METM Alumni Spotlight: Sara Sanders

Katie: Foreign. Welcome to Technical Leadership Talks, the podcast that brings you advice, insights and knowledge from industry leaders and experts on how to navigate managing in a technical field. Technical Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas A University's Master of Engineering Technical Management, an online graduate program that trains industry professionals for leadership positions. Hi, I'm Katie, METM's digital marketer and your host for this episode. In this alumni spotlight, we sit down with Sarah Sanders, Master of Engineering Technical management, class of 2023. Sarah shares what drew her to the program, how she balanced a full time career while completing her degree, and the lasting impact METM has had on her approach to leadership. To start, could you share who you are, your role, and the company you work for?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, so my name is Sarah Sanders. Um, my role currently is lead nuclear integrator for Lockheed Martin Space across our nuclear IR portfolio. So that mostly means working with my technical teams to make sure that, uh, the projects that we're working on are all technically aligned and that everybody's kind of speaking the same language across complex technologies.

Katie: And what made you decide that METM was the right program for you?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, so I knew I wanted to go back to school, um, and kind of grow into leadership. I wasn't exactly sure what kind of leadership I was most interested in, but I sort of started looking at MBAs, um, and then more technical regular Masters of Science, uh, type degrees, but neither really felt right for me. Um, MBA felt really far away from the technical work that I was doing on the daily, um, but a Master of Science didn't incorporate that people aspect that I think is incredibly important to leadership. And so METM was kind of that rare blend of both that you don't really, really get, uh, in one or the other all by itself. And plus, uh, getting a degree from Texas A and M is never a bad thing. With the wealth of knowledge and giant network that comes with it.

Katie: What was your experience like balancing a full time career while also completing the program?

Sarah Sanders: It was honestly mostly manageable. It kind of depended, uh, from semester to semester. Um, I will say with the Capstone project I had a professor who was very, uh, passionate about our growth, um, and making sure that we were being pushed in the program. And that resulted in really having to focus on that time and emotional balance. But I don't think that that's anything out of the ordinary for most professionals that would be looking at this kind of program. So I really think it's just about protecting yourself and working with, you know, your peers and your professors to make sure that you Are keeping yourself truly balanced.

Katie: So one question we get a lot of for people who are like potential students is they'll ask, can you do all your work on, like, one in one weekend, or can you do some work, like, throughout the week after work? So how did you go about, like, your schedule with incorporating your work?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, so I am a horrible procrastinator. Um, and so I ended up doing most of my work probably the weekend right before. It was due to my. I know many of my peers who did sprinkle it throughout the week, and I'm sure that that worked for them. But I. I just. I do my best work when I am stressed and running out of time. So I procrastinated and I'm successful. So, yeah, so it worked.

Katie: It worked out. METM brings together professionals from many different industries. How did learning alongside the diverse group influence your perspective?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, so that was probably one of the coolest things about this program for me at least. Um, really getting to see how people in other industries were facing a lot of the same problems and a lot of the same issues and seeing the difference in how different industries approach those different challenges. But also think despite all of the differences, at the end of the day, people are just people. And the challenges that we were seeing across different industries came down to the same differences in personalities. Um, so it was really interesting to see the difference in challenge, but the similarities and how the best way to go about solving them was.

Katie: Did you notice that different industry people, people from different industries, brought different solutions to those problems? Or was it more of like, different personality types were bringing different solutions or a mix of the.

Sarah Sanders: Both. I think it was honestly mostly the different personality types kind of tended to bring very similar solutions to the different problems. But it was interesting to see how different personality types kind of, um, lent themselves to different industries. Like the oil and gas people all tended to have similar backgrounds and similar personality types versus the national labs versus academia. And so the solutions coming from those industries ended up being very similar.

Katie: MetM places a strong emphasis on emotional intelligence and leadership development. How did that influence the way you approach leadership today?

Sarah Sanders: In every way. Um, that first residency week, I was lucky enough to have Dr. Zoe as our professor, um, putting us through the, uh, emotional ringer that is that first residency week, which is awesome. Getting into the nitty gritty of that emotional intelligence piece was really, like, the biggest thing that I took away from this program. Just the idea that different people come to the table with completely fundamentally different personality types and ideas of how to tackle problems and that sounds like a really weird thing to be an aha moment to recognize that other people have different perspectives. But getting in there and getting to do the in depth analysis on yourself and on your peers, and then getting to role play it and having that be a live laboratory where you could try out different things, knowing the personality type of your peer or yourself, um, and being able to align or adapt your own personal style to make sure that you are getting to the proper solutions again, overcoming those communication barriers. So having that emotional intelligence piece was huge, not only for the program, but then afterwards, like I, the way that I approach people on my team now, the way that I approach different leaders now is all based on the pieces of information that I can gather about them and how they like to approach things. So having that emotional intelligence piece in your back pocket is a total game changer for leadership.

Katie: So looking back, what part of the METM experience had the biggest impact on you personally and professionally? So was it this emotional intelligence piece? Was it something else? Or is there like a couple that you can name off that really had a big impact on you?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, I think, uh, I think uh, the emotional intelligence piece and the people involved in this program kind of go hand in hand. And I touched on the emotional intelligence piece. So to touch on the people, the professors and uh, partners that are brought in for the program to help, uh, educate and demonstrate some of these skills are just top notch, incredible. Um, bringing in people from different industries to be peers with one another again, get to see how different industries tackle different problems, how they have different challenges. Um, and then just the cohort of people that you work with, like this degree forces you to be vulnerable and to look inside of yourself and to do a lot of learning about yourself and to be in a group of people who are all willing to do that and who are doing that together is just, it's incredible and completely different from any other educational setting, um, that I've ever been in. So I think the people and the emotional intelligence aspect of this program are just total game changers.

Katie: So what advice would you give to someone early in their career who is thinking about eventually moving into leadership?

Sarah Sanders: Yeah, I, um, think my biggest piece of advice would be don't wait until you have that title. Everybody is capable of leading from where they are, and everybody is capable of practicing those skills. So that when you do have that title and people look to you with that, uh, more formal authority, you have already had an opportunity to practice all of those skills and learn about yourself as a leader and learn all of the pieces that go into it that you may not initially think of. You say, oh, I'm a leader, but what does that mean? So leading from where you are and not waiting for that title, um, before you develop those skills, I think is really important.

Katie: Thank you for listening in to today's episode. Tech Leadership Talks is brought to you by Texas A and M University's Master of Engineering, Technical Management. To learn more, Visit MetM. TMU. EDU.