This episode of the Georgia Tech Research Podcast features a conversation with Lee Wadzeck, the 2023 GTRI Leadership Excellence Award recipient. During the course of the podcast, he details his leadership style.

Wadzeck is Chief of the Command, Control, and Communications Division (C3D) within the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory (SEAL) at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). In that role, Wadzeck leads a team of researchers focused on identifying and delivering critical state-of-the-art tactical airborne communications and networking solutions to address a wide array of problem sets.

Wadzeck and podcast host Stephanie Richter, a GTRI Research Scientist, discuss philosophies of leadership, as well as practical examples drawn from Wadzeck's life and career.

Prior to joining GTRI, Wadzeck served more than 20 years in the United States Air Force. His last duty assignment was as 18th Wing Superintendent of Exercises/Joint Interface Control Office, stationed at Kadena AFB, Okinawa, Japan.

Wadzeck shares his journey from radio broadcaster to working in the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ultimately becoming a senior researcher at Georgia Tech Research Institute, highlighting his experiences in the Air Force and the importance of resilience and leadership. Wadzeck gives several examples of how he bounced back from problems and setbacks and pivoted to take different personal and career paths along the way.

He shares anecdotes about his early aspirations of being a professional football player and his tribulations and triumphs as an amateur bodybuilder and powerlifter.

Key among the many tenets he discusses during the podcast: being a good follower.

"Naturally, my personality is a kind of charge a hill, sometimes referred to as 'Shoot. Ready. Aim' type of personality," Wadzeck shares, saying that is not "probably not the best approach."

He goes on to say "I had some mentors grab me early on and explain that you need to be a good follower. You need to master 'followership.' And what does followership really mean? Well, you have to be engaged with your senior leaders. You have to know what they want. You have to be a critical thinker. You have to be reliable, right as a teammate. You got to be a collaborator. You can't go tackle things on your own, as well as loyalty and support are fundamental to being a good follower. In order to be a good leader of any time, you need to master followership. And so I would say that that's where I started. And thankfully, joining the military gave me that opportunity to grow my leadership skills at different levels."

His leadership is now on full display at GTRI. He now leads the nearly 80 staffers within the Command, Control, and Communications Division, which he has led the rapid growth of from being a nascent program office.

Wadzeck and Richter also expand the discussion to a broad leadership vision that he believes is key to helping GTRI as a whole grow in the future.