Unlocking Your Potential: A Guide to Empowering Leadership
Want to know how to be an effective leader? Becoming an effective leader can be a daunting task, and trying to master all aspects of leadership alone can be challenging. Empowering leadership requires both soft skills and technical proficiency, with a focus on comprehending the team’s work and effective communication. But worry not, here are some tips for you to be empowering leaders! Create a Safe and Welcoming Space As a leader, creating a space for your team to take risks and try out new ideas without fear of being blamed is important. Rather than pointing fingers, the focus should be learning from mistakes and exploring possible solutions. Clear communication of expectations is also crucial. Leaders should be attentive to feedback from their teams, making it easy for them to discuss complex issues and seek support when needed. Empower Your Team Empowering your team boosts productivity and engagement. Encourage them to take on challenges, organize work, and improve processes. It’s important to give clear goals and context to help them understand what to achieve and why. Trust and give them a sense of ownership to enhance their commitment to their work. Learn Efficiently Stay open to new ideas and be flexible enough to change your opinion based on new information. Discussing new developments with your team before making critical decisions that could impact them is essential. This helps build trust, promotes collaboration, and ensures everyone is on the same page. Nurture Growth Team growth and development can be facilitated in several ways, such as nurturing each crew member’s skill sets, strengths, and interests. Encourage personal and professional growth by allowing your team members to explore their interests and supporting them in learning new skills that could benefit them in their current or future roles. Foster Connection & Belongings Show compassion and understanding towards your team members when communicating with them. Acknowledge their emotions and remember they’re human beings, not just resources for completing tasks. Celebrate successes and failures as a team and openly give credit where it’s due. Strive to balance personal and professional connections, as this can help foster a more supportive and collaborative work environment. Be Competent & Set Examples Take the time to think carefully about the issue at hand and the different options available. Use your knowledge and judgment to make the best decision possible. Analyze the problem, identify its root cause, and hone your problem-solving skills. Additionally, be a positive example to others, lead by example, and be open and honest. As an empowering leader, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of the technical aspects of your team’s work. While soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving are important for effective leadership, technical skills are equally necessary to manage your team’s tasks effectively. A key element of technical competence is the ability to proficiently document tasks and data. Check out the tips below for more information about documentation! Effective Documentation Tips When creating documentation, it’s important to consider the target audience and the objective of the documentation. If a broad audience will read the documentation, it’s important to use language that is easy to understand for people with technical and non-technical backgrounds. The documentation should be comprehensive enough to meet the needs of more experienced individuals and easily digestible for those with less experience. Moreover, if you share the document with others, you can use online platforms such as Notion, Miro, or Figma to work together more effectively. At Agate, we mostly use Notion for documentation because it’s easy to use. Notion provides a user-friendly interface and user experience, making it beginner-friendly. Its linked databases feature lets us synchronize content across multiple pages, making it easier to filter team task views and create task dashboards. Additionally, Notion’s customizable options allow us to tailor their workspace to meet their needs, resulting in a more organized and efficient workflow. Interested to be a part of our crews? Check out the vacancy list below! VACANCY LIST Position Department Contract Type Game Tester Intern Quality Contract Type : Internship Details Product Management Intern Product Manager Contract Type : Internship Details Business Development Marketing Sales & Operation Contract Type : Regular Crew Details Outsourcing Staff Intern Studio Contract Type : Internship Details Load More
Leading the Way: The Role of Leadership in Agate
