Lead with the impatience to change the world and the patience to see it through

For the past 23 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in a fusion of software development, security, cloud and leadership, which has shipped many innovative solutions. Perhaps none more so than in my current role as CTO with Macuject, where our vision is to end preventable blindness, and our AI and CDSS platform highlights retinal disease whilst keeping doctors firmly in the decision-making loop.

After all this time, I still have a lot to discover. However, I have picked up a few things along the way, and in this post, I wanted to share one of those with you, “Lead with the impatience to change the world and the patience to see it through”.

Be impatient with actions

1. Drive innovation: Software companies thrive on innovation. Be relentless in your pursuit of technological advancement. Support your team to explore new frontiers, experiment with cutting-edge technologies, and challenge the status quo. Be impatient when it comes to taking action on your innovative ideas.

2. Rapid prototyping: Swiftly move from concept to prototyping. Develop a culture that encourages rapid prototyping, where ideas are tested, refined, and validated as quickly as possible.

3. Agile development: Embrace agile methodologies in your software development process. Shorter development cycles and more frequent releases enable you to iterate and adapt swiftly to user feedback and changing market conditions. I strongly favour Kanban (a post for another day) in this area.

4. Empower your team: Impatience with actions doesn’t mean micromanaging. Instead, empower your team to make decisions and take ownership of their work. Encourage autonomy and trust your people to execute with speed and precision.

Be patient with results

1. Quality assurance: Rigorous testing, bug fixes, UAT, security scanning, and other quality assurance processes take time. Be patient when it comes to ensuring your products meet the highest standards of reliability and performance.

2. Compliance: Ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, relevant to your software companies’ industry of operation is critical and includes standards such as SOC2, ISO27001, GDPR and HIPAA. Be patient as your team diligently works to meet these compliance requirements, knowing that it’s vital for the trust and security of your users’ data. Automate compliance wherever possible, you’ll have to revisit it annually.

3. Long-term impact: Technological innovations can have a profound and lasting impact on user experiences. Understand that the results of your efforts may take time to be visible. Be patient and committed to the long-term vision of delivering exceptional software.

4. Market penetration: Breaking into a market can be challenging for software companies. It often involves fierce competition, market fluctuations, and building user trust. Be patient as you work towards establishing a solid market presence.

Conclusion

Leadership within software companies extends beyond technical prowess. We need the audacity to envision change, the patience to shepherd it into reality, and the compassion to understand the diverse needs of our teams and customers.

Lead with the impatience to change the world and the patience to see it through!