Zach on Leadership

I noticed this quite a while ago, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. Many movies, dare I say most, are written with a hero and a mentor. We love to focus on the hero characters, but ever-present are the mentor characters. These are the ones who show up partway into the first act to help the hero get through their early challenges in the quest. Some mentor roles are short and static, others are dynamic and involved... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Mentors in Movies appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Did you hear the news? After 38 years of waiting, Spaceballs 2 was announced yesterday. Check out the hilarious announcement from Mel Brooks himself: I cannot wait! In 1987, Mel Brooks released Spaceballs as a parody of Star Wars and other science fiction of that era. As much as I consider myself a Star Wars geek, I’ve probably watched Spaceballs more than the movies it parodies. It’s so quotable, and somehow, it never gets old. I was recently considering a common IT problem, and for some reason, Spaceballs scenes kept coming... Read More Read More The post IT Execution at Ludicrous Speed: Leadership Lessons from Spaceballs appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Last week, I spoke about technology change leadership at Open Source North. It was a lot of fun. In case you missed it, I drew heavily from these past Zach on Leadership articles: Today’s article isn’t about the content of that presentation. It’s about the experience itself. I had an epiphany: I wasn’t nervous at all. I genuinely enjoyed the speaking opportunity. I was relaxed. It was fun. If I go back 15 years in time, the past version of... Read More Read More The post 10 Public Speaking Hacks for Geeks – Revisited appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

I’m naturally fascinated by new technology. No one needs to tell me to keep up on tech trends. I do so naturally. I’ve done plenty of dabbling with Generative AI. I’ve written about it a few times on this blog already. If you missed it, you can check it out here, here, and here. Today’s article is all about Generative AI technology adoption. Some never use it. Some play with it from time to time. Some use it daily. I’m... Read More Read More The post How Generative AI Fixed My Air Conditioner appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

I remember the first time I set foot in a real data center. It was roughly 26 years ago. That’s where the magic happened. That’s where the serious IT engineering work was done. At the time, I was a desktop support technician. After a few years, I advanced my career to the point where I was qualified to work in the data center. I was elated. I loved every aspect of it. The ice-cold air conditioning, the blinking LED lights, the... Read More Read More The post The End of the Corporate Data Center appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Do you ever get the feeling that you should’ve been promoted to the next level by now? If you are early in your career, you might think you are the only one. Ask anyone. Every single person will say that they’ve been there for a season of their career. Most have been there multiple times. While the situation is common, it isn’t easy to handle. Being overdue for a promotion can lead to frustration and disengagement. There are a lot... Read More Read More The post What to Do While You’re Waiting to Be Promoted appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

This week, the President of the United States stepped into a modern EV and remarked with exuberance, “Everything is computer!” I will set aside the political context for this, because that’s not the purpose of this blog. I will take a moment to reflect on this humorous comment because it provides me the opportunity to reflect on our relationship with technology in this modern era. The term “computer” I still use the term, “computer,” but I also recognize that it’s... Read More Read More The post Everything is Computer appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Can you be a people-first, servant leader and still have the guts to make the tough calls when you have to? Yes, but it’s really hard. Those of you who have been following me for a long time know that I’m all about servant leadership. You know the type. These leaders make work fun. They help people grow in their careers. They build a great culture. They take the blame and give the credit. They make people feel safe. They... Read More Read More The post The Difference Between a Good Servant Leader and a Great One appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

I was asked a pretty insightful question this week. I was doing Q&A with Minnesota Technology Association’s ACE Leadership cohort. We were discussing a wide range of leadership topics when one of the participants asked this interesting question: How do you know what’s really going on in your team? Do you use dashboards or status reports? What’s your method? I sat back in my chair for a moment to gather my thoughts. It occurred to me that this is a... Read More Read More The post How Do You Know What’s Really Going on in Your Team? appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

It had been 5 years since I last coached a competitive Lego robotics team. 5 long years. What could possibly have changed? From 2017-2020. I coached a Lego robotics team through three seasons, two of which climaxed with appearances at the state championships. Those were some great years, and they inspired many blog articles. If you’d like to check them out, click here, here, and here. But then covid hit, and that changed everything. Also, shortly after that, all of... Read More Read More The post For the Love of Robots appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

