Spatial Leadership: Exploring the Intersection of Leadership and Spatial Technology

Thoughts on leadership, from the ground up

Welcome to the inaugural issue of my Substack. Over the past few years, my primary publication - the blog geoMusings - has evolved into a mix of content about both leadership and spatial technology. I have decided to separate those topics and use Substack to explore the newsletter format while writing about leadership. This publication is called “Spatial Leadership” because, where it makes sense, I’ll look at leadership concepts through the lens of the spatial technology industry. That won’t be a hard line, but I’ll link the two where appropriate.

I recently had a career change and have had some time to think about my approach to leadership. Previously, I was in executive leadership with 13 direct reports across two continents and four distinct disciplines. I have since started my own company focusing on geospatial services and am currently a one-person shop.

I take leadership seriously and place a lot of responsibility on it. With regard to direct reports, I view leadership as a two-way relationship. In decades past, it was common to place the bulk of responsibility for performance on a staff member. Under that view, the organization has provided a role and the staff member is responsible for exceeding expectations in that role. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that view, but it is only half the picture.

The process of hiring - of bringing a person into an existing organization or team - is an active one of exploration. As a leader, you are exploring the candidate to assess whether their skills, experience, and approach are right for the role. The candidate is also exploring you as a leader and your organization to determine if there is a fit for them and where they are taking their career. During this process, you make representations of the ability of your organization to be a place that the candidate can grow their career and provide for their professional and personal goals. As a leader, it is your responsibility to make those representations real, live up to them, and deliver upon them. That is the other half of the two-way relationship.

So, as I begin thinking about how I plan to grow my new company, a key part of that plan is how I plan to approach leadership and instill my approach into the company. I also need to think about the kind of leadership my company will provide to its customers and the industry in which it operates. Leadership has many facets and I’ll unpack many of them as I move forward here.

Thank you for reading.