I try to formulate my leadership principles in a clear and concise way. It keeps me accountable and helps me to be consistent.
Build trust: be consistent in decisions and actions, keep decision making transparent and explain why.
Be vulnerable: I’m a human being and I act like one, with my flaws. Sharing my ups and downs makes me relatable and creates a safe environment where it’s OK to be genuine and to show up.
Optimise for clarity: don’t optimise for making people feel better. Convey the vision of the company and how to execute it down to the teams. If I don’t get sick of hearing myself repeating the same, it means I haven’t said it enough.
Education As an Accelerator: If someone is interested in learning something, I make sure to enable that. Regardless of the alignment with the company strategy. If they said it to me, it means I succeeded at establishing a safe environment and they have a fire burning inside of them. I won’t be the one blowing it off. I’ll put oil on it and we’ll see later how we can use this new skill.
Hire right: I build high performance teams with as much diversity as possible. Some key aspects I look for: a blend of superstar and rockstars. I strongly believe that A-grade employees hire A-grade employees. I don’t hire someone to tell them what to do, I hire so they tell me what we’re going to do.
Done is better than perfect: foster culture of moving fast, iterating and learning to deliver the best outcomes. It may be rough around the edges, but it works.
Lead by example: walk the talk, and keep improving. I like to show up and be intentional. If it’s technical and I know the topic, I’ll gladly get my hands dirty.
