NGC Experience: Callie Bivings

Callie Bivings went into the Foundation for Effective Leadership program expecting a management training. What she got was something she didn't know she needed.

"I was definitely prepared for more of a management training, much more tactical, situation specific type stuff than what it ended up being, which was better," said Bivings, a Senior Software Engineer at Allstacks.

Allstacks had enrolled Bivings as she was moving into more leadership-oriented work, a transition the company has supported for several team members through the Foundation for Effective Leadership program. Going in, she wasn't sure what to expect. Coming out, she described the experience as transformative in ways that extended well beyond the workplace.

"It felt like therapy sometimes. There was so much introspection. The first session I learned I need to be here and present and not distracted and prepared to talk and think and work really hard on these days. I was definitely less passive listening to presentations than I was thinking it would be."

That active participation turned out to be one of the program's greatest strengths. Brian structures each session around frequent breakouts, small group exercises, and one-on-one conversations.

"Every 30 minutes we were breaking out into small groups to talk about something. You really can't get away with not having paid attention. And because of that, I got so much more out of it and felt much more engaged in the process."

Two frameworks stood out as particularly impactful. The first was the strengths assessment, which helped Bivings put language to something she had long felt but struggled to articulate.

"All my strengths are people-based, and I'm in engineering. Sometimes that feels like my strengths just aren't relevant for this field. The thing I wasn't aware of that I learned through this is it actually is a strength to be a little bit different in your field and not have the same general strengths as everybody else, and that is super useful. I knew what my strengths were, and I learned how to apply them and appreciate them better."

The second was the values sort exercise, which asked participants to narrow down the values they actually live by, rather than the ones that sound good on paper.

"It's a powerful thing to be forced to pick a small number of values and table other things. I realized that some of the things I was calling core values were aspirational values. And trying to live into something that isn't really how you operate causes so much tension. Being honest with yourself about that allows you to give so much more energy to the stuff you actually care about."

The coaching framework she learned in the program has become a practical tool she reaches for regularly. With a team of strong personalities and long-established communication patterns, Bivings found herself using what she learned to navigate entrenched dynamics with more intention.

"That coaching framework really helped me talk people through taking a step back and removing some of the assumption layers. We've been able to improve some workplace dynamics by rethinking things from scratch a little bit."

The cohort itself was another unexpected source of value. Bivings found herself alongside business owners, people from large corporations, academics, and professionals from completely different industries, and discovered that the differences were as instructive as the content.

"It was really just all over the map. There's so much more in common between everybody than you would expect given how different all of our jobs are. Working with people in your cohort who have nothing in common with you career-wise, other than that you're trying to get better at this leadership skill, is as much a value add as any of the content we actually talked about. It just gives you a chance to see things differently. When you have to explain things loosely enough that you don't get into too much specific jargon, it helps you zoom out of the situation and see it more clearly."

She also noted that the program pushed her in ways she hadn't anticipated.

"You have to come willing to be vulnerable. There are moments that feel silly or uncomfortable. But you have to want to invest in this part of yourself and be prepared for it to be real work."

Her advice to anyone starting the program is practical: take notes, revisit them between sessions, and give yourself time to actually sit with what comes up.

For Bivings, the program shifted something more fundamental about how she sees her own potential.

"Being in a super technical field with all male team members for my entire career, with my strengths being so different than the standard engineering strengths, is very daunting sometimes. It makes you feel like, ‘what am I even doing here?’ This really helped me understand what I can bring at work and how being a leader of the type of person that I am is valuable in that environment."

She paused before adding one more thing. "Leadership is not just something you have or you don't. You can grow it intentionally, with organized effort. My sights are set on higher titles and a better path in my career now than there was before. The limitations that I thought I had before are not really there in the same way. Everything feels much more in reach now."