Staying Inspired: A Conversation with Today’s Enterprise Cloud Leaders

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing highlights from my conversations with seven leaders around their perspectives on innovation at scale when it comes to people and organization. Our dialogues with these leaders, from both commercial enterprises and the public sector, explore how these individuals cultivate next level leaders, how they deal with failure, and how they keep up with the ever increasing pace of technology. In this final video of the four-part series of interviews,these leaders share with me which other leaders have inspired them as they navigate their own career and lead their organizations through a cloud and digital transformation journey.

For the four Chief Information Officers (CIOs) I spoke to, it’s both the lessons and the support given by other leaders that have been inspirational in their career development. Through our conversations, I discovered that sometimes lessons are intentional, but more often these individuals have drawn out a lesson from the authentic ways of another leader. As we come to the end of the year, it seems fitting to contemplate from where we will draw inspiration in the coming new year.

Perhaps you will be inspired by a peer or “unsung hero” who coaches you on development areas, as Shaown Nandi (CIO, Dow Jones) has. Or by other leaders in your own organization who help you overcome fears of being different, as Charlie Ewen (CIO, UK Met Office) experienced. Inspiration can be found in successful leaders outside your organization too. Ann Carver (CIO, Coca-Cola North America) was inspired by Sara Blakely (CEO, Spanx) who, in a speech Ann heard, encouraged women to take risks and seek validation from no one but yourself. Similarly, as Morgan Reed (CIO, State of Arizona) shared, we can always gain inspiration from infamous business leaders—like Bezos, Musk, and Jobs—who have worked against the odds to create remarkable businesses.

So where will you find inspiration in 2019? I think you’ll take away some good ideas from our video on Leadership Inspiration. And, from all seven of my full-length video interviews with these insightful leaders on their perspectives on innovation at scale. If you’ve only just tuned in, you can explore my previous posts on Conversations with Today’s Enterprise Cloud Leaders series below. And stay tuned, as we’ll be bringing you new leadership interviews in 2019:

• Developing Next Level Leaders
• On Failure
• Keeping Up with Technology

—Miriam

miriammc@amazon.com
@miriammclemore
http://aws.amazon.com/enterprise/