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Leadership as a Responsibility: Establishing Credibility and the Pull of New Opportunities with Srikanth Bollavaram (2/2)

6d ago 34:45

MP3•Episode home

Looking back on one’s career, it might be easy to connect the dots between job roles you held in the past, but what can we really do to influence where the dots are placed in the future? Srikanth Bollavaram took an approach that pulled opportunities in his direction. What if you could do the same?

This week in episode 336, we continue the discussion with Srikanth and focus on his consistent openness to taking different roles across various areas, many of which came to him at the suggestion of leaders who knew his reputation, skills, and capabilities. In the cases where a new role pushed Srikanth out of his comfort zone, personal growth and more opportunities always followed. It suited his desire to keep learning. Srikanth found over time that leadership isn’t a specific title or role. It’s a responsibility you have that could be an aspect of many roles. Srikanth also stresses the importance of defining your non-negotiables like self-care and family as a leader to help manage time constraints.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2025

Srikanth Bollavaram is a product development leader with experience spanning the financial, railroad, and consumer packaged goods industries. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Srikanth, check out Episode 335.

Topics – Gaining Experience along the Path Less Traveled, Connecting the Dots Backwards, Leadership as a Responsibility, Time Constraints and Non-negotiables

Before we begin, did you do the homework we assigned last week? If not, we highly recommend you go back and listen to this episode before listening to part 2 of Srikanth’s story – Episode 325 – Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4).

3:18 – Gaining Experience along the Path Less Traveled

Was it normal for people who were brought in for roles like the one Srikanth had to have or be very interested in both business and technology operations and the marrying of the two? We would probably classify this type of role as operational technology today.
- When Srikanth first started working for the railroad, he began working on the digitization of the customer interactions. He did not go directly to the operational side.
- “First, you have to gain some credibility in whatever you do. It doesn’t matter what that work is.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- In those days, customers might call, fax, or e-mail the railroad. Srikanth’s role was to digitize all customer interactions end-to-end. This included building, tracking, tracing, payments, and more.
- After working on the digitization for a couple of years, Srikanth started noticing several other interesting projects. The work on control systems he mentioned earlier was the result of the opportunities given to him over time.
- “A lot of times it’s not me seeking. This is actually a very repeated pattern in my career. People identified me as a potential candidate…and then pulled me into those roles, whether it’s an architect role or even a principal engineer role…. The leaders in the company identified me as a potential candidate and just started giving me those opportunities.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- The control systems were part of a project for the railroad’s dispatch center, which orchestrated all switches, signals, and communication to locomotives. At the time Srikanth was selected for this project, it was not going very well, and it was not considered a good move to take on the role.
- Srikanth tells us he likes to choose the “path less traveled” to see what happens.
- “If it is interesting enough and challenging enough, you just go and try it, give your best, and see what happens. That always, at least to me…worked out well. I gained an experience which I wouldn’t have if I thought what would have been best for me rather than looking at my superiors…. They’re telling me, ‘hey, maybe you should do this.’ I probably would have chosen something in my comfort zone as an extension to my comfort zone. All these things actually pushed me completely out of my comfort zone…. Especially if you have been asked to do it, and if your seniors trust you enough so that you could do it, just do it. You may not like it initially, but that would add a very valuable experience for you.” – Srikanth Bollavaram, on considering opportunities

