Jess Carter: Data-driven leadership starts with a fearless vision

If you feel overwhelmed and underqualified to use data, you are not alone.

Data from a 2023 Oracle study proves that. Almost 75% of respondents admitted the amount of data and lack of trust in it has stopped them from making decisions. Yet just about everyone (97%!) wants help from data.

And that’s why I’m here.

I’m Jess Carter. I’m a consultant, podcast host and leader. I live in the weird and exciting gray area between the leaders who want answers and the people doing algorithm development and data cleansing—the stuff that makes your eyes glaze over. I’ve spent the last 10 years leading big data projects where the stakes were (sometimes) literally life and death. My team has analyzed data on all sorts of social problems, from substance abuse disorder to day care voucher programs. At the height of the pandemic, I was deeply involved in the state of Indiana’s COVID response, including supporting the team modeling how policy scenarios would impact hospitalizations.

I’m not a data scientist. But I am a leader who also happens to be wildly passionate about data. I’m fascinated by how data can make us better leaders AND better humans. It can reveal insights that could be the difference between fulfilling your mission and stagnation—if you know what questions to ask it and how to listen.

Data itself can’t do everything. It can’t solve problems. It can’t make decisions. But you know who can? Leaders. Data needs leaders, and leaders need data. That’s why I’m so passionate about data-driven leadership. It’s

detective work.

I’m grateful and excited to help you, regardless of your level or role, harness your data to make decisions with clarity and confidence. In my upcoming articles, I’ll help you cast a vision for your data and give you the tools to make sense of it. We’ll walk through how to know whether data is trustworthy, and how you can put it to the test. I’ll talk about the pillars of a data-literate culture so everyone in your organization can start getting their arms around data to make better decisions. And we’ll get into how to leverage AI to its highest and best use. So let’s begin.

Fear is not your friend

Thinking about using data will probably bring up some emotions. You might feel overwhelmed. You might feel fear. That’s normal. Fear is a universal part of the human experience. We’re all professionals who care about our jobs and want to succeed. For the first 10 years of my career, I myself was consumed by fear of failure. Then I found myself in both a NICU and a funeral home in the span of two months.

Suddenly, none of this was scary anymore. I found a lot of freedom from that realization—freedom that has unlocked a lot of doors in my own data-driven leadership journey. It gave me the confidence to fearlessly hypothesize and experiment. Business at its core is an experiment, and every decision you make is a hypothesis. You’re going to get it wrong sometimes. That’s OK. Failure is data. Success is data. We learn from both.

There are robots on Mars

So where do we begin? First, forget about spreadsheets. Forget about software. Forget about your “source systems” and “architecture diagrams” some technical person gave you that likely make no sense to you. Your job isn’t to meet techies where they are; this starts with where YOU are as a leader.

Let’s dream for a moment. Imagine you have unlimited resources for the problems you’re trying to solve. What do you want for your team, department or business? What does it need to be successful? What do you wish you had that you currently don’t? Why?

I’ve worked with clients who, when I pose these questions, are immediately self-limiting. It’s easy to operate out of a scarcity mindset—we’ve all done it. We shoot down big ideas before they’re even out of our brains because we feel we don’t have the budget, resources or know-how to make them a reality.

But in my career as a consultant, I’ve rarely said, “That’s not possible.”

I used to work with a guy who went around saying, “There are robots on Mars” as a bold reminder of what we humans are capable of. So when it comes to being a data-driven leader, I think it’s important to start with an audacious vision born of possibility, not fear. What is your perfect scenario if budget, time and resources were no object? Write it down.

Algorithms don’t matter. At least, not yet. What matters is having the courage to dream big. To fearlessly explore the possibilities data can unlock. Let’s embark on this journey together, fueled by curiosity and guided by possibility.•

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Jess Carter is host of the Data Driven Leadership podcast and vice president of client experience and delivery operations at Resultant.