Leading with People: Innovation, Resilience, and the Human Side of IT

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 Technology is always changing, but one thing remains constant: innovation is about collaboration. It’s about people, not just systems. Whether I was working as a police officer, battling cancer, or reinventing my career in IT, I learned that success comes from motivating people, building trust, and leading teams with empathy and compassion.

At Santa Rosa Rancheria, I lead IT strategy in a government and tribal setting, where navigating bureaucracy, regulations, and resource constraints is part of the job. But what I’ve found is that no matter where you work—government, private sector, or startups—the principles of leadership, resilience, and team innovation remain the same.

For IT leaders, executives, and anyone navigating career challenges, here’s how to stay motivated, lead winning teams, and drive innovation in complex environments.

1. Innovation Isn’t About Technology—It’s About People

📌 Biggest lesson from my career? It’s always been about seeing the value of people.

✅ As a police officer, I saw people at their worst—but I also saw how small acts geared toward leadership and empathy made a difference.

✅ As a cancer survivor, I realized what really matters—relationships, not bills, tasks, or projects.

✅ As an IT leader, I learned that the best systems in the world mean nothing if your people don’t trust, understand, and support you or the systems, so give them a voice in decision making.

🚀 What this means for innovation:

✅ Technology adoption fails without buy-in. If people don’t trust a system or process, they won’t use it—no matter how advanced it is.

✅ Leaders must actively listen first, act second. Your team knows where the problems are—your job is to empower them to solve them.

✅ People need autonomy, mastery, and purpose, not just processes. Innovation succeeds when teams feel heard and valued, the results equal motivation.

💡 Lesson: If you want to drive change, start with people—not technology.

2. Leadership is About Addressing and Removing Roadblocks, Not Being the Hero

📌 Common leadership mistake: Thinking you’re the star quarterback.

🚀 Great leaders don’t take the spotlight—they clear the path for their team to take the spotlight.

✅ My job isn’t to be the smartest person in the room—it’s to make sure my team can break through barriers, venture into the unknown and succeed.

✅ That means fighting for funding, removing bureaucratic red tape, and ensuring they have the tools to do their jobs.

✅ If my team wins, they get the credit. If they fail, it’s on me, everything rises and falls on leadership.

💡 Lesson: Good leadership isn’t about being always out in front—it’s about running interference so your people can cross the finish line. Sometimes I lead from the middle, sometimes I lead from the back, but I’m always leading.

3. How to Motivate and Build Winning Teams

📌 People want to feel seen, heard, and valued. If they don’t, they disengage and become merely, “compliant.”

🚀 Ways to motivate your team:

✅ Reward effort, not just success. Not every project will be a win, but the effort matters.

✅ Have real one-on-ones. Let them talk about their lives, their passions, not just their work.

✅ Be available. Leadership isn’t about authority—it’s about access.

💡 Example: At work, I hold one-on-one meetings that aren’t about work. I’ll ask about their families, their challenges, and their goals. That way, when someone says, “I need time off because my aunt is sick, I’m not going to be in” I already know the context—and they know…I’ll have their back.

💡 Lesson: People don’t work for companies—they work and achieve for leaders who care.

4. Driving Innovation in Government and Bureaucracy

📌 Government and tribal IT have challenges that private sector leaders don’t always understand.

🚨 You’re dealing with politics, regulations, and complex approval processes.

🚨 You have to “sell your ideas” to multiple stakeholders—often with different priorities.

🚨 It’s a balancing act between tribal tradition and modernization.

🚀 How to navigate bureaucracy and still innovate:

✅ Become a storyteller. If organizational leadership doesn’t understand what you need, you won’t get the budget. Explain why this investment matters, in the infinite game.

✅ Show progress in small wins. If you can’t get full buy-in for a project, start with a small test that proves the value.

✅ Communicate in their language. Tribal councils, city officials, and boards don’t think in technical terms—they think in impact, cost, and risk, bridge that gap.

💡 Example: When pitching a $1.5 million cybersecurity overhaul project, I didn’t talk about firewalls and intrusion detection. I framed it as:

📌 “This investment will protect tribal assets and data, prevent lawsuits, and ensure our systems remain operational for years to come.”

💡 Lesson: If you want approval, don’t talk tech—talk impact.

5. The Power of Clear Communication (and Why Most Leaders Get It Wrong)

📌 Biggest communication myth? If I said it, then people understood it.

❌ Wrong. People don’t always hear what you think you said.

🚀 How to ensure your message lands:

✅ Repeat important messages. People forget. Say it again, in multiple ways.

✅ Ask for feedback. “Can you repeat what I just said, in your own words?”

✅ Make it simple. If they don’t get it, you didn’t explain it well enough, change tactics. Look for confirmation that they do indeed understand or comprehend. Take it slow but be Clear, Concise, and Correct.

💡 Example: I ran an experiment with my team based on the “Tappers & Listeners” study—where one person taps out a song rhythm, and the other has to guess it. The result? Only one out of eight people got it right.

🚨 Key takeaway: What seems clear in your head isn’t always clear to your audience.

💡 Lesson: The biggest failure in leadership is assuming communication happened.

6. Career Reinvention: How I Went from Police Officer to CTO

📌 After battling cancer (Hodgkins Lymphoma), I had to completely rebuild my career.

🚀 Lessons from that experience:

✅ You’re never too old to start over. I went from law enforcement to IT by taking entry-level tech support jobs and working my way up.

✅ Learning never stops. I immersed myself in IT, took every opportunity to grow, and never stopped asking questions, seeking answers. In short, I never said, “no,” to an opportunity to learn, to fail, and embrace change.

✅ Resilience matters more than skills. The ability to adapt, learn, and pivot is more valuable than any single job title.

💡 Lesson: Your career isn’t defined by where you started—it’s defined by how you adapt and grow each day, and learning from both success and failure.

Final Thoughts: Leadership, Innovation, and People-First IT

📌 Want to be a better leader and drive innovation? Focus on:

🚀 Building trust – Innovation happens when teams feel valued, heard, and supported.

🚀 Communicating clearly – If your team doesn’t understand your vision, it IS your fault.

🚀 Removing roadblocks – The best leaders make success achievable for their teams.

🚀 Fighting for what matters – Bureaucracy is tough, but persistence wins. Don’t be afraid to get in the Ring.

💡 Final lesson: Technology changes fast, but people remain the key to all innovation. If you invest in your team, positive results are inevitable.

Want to connect or learn more? Reach out to me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielholguinsr/. Let’s build great teams…together.

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