Lessons Learned on Leadership

Lessons learned on leadership

August 27, 2026
By Casey Miller | Senior Executive Vice President of Sales

As Fastenal’s senior executive vice president of sales, Casey Miller leads and supports our local sales teams across the globe – roughly 11,500 people spread across 25 countries. He has presented on the topic of leadership at our past few Fastenal Expos, so we asked him to share some of his talking points (and lessons learned) here. If you’re looking for ideas to bring out the best in your team, read on!

The most important career advice I ever got was from King Solomon. The year was 1999, back when Fastenal was opening a ton of branches and giving young employees like me opportunities to run them. Just two years out of college, I was tapped to manage the branch in Winchester, Kentucky, near my hometown of Mt. Sterling. We were working hard to make it a success, but our branch scorecard told a different story: We were one of the worst-performing business units in our region.

The turning point wasn’t a big new account or a new way of running the business. (Those things would come later.) It was something I heard at church, a proverb from King Solomon:

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companions of fools will suffer harm.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying my companions were actual fools. It’s true that the other young people I gravitated to at work liked to have fun and clown around. But the real problem is that they also liked to complain. It dawned on me that the cynicism was poisoning my attitude about the company and what we were trying to accomplish.

I vowed to stop doing that and to instead walk with the wise. In my world, this meant learning from the habits of the best people I knew in the company (many of whom are still with Fastenal today). The next day, I typed King Solomon’s verse (Proverbs 13:20) in a Word doc, printed it out, and taped it up on a wall next to my desk at the branch.

It’s been with me in every office I’ve had ever since.

Surround yourself with great people, and believe in them

A few years later, I was given a chance to be a district manager, overseeing a dispersed team working in several branches. I was still in my mid-20s, and I was feeling the pressure to do really well. In fact, I was probably pressing a little too hard.

That is, until I had a “walk with the wise” moment. (Actually, it was more like a “random side conversation with the wise,” but nonetheless I’ll never forget it.)

We were having a regional meeting in Indianapolis, and I was in the motel lobby at breakfast checking a branch report on my laptop. That’s when I heard the voice of Mike Crum, who I consider to be one of the best district and regional managers in the history of Fastenal.

The exchange went something like this.

Mike: What kind of report is that?
Me: It's the alarm system report that shows me when everyone got to work yesterday and when they left. ... Wait, I can't believe you don't use this.
Mike: Oh, I would never look at that.
Me: Why not?
Mike: Because I would never hire anybody that I didn't trust to open the branch on time and stay open until we were supposed to close.

His reply contained a whole philosophy. In his understated way, he was teaching me that the role of a leader isn’t to control people. It’s to find great people and give them the mentorship and freedom they need to be leaders themselves.

If you’re constantly looking over their shoulders, that’s not leadership. If you feel like you have to check everything, you probably have the wrong people.

Get people who surprise you with the amount of work they’re willing to do, how quickly they get things done, and how creatively they approach their job. Then loosen the reins and give them space to do more than you expect.

Simply put, surround yourself with great people, and believe in them.

Don't confuse a job title with leadership

I’ll just come out and say it: I hate titles. The quickest way to get on my bad side is to lean on your job title to compel people to do things. True leadership means getting to know your team, working with them to understand the “front lines” of the business, and then influencing them to get things done.

I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some incredible leaders here at Fastenal, including our current president and CEO, Jeff Watts; our previous president and CEO, Dan Florness; and our company founder, Bob Kierlin (whose 10 rules of leadership are taped up alongside Proverbs 13:20 on my office wall).

The secret to their success? I believe it’s an ability to stay humble while getting things done in a really complex business. I can’t imagine anyone knowing those guys and not wanting them to be successful. You don’t want to let them down, because you appreciate that they’ve taken the time to know everybody, listen to everybody, and treat everyone with respect.

That humble leadership – not the job title – is what inspires people to not just punch the clock, but to use their full talent and creativity in pursuit of a common goal.

These two things will kill a business

The first one is cynicism. And by that I mean a negative mindset that nothing will work and all intentions are bad. Change is always hard, and skepticism is 100% healthy. But I’m talking about a knee-jerk aversion to new ideas and attempts to improve things.

How do you prevent cynicism from creeping in, especially after a failed initiative or a string of bad quarters? Don’t allow it. Fight it. Stay connected to your team. Address festering problems. Focus on the things that are working and build on that success with an all-hand-on-deck approach.

On the most basic level, lead with integrity and humility, and don’t do things that foster cynicism.

The second business killer is excuses, and this one’s pretty simple to sum up. Once you’re making excuses for why something isn’t getting done, it’s over. If you’re not where you want to be, don’t talk about why. Just focus on how you’re going to get there.

Leaders are defined by what they’ll accept. It’s inevitable to have some setbacks and periods of underperformance. It’s another thing to accept it. That’s why cynicism and excuses are business killers. They’re both ways of preventing change and accepting unacceptable things.

Don't. Be. Blockbuster.

It’s hard to remember Blockbuster as anything other than a cautionary tale. But a mere 25 years ago, they were on top of the world. The steps of their decline are well documented: the customer backlash against late fees, the missed opportunity to purchase Netflix for $50 million, the spiraling debt that prevented them from pivoting with the times.

But I believe it all stemmed from a deeper problem: They loved their model too much. They were making amazing margins selling things like Milk Duds and two-liter Cokes. They focused on those particulars rather than the big picture, and got blindsided.

The moral of the story? Don’t become emotionally attached to the status quo. Never stop surveying the market and listening to customers. Never stop innovating and moving forward.

As leaders, we have to let go of our Milk Duds. If it doesn’t work anymore, get rid of it. It doesn’t matter how good it was. That’s the past, and we need to think about what’s going to work in the future.

The takeaway

These are a few of the thoughts I share with our internal regional and district leaders, but they apply to any team or organization. One of the downsides of this short format is that I probably didn’t convey just how important Fastenal’s founder, Bob Kierlin, was in shaping all of the above (King Solomon exempted). His leadership principles remain the North Star for me and so many others here at Fastenal.

In a 2009 interview, Bob was asked to name the top three characteristics of a successful leader. I’ll leave you to ponder his response (which, true to form, seems simple but speaks volumes):

"I've only found two so far. Leaders have to make sure that everybody who joins the organization follows the common goal of the organization. The second is that the leaders have to find ways to bring out and use the potential of everybody that joins the organization." - Bob Kierlin

Summary

Effective leadership starts with mindset, including learning from successful mentors, avoiding cynicism, and maintaining a commitment to growth and improvement.
Great leaders build strong teams by hiring talented people, trusting them, and giving them the autonomy to succeed.
Leadership is earned through humility, influence, and respect, not through job titles or authority alone.
Organizations thrive when leaders reject excuses, address challenges directly, and create a culture focused on accountability and continuous improvement.
Long-term success requires adaptability, as leaders and organizations must be willing to challenge the status quo, embrace change, and respond to evolving customer and market needs.