By Jeff Zircher
December 10, 2025
Leadership isn’t something you earn once and keep forever—it’s a practice. A discipline. A way of moving through the world that must be renewed every day through your actions, choices, humility, and willingness to grow.
Over more than three decades of leading teams across industries, cultures, and continents—from logistics and product development to large-scale program management—I’ve come to realize that leadership lessons don’t arrive as dramatic “aha” moments. They emerge gradually, often quietly, through experience, reflection, and the honest feedback of the people around us.
The insights below are drawn from years of successes and failures, from the unforgettable mentors who shaped me, and from the thousands of leaders and team members I’ve had the privilege to work alongside. They represent a philosophy—a way of approaching leadership that is adaptable, authentic, and deeply human.
1. Leadership Begins with Accepting Imperfection
One of the most freeing realizations in my career was accepting that I will make mistakes every single day. That doesn’t make me unqualified to lead—it makes me human. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re probably not taking on enough challenge or pushing yourself into new territory.
Mistakes are data. They reveal boundaries, expose assumptions, and teach lessons theory never could. More importantly, they help your team see you as real and build a culture where people aren’t afraid to try, fail, learn, and try again. When leaders deny mistakes or hide from them, they suppress innovation. When leaders own them openly, they model resilience and honesty—two traits people will always follow.
2. Don’t Hide Behind Email—Choose Real Conversations
The modern workplace gives us endless ways to avoid discomfort. Email is the worst offender. And by extension, instant messaging, texting, and other forms of electronic communications. But leadership requires presence. It requires the courage to look someone in the eye—whether in person or via video—and engage openly, especially when a message could be misinterpreted or emotions may run high.
A difficult conversation handled through email almost always becomes more difficult. Tone gets lost. Assumptions multiply. Relationships suffer. When something matters—alignment, decisions, conflict, coaching—step away from the keyboard. Go talk to the person. Leadership lives in connection, not convenience.
3. Socialize Your Ideas to Strengthen Them
Leaders who develop ideas in isolation create blind spots. Leaders who socialize ideas early multiply their chances of success.
Sharing thoughts before they’re fully formed isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of confidence. Early input uncovers risks, sparks collaboration, and gives people a sense of ownership. By the time the idea becomes a proposal, the team already feels invested in its success. This is how leaders build alignment—not through mandate, but through engagement.
4. Dry Run Every Presentation—Preparation is Respect
Communication is one of a leader’s highest-leverage tools. When you stand in front of a team, an executive group, or a partner organization, your clarity, confidence, and preparedness directly influence outcomes.
The most effective leaders practice—out loud. They rehearse timing, anticipate objections, and refine their story. A dry run exposes gaps and strengthens delivery. It also signals that you value your audience enough to prepare thoroughly. Leadership is demonstrated not only in the content you share, but in the care you bring to sharing it.
5. Turn Vision into Action Through SMART Goals
Big ideas without structure quickly become wishful thinking. That’s why SMART goals—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound—remain one of the most reliable leadership tools.
SMART goals help teams transform aspiration into execution. They align expectations, clarify roles, support accountability, and make progress visible. When a vision becomes a roadmap, people can see how their effort contributes to a larger outcome—and that clarity fuels momentum.
6. Prioritize Ruthlessly or Be Consumed by Noise
In leadership, time is your most limited—and valuable—resource. The difference between high-performing teams and overwhelmed teams is often their ability to prioritize.
Not everything matters equally. Not everything deserves your team’s time or energy. Leaders must distinguish between what is urgent and what is important, between activity and impact. Saying yes too often doesn’t make you supportive, it makes you unfocused. Saying no or not now is a leadership strength. Protect your team from “make work” so they can invest in work that matters.
7. Be an Early Adopter, a Curious Explorer, a Lifelong Learner
The pace of change today rewards leaders who stay curious. Embracing new technology, experimenting with tools, and volunteering for pilot programs keeps your skills sharp and your perspective fresh.
Learning doesn’t happen only in classrooms. Some of the world’s best leadership content lives on TED Talks, YouTube channels, LinkedIn courses, podcasts, and books. Whether the topic is psychology, innovation, communication, or strategy, each new insight becomes part of your leadership toolkit.
Great leaders are great learners. They never assume they’ve arrived.
8. Be Professional—and Don’t Make Enemies
9. Servant Leadership Is a Superpower
Ken Blanchard once said that most servant leaders have a “quiet kind of joy”. He’s right. Powerful leadership doesn’t always look loud. Some of the strongest leaders lift others up quietly, consistently, and purposefully.
Servant leadership is not about being soft or avoiding accountability. It’s about recognizing that leadership is service. Your role is to help people succeed, remove obstacles, and create conditions where they can grow. When people know you care about their success, they care even more about the mission.
10. Progress Beats Perfection—Always
General George Patton put it bluntly: “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
Perfectionism is procrastination in disguise. It delays decisions, suppresses innovation, and prevents organizations from learning quickly. Leaders who value progress encourage experimentation, iteration, and agility. They choose momentum over paralysis. They allow teams to try things, collect data, adjust, and improve. The future belongs to those who move—not to those who wait.
11. Work–Life Balance is Achievable with Intentionality
Your team takes cues from you. If you model burnout, they’ll think burnout is expected. If you model healthy boundaries, they’ll believe balance is possible.
Leadership requires emotional resilience, and resilience requires rest. Creating separation between work and home, tapping into mental health resources, practicing gratitude, and leaning on peer support systems are not luxuries—they’re necessities. As a leader, you must care for yourself so you can care for others.
Leadership is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. Sustaining it requires discipline, not sacrifice.
12. Your Leadership Credo Defines You—Live It Daily
A leadership credo is more than a set of nice statements. It’s your internal compass. It clarifies how you lead, what you expect from yourself, and how you expect your team to operate.
My own credo includes accountability, challenging people to grow, valuing relationships, seeing failure as learning, embracing constructive criticism, and refusing to allow meaningless work to waste people’s time. Whatever your credo is, live it intentionally. A team can feel the difference between a leader who states values and one who demonstrates them.
13. Ultimately, You Control Your Leadership Destiny
The most empowering lesson of all is that leadership is a choice. You become a leader not by title, but by how you show up. You shape your growth, your opportunities, and your influence through your actions and your mindset.
Leadership is a lifelong journey—one filled with learning, stretching, stumbling, and becoming. When you commit to being better each day than you were the day before, you unlock your potential to create impact that lasts far beyond your tenure.
Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being willing to learn, to serve, to adapt, and to grow alongside your team. These lessons—earned through decades of experience—continue to guide my leadership. I hope they serve as inspiration and encouragement for yours.
Jeff Zircher, MBA, is a seasoned leader in program and project management, currently serving as a Senior Program Implementation Manager at Burns & McDonnell. With over 30 years of leadership experience at Caterpillar Inc., Jeff has held key roles across IT, Logistics & Distribution, Marketing & Product Support, Product Development, and Project Management.
As the leader of Caterpillar’s Enterprise PMO, Jeff oversaw a global team of more than 250 professionals across the U.S., Northern Ireland, England, India, and China. His dedication to advancing project management excellence has been recognized at the highest levels. A member of the PMI Global Executive Council since 2014, Jeff has contributed to the profession through thought leadership and strategic collaboration.