6:37 – Connecting the Dots Backwards

Did Srikanth’s move into the railroad industry also involve shifting from individual contributor to leader?
- Srikanth began as an individual contributor when he was working for the railroad but transitioned quickly into a technical lead role and then into more of an architect role. These were moves up into leadership type roles.
- “Instead of seeking for a next level job, you try to do a next level job…in your current position, and then that automatically opens up positions for you. And I think pull is always better than a push in my opinion. Creating those opportunities and making you as an ideal candidate is how I operated…. It all depends on…where you are in your career and what that involves…. How many changes can you adapt at the same time…not only in career but also family wise…? …That’s why when somebody asks it’s always based on the context at which you are taking that decision.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
  - Srikanth tells us the shifting of roles may involve a relocation or moving to a new company. For those who have children, consider their age and where they are in school to determine how changes you make will impact family stability.
  - According to Srikanth, we should seek to make ourselves candidates for multiple things and not just one thing through building credibility and gaining critical experience in different areas of a company.
- Srikanth once received advice to think of himself like a stock. If you are traded out in the open market, you should always be more valuable in that trade than to the current company. In this way you’re providing more value where you are operating because it’s like they get the stock at a discounted rate.
  - Instead of focusing too much on a level you want to achieve, improve your skills and capabilities so that you give more value to where you are currently operating.
John mentions patterns we’ve seen related to the idea of growth vs. comfort.
- When we are comfortable, we are operating fully within our capabilities, but growth means learning and pushing beyond what is comfortable. It helps to have people pushing us to grow.
- Srikanth also mentioned being pulled into specific roles, which speaks to having a strong brand within the organization as someone who can adapt, problem solve, and troubleshoot effectively. It means people recognize you as having the skills and abilities to perform a role when opportunities arise.
- Additionally, it can be difficult to move to a new company based solely on having a strong internal reputation at your existing company.
With the above items in mind, let’s talk about Srikanth’s move into leadership and out of the railroad industry.
- Srikanth says if you are comfortable in your job, you are likely not growing.
- If you have good leaders and mentors as Srikanth mentions he did, they will be able to spot some of your gaps / blind spots and suggest ways to fill those gaps.
- Srikanth tells us that moving out of the railroad industry was also a family decision.
  - The family lived in a small town and wanted to move to a warmer climate.
  - Srikanth’s kids were in elementary school, and he had extended family in the Dallas area.
  - Srikanth viewed changing companies as something that was better to do earlier in his career rather than later.
- Initially, Srikanth thought he would still be working for the railroad if his family relocated, but that was not the case. Srikanth saw a leadership opportunity at a different company that needed someone to build digital platforms, and he had experience from the railroad industry which would easily transfer.
  - “I had a very good knowledge in terms of how to build those platforms, so I took that as an opportunity to come and start a new career in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry. But what you said is totally true. You just have to start from zero again in terms of your credibility and your relationships. It’s going to be a struggle, not only because you’re trying to build that within the company but you’re adapting to a new environment, new city…. It was a bit stressful to be honest at least in the initial years….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth was excited about building a new team culture.
  - He was energized by the opportunity to build internal products and solutions. The team needed to think about how to build and make the platforms like a product. Srikanth says they were buidling the capabilities in the cloud, and it was very exciting.
- “In terms of leadership, first you have to establish yourself as a credible leader. You have to bring along your team. I think that’s something from time to time you have to go through. You have to go through this phase of reinventing yourself….And you can always say this looking back.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
  - Srikanth reiterates that the change was more for family reasons than for a different position or to move up.
- John says being able to tell a story looking back does not mean we know at the inflection point we know what the story is going to be. There is a range of possibilities in any decision.
  - Srikanth says if you’re very clear and focused about exactly where you want to go, that is a good thing, but he likes to remain more open.
  - “I am going to trust the process and see where it leads me, and what I learned in the process is establishing the relationships, building credibility. And while you’re working, not only think for your success but how do you make sure you’re always thinking of people who are working, how they are going to be successful? If you…go with that attitude – more of a team culture, your peers and colleagues…how do I make them successful, not just me? …You go through these projects or programs or roles…. It’s beautiful afterwards. The relationships you establish are long lasting if you go with that process, and that to me is more valuable than any roles or positions you held….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Though we can connect the dots backward, Srikanth encourages us to think about the following when looking forward to increase the likelihood of good things happening because people will remember you.
  - Are you developing future leaders?
  - Are you making others successful and not just you?
  - Are you learning and getting out of your comfort zone?

17:53 – Leadership as a Responsibility

Is what Srikanth shared above what it means to truly progress as a leader once you become one, or are there other aspects we’ve overlooked?
- “See, when you are a leader, the most important thing is you have to deliver the results. That is non-negotiable. But then comes how you do it…. I think you could achieve the results in various ways.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- If a leader can deliver the results through empowering people, being open, understanding yourself, and create a positive team culture…that leader can look back and be proud of the results. This part is personal to the leader.
- Srikanth mentions reading the book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership which talks about leaders operating and delivering results based on their values (values being personal to each leader).
- As a leader Srikanth adopts the things which are important to him without compromising the results.
- “As you go up in the organization, it’s very hard to execute, deliver the results in the right way. But that’s where the real leadership test comes. Leadership is…to me a responsibility. It’s not a title. It’s more of a responsibility…towards the people you’re working with and toward the mission at hand….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
Each leader has a mission to deliver results which is usually based on the purview of their team and the internal organization in which it operates. When a leader is open to opportunities and is given a new mission to lead a different team, how do you make the transition while maintaining relationships with the former team and building up those with the new team?
- First, it is about not only your success but also the success of the people working with you (on your team and beyond).
- “Whenever I take up a role, what I see is…you’re there for a reason, to solve a problem. If you do it effectively, within a year or two, that position shouldn’t be there technically…. If you develop appropriate leaders…identify the leaders who are taking more responsibility and you grow them, any of them should be able to take it and run with it.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth says when you’re given a leadership position, if you streamline it, you create an opportunity for future leaders who can take that role later on. You can also leave that position in a better state than when you started in it for the benefit of your successor.
- “If you do that well, you don’t really spoil any relationships because you’re growing the people. You’re solving the problem…making it…. If you create a system effective enough, it probably can run itself.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth takes the above approach in every leadership role he takes – leaving things better than when he initially started in the role and in a state such that someone else on the team can run the team.
- Maybe this approach is similar to parents training their children to become adults and to need their parents less over time?
  - Srikanth reminds us that the aspiration of a leader is to leave the place in a better state than in which you found it. You can do this successfully by developing the next generation of leaders and ensuring the mission is not compromised.
- John mentions the theory of constraints and reminds us that we don’t want to engineer a system where the leader is the constraint.
  - We don’t often think about leaders being a constraint. It’s usually something on the operations side that we think of being a constraint. But if a leader is the constraint, it is likely a leadership issue.
  - “But if the leader is there catalyzing a change that perpetuates itself beyond the leader’s presence, that’s a successful change.” – John White
  - Nick says a move to a new position is identifying and exploiting the next constraint.
  - Srikanth said his team did this very successfully when building digital platforms that were resilient and self-healing. They did things that at first didn’t even seem possible by eliminating one constraint at a time.

25:06 – Time Constraints and Non-negotiables

Nick mentions one big constraint for leaders is time. How can existing leaders and prospective leaders manage their time to focus on the most important things?
- “I think about this in…multiple layers. First is take care of yourself…. Have a good fitness regimen…. Because if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of either your family or the team…. It gets really important to maintain your health, not only health in terms of physical fitness but also mental fitness…. What helps me is learn some kind of meditation…where you kind of take all the noise out and reset your mind from time to time. I think those are very important.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Right behind taking care of yourself is taking care of your family and fulfilling your responsibilities to the family. A job, for example, can be replaced. You and the role you play in your family cannot.
- Srikanth tells us when it comes to work, it is a process of continuous learning. Each day, he is trying to learn how to manage time better through developing new leaders, new processes, and new systems. All of these together allow for an operating mode that helps manage and reduce the number of exceptions to this operating mode over time.
- “I think you have to continuously learn too because a lot of stress comes when you’re only seeing problems day to day. You may be solving the problems, but you have to have something else to enrich your mind other than the work and activities outside. I think it’s all about balance. It will go off balance many times, but it’s how quickly you come back to it is the key.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth says we put some guardrails in place like planning fitness time and vacation time and working everything else around them. These breaks are needed and allow for rest and rejuvenation so we can come back and operate effectively.
- “Work-life balance…I think it’s so intertwined now. It’s very difficult to say what that is…. You just have to within your context create that and what works best for you…. I would say your self-care and family…are non-negotiables.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
If you want to follow up with Srikanth on this conversation, you can contact him on LinkedIn.

