Leading With Empathy: Tech CEO Offers Tips On Full Leadership
Tracey Zimmerman is President and CEO of Robots & Pencils.
“Fish don’t know they’re in the water.”
They just swim.
That is a saying and a mindset that Tracey Zimmerman, the newly appointed and first female president and CEO of Robots & Pencils, an international digital innovation firm, takes to heart.
““Fish don’t know they’re in the water,” they just swim. That is a saying and a mindset that @Trzimmerman, the newly appointed and first female president and CEO of @RobotsNPencils, an international digital innovation firm, takes to heart. #femaleCEO ”
Growing up in the Philadelphia area, Zimmerman became a mom at 16, having her daughter Alyssa in the summer break after her junior year, and taking part in her high school’s teen parenting program the following school year so her studies were not interrupted.
Graduating in 1995 with an interest in computer programming, she decided to try nursing school instead. After two years, she dropped out, thinking working in healthcare was not for her.
“The story of my life is nobody gets to where they are alone,” says Zimmerman, who worked her way up to the top in tech companies, starting as a programmer and software developer, in the 90s at Siemens Healthcare and later at Bank of America.
““The story of my life is nobody gets to where they are alone,” says @Trzimmerman, who worked her way up to the top in tech companies, starting as a programmer and software developer. #womenintech #womenleaders”
Gaining years of experience in marketing, technology and process innovation, Zimmerman joined Robots & Pencils in 2014, where she has developed strategic partnerships with Slack and Salesforce, and focused business growth around EdTech, Fintech and ConsumerTech. Key clients include Nestle, Microsoft, Warner Brothers, General Electric, Columbia University and WestJet.
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“I joined this company because while at previous jobs, I had a vision for a company that would bring together creativity and product innovation, where I could bring teams together,” says Zimmerman, whose daughter Alyssa, now 28, works as her assistant at Robots & Pencils.
Headquartered in Cleveland, with more than 200 employees on teams in Canada and throughout the U.S. and Mexico, Zimmerman says that with working remotely, “Slack is our headquarters.” With rapid growth internationally, Zimmerman says as the top person, she works to have “more clarity and more transparency.”
Jumping into the president and CEO role, she says, “The first week I was super excited. The second week I felt the world crashed down because it’s me, the buck stops with me. The next week, I was fine.”
Throughout her tech career, she has often been the only woman in the room, or one of only a few women at the table. Zimmerman says, “I’m a big fan of gender balance in leadership because all can bring their strengths to the table. But I joke if you have made it to CEO as a woman, you’re probably better than a male CEO.”
“Throughout her #tech career, she has often been the only woman in the room, or one of only a few #women at the table. @Trzimmerman says, “I’m a big fan of gender balance in #leadership because all can bring their strengths to the table.””
That instinct is corroborated by other women in tech. In a new report, Navisite released new research “that shows women in technology face tougher scrutiny and are often asked to handle administrative duties over their male colleagues.”
According to Navisite, ”The results show that despite growing conversations about gender equality in tech, women continue to struggle with how they are treated, compensated and valued within their field.”
The report continues, Almost all, or “94% feel they are held to a higher standard than their male colleagues. Seventy-five percent say they or other women they’ve worked with have consistently been asked to perform administrative tasks over their male colleagues, including taking notes, getting coffee/tea, ordering refreshments and general meeting prep. 74% feel their opinions have been overlooked or discounted during meetings because of their gender and 61% believe they have lost out on a promotion or job opportunity because of their gender.”
These results align with a 2021 report from Hired, showing that a wage gap and expectation gap both are fueled by gender and racial bias and discrimination in the tech workplace.
“A 2021 report from @Hired_HQ shows that a #wagegap and expectation gap both are fueled by #gender and racial bias and discrimination in the tech workplace. #womenintech”
According to Hired, for wages, “Black and Hispanic women continue to see the widest gap. 59% of the time, men were offered higher salaries than women for the same job title at the same company in 2020, compared to 65% in 2019. In terms of the pay difference, companies offer women 2.5% less on average than men for the same roles, compared to 4.4% less in 2019.”
