Zach on Leadership

Production. I love production. Production is where I want to be. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where value is generated. I am highly driven to get to production. I’m going to explain this concept in the context of digital technology but let me make a few non-technical analogies first. Vacation You decide to take a vacation in Costa Rica. You book your resort and air travel. You pack your...

Many of my coworkers saw me wearing an Iron Man helmet at work last week. Many of my followers on LinkedIn saw my Halloween post featuring the helmet. This article is the story behind it. Yes, there will be leadership lessons, as always. Three months ago, my 16-year-old son, Caleb, asked me if he could buy a 3D printer with his own money. I wasn’t surprised by his request. For years, he’s been fol...

People, all people, are deeply flawed. We are all so far from perfection, that it’s not even close. Yet corporations exist with the understanding that we can assemble a vast array of imperfect people to achieve a great outcome. That task is something we call leadership. The body of theoretical and practical knowledge here is vast. There are a few foundational concepts that I’ll use to frame the to...

I’ve seen many early career professionals talk about how to break into cybersecurity, break into data engineering, and break into FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google). To “break into” means to get a legitimate job in one of those arenas. The language implies gatekeeping. It also implies that someone seeking entry must case the joint and look for weaknesses in the defenses like a cat bu...

Choosing the path of leadership means embracing change. Leadership implies movement. If you are standing still, you aren’t leading. You cannot lead people where you haven’t gone yourself. While the act of leading implies a journey, becoming a leader is a journey in itself. That journey is something we call growth. We embrace a growth mindset. We listen. We learn. We improve our skills. We never st...

I believe that great leaders are made, not born. Many experience the drive and calling of leadership, but it’s the skills that make us successful. Many leadership skills are self-evident. Leaders need to be good collaborators and connectors. They need to be good at listening and communicating. They need to be good at motivation and encouragement. They need to be good at vision, goal setting, and s...

Our world continues to become more and more complex. We accept it. We expect it. We deal with it. Yet complexity bogs us down. It makes us slow. It makes us cautious. It causes all sorts of unintended consequences and fragility. Simultaneously, we applaud the simple. We embrace it. We yearn for it. We absolutely will pay more for it. Our primitive limbic system is hard-wired to conserve energy, an...

It is that time of year when students get back into their classrooms and teachers resume their positions of prominent influence over students. Given our collective focus on “back to school,” I thought this would be good timing to discuss a leadership approach inspired by teachers. Before I get into that, I’d like to share that teaching is a large part of my identity and upbringing. My grandmother...

A few years ago, I borrowed my father-in-law’s fishing boat. Before I left, he showed me how to operate it and deal with any particulars. One piece of his instruction grabbed my attention: “After a few hours on the water, you’ll notice that it will start to fill up with water. When that happens, just bring it up to speed, pull the drain plug, and it will all drain out. Then put the plug back in be...

We’re going big on the cloud. All in. It’s exciting. It’s futuristic. However, it’s downright difficult. I talk with leaders at other large enterprise organizations, and everyone is grappling with the cloud. Some are grappling better than others. Our “why” is simple. We can be more efficient, secure, resilient, agile, and sustainable in the cloud. Our cloud technology platform is an enabler to jus...

You may have started out your leadership journey as the go-to person for the team. That works for a while, but it’s not sustainable, nor does it scale. In my team, I’m the leader of last resort. That’s not because I’m reluctant to lead or don’t know how to lead, but I’ve found that the best results come from empowered leaders closest to the issues. Let me provide a few examples to illustrate. The...

I had a great opportunity to speak on behalf of the CHS Foundation at the FFA State Officer Summit this week in Washington, DC. FFA stands for Future Farmers of America but has a broader mission to develop all kinds of future agriculture leaders, not just production farmers. The group I spoke with consisted of about 375 elected student leaders from each of the 50 states. It was an absolute privile...

