Stop obsessing over being “more strategic”—start building a team people would actually choose to follow if titles disappeared tomorrow.

Most leadership advice teaches you how to act like a leader.
In this episode of Heartbeat, I sit down with speaker, coach, and author Antonio Neves (Stop Trying to Be a Leader) to unpack how to become someone people actually want to follow—especially when your title and authority aren’t enough.

If you’re a CIO, CTO, or tech leader trying to “be more of a leader,” this is your pattern interrupt. The real move isn’t more leadership content—it’s shifting from performing leadership to building something worth following: clarity, standards, systems, and trust.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why trying to “be a leader” creates leadership theater, not real change

• The hidden cost of being the hero: decision bottlenecks, burnout, and fragile teams

• How great CIOs lead by building clear systems, not louder personalities

• The difference between influence you own vs. influence you rent from your title

• A practical shift from “How do I show up as a leader?” to
  “What system am I building that others can trust?”

Resources

📖 Antonio’s book: Stop Trying to Be a Leader on Amazon
https://a.co/d/dFIkejR