My Career journey has not been conventional, growing up in a misogynistic home, where intelligence in girls was mocked, led to decisions that impacted my life substantially. Doing well academically was mocked and frowned upon. Believing these lies, I did what was acceptable, married at a young age, and stepped away from any formal education. 10 years later I faced a traumatizing divorce. I was now catapulted into having to find work to survive, being a single mom, and having no work experience. I was fortunate enough to be given a chance, and navigate myself in the working world, raising a young child. I  worked harder than anyone around me, I went way above and beyond what was expected of me, and was driven by the need to succeed, this drive continues.

So I started the career journey late, with a high school certificate that had yellowed with age, and fought my way forward. I read and read, business books, technical books, autobiographies, and picked everyone's brains. Fast forward, after many changes and different industries at low-paid jobs to one of my first roles in the Software Industry as a Programme Manager at ePages.net. I found my passion, Programme Management, Technology, and Mentoring all rolled into one. I still had to work smarter, harder, and many more hours to catch up. I worked, and still do, with highly intelligent teams doing cutting-edge projects in technology.

I have learned, besides the technical skills of good Project Management and an understanding of technology, how to engage with people around me, how to motivate others to be the best they can be, how to accept feedback and how to grow. I mapped out a Career Pathway for myself in the Technical Project Management field, when there was no such accepted path. (Project Managers were widely viewed as administrative staff who made Excel Spreadsheets colourful).

When I joined ePages.net I was blessed with an amazing female Managing Director who excelled in eCommerce and had a passion to grow her team. She encouraged growth and tapped into her team's strengths. After being in the role of Project Manager (which I was still figuring out) she called me in one Friday and said to me she wants to change my position to head of the full SDLC team as she saw the innate skills I had to do this (needless to say I was shocked that she saw this in me as I was suffering with imposter syndrome). After all, I had way less technical skill and experience. By that Monday morning, I was in my new office with a full team reporting to me. I started this position with the mindset of helping people along their Career Pathway, igniting what each person was passionate about, as opposed to purely managing their Customer Deliverables. I worked with them to set goals, professional and personal, I helped them navigate what they wanted to achieve. We delivered very successful projects for major banks, one of the biggest retailers in South Africa at the time, universities, and many more. Along this journey, I learned the benefits of servant leadership (although I did not know what that was at the time). I worked with the team, buying pizza when they worked until 3 am, being a sounding board for when they had technical challenges, and learning alongside them. I made my fair share of mistakes along the way, delivering on time and making sure you understand the full context of what the strategic objective of the projects I am working on was a learning curve that happened at an exponential speed. The most successful outcomes for me in this role were seeing amazing people achieve their personal goals and how this focus leads to more engagement.

Fast forward I was head hunted to join a Health and Wellness company as their Operations Manager. This experience meant that I had all departments from Marketing, HR and Finance reporting to me. This team was a team of highly qualified professionals in domains I was no expert in. I lead based on what I found most effective, engaging with the people. I did not try to be the Subject Matter Expert in these domains, I used what I had to help them be the best they could be. Again I resorted to reading and reading. I promoted a culture of being structured and ordered in what each department delivered. Providing Project and Operational plans and guidance to success. Along with this team, we managed to increase profitability within 3 months. Being interested in people, helping them to focus on what they are good at again highlighted to me the profound impact servant leadership can have. I also learned what does not work, having senior people in the business who were bullies, micromanagers, and expected an Always On culture was not productive. Operating under this type of leadership did not work, it created a culture of fear which in turn created a disengaged team. I took this valuable lesson with me throughout my career, being a bully, expecting team members to respond to emails in the middle of the night was certainly not what I wanted to promote.

Moving into an organisation that was a major development house, servicing international companies, catapulted my career. Working at Derivco is what set me up to be successful. Project Management was respected as a legitimate career. The company culture was such that the holistic employee was taken into account. Learning was encouraged, a healthy lifestyle was high on the agenda and teamwork was not optional.  I had the opportunity to grow, learn, get certified, and travel. These were all new experiences for me. I learned the value of having a motivated workforce, where personal growth, personal health, wellness, and relationships were part of a culture. I was cared for as an individual, allowing me to foster this in my teams. Being in this type of environment allowed me to learn multiple technologies in the IT, Design, and Software fields. I invested fully in doing what was needed to help my teams succeed and stay ahead of the curve. Leading changing methodologies, such as moving from Waterfall to Agile methodologies, adding in Kanban for production teams, was exciting. Changing how teams work required a new set of skills, where leading and encouragement created more success. As leaders, we need to be in the trenches when major changes in the ways of work rock the status quo. This skill set has been a foundational tool I was able to add to my leadership toolbox. I have since been involved in changes that moved teams from entrenched ways of work, and the culture that comes from that to new ways of work has required soft skills and updated technical skills.

Throughout my journey what has been highlighted over and over again is the value of each individual, being a leader is not just about the bottom line, it is also about the holistic person, their families, and their dreams. The value of understanding the holistic person was further entrenched as a core value for me. Business is about people.

For a look at my full CV from a more technical point of view can be found on my linked in profile which you can find here - www.linkedin.com/in/calliebaney