Engineering leadership from within

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Engineering leadership from within

August 4, 2025

Nick Colisto

Sr. Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Corporate

LinkedIn Profile

Strong leadership and organizational capacity are essential to driving sustained innovation and growth. In this Q&A with Avery Dennison Global Communications, I share my perspective on leadership development, building high-performing teams and how we’re preparing the next generation of IT leaders to thrive.

Q: As you think about developing IT leaders, what do you believe is the foundation of effective leadership?

When I reflect on leadership development, I always come back to a fundamental insight I gained early in my career. I was promoted to manage a significant project based primarily on my technical abilities. I had a good handle on the systems, innovative ideas and a clear vision for the outcome. What I didn't realize was that technical expertise, while necessary, was far from sufficient for leadership success.

Three months into the project, we were behind schedule, team morale was suffering, and conflicts were emerging that I didn't know how to address. I was trying to do everything myself, believing that was what leadership required.

A mentor pulled me aside and asked me a question I'll never forget: "Are you trying to be the best technical contributor on this project, or are you trying to create the conditions where everyone can do their best work?" That question stopped me in my tracks. I realized I'd been approaching leadership as if it were simply an extension of individual contribution rather than something fundamentally different.

That moment began a transformation in how I understood leadership, recognizing that before I could effectively lead others, I needed to lead myself. Leadership starts from within.

Q: How do you view the process of leadership development for IT professionals?

Leadership development isn't about climbing rungs on a ladder to reach some final destination called "leadership." It's about continuously strengthening your leadership capabilities by integrating knowledge with the fundamental aspects of how you operate as a leader.

My most significant growth hasn't come from formal training programs, though those certainly have value. It comes from deliberately reflecting on real challenges, seeking honest feedback and consistently applying what I've learned to new situations.

I often share an example from my own experience. While working as a director of applications at another manufacturing company, I was leading a major systems implementation that involved significant change for our business. I had meticulously planned the technical aspects of the rollout, but when we began implementing, we encountered far more resistance than anticipated. Despite the technical soundness of our solution, adoption was slow, and satisfaction was low.

Rather than simply pushing harder, I took a step back and sought feedback from my team and the employees who would ultimately use the system. What I discovered was humbling. While I had focused entirely on the technical excellence of the solution, I had underestimated the emotional and practical impact of the change on people's daily work. I had failed to build sufficient understanding, buy-in and support mechanisms.

This revealed a significant gap in my leadership approach. I was leading from technical logic rather than human understanding. Recognizing this gap, I committed to developing my emotional intelligence and technical expertise. The difference this made was remarkable. In subsequent implementations, we achieved faster adoption, higher satisfaction and ultimately better business outcomes, not because the technical solutions were necessarily better, but because I had developed the capacity to lead change in a way that accounted for both technical and human dimensions.

One of the most powerful leadership capabilities you can develop is creating environments where innovation thrives because people feel safe to take appropriate risks.

Q: As you look toward the future of IT leadership in your organization, what capabilities do you believe will be most important?

The next generation of IT leadership will need capabilities that go beyond technical excellence. They'll need to navigate increasing complexity, collaborate across traditional boundaries and translate technology possibilities into business value. But perhaps most importantly, they'll need to make a fundamental shift in how they define success, from being valued primarily for what they personally accomplish to being valued for how they enable others to achieve collectively.

This isn't just a nice sentiment. It's a practical reality of leadership effectiveness. Your impact will be multiplied not through individual contributions, but through your ability to build teams where people are aligned, engaged, and continuously growing.

This shift, from being valued for personal expertise to being valued for enabling collective achievement, represents one of the most challenging transitions in leadership development. I've watched many talented technical professionals struggle with this evolution, holding onto the identity of the problem-solver rather than embracing the role of the capacity-builder.

But those who successfully make this transition create an impact far beyond what they could achieve through their individual contributions alone. They become the leaders who build other leaders, who create sustainable capabilities and who leave legacies that continue long after they've moved on to new challenges.

Q: You've spoken about innovation being critical for IT. How do leaders foster environments where innovation thrives?

One of the most powerful leadership capabilities you can develop is creating environments where innovation thrives because people feel safe to take appropriate risks. This doesn't happen by simply telling people to "be innovative" or "think outside the box." It happens through how you respond when people bring you new ideas, how you handle the inevitable failures that come with experimentation and how you recognize the learning that emerges from both successes and setbacks.

The leaders who consistently drive innovation aren't necessarily the ones with the best ideas themselves. They're the ones who create the conditions where others' ideas can emerge, be refined through collaboration and ultimately create differentiated value.

This means developing what I call "response awareness" – paying attention to how you react when team members bring you challenges, questions or ideas that challenge your thinking. Your response in those moments does more to shape your team's willingness to innovate than any formal innovation program ever could.

A few years ago, one of our application teams was working on a customer portal project with an aggressive timeline. Two weeks before launch, a business analyst approached the project leader with concerns about the user interface. She believed there was a structural flaw that could create inefficiencies for customers, but addressing it would likely delay the launch.

