Kellan Elliott-McCrea
Trello
Who doesn’t admire Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos starting Apple Computer and Amazon from their garages? These stories inspire greatness, but they also seem so “far” from most of us.
My reference leader is my father. He left his employee job when I was very little, took a loan and opened his own business. Since then, he had no boss and made decisions for himself. He worked very hard to make his business thrive. And he is still very active.
I like to think that if my dad was born in the Valley or in Seattle (and not in a small town in northern Italy) at the right time, he could have easily been another Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos 🙂
In the past years, I’ve been seeing more and more of his personality and work ethic in myself. He is definitely my reference leader.
Balancing understanding of technology & understanding of people
– Scale of engineering impact
– Micro-aspect of people & culture.
Learning how to lead without dictating. Being able to give people the room to make their own decisions (and mistakes!)
Find a social group of other CTOs who you can be honest and vulnerable with.