LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES SERIES VOL 1

“Your age and experience cannot be the only measure of your value or ability”

Last week I was fortunate to spend some time with a leader that I’ve known for a while and get his thoughts and perspectives on leadership.  Mirza Kozarcanin is a Senior VP of Sales with the high tech driver safety focused firm Seeing Machines.

Mirza has worked in Europe, the US and here in Australia, which has given him broad experiences and exposure to different working environments, and of courses his own unique leadership perspective.

You’ve worked around the world and have been lucky enough to be exposed to several working environments, cultures and I’m guessing leadership styles – what have been the biggest differences you’ve seen?

Look some of the things are similar; most people I think want to show up and do the right thing, work hard and get results. But, you know, along the line somewhere it can get lost. I think one of big differences here is probably how people approach authority. There’s definitely a lot more formal authority overseas, on the hierarchy side of things. Here in Australia I think that in general there’s a really healthy blend of formal and informal communication, and there’s usually pretty good access to decision makers, which is definitely something you don’t always see in other countries and business cultures.  The access to C suite, and I’m probably lucky here because I don’t work for a huge business and maybe it would be different if that weren’t the case, but that access is done really well here. There also seems to be a real sense of ownership of roles and a feeling of being part of the business, even though they don’t actually own the firm, which again isn’t as prevalent in other places I’ve worked. I think there are some great things about the Australian business culture that aren’t as common overseas that maybe should be.

When you look back at the different leaders you’ve worked with what’s been the stand out style or approach that’s resonated the most with you?

That’s a good question because there’s not a single one, but definitely a few that I’ve been exposed to and I hope I’ve absorbed the best of them.  I also don’t know how you’d rank then, is it results, or how much they’ve inspired you? You know, what is it?

For me, I like structured leaders; you can adjust structure to suit different situations but if you don’t have a structure how do you know what it is you need to adjust?

So do you think that when a leader has structure it shows that they’re a thinker?

Yes absolutely, and they always seem to have thought of everything or harnessed the power of people who have; you know, they don’t panic about anything because they’ve thought it all through.

But look there’s absolutely other “stuff” that is important, stuff like charisma and an ability to engage and an ability to genuinely sit down and be interested in you as a team member. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with leaders who when they talk to you, you can tell that they live and breathe their business and that gives you the confidence that everything’s going to be ok. I’ve had one in particular who certainly asks everyone to give of themselves but he certainly doesn’t expect everyone else to be at the same level or depth as him – that would be a pretty high ask of anyone

The style that’s resonated the least is the one that’s based around Rigidity, you know the type who feels that they have to know it all and in my experience they’re the ones that say “we did this 20 years ago and nothings changed”, and you know, of course things have changed, of course they have, and if they haven’t how come you’re not a billionaire yet? It’s that lack of ability to adapt or learn as you go that just doesn’t make sense to me.

People are smart enough to know not to say “we’ve always done it this way” but there’s the non-verbal communication of that ethos that kills me. It’s their actions, “yeah it’s not worked to well in the last 5 years, but 15 years ago it did and those days are going to come back sometime”.

Some of the best leaders I’ve worked with either directly or through my line of work have been voracious learners or students of leadership – how do you continue to develop and grow? Also do you think it’s important that leaders do?

Yes absolutely, I think it’s very easy to get caught up in your own praise, of yourself and others praise (when things are going well). With others praise, yes be thankful and accept it, but also look through it from a bit of distance. That’s why I like formal study because it’s based on averages, other studies and research and I believe in it so I like to come back to that.  

I had my first sales management job at 25, and since then have been in one senior role or another, and back then it was accepting the fact that yes I don’t have as much life experience as others but that in itself cannot be a measure of your value and ability. I’ve had situations where there’s been 4 sales managers in a business and one has by far and away been the most successful but if you put all their resumes in a pile and asked some other businesses to hire one of them, 100% of them wouldn’t hire this guy because of his age and he doesn’t have a formal education. But he’s outperformed the others by about 2000%.

But it can be a default thing with some places, “Oh no, we’re in trouble and we need someone experienced to come and tell us what to do”

You’re so right, that’s like the conversations I occasionally get into with clients, “Simon we need someone with 7 years experience with this product” and I’m like “But it’s only been out 5 years!”

Ha-ha! Exactly, I’ve heard similar stories – absolutely! “And we want to pay them as little as possible and we’re going to work them to the bone!”