Mentioned in the Outro

We heard about it last week and this week. Srikanth was open to new opportunities throughout his career to gain different kinds of experience across different areas.
Family was a big factor in job decisions for Srikanth, and along these lines he cautions us to be careful not to change too many things at once.
- How many changes could you handle at once? We might not know until we try it.
- The episode we assigned for homework, Episode 325 – Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4), was an example of someone taking on more change than they could handle at once. It was, however, a learning experience for Daniel.
Many times Srikanth needed to make a job decision because a leader suggested he take a new role.
- Those leaders understood Srikanth’s capabilities and skills because he had built credibility through delivering results. We did not talk about it in the interview, but Srikanth must have been communicating his accomplishments to his leaders in 1-1 meetings.
Srikanth encouraged building our skills and capabilities over seeking a specific job role or title.
- It’s skills and capabilities that help us meet job requirements.
- Have you taken time to think about the skills and capabilities you need to build for what’s next?
- What areas do you need to sharpen, and what are some new areas in which you need to build some skills?
- You might need a mentor or someone else to give you advice on these topics.
Srikanth spoke about stepping into people leadership. His path, like that of many other guests traversed through technical lead. He was also an architect and even a principal engineer. It was not an immediate jump from individual contributor to people leader, but at each step, there was an element of leadership in these roles.
- Part of the mindset shift in being a people leader was to focus on the success of others – building future leaders, improve processes, and build helpful systems.
- Did you notice he’s still building systems even as a people leader?
- Here’s a episode on the decision point between individual contributor and people manager that pairs very nicely with this episode – Episode 244 – An Array of Decision Points with Tim Crawford (2/2) .

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Leadership as a Responsibility: Establishing Credibility and the Pull of New Opportunities with Srikanth Bollavaram (2/2)

Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional

15 subscribers

published 6d ago

MP3•Episode home

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2025

Topics – Gaining Experience along the Path Less Traveled, Connecting the Dots Backwards, Leadership as a Responsibility, Time Constraints and Non-negotiables

Before we begin, did you do the homework we assigned last week? If not, we highly recommend you go back and listen to this episode before listening to part 2 of Srikanth’s story – Episode 325 – Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4).

3:18 – Gaining Experience along the Path Less Traveled

Was it normal for people who were brought in for roles like the one Srikanth had to have or be very interested in both business and technology operations and the marrying of the two? We would probably classify this type of role as operational technology today.
- When Srikanth first started working for the railroad, he began working on the digitization of the customer interactions. He did not go directly to the operational side.
- “First, you have to gain some credibility in whatever you do. It doesn’t matter what that work is.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- In those days, customers might call, fax, or e-mail the railroad. Srikanth’s role was to digitize all customer interactions end-to-end. This included building, tracking, tracing, payments, and more.
- After working on the digitization for a couple of years, Srikanth started noticing several other interesting projects. The work on control systems he mentioned earlier was the result of the opportunities given to him over time.
- “A lot of times it’s not me seeking. This is actually a very repeated pattern in my career. People identified me as a potential candidate…and then pulled me into those roles, whether it’s an architect role or even a principal engineer role…. The leaders in the company identified me as a potential candidate and just started giving me those opportunities.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- The control systems were part of a project for the railroad’s dispatch center, which orchestrated all switches, signals, and communication to locomotives. At the time Srikanth was selected for this project, it was not going very well, and it was not considered a good move to take on the role.
- Srikanth tells us he likes to choose the “path less traveled” to see what happens.
- “If it is interesting enough and challenging enough, you just go and try it, give your best, and see what happens. That always, at least to me…worked out well. I gained an experience which I wouldn’t have if I thought what would have been best for me rather than looking at my superiors…. They’re telling me, ‘hey, maybe you should do this.’ I probably would have chosen something in my comfort zone as an extension to my comfort zone. All these things actually pushed me completely out of my comfort zone…. Especially if you have been asked to do it, and if your seniors trust you enough so that you could do it, just do it. You may not like it initially, but that would add a very valuable experience for you.” – Srikanth Bollavaram, on considering opportunities

