How To Become a Go-To Person

Working in today’s high-tech world, we all need different skills and behaviours. Skills are the abilities we have learned, and behaviours are how we act. For example, a person can have leadership skills, and one of the behaviours they present is “lead by example”.

Becoming a go-to person at a new job, or even when you change positions, can be a tricky task. It’s tough because you need to present strong technical skills while maintaining positive energy so people will want to come and talk to you again.

Personally, I realized that this status has impacted my career when I got promoted to be a software architect. It hit me when my manager gave a few words and said that one of the key capabilities of a software architect is to be able to create a Go-To person status and this is something I do well.

Why do YOU want to be a go-to person?

Being a go-to person is needed for different roles in the R&D world. All leadership roles require this quality, from management, tech leads to senior developers.

This quality is essential because we (from devs to higher management) want all the people in these roles to be filled by leaders without authority. Even if they have some authority — we want to create a situation where our leaders are working with us and not “just telling us what to do”.

One last important point, being a go-to person is relevant and can be achieved by all seniority levels/veterancy in a specific workplace. Remember, it’s essential to understand that this quality is searched for when promoting individuals or even thinking who is the right person to lead the next big initiative or project.

Behaviours you can cultivate to establish for becoming a go-to-person

Be opinionated — You should allow people to hear your opinions; therefore, you must share them. Keep in mind that many emotions can emerge when participating in this process as people may oppose what you’re saying.

For the introvert: share your thoughts! Things you can try to voice your opinions:

• Have a mantra: that can help you raise your confidence. For example, “nobody knows everything” and this is true. Even the “smartest” people in the room get it wrong.
• Come prepared: you can prepare for meetings with ideas. This way, you can gather your thoughts offline and present them more confidently.

For the extrovert: share your thoughts, But be careful about expressing them, especially if you are a new employee. Things you can try to be mindful of other opinions:

• Talk last: gives everyone the option to talk first and share their thoughts.
• Share thoughts as questions: instead of stating your opinion, ask “why not do… ?” instead.
• Make sure you are in the correct forum: you can write your ideas down and suggest them in a 1:1

Listen to others — Colleagues will feel comfortable consulting with you if you behave in an open-minded and approachable. Especially if you have started a new job or position, having a “bad impression” can create a very long negative effect on how you integrate socially and even your personal development.

Listening might sound obvious but we must remember that in front of us stands another person with real feelings that need to be heard and validated. Things you can try to become a better listener:

• Talk last: yes, again, talk last! Give others the option to speak first.
• Respond with follow-up questions: always give other opinions the respect they deserve.
• Put your ego aside: possibly the hardest thing to do, but be mindful of who is talking-your brain or your ego.

Get into the details — People should feel you bring value. So you will want to bring something insightful to the conversation. You need to stay up to date, business-wise and technologically. Always stay tuned to new business and technical content. Things you can do to keep up:

• Read all spec/designs that are shared in public forums.
• Ask to join meetings that sound interesting.
• Enrich your technical knowledge by reading or watching lectures, etc.

Make yourself visible — People need to know you exist. To be able to contact you they should know who are. You need to stay in people’s awareness. For that, you need to make yourself visible. Things you can try to make yourself more visible:

• Ask to join meetings : seeing you in a meeting can be impactful even if you are a fly on the wall.
• Ask questions : when in meetings, reading content, or working on an assignment, always ask questions.
• Make small talk : you should remember that part of your visibility in the office is just being friendly. To enable this by being in the office or attending virtual events.

Make yourself available- People should feel comfortable contacting you. Also, colleagues should know that you will take the time to help, whether it’s face-to-face, zoom, or even asynchronous communication. Your colleagues should feel that they will get an answer when they come to you. Things you can try to make yourself more available:

• Be responsive: when sending you emails, messages, or even F2F. Always respond. Saying you currently don’t have the time and will look later is also an answer.
• Prioritize: be sure; if someone asks you for help, they are probably blocked with what they are doing. One of the go-to-persons jobs is to help others unblock themself. Prioritize their needs as well.
• Block time in your calendar: to help others or even for a specific session to discuss topics, debug, and more. Using your calendar in a smart manner is very important.

Actually care — You need to care about the people, the product, and the company. Colleagues can sense if you are just trying to prove yourself and be the best or have alternative motives. Be mindful of what drives you.

I hope that you are passionate about your job and caring is something that you find easy to do. I know that I do. Caring means looking at how we win together and not only how we win. Every team, department, and company has top-level objectives to achieve, and you should stay connected to them. Things you can practice caring about what you do:

• Keep track of how your projects progress: even if it’s not necessarily your job, sometimes your manager can be very busy. Having another set of eyes on how well things go can be helpful.
• Ask people how they are if they need help: take an interest in others, personally and work-related issues. This will make you a lot more approachable, and people will share problems.
• Assume good faith in others: we know it’s a job, but we are all people with feelings and struggles. I want to believe that the people around me are doing their best no matter what. Let’s let them have the benefit of the doubt.
• Speak up when you see something is wrong: from minor bugs to other teammates having a hard time. Everyone has their blind spots, so find a way to speak up without insulting anyone.

Let it go — You need to let others be right. It doesn’t matter who it is, but you must remember this. You are not the only competent person in the room. Whether you are right or not, you need to practice patience. Others will learn by making their own mistakes. I am sure you needed the same grace as we are all techies who like to think we know it all :). Things you can do:

• Back down after repeating yourself twice: In case you have shared your opinion, and people still disagree. Backdown, don’t repeat yourself over two times.
• Add another person to the conversation: this can be an awesome tiebreaker.
• Don’t engage from the start: and possibly delegate the engagement to others.

Hybrid visibility

During the Covid era, many companies have changed how they work. The hybrid setup has become very popular, and we need to adjust how we behave. Staying connected nowadays is different, and it will impact your visibility and how others contact you. As we are not in the office, you can’t always see who participates in a meeting or join watercooler talks. It requires being more proactive in creating this visibility.

Things you can to stay connected in the hybrid workplace setup:

• Look at other people’s calendars for interesting meetings and ask to join (assuming calendars are open to everyone).
• Engage in public channels, whether it’s asking for help, asking questions or sharing interesting content on your own, and even responding to others.
• Be responsive! When people write to you, answer them in a timely manner (or at least try). Even if you don’t have the time, at least let them know.

For the managers: How can you help your employees become Go-To people?

Awareness: start by raising this concept to their attention. Being a go-to person can have a tangible impact on their personal development, and they should be aware of that.

Invite them to meetings: so others get to know who they are and have different forums to share their insights.

Include them: from relevant content or documentation to tagging them in the right slack conversations.

Share their success stories in public: being a Go-To person is all about status. To have this status, your employee needs a personal internal brand. By sharing their success stories, you will help them do just that.

Build a plan for becoming a go-to person: after they are aware, build a personal development plan. What is that plan? Go back to the top of this post and reread the first part :)

To sum up — start small

As a software architect, a big part of my job is helping shape our vision, not by deciding it independently but by impacting others. To do that, I need my colleagues to listen to me and appreciate my opinions. Though influencing others is in the job description of different leadership roles, this can help everyone improve their skills, branding in the company and outside, personal development, and more.

There are different behaviors and actions that you can take to try and improve your go-to person status starting today, but it’s a journey. Nobody starts a new job and becomes a go-to person after a month. It is a process that takes time, and you should start small and build it. My suggestion? Take at least two tips from this post and try to incorporate them into your day-to-day. For example: ask this week to join two meetings and ask one person for a coffee break or when the next alert is fired, be the first to handle it to show you care.

If you have thoughts, tips, or other things that worked for you, feel free to share :)