The project manager had a choice at that moment, stick to the timeline or explore the concern. He chose to take the issue seriously despite the pressure to deliver on schedule. He thanked the analyst for raising the concern, assembled a small team to evaluate it and when they confirmed the issue, made the difficult decision to delay the launch to address it properly.

What happened next was remarkable. Not only did they fix the specific user interface issue, but the focused attention on the user interface led to several additional improvements that ultimately created a more efficient solution. But even more importantly, the team's willingness to raise concerns and suggest improvements increased dramatically. People saw that thoughtful risk-taking and speaking up were valued, even when they created short-term challenges.

Remember that leadership isn't something you achieve once and for all. It's something you practice daily through countless small choices that gradually create patterns others can trust.

Q: How can IT leaders ensure they're creating genuine business value rather than just implementing technology?

As IT leaders, our ultimate value isn't measured by the technology we implement, but by the business outcomes we enable. Creating differentiated value requires more than just technical expertise; it requires understanding the business deeply enough to identify opportunities others might miss.

This means developing the ability to "connect the dots" across functions, understanding how technology decisions ripple through the broader organization and communicating in terms of business impact rather than technical features. It's about building what I call "translation capacity" – the ability to move fluently between technical and business perspectives, seeing opportunities that might be invisible to those with narrower viewpoints.

The most effective IT leaders I've worked with develop almost a sixth sense for how technology can create business value. They don't just wait for requirements to come to them and act as order takers; they actively explore business challenges and opportunities, applying their technical knowledge to identify possibilities that business partners might not even know to ask for.

This requires genuine curiosity about the business, understanding revenue models, customer challenges, competitive dynamics and operational constraints. It means spending time with colleagues outside of IT, asking questions about their objectives and challenges rather than just their technology needs. And it means developing the ability to frame technology initiatives in terms of business outcomes rather than technical specifications.

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to emerging IT leaders, what would it be?

Remember that leadership isn't something you achieve once and for all. It's something you practice daily through countless small choices that gradually create patterns others can trust.

Approach your development with both ambition and humility; ambition to continuously grow your capabilities, and humility to recognize there will always be more to learn. The most effective leaders I know aren't necessarily those with the most impressive titles or the longest tenure, but those who approach every interaction, every challenge and every success as an opportunity to develop themselves while developing others.

Leadership is ultimately an act of service, not status. When you shift your focus from what leadership gives you to what you can give through leadership, the potential you can help others realize, the environments you can create, and the innovation you can enable; you unlock a level of impact that transcends any individual achievement.

Q: You've spoken about deepening leadership capabilities. What practical steps would you recommend to IT professionals looking to grow in this way?

Let me share five practical approaches that I've found particularly valuable:

First, seek integrated challenges, not just isolated skills. Look for experiences that force you to combine multiple capabilities simultaneously. For example, leading a cross-functional project requires technical knowledge, stakeholder management, influence skills and business acumen. These integrated challenges stretch your capacity in ways that targeted skill development alone cannot.

Second, create deliberate reflection. The most powerful capacity building happens when you extract learning from experience through structured reflection. After significant meetings, decisions, or projects, take 10 minutes to ask yourself: What worked well? What didn't work as expected? What would I do differently next time? What patterns am I noticing? This transforms experiences into genuine development rather than just accumulated activity.

Third, seek diverse feedback beyond performance metrics. Expand your feedback sources beyond standard performance reviews. Ask not just about what you did, but how you did it, what it was like to work with you and what others observe about your blind spots. This multi-dimensional feedback reveals aspects of your leadership that formal evaluations often miss.

Fourth, practice adaptive leadership rather than template solutions. Instead of seeking formula answers to leadership challenges, develop the capacity to adapt approaches to specific contexts. Resist the urge to immediately apply a standard solution. Instead, take time to understand the unique elements of the challenge, consider multiple approaches and consciously choose methods that fit the specific circumstances.

Finally, build your leadership state, not just your leadership actions. Develop practices that maintain your optimal leadership presence, perspective and resilience. Your leadership capacity is directly influenced by your mental and emotional state, not just your knowledge or techniques. By deliberately managing your state, you expand your ability to access your full capabilities even under pressure.

These approaches focus on the integrative aspects of leadership development that go beyond conventional skill-building. They help develop not just what you know and do, but how you think, who you are and how you show up in complex, challenging circumstances.

Q: Any final thoughts for our readers?

The journey of leadership development is both demanding and deeply rewarding. It requires continuous growth, honest self-reflection and the courage to step beyond what's comfortable. But the impact you can have as you develop your leadership capabilities extends far beyond your own career; it affects the lives and potential of everyone you lead.

I'm excited to see how our next generation of IT leaders will shape both our technology direction and our organizational culture. The challenges ahead will require exactly the kind of leadership we've discussed: technically grounded yet people-focused, confident yet humble, decisive yet collaborative. By developing these integrated leadership capabilities, you'll not only advance your own careers but create lasting value for our organization and our customers.

Remember that leadership starts from within. As you continue your leadership journey, focus first on leading yourself effectively. The impact you have on others will follow naturally from the foundation you build within.

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