6:37 – Connecting the Dots Backwards

Did Srikanth’s move into the railroad industry also involve shifting from individual contributor to leader?
- Srikanth began as an individual contributor when he was working for the railroad but transitioned quickly into a technical lead role and then into more of an architect role. These were moves up into leadership type roles.
- “Instead of seeking for a next level job, you try to do a next level job…in your current position, and then that automatically opens up positions for you. And I think pull is always better than a push in my opinion. Creating those opportunities and making you as an ideal candidate is how I operated…. It all depends on…where you are in your career and what that involves…. How many changes can you adapt at the same time…not only in career but also family wise…? …That’s why when somebody asks it’s always based on the context at which you are taking that decision.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
  - Srikanth tells us the shifting of roles may involve a relocation or moving to a new company. For those who have children, consider their age and where they are in school to determine how changes you make will impact family stability.
  - According to Srikanth, we should seek to make ourselves candidates for multiple things and not just one thing through building credibility and gaining critical experience in different areas of a company.
- Srikanth once received advice to think of himself like a stock. If you are traded out in the open market, you should always be more valuable in that trade than to the current company. In this way you’re providing more value where you are operating because it’s like they get the stock at a discounted rate.
  - Instead of focusing too much on a level you want to achieve, improve your skills and capabilities so that you give more value to where you are currently operating.
John mentions patterns we’ve seen related to the idea of growth vs. comfort.
- When we are comfortable, we are operating fully within our capabilities, but growth means learning and pushing beyond what is comfortable. It helps to have people pushing us to grow.
- Srikanth also mentioned being pulled into specific roles, which speaks to having a strong brand within the organization as someone who can adapt, problem solve, and troubleshoot effectively. It means people recognize you as having the skills and abilities to perform a role when opportunities arise.
- Additionally, it can be difficult to move to a new company based solely on having a strong internal reputation at your existing company.
With the above items in mind, let’s talk about Srikanth’s move into leadership and out of the railroad industry.
- Srikanth says if you are comfortable in your job, you are likely not growing.
- If you have good leaders and mentors as Srikanth mentions he did, they will be able to spot some of your gaps / blind spots and suggest ways to fill those gaps.
- Srikanth tells us that moving out of the railroad industry was also a family decision.
  - The family lived in a small town and wanted to move to a warmer climate.
  - Srikanth’s kids were in elementary school, and he had extended family in the Dallas area.
  - Srikanth viewed changing companies as something that was better to do earlier in his career rather than later.
- Initially, Srikanth thought he would still be working for the railroad if his family relocated, but that was not the case. Srikanth saw a leadership opportunity at a different company that needed someone to build digital platforms, and he had experience from the railroad industry which would easily transfer.
  - “I had a very good knowledge in terms of how to build those platforms, so I took that as an opportunity to come and start a new career in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry. But what you said is totally true. You just have to start from zero again in terms of your credibility and your relationships. It’s going to be a struggle, not only because you’re trying to build that within the company but you’re adapting to a new environment, new city…. It was a bit stressful to be honest at least in the initial years….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth was excited about building a new team culture.
  - He was energized by the opportunity to build internal products and solutions. The team needed to think about how to build and make the platforms like a product. Srikanth says they were buidling the capabilities in the cloud, and it was very exciting.
- “In terms of leadership, first you have to establish yourself as a credible leader. You have to bring along your team. I think that’s something from time to time you have to go through. You have to go through this phase of reinventing yourself….And you can always say this looking back.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
  - Srikanth reiterates that the change was more for family reasons than for a different position or to move up.
- John says being able to tell a story looking back does not mean we know at the inflection point we know what the story is going to be. There is a range of possibilities in any decision.
  - Srikanth says if you’re very clear and focused about exactly where you want to go, that is a good thing, but he likes to remain more open.
  - “I am going to trust the process and see where it leads me, and what I learned in the process is establishing the relationships, building credibility. And while you’re working, not only think for your success but how do you make sure you’re always thinking of people who are working, how they are going to be successful? If you…go with that attitude – more of a team culture, your peers and colleagues…how do I make them successful, not just me? …You go through these projects or programs or roles…. It’s beautiful afterwards. The relationships you establish are long lasting if you go with that process, and that to me is more valuable than any roles or positions you held….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Though we can connect the dots backward, Srikanth encourages us to think about the following when looking forward to increase the likelihood of good things happening because people will remember you.
  - Are you developing future leaders?
  - Are you making others successful and not just you?
  - Are you learning and getting out of your comfort zone?

