Redefining Leadership Without Titles: Mabelle Bong on Engineering Onboarding, IC Growth, and Coaching for Al

TL;DR

In this episode of Intelligence Amplifiers, Mabelle Bong shares how her journey from nonprofit education to leading manager and leadership development at Instacart reshaped her perspective on leadership. Her central insight: redefining leadership means separating management from leadership, investing in individual contributors as much as managers, and democratizing coaching with the help of AI. She also makes the case for role-specific onboarding—especially for engineers—and highlights Instacart’s AI Champions program as a model for empowering leaders at every level.

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Why redefining leadership without titles matters

Most organizations still equate leadership with formal authority or direct reports. This outdated assumption limits innovation, burns out managers, and overlooks the leadership potential of high-performing ICs. Redefining leadership without titles shifts focus from hierarchy to influence, from authority to impact.

What redefining leadership unlocks:

• Retention of top ICs. Engineers, designers, and analysts don’t need to become managers to grow—they can lead through expertise.
• Distributed influence. When leadership is not tied to a title, companies can leverage more voices and diverse thinking.
• Resilient culture. Leadership without titles creates a culture where initiative, ownership, and peer coaching thrive.

“Managers should be leaders—but not every leader needs to be a manager.”

The journey: from outreach to L&D leadership

Mabelle’s career path embodies the idea of redefining leadership:

• Research beginnings. Psychology research taught her how people learn.
• Nonprofit outreach. Running educational programs introduced her to curriculum design and facilitation.
• Tech leap at Stripe. As an education coordinator, she raised her hand for everything from engineering onboarding to leadership development.
• Strategic ownership at Instacart. She moved from coordination into program ownership, designing manager and leadership programs, and now driving AI-enabled learning.

Her progression underscores a core truth: leadership is not about titles—it’s about stepping up, experimenting, and shaping experiences.

Engineering onboarding: leadership development in disguise

At Stripe, Mabelle discovered that engineers needed a different onboarding approach. Instead of presentations and SCORM files, engineering onboarding emphasized mentorship, hands-on work, and learning embedded in real codebases.

Four pillars of engineering onboarding:

1. Role-specific design. Acknowledge that engineers learn differently—through building, not slides.
2. Mentorship from day one. Pair new hires with experienced engineers who are also educators.
3. Social learning as default. Use cohorts, code reviews, and collaborative projects.
4. Onboarding as product. Define clear success metrics like time-to-first-commit and breadth of peer connections.

This approach reframes onboarding as the first stage of leadership: encouraging ICs to own learning, mentor others, and influence team culture.

“Onboarding is a product—ship it with metrics.”

Hybrid learning: lessons from a global pivot

When COVID forced live programs online, Mabelle learned that you cannot simply “lift and shift” workshops to Zoom. Redefining leadership here meant redesigning the entire modality of learning.

Key principles for hybrid L&D:

• Async for information, live for sense-making. Documentation, videos, and primers prepare; synchronous time should drive collaboration.
• Engineer attention. Treat senior leaders’ time as your most expensive asset—make every minute count.
• Make it social. Use breakouts, peer sessions, and group challenges to simulate hallway conversations.

Hybrid learning isn’t just a logistical pivot—it’s a philosophical shift that redefines how leaders emerge and connect across distributed teams.

Redefining leadership: management vs leadership

Mabelle draws a critical line between management and leadership:

• Management = processes, coaching, performance reviews, reporting lines.
• Leadership = influence, mindset, systems thinking, driving change across boundaries.

Redefining leadership requires giving ICs a seat at the table. Leadership is not a promotion; it’s a practice.

Why this matters:

• Companies lose high-performing ICs when leadership growth is locked behind people management.
• Many managers struggle when promoted for technical skill rather than true leadership potential.
• By decoupling leadership from titles, organizations can multiply impact.

“Leadership without titles is the future of talent development.”

Instacart’s AI Champions: redefining leadership in practice

At Instacart, Mabelle co-leads the AI Champions initiative—a cross-functional program where ICs and managers alike take responsibility for embedding AI in their functions. The program recognizes leaders by impact, not hierarchy.

What makes AI Champions work:

• Cross-functional impact. Leaders drive adoption in Sales, Engineering, Finance, and more.
• Learning through doing. Champions experiment, share playbooks, and refine practices.
• Visibility to executives. Champions present directly to senior leaders, proving leadership can exist without a title.

This program is redefining leadership by showing that influence, experimentation, and knowledge sharing are the true markers of impact.

Coaching for everyone: democratizing growth with AI

Traditional coaching programs often target executives. Mabelle advocates for democratized coaching that reaches frontline managers and ICs.

The coaching challenge: high quality is costly, but broad access is essential.

Instacart’s solution:

• AI-assisted coaching. Prompt-driven reflection, simulated scenarios, and self-guided feedback.
• Peer circles. Structured groups to practice coaching and share experience.
• Human coaches for transitions. Reserved for moments of high leverage, like new manager onboarding or major role shifts.

“AI won’t replace coaches, but it can replace lack of access.”

Redefining leadership here means making coaching a resource for all—not just the elite few.

A practical playbook for redefining leadership

For L&D leaders ready to act:

Onboarding:

• Design role-specific paths. Don’t treat engineers and sales the same.
• Measure outcomes like time-to-productivity, peer networks built, and early contributions.

Manager vs leader tracks:

• Create separate but complementary curricula.
• Ensure IC leadership is recognized and rewarded.

IC leadership development:

• Publish a leadership rubric for ICs.
• Create forums where ICs lead strategic discussions.

Coaching at scale:

• Tiered model: AI → peer circles → human 1:1.
• Track metrics like decision quality, retention, and manager readiness.