in downtown Oakland, CA 10 years ago.
Anca's been working in tech since the late 1900's (!), the dark ages of tech.
Techliminal was designed as "a place where regular people can walk in off the street and learn to use tools."
Her work inspired some folks to volunteer to help with TechLiminal, and it became a kind of event hub.
Anca didn't have management experience before she started up TechLiminal, she learned most of what she knows about managing volunteers from other local organizers.
Volunteers are great, but they need to be motivated by intrinsic means. It's important to make sure they feel important and needed, that their work is valued.
Leadership skills are much more important when your people are volunteers--it's almost 100% your inspiration that motivates them.
The team composition matters much more, watch for disruptive volunteers.
"Volunteering by Obligation" (people who are volunteering to fulfilling an obligation) can make things more challenging.
Your own ego has to take a back seat when leading a team.
Volunteers often require a lot more checking in and confirmation of the desired output.
What? Anca has an anti-authoritarian streak? SAY IT ISN'T SO!
What level of transparency is appropriate with your employees? Determining the balance of keeping them on track vs being open with them is very difficult.
You have to be more extroverted than you might be comfortable with to make sure you ask the questions you need to ask of your team.
Anca recommends the "Ask A Manager" column. https://www.askamanager.org/
A senior leader has better judgement about what matters when delivering a project, how much to take on, what to focus on. Junior leaders often try to take on too much at once.
Being a leader in her professional life has helped her become more humble, less bossy.
Being a good leader means you can speed up the process of picking the place for lunch!
Find Anca at https://techliminal.com/
Twitter: @anca
Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3