17:53 – Leadership as a Responsibility

Is what Srikanth shared above what it means to truly progress as a leader once you become one, or are there other aspects we’ve overlooked?
- “See, when you are a leader, the most important thing is you have to deliver the results. That is non-negotiable. But then comes how you do it…. I think you could achieve the results in various ways.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- If a leader can deliver the results through empowering people, being open, understanding yourself, and create a positive team culture…that leader can look back and be proud of the results. This part is personal to the leader.
- Srikanth mentions reading the book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership which talks about leaders operating and delivering results based on their values (values being personal to each leader).
- As a leader Srikanth adopts the things which are important to him without compromising the results.
- “As you go up in the organization, it’s very hard to execute, deliver the results in the right way. But that’s where the real leadership test comes. Leadership is…to me a responsibility. It’s not a title. It’s more of a responsibility…towards the people you’re working with and toward the mission at hand….” – Srikanth Bollavaram
Each leader has a mission to deliver results which is usually based on the purview of their team and the internal organization in which it operates. When a leader is open to opportunities and is given a new mission to lead a different team, how do you make the transition while maintaining relationships with the former team and building up those with the new team?
- First, it is about not only your success but also the success of the people working with you (on your team and beyond).
- “Whenever I take up a role, what I see is…you’re there for a reason, to solve a problem. If you do it effectively, within a year or two, that position shouldn’t be there technically…. If you develop appropriate leaders…identify the leaders who are taking more responsibility and you grow them, any of them should be able to take it and run with it.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth says when you’re given a leadership position, if you streamline it, you create an opportunity for future leaders who can take that role later on. You can also leave that position in a better state than when you started in it for the benefit of your successor.
- “If you do that well, you don’t really spoil any relationships because you’re growing the people. You’re solving the problem…making it…. If you create a system effective enough, it probably can run itself.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth takes the above approach in every leadership role he takes – leaving things better than when he initially started in the role and in a state such that someone else on the team can run the team.
- Maybe this approach is similar to parents training their children to become adults and to need their parents less over time?
  - Srikanth reminds us that the aspiration of a leader is to leave the place in a better state than in which you found it. You can do this successfully by developing the next generation of leaders and ensuring the mission is not compromised.
- John mentions the theory of constraints and reminds us that we don’t want to engineer a system where the leader is the constraint.
  - We don’t often think about leaders being a constraint. It’s usually something on the operations side that we think of being a constraint. But if a leader is the constraint, it is likely a leadership issue.
  - “But if the leader is there catalyzing a change that perpetuates itself beyond the leader’s presence, that’s a successful change.” – John White
  - Nick says a move to a new position is identifying and exploiting the next constraint.
  - Srikanth said his team did this very successfully when building digital platforms that were resilient and self-healing. They did things that at first didn’t even seem possible by eliminating one constraint at a time.

