"I've been a leader in engineering for over a quarter of a century and enjoyed the vast majority of it.

As I moved upwards from tiny, growing enterprises to one of the world's largest tech companies (Microsoft) I scaled up my leadership and management skills to lead more people, more products and influence more people who weren't in my own teams.

In doing so I realised two things:

1) I loved the increased impact that comes from higher scale.

2) Of all the bits of the job that I enjoyed, the ones I enjoyed most were helping other people to develop and learn.  Enabling them to be better leaders. 

In addition to leading my teams, I spent more and more time on leadership development, first with my own folk and then across the company.

I developed and delivered training courses at multiple levels from individual contributors through junior managers, senior managers and VPs.  I coached individuals and teams.

I gave talks, created book clubs and wrote an internal blog to encourage the community and get folks thinking about leadership.

I did all that at the same time as leading my own teams and products because I found that the more effort I put into that leadership development, the easier my job became. 

The leadership community increased the total amount of leadership that happened.  Those other leaders in my team forged better teams and products.  Leaders across the company picked up the baton on leadership development and built a large and vibrant community that pushed on when I was not in the room.

Now at Jon Berger Leadership, I provide training, coaching and consultancy in leadership, management and strategy."