Words of Wisdom for New Leaders
Leaders, whether born or made, shoulder a lot of responsibilities. One of which includes helping a team stay on track, regardless of a work tsunami or draught.
In the 2:54 minute video and edited transcript below, Christina Van Houten, SVP of Market Strategy and Product Management at Infor, drops some truth bombs in this fireside chat with Bruno Scap, Founder of the Business and Technology of Greater New York Meetup group (BTGNY).
RSVP here for the next BTGNY event, Thursday, September 21st, 6pm, at Infor’s HQ’s in NYC. Guest speaker: Francesca Molinari, Human Resources Officer at Magento.
What advice would you give to someone going into (a) leadership position for the first time?
(Start of edited transcript.)
0:00 …I think I think there are a couple of things one is….authenticity and being human and engaging with your team in a way that they trust you…
0:19 …and not just managing people but diving into projects and real work and not just asking other people do it…really get engaged and create things on your own and help (by) setting an example…at the same time you dig in and help them make their deliverables better…
0:38 …the other thing that I think is the hallmark of being a good leader and I came up with this paradigm for my team…but I love two by twos…
0:54 …I had kept having people come to me on my team and say, “Prioritise everything on my plate”, “I don’t know what to work on”, “I have too much to do”, and the reality is (especially in something as fast-moving as technology) there’s always going to be more to do than you have time to do it (and) there’s always going to be less money than you want to do it…
1.11 …I think one of the hallmarks of a good leader, and just being a good employee is, is the ability to make good decisions and, and I think part part of that is that the intersection, this is my two by two, ambitious on one axis, and achievable on the other…I actually kind of work to plot my own things…in those quadrants…I think and things that are in (the) achievable bucket…are things you should probably be doing every day and…checking to make sure that you’re doing them…
1:45 …and then there are things that push you beyond what you’re doing now. they’re new things…chart a course…bring other people along…
2:08 …come-up with a paradigm for helping people make decisions and and spend their time judiciously…
2:26 …and then, once they anchor on those things, really drive to something they can show up and be proud of…I think a lot of times when you get spread too thin you feel like you haven’t done anything and other people start to feel like that too…
2:45 …get laser focused on a few things that you know in the end are going to make a difference in the organisation and make a lot of other people better.
(End of edited transcript.)
RSVP here for the next BTGNY event, Thursday, September 21st, 6pm, at Infor’s HQ’s in NYC. Guest speaker: Francesca Molinari, Human Resources Officer at Magento.
