Newsletter update

How has your year been so far? Has it met with your expectations?

As for me, my year has been great, but has not gone entirely as expected. A lot has changed for me, and there are changes coming for this publication, too. This is your “Curious Leader update post.”

TL; DR: I’m still here, and this is still happening.

I took a job

It’s been an honor and a pleasure to dive into coaching full-time for the last year. At last count, I have held coaching sessions with 50 people all across the spectrum of technology roles, and coached for over 150 hours.

I also ran a successful series of professional writing workshops, co-created and facilitated a hands-on coaching skills for leadership course, and wrote this newsletter (slash podcast). It’s been challenging, fun, and truly enlightening for me, but it never fully paid the bills.

This past August, at the end of the one-year runway I gave myself to launch this thing, I took a full-time job as a staff software engineer at a fully remote startup based out of Colorado. As a result of that change, I paused this newsletter and many of my other initiatives.

It’s been a transition for me to be back in a full-time role, but I’m loving it so far, and I think there is a lot of potential to merge these activities and continue to create value for you, my friends and colleagues who are on similar paths.

I’m still coaching

I’m still working with clients, one of whom I’ve been working with for a year. I still believe that coaching is powerful and transformative, and I am not planning to stop. Having a full-time job only means that I need to be more selective about the commitments I make, but I am looking forward to the next year of coaching conversations.

The Curious Leader continues!

This newsletter (slash podcast) will live on, and will continue to be focused on the challenging topic of leadership in the technology industry. I have a lot that I want to continue to explore and share in this area and I hope you’ll continue to join me on this journey.

But just as my job situation has changed, this newsletter must change a bit, too.

Mainly, I’m going to publish a lot less often. At the start, I thought I could sustain a weekly article, but that quickly became too much so I moved to a bi-weekly schedule. Now, with most of my time consumed by work, I am going to commit to a monthly post.

I’ve always strived to offer articles and reflections of real value, and I can’t stand the idea of pumping out more frequent posts just to appease the SEO lords or whatever. For that reason, I think a monthly schedule will allow me to leave space for the other interests in my life while still creating something that you’ll enjoy reading and get practical benefits from.

In terms of the content, I’m working to broaden my definition of “leadership” here to encompass both what I call “positional authority” or “hierarchical leadership” (which is when you have a title that confers some power) as well as what I’ll call “soft power” or “influence” or even “tech leadership” (which is when you inspire change organically).

Through my coaching, I’ve met and worked with people who experience and role model leadership in different ways, and I’m looking forward to exploring my own ability to wield “soft power” as an individual contributor in my new role.

More to come on all of this!

I need your help

If you are excited to receive this, and are looking forward to what comes next, please let me know what you’d love to read about!

I read every email I receive, and I respond to most of them. If you’re reading this as a newsletter, just hit “reply.” If you’re reading elsewhere, you can write to me directly at aaron@aaronbieber.coach. I look forward to hearing your ideas!

Comments