Learning is Leadership

Ashley Andersen Zantop, Chief Executive Officer at Cambium Learning Group, wouldn’t be the leader she is today if it weren’t for the many people and experiences that shaped her journey. When she spoke with Knowledge is Power host Brandon Pfluger about her work life, she said the opportunity to live and work in places throughout the United States and the world made a sizeable impact on her career. 

“Being able to spend time working in multiple different cities and cultures and locations has given me an appreciation for how vibrant and beautiful our differences are between cities, between cultures, between countries,” Andersen Zantop said. “And also, some of the universal truths that really unite us. When you boil it all down, we all want to thrive, personally, and we want our children to thrive.” 

Andersen Zantop said Cambium’s mission is to give students and children in the US and worldwide access to the future. Andersen Zantop’s early career in education helped instill those passions she now uses as a leader in guiding Cambium to achieve its goals. 

On the path to leadership came many learning moments for Andersen Zantop. “The one thing I think you can learn over time—and I wish that somebody had been capable of saying this to me in a way that I was willing to hear earlier in my career—is that you not only don’t need to be the smartest person in the room, you don’t need to have all the right answers,” Andersen Zantop said. “You often won’t. So, as a leader, you have to consider that your job is not to have all the right answers, but to bring all the right people together.” The right people will help chart the path forward. The correct answers will come when all the proper stakeholders have a voice in the process. 

More Episodes in this Series

Introverts Can Still Make Effective Leaders

Why Learning Is Essential to Leadership