"Great leaders are genuinely interested in people....The biggest lesson - never stop, keep trying, even if that means a hundred collapses. You get up and keep moving forward. "
Great leaders are genuinely interested in people. They develop and support their employees and people around them, committing to keeping them healthy, productive and happy. They know that such an approach pays dividends down the line. They have strong vision, excellent focus and heaps of tenacity. Yet they’re flexible, continually asking questions like - If we had done some things right to achieve success, how could we ensure that we understood what those things were? How can we replicate them? What can we do better next time? They’re constantly mastering the better ways of doing things.
Genuine and open. My main motto is to let people be themselves in their interactions. I value frankness with a dose of sensitivity.
Ed Catmull from Pixar has a humanistic yet extremely diligent approach to leadership described in “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration”. Because of the industry he operates in I was interested in how he managed to keep the creativity flowing and produce such outstanding work. And it turned out that the key to his success was dedication to his people and to quality of the work his teams were delivering.
I also love the teachings of Ram Dass, spiritual teacher known for his book “Be Here Now”. He had a big impact on me as a person and on how I see the importance to follow your true calling - the gift you have to offer to the world in self and other-leadership.
I’ve build my company from scratch, starting from designing my own speciality in my second year of coaching course. I focused on people from the creative industry while everyone went general. I kept going despite the inevitable downs and while achieving my highs I still kept evolving. The biggest lesson - never stop, keep trying, even if that means a hundred collapses. You get up and keep moving forward.
When I was younger and had less years of experience on my back I worked for an ad agency that had a very rigid hierarchical structure of making decisions, big and small. That meant that at the end it was my boss who had a final word on everything. That of course created a bottle neck and frankly saying it felt very disempowering. My failure was my inability to stand my ground and speaking up when I felt my ideas were getting squandered. At some point I gave in and became only a transmitter of my bosses wills.
I’ve finally managed to regain my voice and set myself free from it. What helped me was finding what I truly love doing and am doing it till this day. That was the biggest lesson. If you don’t do it for yourself, if you don’t stand up and say - this is what I want to do with my life, no-one else will do it for you.
I think people would be surprised to know that I can be very competitive when I’m biking on the streets of Amsterdam. I simply have to be the fastest. You overtake me on the lights, where I slow down and wait politely in a queue, and I’ll make sure that I’m ahead of you as soon as the light goes green…even with two kids sitting on my bike - one in the front and one at the back. It’s a version of Goofy from the Motor Mania https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35mjd4
Whom do you want to work with? That was a question one person asked me when I faced a choice of the specialization for my second year of coaching course. There were some interesting options: mediation, career coaching, life coaching etc. but they all weren’t answering what my path should be. Then someone asked me this simple question and the answer was clear - creative people in all shapes and forms, from artists to scientists and of course leaders. Only when I defined the core of what these people would represent and what my coaching would revolve around, I could peacefully settle on the next challenging steps forward.
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken. Maybe cliche, but easy to overlook when you are trying to fit in. And fitting in isn’t the best strategy for success and leadership.
I have a few close people that I love and admire. My dear friend Shannon, who is a great example of the leader I described above. She has the wits and the mind that can solve any problem. And she solves even the hardest ones with so much warmth and humour that it seems simply effortless.
I also admire my husband who is a great creative. He shows me how real creativity is delivered - with sweat, hard work and tears of laughter. He immerses himself in the problem at hand, becoming one with it, and then he challenges his own solutions to bring out the best with each project he works on.
And last but not least I admire my mum who as a single parent brought me up, who worked hard to provide me with food, shelter, education, travels and still had time for fantastic conversations on philosophy, physics, astronomy and paranormal activity. And still does.
There’s always something new on the horizon and at this moment I’m exploring the possibility to open up to other regions. With so many people still working from home and so many companies allowing this to happen I feel I can successfully establish my brand abroad.
What a great question! I love books and have at least 3 books stacked on my bed side that I’m reading simultaneously. I could then give a very long list of books that shook my world in the last few weeks. I’m choosing one though and that is “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures” by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s an eye opener on how little we know about forms of intelligence. It’s a humbling read and very close to my beliefs on the importance of diversity of life and its interconnectedness necessary for our survival on this planet.
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