Reflection of the day - April

I find timing and experience as quite interesting phenomenon’s as they are both dependant upon curiosity and proactivity in order to increase the odds/likelihood of success in whatever field you may want to thrive in. Additionally, they're out of our control sometimes.

For me, personally, I’ve always been quite curious, eager to learn and develop. A blessing and a curse depending on what you explore. A blessing as I usually never wait for “the right time” to come or for the opportunity to be created itself, but a curse as there’s too many interesting things to explore in this world that will take your focus. So, a balance is needed to understand what the right things are to focus on and most importantly, what do YOU need as an individual.

?3 years ago, I reached out to my first employer within the staffing/recruitment industry, Kristian, the founder of MultiMind who has been quite successful building up his company for more than 20 years. I felt lost in terms of my career and needed somebody who spoke the same “language” and could give me more perspectives and nuances from their own experiences. Even though the age differences we’re quite similar in terms of values but as unique individuals our personalities and experience differ.

We meet every quarter for drinks/dinner at a new restaurant in Stockholm, Kristian usually say that I’m the local one as I’m more knowledgeable around the “trendy” places around, even though I’m from Sk?ne originally (south of Sweden).. It’s been incredible to have these meetups with my mentor to have talks about business, life and everything in-between. It has brought me to also reflect more on my own leadership, here’s what I’ve realized and implemented thus far:

• A great team - is built upon encouragement, transparency, and constructive feedback. As a leader you don’t have to be the subject matter expert in all aspects, but make sure to have the right people around you and make sure to be clear with your direction and decisions. Your job as a leader is to make the best decision you can every day. It’s always easier to build a house if everyone is delegated with a specific task and is instructed what the best way of doing this could be (unless that person is already experienced, this is where knowledge exchange happens).
• Character – people usually judge a person from its character. If you’re fair and honest as a leader, people will put their trust in your hands. Make sure to leverage this trust in a good manner. This means that in some cases the decision lies within the group as your team members may be the ones needed to execute on the action item from that decision. Make them come to that decision themselves, organically. If you realize they need a bit of steering in the conversation then chime in. Hence, this may be a very Swedish way of working, but I think in all fairness it’s good to have unanimous decision as long as they are productive, efficient and rational. We’ve all been in meetings which were a bit long-winded and where a decision or next-step proposal was unclear..
• Keep you promises - We've all had/currently has a friend that always says things, but it never happens. In other words, a lot of talk and little efforts. These people may be great to be around in your private circle but in a work environment it can be quite toxic as people depend on each other. If you're not able to keep you're promises this will reflect in your team members efforts as well, as you’re the one who's supposed to set an example, and if you're fine with postponing deadline or unfinished tasks your team members will too. This could jeopardize relationships in business, so keep your promises or don't promise anything, simple as that. You're not doing the other person a favour by letting them hear what they want to hear, if the outcome does not meet up with what's been promised. Of course, we've all been there and if that happens to you, make sure to communicate in a transparent way to maintain already built up trust. It's always easier to forgive people for their mistakes than their dishonesty.
• Failure & Challenge – Be open as a leader and show your vulnerable sides where you may not always know/be right sometimes, it's OK to acknowledge in front of the team that you were not right. Trust me, it may sometimes feel like the world is falling but this is actually a good way of building a genuine culture. I think the best ideas comes from situations where discussion is brought up. I’d rather have a team challenging me in a constructive way to form better decision than yes-sayers agreeing on everything said, hence this requires the team to feel comfortable enough to raise their opinions without feeling of being judged. In our team we have weekly Monday meetings where the team has to mention a failure and/or success story of previous encountered week. I do think this has really brought the team together with a better feedback culture but also bringing in a very prestigeless environment. Making mistakes a long the way is not more than human and often harmless if you allow to acknowledge them and learn from them. The opposite to shame someone for doing wrong, I wouldn’t recommend that.. as said before, everyone's human and we DO actually make mistakes as no one is perfect.
• Listen more, talk less - I know this may sound very self-explanatory but as my daily job consists of a lot of meetings, I find this quite interesting. Some dependencies on culture and personalities may impact this point but I think in general good leaders listen more than they talk. Reasoning behind this is that once you set yourself to listen to a person you allow that person to fully explain what they're thinking. As a leader your role is to consolidate all the collected "data" and make a judgement and decision from what you've collected. I've noticed this to become much more important in environments where complex decisions have to be made. I do believe it's more efficient to allow a person to speak fully before you interrupt them with your question, that person may perhaps "overshare" or answer your question if you allow them to finish their point of view, and in more complex decisions this may even be of greater importance as this will add perspectives that you may not have considered, rather than losing all this incredible "data" by interrupting... I've practiced this myself for many years as I have a background from sales, so now I will challenge you to do them same. Fear for a lot of people is that you may get this "awkward silence" but in fact, the other person would in reality rather perceive you as a calm person with confidence who actually genuinly listens (as long as you are actively listening - asking follow-up questions). Practice makes perfect - I challenge you to be completely quiet next time when you speak to a friend or relative with the exception of only asking follow-up questions, this will probably make you understand my point even further.

?If you managed to read the whole article, wow, thanks! Hope you found my reflections helpful, senseful or inspiring. It may include incorrect gramma here and there, but my intent is to share some of my own journey for everyone out there. Sharing is carrying ??