Becoming a conscious leader: Leading without fear, finding your life’s objective function, and getting better at vision and strategy | John Mark Nickels (Uber, Waymo, DoorDash)

JM Nickels is a Senior Director of Product Management at Uber. Previously, he was Head of Product for Commercialization at Waymo and led product teams at DoorDash. JM is also a coach and advisor focused on conscious leadership. In our conversation, we discuss:

• How to sharpen your vision and strategy skills

• What “conscious leadership” means and how to practice it

• Practical techniques for managing stress

• The power of soft skills and emotional intelligence in product leadership

• Lessons from working at Uber, Waymo, and DoorDash

• Keys to living a successful and fulfilling life

• Much more

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Brought to you by:

• Pendo—The only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application

• The Enterprise Ready Conference — For B2B leaders building enterprise SaaS

• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/becoming-a-conscious-leader-john-mark-nickels

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Where to find John Mark Nickels:

• X: https://x.com/nickelsjm

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmnickels/

• Website: https://www.rhythmofbeing.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to JM

(02:02) Conscious leadership explained

(03:41) The power of soft skills

(07:34) Navigating Uber’s evolution

(12:41) Embracing emotions and inner work

(21:46) Crafting strategy and vision

(41:16) Balancing vision and execution

(46:13) Lessons from DoorDash, Uber, and Waymo

(52:32) The future of autonomous ride-hailing

(55:18) Contrarian corner: Embracing emotions in the workplace

(59:47) Keys to a fulfilling life

(01:04:45) Taking responsibility and agency

(01:07:29) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.