Leadership is one of the most critical factors determining a company’s success. Effective leadership will inspire and motivate crews, encourage collaboration, drive innovation, and navigate challenges. A good leader sets the tone for the entire team and creates a culture that values teamwork, accountability, and continuous improvement. In this fast-paced and ever-changing business environment, leadership isn’t just about managing people and empowering them to achieve their full potential. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of leadership in Agate. But before we begin, let’s take a look at the number of leaders in Agate! Leaders Responsibility Leaders play a crucial role in supporting their team to achieve common objectives that align with the overall strategy of Agate. Activities performed by leaders vary depending on the grade, ranging from ensuring timelines and quality of work by expectations, helping team members solve problems and obstacles in daily work, coordinating with other stakeholders, managing team allocation and workload, creating policies with a specific scope, creating and maintaining OKRs, strategic planning, evaluation, and others. Senior leadership refers to the leaders who hold the highest-level positions and are responsible for guiding the company’s overall direction. They’re responsible for supervising multiple department heads, a broader scope than typical department heads. Their duties include creating long-term plans and evaluations, covering a 3-5 year period, and evaluating the impact on the company. Leadership Program LeadershipReview Every six months, all leads will undergo a review process that involves evaluation by their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates. LeadershipDevelopment Program Leadership Sharing SessionThe Head of Departments or other Senior Leadership members conduct the session, which covers various general competencies such as time management, strategic thinking, and assertive communication. The session is available to all leaders interested in attending, including C-level executives, VPs, Senior Specialists, Producers, Product Managers, and Managers. Leadership Intensive CoachingThis is an ongoing program that collaborates with the Agate Academy team to identify the strengths and areas of improvement for potential and existing leaders. They will be paired with other leaders who can act as coaches to help them develop the necessary skills. For example, Lead A, who excels in numbers but needs to enhance their public speaking abilities, will be matched with Lead B, who has exceptional public speaking skills but needs to improve in numbers. Through this coaching process, participants can schedule sessions to coach each other and complement each other’s skills. Management Trainee Sharing SessionThe session is conducted by Senior Leaders, MTs who have graduated, or other MTs. The session’s content is tailored to the current tasks and challenges faced by MTs. For instance, before the bi-monthly meetings, MTs can share their experiences and discuss topics like OKRs, strategic planning, and evaluations. Additionally, the session covers general competencies that include communication, company knowledge, time management, problem-solving, and decision-making. There’s also an opportunity for MTs to participate in Q&A sessions and other activities that align with their interests. Learning& Development Budget At Agate, leaders can request various learning resources, including workshops, materials, and other tools to help them grow and develop their skills. By taking advantage of these resources, leaders can continue to level up and improve their abilities, leading to better outcomes for themselves and their teams. Trial Timefor Promotion To ensure a smooth transition and set leaders up for success, a trial period of 6-12 months is implemented before crews are promoted to lead or before a lead is promoted to a higher grade. During this period, leaders are exposed to new challenges they will face in their new roles. This trial period allows leaders to develop new skills and gain the necessary experience to confidently and effectively fulfill their new responsibilities. One-on-One Session At Agate, fostering a culture of growth and collaboration is highly valued. Work is not viewed as a transactional task but rather as an opportunity for personal and professional development. To support this culture, we held 1-on-1 meetings between crews and their leaders periodically to allow crew members to discuss their work, personal growth, interests, career projections, and other topics, even those unrelated to work. These meetings are crucial in allowing leaders to practice active listening and empathy and learn how to direct and nurture their team members. By prioritizing open and honest communication, Agate can create an environment where everyone can thrive both personally and professionally. Interested to be a part of our crews? Check out the vacancy list below! VACANCY LIST Position Department Contract Type Game Tester Intern Quality Contract Type : Internship Details Product Management Intern Product Manager Contract Type : Internship Details Business Development Marketing Sales & Operation Contract Type : Regular Crew Details Outsourcing Staff Intern Studio Contract Type : Internship Details Load More
Talent Development Programs: How We Support Our Crews’ Growth in Agate