25:06 – Time Constraints and Non-negotiables

Nick mentions one big constraint for leaders is time. How can existing leaders and prospective leaders manage their time to focus on the most important things?
- “I think about this in…multiple layers. First is take care of yourself…. Have a good fitness regimen…. Because if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of either your family or the team…. It gets really important to maintain your health, not only health in terms of physical fitness but also mental fitness…. What helps me is learn some kind of meditation…where you kind of take all the noise out and reset your mind from time to time. I think those are very important.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Right behind taking care of yourself is taking care of your family and fulfilling your responsibilities to the family. A job, for example, can be replaced. You and the role you play in your family cannot.
- Srikanth tells us when it comes to work, it is a process of continuous learning. Each day, he is trying to learn how to manage time better through developing new leaders, new processes, and new systems. All of these together allow for an operating mode that helps manage and reduce the number of exceptions to this operating mode over time.
- “I think you have to continuously learn too because a lot of stress comes when you’re only seeing problems day to day. You may be solving the problems, but you have to have something else to enrich your mind other than the work and activities outside. I think it’s all about balance. It will go off balance many times, but it’s how quickly you come back to it is the key.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
- Srikanth says we put some guardrails in place like planning fitness time and vacation time and working everything else around them. These breaks are needed and allow for rest and rejuvenation so we can come back and operate effectively.
- “Work-life balance…I think it’s so intertwined now. It’s very difficult to say what that is…. You just have to within your context create that and what works best for you…. I would say your self-care and family…are non-negotiables.” – Srikanth Bollavaram
If you want to follow up with Srikanth on this conversation, you can contact him on LinkedIn.

Mentioned in the Outro

We heard about it last week and this week. Srikanth was open to new opportunities throughout his career to gain different kinds of experience across different areas.
Family was a big factor in job decisions for Srikanth, and along these lines he cautions us to be careful not to change too many things at once.
- How many changes could you handle at once? We might not know until we try it.
- The episode we assigned for homework, Episode 325 – Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4), was an example of someone taking on more change than they could handle at once. It was, however, a learning experience for Daniel.
Many times Srikanth needed to make a job decision because a leader suggested he take a new role.
- Those leaders understood Srikanth’s capabilities and skills because he had built credibility through delivering results. We did not talk about it in the interview, but Srikanth must have been communicating his accomplishments to his leaders in 1-1 meetings.
Srikanth encouraged building our skills and capabilities over seeking a specific job role or title.
- It’s skills and capabilities that help us meet job requirements.
- Have you taken time to think about the skills and capabilities you need to build for what’s next?
- What areas do you need to sharpen, and what are some new areas in which you need to build some skills?
- You might need a mentor or someone else to give you advice on these topics.
Srikanth spoke about stepping into people leadership. His path, like that of many other guests traversed through technical lead. He was also an architect and even a principal engineer. It was not an immediate jump from individual contributor to people leader, but at each step, there was an element of leadership in these roles.
- Part of the mindset shift in being a people leader was to focus on the success of others – building future leaders, improve processes, and build helpful systems.
- Did you notice he’s still building systems even as a people leader?
- Here’s a episode on the decision point between individual contributor and people manager that pairs very nicely with this episode – Episode 244 – An Array of Decision Points with Tim Crawford (2/2) .

Contact the Hosts

The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte.
- E-mail: [email protected]
- DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney
- Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman
- Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_
- Leave a Comment on Your Favorite Episode on YoutTube
If you’ve been impacted by a layoff or need advice, check out our Layoff Resources Page.
If uncertainty is getting to you, check out or Career Uncertainty Action Guide with a checklist of actions to take control during uncertain periods and AI prompts to help you think through topics like navigating a recent layoff, financial planning, or managing your mindset and being overwhelmed.

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