S1E4 CircleCI CTO Rob Zuber on the value of scrappiness and constantly adapting your leadership

Leadership requires constant adaptation and willingness to redefine your role as the organization grows and changes

Being “scrappy” and willing to dive into problems hands-on, even as a senior leader, helps build trust and understanding of challenges

Success as a CTO comes from balancing strategic thinking with tactical execution - you can’t just sit around and strategize all day

Platform teams need to focus on incremental improvements that make developers’ lives better, rather than pursuing perfect but impractical solutions

Making decisions requires being comfortable with risk and understanding that not acting is also an implicit decision

Getting direct feedback and being open to course correction is critical - create environments where people feel safe giving honest input

Leadership evolves from direct problem-solving to enabling others and building self-sustaining organizations

Technical skills matter but product thinking, customer perspective and cross-functional collaboration become increasingly important as you advance

Success comes from focusing on what creates value for customers and the business, not just building cool technology

Being transparent about trade-offs and willing to change direction when something isn’t working helps build trust and alignment