In Agate, we strive to be better at growing our crews to the next level. That’s why we support our crews’ growth by providing various Talent Development programs. Let’s take a look at our programs! Performance Management To ensure we give every crew the same treatment and chances, we uphold the system of meritocracy. Meritocracy is a system that assesses individuals based on their competency and cultural alignment. We conduct a periodic review to assess their soft skills, technical skills, and cultural alignment in the company. We aim to give crews fair rewards and feedback continuously for our crews. Leadership Review Not only for the crews, but we also conduct a review for all the leaders and managers in Agate. The reviewers consist of direct reports, peers, direct leaders, and crews from other departments working with them. Learning Materials Aligning with our core value to level up, we always strive to support our crews to improve their skills. We facilitate them by giving them access to learning materials requests across various platforms and formats. Career Path & Grade Up Session Here, crews have the right to always grow for their career path. We provide an opportunity for crews to get promoted. They can submit a grade-up request to their leaders and head departments. PDP (Personal Development Program) Agate’s leaders and mentors also get hands-on with our crews’ development. One example is when our crews need guidance or advice to track their development skills plan. Personal Development Program is a program that allows every crew to level up with guidance given by their leaders. Overall, the result of this program impacts our crews’ well-being, especially for fairness, growth, and reward. What do our leaders think about the Talent Development programs? All Talent Development programs are created from crews and for crews. We’re always open to listening to our crews’ needs in their career milestones. Our programs are created to fully support our crews’ growth and needs such as providing mentors for new crews to guide and help them. Also, we’re providing access to learning materials, so it can be easier for our crews to develop both their personal and professional skills. It’s nice to see ourselves growing along with others; I’m happy to be a part of the team that always supports others’ growth personally and professionally! The Talent Development programs help the lead to plan the development of the crew’s career potential in the future with measurable standards and expectations, as well as finding solutions for a crew whose performance can still be improved. Similarly, the leaders are graded with a 360-degree grading system to prevent subjectivity and ensure all crews, including leaders, always conform with Agate values.” Performance Management: For a company to thrive, we must ensure every crew carries their responsibility well. It’s important to acknowledge which crew performs excellently and which crews need to improve. That’s why an accurate performance management system is required. Leadership Review: The review also goes both ways for the leaders. Every crew has the right to give an evaluation to their leaders. From there, every crew can appreciate their leaders or help identify leaders that need help. This program is the starting point of the Leadership Development series in Agate. Learning Materials: Here, everyone has the same opportunity to learn. How quickly a person can develop in Agate will be primarily determined by how much effort the person puts in. We provide a variety of self-study materials according to the needs of the crew at Agate. Grade Up: Crews have the right to submit an evaluation for grade-up, so we can provide a reward that matches their abilities. In addition, if a crew is not qualified to level up, they will get clear guidance about what improvements they should make to level up. Personal Development Program: We also offer a Personal Development Program (PDP), which allows everyone to grow to be their best version. PDP is created to encourage crews to continuously improve with a more concrete target they can achieve within one to three months. Grade Up: We provide the opportunity for crews to grade up when they think they’re ready for more responsibility. This aligns with the Meritocracy system and Level Up spirit. With a Grade-Up session, the crew can request promotion without feeling ‘pushy or ambitious.’ It is a very transparent system where people are promoted based on merit. Career Path: We give crews choices to determine their career path and the skills needed to reach their career goals. This clarifies the learning process and helps the crew stay motivated to learn new skills. Leadership Review: It doesn’t matter how great the company is; it’s the leaders within that matter. If there’s a bad leader, it impacts the crews under them negatively. The system of meritocracy here doesn’t only apply to crews but also all leaders. Leadership Review helps the company to identify leaders that need improvements to be better. Performance Management: Meritocracy is a good system for fast learners and competent people. Performance Management allows the crew to showcase their capability and growth. This will help the department to identify and promote rising stars’ talent. Personal Development Program: We appreciate people who keep learning new things and push them to be more capable. The Personal Development Program allows them to showcase their growth, so we can give them the opportunity to match their aspirations. Learning Materials: Some learning materials are not accessible because they’re locked behind a paywall. Also, the paid version is sometimes far better than the free version; by providing free access to those materials, we help our crews’ learning speed significantly. All in all, our crews’ growth is our priority. With these programs, we aim to create a comfortable workplace for our crew to level up and unlock their full potential. If you’re interested in joining our team, check out the vacancy list below! VACANCY ON TALENT DEPARTMENT All DepartmentsTechTalentStudioProductionMarketing Sales & OperationDesignCorporateArt All Contract TypesRegular CrewInternship Search Position Department Contract Type Talent Manager
