The Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce hosted Ryan Sitton, Pinnacle’s Founder and CEO, to share his insights on visionary leadership in early May as part of their Leadership Clear Lake program. 

Speaking to participants as part the chamber’s nine-month series designed to equip emerging leaders with professional skills and community insight, Sitton emphasized the importance of resilience, ownership, and purpose in leadership. 

“When we think about visionary leadership, this is where leaders really earn their keep. Great leaders show up and navigate a team through failure,” said Sitton, who shared personal stories of his own failures to the group – as a father, as a businessman and as a politician. “Failure itself isn’t a bad thing, but you have to own it, you have to learn from it,” Sitton added. “Almost every great story of success has a leader who took a team through failure and came out stronger on the other side.” 

He challenged attendees to act boldly in moments of uncertainty rather than fear of making mistakes and to lead with vision and conviction. 

“He said something that really stuck with me. He said we should let our kids fail now, so they can learn how to recover and become stronger for the future. That really resonated with me. It’s a powerful reminder that failure isn’t something to fear, it’s something to grow from.” said Amir Subedi, Supervisor at MOTU.   

Leadership Clear Lake is an annual program put on by the chamber focusing on personal and professional development providing participants with leadership skills that influence the way they think about their careers, community, and society. Applications for the next program are available on the chamber’s website. 

This was Sitton’s fifth year talking to the next generation of leaders in the area - made up of professionals across nonprofit, municipal, legal, entrepreneurial, and financial sectors.   

Sitton is a frequent keynote speaker and guest on podcasts speaking from experience in the leadership field or as the former Texas Railroad Commissioner – the chief energy regulator for the state.   

His company Pinnacle was founded 19 years ago and works with some of the world’s largest companies in the oil and gas, water and mining industries solving their reliability problems. The company developed a revolutionary new software that increases the runtime of industrial sites while decreasing costs and safety incidents. 

“Year after year, Ryan is a highlight of our program,” said Cindy DeWease, Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce’s President and CEO. “He delivers a powerful message that resonates deeply with our participants and inspires them to achieve more.  You are missing out if you haven’t heard him speak.” 

Learn more about Sitton or book him for speaking requests at ryansitton.com. Connect on social media – LinkedIn @RyanSitton; Twitter @RyanSitton; or Facebook @RyanSittonTX.