I love to teach leadership lessons inspired by pop culture references. Last week I drew leadership lessons from Napoleon Dynamite. That lesson was targeted at people my age and younger. Some of my older readers may not have gotten much out of it. I’d like to balance that out with an article that will likely resonate with people my age and older. In 1976, Boston released their debut self-titled album, with the hit, “Peace of Mind.” Fast forward 20 years,... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Boston’s ‘Peace of Mind’ appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Napoleon Dynamite was released 20 years ago and was wildly successful, especially considering its tiny budget. The first time I saw it, I thought it was pretty dumb. But I must admit, it’s grown on me over the years. I recently watched it with my family and thought it was hilarious. I declared right in the moment, that I would be Napoleon Dynamite for Halloween. And, of course, you all know I like to draw leadership lessons from pop culture, and I... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Napoleon Dynamite appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Roughly 12-14 years ago, a war raged in every corporate IT department. The people wanted iPhones at work. Corporate IT clung to their BlackBerry’s. This is most certainly old news. Why bring it up now? I think time gives us perspective. There are lessons to be gleaned now that were hard to see then. We love to talk about the hot new tech trends. Do we ever look back and evaluate our previous positions? What did we get right? What... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Losing the BlackBerry appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

There’s a meme circulating on the internet called the bell curve meme, or the midwit meme. It points out funny things that newbies do, compared to the prevailing wisdom of the masses, compared to the insight of the experts. The joke is that the experts often mirror the newbies. I haven’t seen the meme applied to technology leadership, but I thought I’d give it a try. “Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions,” says the leader, feeling smart, strong, and... Read More Read More The post Bring me Problems, not Solutions appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Eight years ago when I started Zach on Leadership, some of my first blog articles were about helping people advance in their careers. I love techies. I’m one of them. I spent years of my career as a technician and engineer. Then I advanced and started climbing the corporate ladder. I truly believe that techies make the best technology leaders, but few of them are equipped to succeed in leadership. That’s where I come in. I detailed the pathway that... Read More Read More The post What’s the Difference Between a Director and a Vice President? appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

One of the most fundamental questions a tech executive must answer is, should we buy or build our software solutions? On the surface, this seems like a pretty straightforward question, but it can get complicated in a hurry. The basic line of reasoning works like this: Is there a commercial solution that meets my needs? If so, I should probably buy it, because why would I reinvent the wheel? That would be dumb. On the other hand, if I have... Read More Read More The post Reimagining the Buy vs. Build Process appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Mark Zuckerberg famously started Facebook with the motto, “Move Fast and Break Things.” Eventually, they abandoned that motto after they broke a few too many things. I relate to this struggle more than most. Some lean more toward operational stability. Some lean more toward disruptive innovation. I’m squarely in the uncomfortable middle. Operations I’ve been accountable for operations my whole career. Twice now, I’ve been explicitly hired into a company because they really needed some operational rigor. Things were breaking... Read More Read More The post The Balancing Act of Innovation and Operations appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

Last week, I shared some leadership lessons from our company’s response to the global outage caused by a CrowdStrike update. Upon further reflection, there is an additional lesson to be shared. If you missed last week’s article go back and read it, then continue on here. After the initial recovery of our critical workloads, we took stock of the enormous job ahead of us to recover a large number of individual end-user computers spread across the globe. By then, we... Read More Read More The post Leadership Lessons from Volunteering for Extra Work appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

I awoke on Friday, July 19th to a phone full of missed calls and texts. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I went to my work computer, and jiggled my mouse to wake it up, only to see the blue screen of death. I returned the calls and quickly got up to speed on the technical carnage impacting the planet. Some of you never heard of CrowdStrike before last Friday, but most of us in enterprise technology know it well.... Read More Read More The post The Day 8.5 Million Computers Died appeared first on Zach on Leadership.

If you’ve been following Zach on Leadership for any amount of time, you know that I’m all about servant leadership. It’s a regular theme on this blog. If you’d like an overview of my views on servant leadership, check out this article. I’m in favor of it because it yields such good outcomes for everyone involved. The employees win, the customers win, and the leaders win. There aren’t any downsides. Yet, some still resist this leadership philosophy. Some argue that... Read More Read More The post Servant Leadership Isn’t for Wimps appeared first on Zach on Leadership.