This is complicated by an enforced and culturally ingrained expectation gap. “We continue to see that groups who are paid less also expect lower salaries than their white, male counterparts — even if they have the same experience. The gender expectation gap, for example, decreased from 5.8% in 2019 to 3.2% in 2020, showing a clear correlation between the expectation and wage gap.”
And while gender is present in bias and discrimination, race bias and discrimination abounds in tech. The report shows, “White employees are less likely to have discovered they were being paid less than a colleague in the same role. On the occasions where they do discover a discrepancy, they receive a salary increase after surfacing the discrepancy 28% of the time. Comparably, Black or Hispanic employees receive salary increases 20% and 15% of the time, respectively.”
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Priya Rajagopal, director of product management at Couchbase, writes recently in Fortune, “Less representation at the executive and board levels creates unique challenges for women. This is magnified in tech, which has traditionally had far fewer women in top management roles.”
Rajagopal continues, “Some modern organizations are proactively working to address this imbalance, but many women struggle to deal with challenges like unfounded concerns about their technical abilities, being overlooked for opportunities because of gender or biases based on race, age, and appearance, and imposter syndrome that keeps marginalized but well-informed female experts from engaging with peers.”
Zimmerman would agree, and found her own strategies to cope with the culture, seek mentors and become a mentor, a helpful colleague and a leader for other women and men.
“Throughout her career, @Trzimmerman found her own strategies to cope with the culture of the #tech world, seek mentors and become a mentor, a helpful colleague and a leader for other women. #womenleaders”
She adds, “I came up as a developer,” where most everyone was male. “It develops an independence and confidence in you.” She adds, “Being humble and being aware” are also essential. “Taking time to put your own needs on hold” is key.
That confidence as well as humility also bloom from her life experience, that helped her build her empathy as a leader. ”I think empathy is a really important skill in general. Listening and trying to understand where people are coming from and sharing how can I help this person” are key principles, Zimmerman says. “I got to where I was because I helped people.”
““I got to where I was because I helped people,” @Trzimmerman says. ”I think empathy is a really important skill in general.” #careeradvice #entrepreneur”
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Her life experience as a teen mom informs her leadership style. “It makes you recognize very early that people would be dealing with things you cannot see. You can’t demand everyone come in at 7:30 a.m. for a meeting because they might not have a babysitter.”
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She adds, “It is one of my strengths but it can also be a weakness. I have to be careful it doesn’t turn into enablement. I have to do what’s good for the company. You can’t just do anything you want.”
As head of a tech company that is working to transform businesses with new mobile, web and frontier technologies. Zimmerman says she has distinct tips for other entrepreneurs and leaders, the lessons she garnered along the way.
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“@Trzimmerman says she has distinct tips for other #entrepreneurs and leaders, the lessons she garnered along the way: “I wish I would have learned earlier that numbers are the language of business...You have to figure out how what you do has value to the business.””
“I wish I would have learned earlier that numbers are the language of business.” Zimmerman says. “I could have become comfortable early on in the language of money. I didn’t realize that soon enough.”
What that means, she says, is “You have to figure out how what you do has value to the business.”
Another lesson she says, as someone who early on had Smart Girl Syndrome, is “not to expect to always have the answers, so spend some time listening.”
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What Zimmerman also learned in her leadership roles is that “a lot of time you say you have to take the team with you. But they need to go on their own journeys. You take people along the journey so they understand they can stand on their own feet.”
“@Trzimmerman also learned in her #leadership roles that “a lot of time you say you have to take the team with you. But they need to go on their own journeys. You take people along the journey so they understand they can stand on their own feet.””
Honesty is also something not only to convey and own, but to seek from mentors and colleagues. “Seek honest feedback from people about your strengths and how you can improve. Then reflect on those things because you can change.”
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Reflecting on her own journey, Zimmerman says she learned early on what kind of person she could be.
She said in the second grade she remembers being embarrassed crying at school because her grandfather was sick.
“My teacher said, ‘You have empathy and that is a gift.’ I didn’t know it was a strength. So you have to figure out how to capitalize on those strengths.”
