A survey reveals that many infrastructure technology teams overestimate their level of infrastructure automation excellence.While 45% of organizations believe they have high infrastructure automation, only 14% exhibit true automation excellence.Successful organizations have found a way to balance speed and control, breaking free from the 'Speed-Control Paradox.'Leaders in infrastructure automation empower developers with self-service tools while embedding safeguards for security.They prioritize platform engineering for consistency, integrate security as a foundation, and focus on cost optimization.Infrastructure automation Leaders orchestrate the entire infrastructure lifecycle for true automation maturity and efficiency.Organizations are encouraged to assess their automation maturity, integrate security early, and balance speed with governance.Standardizing through platform engineering and measuring key metrics beyond deployment velocity are key steps to automation excellence.Infrastructure automation leadership is about moving fast with certainty, investing in agile yet secure processes and team structures.The path from experimentation to excellence in infrastructure automation is clearer with the blueprint provided by Leaders.