AGL 057: Learning Leadership with Scott Drake

Scott Drake – VP of Technology

Scott Drake is on a mission to help great technologists become great leaders. His 20-year career includes stops at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., at startups in Silicon Valley, and he is currently the Vice President of Technology for a medical education company in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. He is the author of “The Programmer Hiring Playbook: A Crash Course in Interviewing and Hiring for Your Real-World Needs,” and he is the founder and curator of LearnLeadership.org, a free website that helps technologists create leadership development plans and discover high-yield learning resources.


Things we talked about

  1. The hiring process
  2. Re-hiring your team annually
  3. Leading isn’t about “Me”
  4. Success in tech isn’t determined by “tech itself”
  5. Make sure you build the right thing, not just build things right
  6. The Four Levels of Leadership (see below)
  7. Second order thinking (get over tech)
  8. Be willing to give up control
  9. Discover and Embrace your Authentic Self

Four Levels of Leadership

  1.  Lead Yourself
  2.  Lead a Team
  3.  Lead a Department
  4.  Lead an Organization

Connect with Scott Drake


I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to iTunes and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again!

August 29, 2018
Scott Drake

AGL 057: Learning Leadership with Scott Drake

Scott Drake – VP of Technology Scott Drake is on a mission to help great technologists become great leaders. His 20-year career includes stops at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., at startups in Silicon Valley, and he is currently the Vice President of Technology for a medical education company in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. He is the author of “The Programmer Hiring Playbook: A Crash Course in Interviewing and Hiring for Your Real-World Needs,” and he is the founder and curator of LearnLeadership.org, a free website that helps technologists create leadership development plans and discover high-yield learning resources. Things we […]
August 27, 2018
Derek Doepker

AGL 056: Willpower with Derek Doepker

Derek Doepker is a 7 time bestselling author and consultant on leadership, personal development, and entrepreneurship. His team at Influencing Millions helps companies improve their sales, increase employee retention, and improve performance by teaching principles of behavior change, habit development, and influential communication. You can learn more at http://influencingmillions.com and http://derekdoepker.com Connect with Derek Twitter Website Consulting In this show we talked about: Identity Habit – How you identify yourself plays a big role in behavior Imposter Syndrome – overcome using self-awareness Focus outward and not inward Get a mentor or coach The inner doubter – listen to those doubts and ask “is […]
August 24, 2018
Andrew May

AGL 055: Andrew May and Brad Miller – CodeTank Labs and CodeStock

Today on the show have Andrew May with a cameo from the one and only Brad Miller.  Andrew May, originally from Phoenix, AZ, started in computing when he was twelve years old, writing windows applications to assist in quick email responses. Throughout his scholastic endeavors, he continued to focus on computing; moving from desktop applications to web applications. Andrew attended Arizona State University where he studied Computer Science and Engineering. In 2007, Andrew’s entrepreneurship grew and he patented his first major idea. He grew the project and sold it to the airline industry in 2008. Not stoping he partnered with […]
August 22, 2018
Jeff-Roberts

AGL 054: Jeff Roberts – Chief Information Officer at HFF

Today on the show we’ve got Jeff Roberts.  Jeff  has more than 20 years of experience leading Information Technology for top financial services and real estate firms.  Since 2015 he has served as the first-ever Chief Information Officer of HFF (NYSE: HF), a commercial real estate capital intermediary, where he is leading a digital transformation and technology platform upgrade.  Prior to joining HFF, he served as CIO for four other companies: Carriage Services (NYSE: CSV), Situs, a private global commercial real estate firm, Saxon Mortgage, a Morgan Stanley company, and Litton Loan Servicing, a division of Goldman Sachs.  In these […]
August 17, 2018
Arthur Doler

AGL 053: Arthur Doler – Technical Engineers and Mental Health

Today on the show we have Arthur Doler. Arthur (or Art, take your pick) has been a software engineer for 14 years and has worked on things as exciting as analysis software for casinos and things as boring as banking websites. He is an advocate for talking openly about mental health and psychology in the technical world, and he spends a lot of time thinking about how we program and why we program, and about the tools, structures, cultures, and mental processes that both help and hinder us from our ultimate goal of writing amazing things. In this episode we […]
August 14, 2018
Tom Cooper, Brighthill Group

AGL: 052 – Tom Cooper – The Four Levels of Thinking as a Geek Leader

Today on the show we have Tom Cooper.  I met Tom a few years ago while we were both speaking at a conference. Tom and I served on the board of advisors for the Interface Security Conference in Charlotte, NC last year.  During this chat, Tom and I discuss the 4 levels of thinking as a geek leader. Tom has put together some special resources, just for A Geek Leader listeners.  Check them out at brighthillgroup.com/ageekleader. There you will find a PDF describing the four levels of thinking we discussed on the show today, the eBook for finding budget dollars for […]