So staying on the Sales side of things for a minute, Sales is a relatively linear line of work, and Salespeople can have their challenges, like the little voice in their head that tells them they’re really good one day and not so good the other. In terms of leadership, what have you found to be most effective?

At a group level, you have to give people direction, and you cant put that responsibility on anybody else but the Executive or leader. You have to give them direction, which you can adjust and tweak but it has to be set. I’m coming back to that structure again, and that’s what people look for, some guidance and structure, and some people will go away and might do a great job and some might not, but how can you legitimately and objectively asses people if you haven’t provided them structure and guidance?

So is direction the same as KPI’s?

No, I’m talking about going beyond that, visionary. KPI’s are the chunks, that when you break the vision down, you turn them into KPI’s. But direction is “Hey, here’s where we want to be”

I set this example a while back, back then I had 4 people in my team, and I said “This year we’ll do 3 things; lets have some fun (and I’m sure some people thought, “I can probably have that without this business”), let’s make some money, and in order to do that let’s sell some product” and for me that was a response to a time when maybe we didn’t have direction. So when we looked at that we said “Well, what’s fun mean?” and you know what it means, that we’re mentally healthy, we’re physically healthy, we’ll look out for each other and you know we do actually have a fun time. Then, “What is making some money?” well, there’s a bonus and a goal, so what needs to happen to do that, and I think as an executive you have to go a level or two above that, to a degree you have to go out and put your neck on the line and make some choices, “Hey this is where we want to go, and what we want to achieve, do you want to be on this?”  You have to give them every opportunity to get to know what you’re about and who you are and walk away if need be, but if they choose to stay that clarity should be there and there can be no confusion about what the direction is.

I think with mature businesses or groups, you move beyond, beyond the basics of “we need to sell more”, you probably need to be critiquing strategy or direction, but not those basics like “how many clients did we talk to this month?”

It’s an ongoing dialogue but what do you see as the difference between leadership and management?

I see the difference as absolutely the administration and inspiration functions if you like. I think some people and companies confuse roles and titles with leadership when they are really managing a business process like payroll or manufacturing crankshafts, or whatever it is. Now you need that function don’t get me wrong, you do need that, but is it leadership? Business leadership? I don’t think so. You know, some of what I do could be termed management, things like spreadsheets and reports. You don’t need a huge amount of skill to do that part, but it’s a small part of what I personally do. So I see one as operational and one as inspirational – some roles require both to varying degrees.

I sent you an article called the “The Authenticity Paradox”, because I thought of you when I was reading it because Authentic and Genuine are phrases that spring to mind when I think of you. What did you think of that article and has it made you reconsider what Authenticity means?

I liked it, I didn’t necessarily agree with all of it, which is fine. But to me authenticity is that constant self-assessment, accepting that fact that who you are today is not who you’re going to be in two years time.  Other factors will have a huge impact on how you develop and grow as a leader and a person – for me; it’s been becoming a parent for the first time.

I do think though that authenticity is created by culture, and in the Australian culture, I think that authenticity sometimes falls into this thing of being a “strong man” and I think we miss out on some really good people because of this version of what we think authenticity is. You know this thing of “You have to be a strong leader” and that’s usually associated with being male.

That’s an interesting comment because there’s been some high profile people recently who’ve come under public scrutiny over some of their behaviours and you look at that and think, “Is that a good leader?”

I know you who you mean, and no it isn’t but that behavior has come from a culture that’s probably rife within that industry or business unit. But that situation is laughable, because what those people are missing out in is an opportunity to change and grow further and get even better at what they do.

So after a few years of doing a great job at that business, because it was a business that was done, almost finished – and they’ve had the opportunity to say “Right, what next, where to from here – how do I get better?” But this happens all the time, people who have a degree of success and do something great but let that define them for the future and who they are, you know “that guy who….” Instead of using it as a springboard for improvement, they kind of accept that they plateaued years ago.

I couldn’t agree more, the eternal push for personal and professional growth is the common trait I see in the outstanding leaders that I meet in my line of work. Mirza thank you for your time and insight today, it’s been great getting your perspectives on leadership.

So that’s the first of my interviews that make up the Leadership Perspectives series. Each month I’ll be interviewing a leader to get their personal thoughts on what it means to be a great leader. If you’d like to be a part of it then please reach out on 03 9223 7517 or email me at [email protected].