AMA about Leadership
18 Mar 2026
In this moment:
Gary Hawkes
Inspired by the following challenge: Create a Moment: Ask MoTaverse Anything.
Every organisation evolves and every person in it is unique with different needs. So leadership is tough when each step of the way, you're having to adapt to new people, changing organisations and new challenges, whilst still remaining the stable voice that people look to for answers and guidance.
I learned leadership the hard way, promoted with only external coaching, to be the go to guy in Development and Testing in a number of organisations. I made a lot of mistakes in this leadership journey crashing into walls, trying to be behave "as a leader should" until gradually I found myself and the kind of leader I wanted to be.
So if you have any questions about leadership from any perspective, simply add a comment with your question and I'll do my best to help...from one leaders perspective 🙏
Questions and answers can be found in this collection
Every organisation evolves and every person in it is unique with different needs. So leadership is tough when each step of the way, you're having to adapt to new people, changing organisations and new challenges, whilst still remaining the stable voice that people look to for answers and guidance.
I learned leadership the hard way, promoted with only external coaching, to be the go to guy in Development and Testing in a number of organisations. I made a lot of mistakes in this leadership journey crashing into walls, trying to be behave "as a leader should" until gradually I found myself and the kind of leader I wanted to be.
So if you have any questions about leadership from any perspective, simply add a comment with your question and I'll do my best to help...from one leaders perspective 🙏
Questions and answers can be found in this collection
Gary Hawkes
QA Lead
He/Him
Software QA Lead and tester who loves to see people grow, processes continuously improve and help organisations understand and support Quality Engineering
Simon Tomes
During my first leadership role I had several lightbulb moments. I'd think, "Ah, if only I'd known that about managing and leading people I probably would've behaved differently when I wasn't managing and leading people." It's kinda cringe and awkward to reflect on yet I think it's an important one to acknowledge. It's like I unlocked a whole load of unknown unknowns and slowly some turned into known unknowns and knowns. 😅
Can you share a story about an early days leadership lightbulb moment?
Demi Van Malcot
How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be, what was the turning point?
Richard Adams
My biggest challenge when I was in a leadership role was that it wasn't a position of authority. Whilst I was the leader on how to think about quality and testing, I had no power to implement something. How would you lead in this situation?
Emily O'Connor
Do you have any book recommendations?
I love the book The Captain Class
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/421695/the-captain-class-by-sam-walker/9781785030291
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