Hello, Zach on Leadership readers! I took a few weeks off to enjoy some family time and new adventures, but now I’m back at it. Many have heard the leadership axiom, “Take all the blame. Share all the credit.” It’s good advice. It speaks to the importance of accountability, recognition, and humility. These leadership attributes are very visible. If you have work to do in these areas, everyone arou...

In 2022, most office professionals fit into one of three categories: Some work primarily on-site in an office building. Some split their time between home and the office building. Lastly, some work full-time remotely from their home offices or wherever they happen to be. The majority of my teams fit into the last category. They are fully remote. They are quite happy and productive doing so. As the...

Many of you have heard the term, Digital Native. It refers to the recent generations of people that have grown up in the digital era. They don’t know a world without the internet, social media, e-commerce, and other digital capabilities. For them, digital seems normal and the analog equivalents seem foreign. Technically, I’m too old to be a Digital Native. I’m a young Gen-Xer. I grew up in the era...

Everyone in a leadership position has been spending a lot of time in the last year hearing about the “Great Resignation.” Perhaps it’s just me, but most of the context around it is either defensiveness or acceptance. Here’s what I mean: Defensiveness: “Watch out for the Great Resignation. It’s going to get you! Here are the 37 steps that you should take to prevent the Great Resignation from hollow...

We humans have become quite accustomed to our technologies working for us all the time. It doesn’t matter if a service is available 99.9% of the time or even 99.999% of the time. That .001% of downtime couldn’t come at a worse moment. I work in Information Technology. Our industry is famous for building technologies that people rely on 100% of the time but are only available a high percentage of t...

In 2004, the film Miracle was released, starring Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, and directed by Gavin O’Connor. The film told the story of the USA Hockey team that triumphed over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. I love this movie. It’s packed with leadership lessons. However, in this article, I’m only going to focus on one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with the film or the events that i...

I think one of the most important things leaders can do is remind their team about their purpose. Where does purpose come from? Practically speaking, usually, the top leaders of an organization put their heads together and come up with a powerful statement. Then, they put some effort into communicating that purpose to their teams in a campaign. I’ve personally experienced and participated in many...

Our organization is going through a transition from a project operating model to a product operating model. Many enterprise organizations are pursuing a similar path and are at various stages of the journey. I’d like to use this article to explain why I am so enthusiastic about this change. In so many ways, this pathway helps me realize some career-long objectives. Before I get into that, we shoul...

Happy April Fools’ Day! When I was growing up, my brother and I treated April Fools’ like a national holiday. You can feel bad for my parents. However, what goes around comes around. Now, with four kids of my own, the tables have turned. My kids really know how to pull some elaborate pranks. I remember when I first expressed my love for pranks at the workplace. I had a job on a help desk. I was wo...

Like many of you, I started my week working from my home office. My day was unfolding in a typical fashion when all of a sudden, in the middle of an important meeting, I lost my internet connection. Since I am an IT professional, I don’t immediately begin with the conclusion that the issue was caused by my internet service provider. I first eliminated the technologies that are in my direct control...

I’m glad you clicked on this article. It means that you are aware that you are leading people smarter than you, and you need some help. That’s awesome. Think about all of the leaders out there that read this headline and kept scrolling because they assume they are smarter than all of their team members. Why do leaders like that exist? Well, we make them. Executives and directors look around their...

Sports analogies in business leadership are nearly as certain as death and taxes. You simply cannot lead in a large organization without hearing sports analogies daily. For me, sports analogies don’t bother me too much; however, I do notice them. I wish there were fewer of them. If you’ve ever been told to “skate to where the puck is going to be,” “it’s time for a full-court press,” “throw a hail...

A leader’s reputation is everything. Without a good reputation, no one will listen to you, no one will willingly follow you, no one will give you a stretch assignment, and no one will promote you. Understandably, leaders care a lot about their reputations.   Leaders can do things that completely destroy their reputations. Those make for interesting headlines, and they keep public relations teams v...