Where do great ideas come from?  At the top of the corporate ladder?  Nope.  Great ideas can come from anyone in the company, and they usually come when you least expect it.

This is how Kate Matsudaira sees the world.  Anyone in a company can be leader, not necessarily to take over the company, but rather to head projects or oversee some aspects of the company.

Matsudaira is the founder and CTO of popforms, a startup that is developing software to help employees and managers increase productivity.  Aside from leading the startup, Matsudaira is involved in Culitvate, a one-day O’Reilly event for leaders and aspiring leaders at technology companies to hear directly from successful tech founders and managers, learn from each other, and come away inspired to build companies that make a difference.  Cultivate is still months away, it will be held on October 14, 2013, in New York.

Matsudaira was also a recent guest on theCUBE with host SIliconANGLE Founder and CEO John Furrier to discuss her the upcoming Cultivate event as well as her keynote, at another O’Reilly event, the recently concluded Velocity conference.

Matsudaira pointed out that they want to create an event to inspire people how to become better leaders by focusing on the culture.  She states that people come from different backgrounds but in the end, the biggest obstacle a company faces is not about technology but people.  People need to learn how to understand themselves as well as the people around them in order to create a conducive working environment.

“The keynote was really about influencing without authority,” Matsudaira explained.  “I think that no matter what your role is here that there’s probably ways that you can be more influential, more helpful.  At the end of the day, people and success are really tightly intertwined.  So if you don’t learn that piece of it, I don’t think that you can really be as successful as maybe your potential would allow you to be.”

The biggest takeaway for Matsudaira in her tenure in the tech world is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses, being aware of your blindspots, so you know what areas you’d be needing people in, and also being really good at your job as well as making people aware of what you’re doing.

For more of Matsudaira’s insights on leadership and Culiminate, check out the video below: