00:01:16
So I am Marie. I am the co-founder of Innovatology and I am here with Cedric. Sorry. Yeah. Um, with Cedric, I'm the other part of, uh, of Innovatology, um, active myself in leadership at a big corporation, but I'm more excited about listening to our guests today and gain his insights, tickle his brain a bit. Yes. And, uh, also our guest today is Sir Rob. So Rob, can you please tell us something more about yourself to our audience? Sure. Absolutely. Well, I wanted to thank you both for having me on your podcast today. I'm very excited to be here. Um, and I'm glad to be sharing any of my knowledge with, uh, an experience with the audience. So I'm Rob Kamranpoor and, uh, I'm from Toronto, Canada.
00:02:10
Uh, and basically I've been working for over 20 years now in various industries. Um, I started off my career in engineering, so I am an electrical engineer, um, by default. Uh, when I got into engineering, I didn't, you know, I didn't see myself staying in engineering for long. I couldn't sit behind the computer and design all day. Uh, I like to interact with people and kind of communicate with people. So I got into project management in the early stages of my career. Um, I've done technical sales, uh, where, you know, I, I let go of the shyness and, you know, became a more of an extrovert doing that. So I highly recommend to engineers out there or anyone that's an introvert to go out and do some sales.
00:03:00
Uh, and then I got involved in a utility company. So I spent most of my career in a utility company for about 13 years. Um, came out, ran a smaller company, uh, where, you know, I, I was able to increase the revenue from five to 70 million within a year and just using the same strategies as I use with my other teams. And basically I had enough of the nine to five, uh, gig, and I just started doing my, my own work. So I do leadership coaching and training. And I also have, I'm a part owner of, uh, an engineering company. So we do utility engineering for in, in Ontario. So we launched that back in January. So, uh, like I said, I'm excited to be here and looking forward to answering any, any, any, anyone's questions with respect to leadership and mindset.
00:03:53
So you couldn't leave the engineering completely behind, I guess. No, I've, I've always been in the engineering field, but not as an engineer. Uh, that's, that's interesting. I'm, I'm, I'm very curious. Like I actually also have an engineering background and I'm actually at the moment in project management. Um, sales is something that I've contemplated, although I've never really seen it for myself because of the reasons that you've mentioned. Like it, it puts you, let's say in an awkward position, gets you out of your comfort zone. Can you maybe tell us a bit more? Like what are the key skills that you learned there in sales that are applicable to leadership anywhere? Yeah, I think, uh, first and foremost is, is communication, uh, communication. And when I meet community when I say communication is listening.
00:04:43
So if you want to be a good salesperson, you have to listen to what your client is telling you, what their wants are. It's not what you want to sell them. You got to actually hear what their problems are and try to solve their problem. And, you know, that's the same in leadership. You have to listen to your people, right? It's not what you want, you know, based all the time, what you want from them. It's listening to what they want and being able to kind of, uh, navigate those waters. Uh, for me, it's always, I've learned to put myself in learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. So always, you know, that's where you go. That's where the growth happens is when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations and you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
00:05:30
So that's when, you know, you, you kind of traject out of that box that you're in. And that's helped me a lot in networking again, uh, as a leader, talking to, talking to various, um, you know, executives when I was selling products, I got to meet a lot of executives in various organizations. And just learning how they operate, the feedback they gave you. Uh, and again, it was just taking that feedback and applying it. Um, but most importantly was building relationships. Sales is all about building relationships. Leadership is also building relationships with your team, with people across your organization, your customers. So everything kind of intertwines with each other. And I think, again, I always encourage, um, I, I, I work with a lot of engineers and I, I still work with the university that I graduated with.
00:06:28
Um, and I mentor a lot of, you know, young people there. And I always tell them, I say, take a sales job and you'll, you'll understand. Yeah. And, uh, it'll, it'll really help you in your career. And, uh, and, you know, you want to diversify your knowledge and experience. If you want to go out in the market and, you know, you're just good at one thing, that's what applies to you. And that's, you know, that's the only area that you can apply for. But now if you've got a diverse background, you've got a bigger sphere to, to apply for various positions in organizations. You also mentioned that you always have to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Do you have some strategies or tricks? How do you handle your uncomfortable situations?
00:07:19
Yeah, that's a good question. So, uh, one of the main things I think people have various things. So I do a lot of coaching and, um, a lot of the leadership coaching change turns into mindset coaching. And I think mindset is something, uh, I'm a big believer that if you can't lead yourself first, you won't be able to lead other people. So it's always working on yourself. And I've done that for many years. It's figuring out what my flaws are, figuring out what my weaknesses are and working on that. And when I say being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation is people have a lot of fear in their mind. You know, uh, self-limiting beliefs. You got the insecurities and you got the fear of, I don't know how to do this.
00:08:05
I've never done this before. And it's always taking action. You know, I'm, I was, I'm always, I've been a risk taker most of my life. I've taken a lot of risks and I'm okay with taking those risks and putting myself in uncomfortable situations. Uh, you know, sometimes you're going to fail. I've failed a lot. I, you know, I wouldn't sit here today talking to you if I didn't fail and I didn't learn from my failures. So I had a lot of time to reflect and look at, you know, my own life and everything that I've been through. And that's kind of helped me kind of navigate the waters and help other people in terms of from a coaching perspective. This is a really interesting. I just, like you said that there is like a limiting belief.
00:08:51
I just yesterday actually, uh, uh, disclosed to myself, what is my limiting belief? Uh, because, uh, yesterday I have my own company, which is in Belgium and I have a client. So I am actually a consultant in it, in digital solutions. And, uh, yesterday I actually came, uh, with the conclusion that, uh, I have a limiting belief that, uh, I am calling myself consultant because the consultant, uh, sometimes it's a really negative belief that you are, you have the client and the client have a team, which is internal and that you as a consultant, you are external. And therefore, for example, you are not taking enough responsibilities or you are not really because you want to satisfy the client, et cetera.
00:09:38
So it's a kind of like also playing into the similar kind of connotation that I realized by myself yesterday. So how would you then proceed to get rid of this limiting belief that, for example, we can take an example of myself that I realized that yesterday. Yeah, again, very interesting question. And it goes back on reflecting on, you know, what your weaknesses are. What do you have, what, why do you have those limiting beliefs? The question you got to ask yourself is the why, right? And, um, once you're able to figure out why, because, you know, is this what your beliefs were when growing up? Because your parents said, you know, this is all you're good at. Your professor told you that, your friends told you that.
00:10:27
You got to go back and figure out what the root cause of that was. And that's when the healing starts. And put yourself in a position that you say, you know what? Forget whatever happened in the past. I'm living in today. So you never look backwards. And one of the most important things for people to do, and a lot of people don't do this, is set goals. And when you set goals for yourself, you should set goals that scare you. Your goals should actually scare you, right? Because that's where the limiting beliefs is. You say, okay, I'll give you an example. I want to make $100,000. Why? Why don't you say I want to make $10 million? Because in your mind, that's very unrealistic. You can never picture yourself making that. So right there, you're limiting yourself to $100,000. And then you're going to fall below it. But if you set yourself to $10 million, what if you land on $5 million, right? You're still above the $100,000 that you thought you were capable of.
00:11:57
It's like, yeah, you're going to shoot for the moon and I mean, whether you succeed or fail, you'll still end up in the stars. No, no, exactly. Yeah. There, there, there are different paths that you can take to end up, uh, with that goal at the end of the day, uh, I also wanted to pick up on like the, the networking or like the building relationships, um, I think building relationships, building relationships is one part and I'll, I think from one point of view, building relationships is easy, but sustaining relationships, I feel is a more difficult part in, uh, in growing a network. How do you go about that? Like, uh, do you have any specific slots? Uh, what's your tip?
00:14:03
You also said at the beginning about the sales, that actually, if, uh, get your drop in the sales, however, isn't it that like when you are in the sales, you really try to have a mask, uh, some kind of like, uh, you try to be natural, of course, but, uh, you are really like in the sales, putting the mask of being somebody confident of being, for example, more, uh, like pushy, et cetera, because you want to achieve some goal. However, you don't necessarily need to be like this, uh, for example, at home. And the same is for example, with the content creators, influencers that they try to entertain the, for example, the audience, and then when you were to meet them, uh, for example, outside, uh, in person, they might be introverts, even though on the social media, they are perceiving to be extroverts. So how does it then correlate with the sales? If, uh, in this case, you want to achieve something, however, still you are having this mask because you know that with this kind of position, with this kind of attitude, you're going to achieve it, however, it cannot be sustainable all the time.
00:15:27
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00:15:43
Bon Appetit!
00:16:33
Because that's what I love doing. But at the same time, I've got to create content, so I've got to keep it engaging as well, right? I think always keep your authentic self. But the confidence, if you have to go out and build confidence, sometimes you've got to force yourself, again, to come out of that comfort zone. And that's what I think when you're talking about the masking. And this reminds me a lot of this concept that I've been hearing about, like nurture versus nature. Like, OK, someone can be a natural, but you also have a lot of people, maybe like yourself, but especially like myself. When I started here in my current company, not at Innovatology, but they put us in a position where it's not comfortable.
00:17:22
And then either you adapt and it becomes like a nurturing environment where you thrive, or it doesn't. And it has changed me as a person a lot, but it's because it was in an environment that nurtured being outgoing. And then at some point, it's no longer you going out of your comfort zone to be that authentic self, but it's more like you unlock a different level of your authentic self. And that's, I think, also what Innovatology is doing for us. It's like, maybe in the beginning it's a bit rough on the edges, but at some point it will be just like another upgrade of who we are as people. It just reminded me a bit about that. And you learn as you go. I'm pretty sure you guys have started these podcasts.
00:18:08
Were you a podcast expert when you started? I know. Definitely not me. We're really far away. So are you comfortable speaking in front of an audience globally? Like, is that something you envisioned yourself doing? So same concept, right? Yes. I have a question because you said that you are currently based in Canada, but that you are originally from Iran. And you ended up in the leadership, actually, like coaching, et cetera. I have a question about your journey. So how did you actually started to do what you are doing now? And what is your journey? I mean, of course, I am sure that you can speak about it for the full days. But just in a nutshell, to tell more about your journey, because leadership, like that I want to be in leadership, it's usually not the dream of a child, you know?
00:19:05
Like it's usually, I want to be doctor, I want to be pilot, et cetera. So how the journey started and... So again, a lot of people can kind of relate to this. Being from Iran and the culture back there, your parents either want you to be an engineer, a doctor, or in some cases, a lawyer. So I was pushed to be an engineer, but I always liked working with my hands. And I was good in math and sciences and et cetera. So going through the schooling system, and again, I had my failures along the way in university. I almost got expelled from university. I was on probation. So I've got another story there. But when I was able to get through and finally finish engineering, like I said, prior to becoming, finishing my engineering, I was part of a voluntary organization called IEEE.
00:20:11
So it's the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers. So I did that in Toronto, where I started off with having a role in community relations. And we were getting like seven people to attend our meetings. So I did that for nine years. By the time I left, I was the chair of the organization and our events hit 700 people. During that process, I got to build my own team. I got to associate with universities, et cetera. And that's where I started falling in love with leadership. And then I would see people like the Tony Robbins of the world out there. For me, it's, leadership is about, you got to be empathetic. I've seen so many people struggle, including myself. You go through organizations and you guys can attest to this.
00:21:13
You have bad managers and you have good managers. What happens when you have a bad manager? What's the impact on you, right? Yes, this is what I'm asking myself sometimes every day. So that's when I reflected to say, if I ever got into this position, what was I going to do differently, right? And once I got into a leadership position, and I think being a project manager, you're leading a project. You're kind of leading people indirectly, although they weren't direct reports, but I was coordinating with over 20 people at a time on certain projects, right? So I got to learn how to deal with people. I got to learn how to, like situational leaderships. You have different situations, you've got different people, different characters. So I'm an engineer. I had to deal with construction people.
00:22:11
Early in my career, I worked for a railway company where I worked in the field with just field people. I got to learn their language. I got to learn how to deal with field folks who do the constructions out there. There are two different cultures. And when I was a PM, I learned how to talk to engineers differently. And I got to learn how to talk with construction people differently. And I put that two together, and I was able to help bring people together on projects to make sure they're successful. And when I had my team, I used the same concept of knowing and understanding people's characteristics, knowing what people liked, what people didn't like. And I always reflected on what my managers did that I didn't like. And I wouldn't do that.
00:23:07
I did the opposite. Do you have some strategy that you are using, for example, during your coaching, so when somebody wants to become a better leader or for the companies, what is the number one strategy or a tool that you usually recommend to the people? Yeah, so I said this before. I think the first and foremost is start leading yourself. If you can't lead yourself, you'll never be able to lead other people. Remember, people look up to you, and you lead by example. So if you, I'll give you an example of this is, if you need to have difficult conversations, if you're afraid to have difficult conversations or you're confrontational, you won't be able to become a good leader. You have to be willing to stand there and control your emotions as a leader.
00:24:00
So if I come and start yelling and screaming at you, if you can't control your emotions and thoughts, you can't become a good leader. Because if you do the same as what the other person is doing, you're no better than them. You brought yourself now to their level. So you have to distinguish yourself from that person. And I'm not telling you to sit there and take abuse by people, but you have to be able to control the situation. My philosophy in leadership is lead with kindness and love. And to me, that's worked. I'm telling you, I had the most problematic people on my team that you can imagine. And I worked in a union environment. When I was able to change their attitude, just by instilling that kindness into showing them that I'm not the same as other people. And it helped me tremendously in my journey. So what do you usually do to calm down? Or for example, because for me, it's yoga, meditations, painting. What are your favorite hobbies to actually do this kind of exercise? Because if somebody is really extroverted, speaking a lot or really powerful in expressions, are there some, for example, exercises that that person can do to calm down and to really lead with the kindness?
00:25:53
Thank you so much for watching💛
00:26:32
I really like what you said that, uh, like what you consume by your mouth, but they never heard also by your ears. So does it mean that for example, what you are listening as a podcast or, uh, what, uh, uh, what, uh, what, what, what does it mean actually consuming by the ear?
00:27:34
They also did the Harvard study that they had two different flowers and to one flower they were actually speaking all of the positive stuff and to the other flower they were speaking more of the negative stuff. And then even though they gave the same nutrition and also the water, the flower actually that was negative, that was consuming the negative vibes and negative voice actually died sooner or later. So it's also the same with the human beings and even with yourself. We were just in last week, we have been in London in the health optimization summit and I don't know if you know JJ Virgin, she's from the US and she's really like into the health and biohacking etc. And she said that you can prolong your life by seven and a half years if just you switch your voice inside your head to the positive stuff. Just if you speak to yourself every day when you see yourself in the mirror, every day when whatever you are doing, if you switch this you can have seven and a half years more than before.
00:29:38
Yeah, that's true. Especially like sometimes we really like forget ourselves in the subject, et cetera. We actually have a one question from the audience. As an engineer, have you ever struggled with not being allowed to have the answer?
00:30:09
I don't really understand the question, to be honest.
00:31:00
Yes, I think that now Cedric should be inside for good, because I heard you at the beginning when you have joined, so maybe don't mute yourself, because he started to struggle when he actually muted himself. Oh, you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Okay, I only hear Marie, so I still don't see Rob anymore. So, the question actually, I don't know what the answer of the engineering question was, but I tuned in very shortly, but I was very curious about that. And now I see him again. There you go. Amazing. I don't know what you did, Marie. But I was going to be very curious about that, because I've seen this everywhere, and as an engineer myself, I always have to bite the tongue of my mouth shut to not intervene when other people are talking or to not come up with a solution myself, because you need to give people the freedom as a leader, right, to come up with their own solutions. So that's where the question came from. Sorry, I get just a notification that Rob, your browser is preventing recording, that you should refresh the page, apparently. So maybe this is where the issue is coming from. And it will again pop you in the meeting. So let's see.
00:32:52
What did you do? I told him to refresh the screen, as usual. Okay. It was really interesting. Like, I heard you talking, but not him. And it was so weird. Yeah, I'm a bit afraid that maybe some of the parts may not be recorded, because I had some notifications even before here that his computer is not allowing the recording. So now I'm not really sure. I mean, it might be recording us, right? I mean, I am for sure recorded. Yeah, that I see as well. But he had the red button previously, because I saw it, like, actual recording is higher quality. Now I'm receiving a heads up. Rob is experiencing connectivity issues. Ask him to refresh and re-enter the studio.
00:33:53
Oh, I guess there's a first for everything, right, Beba? It was really, really funny, like I wanted to unmute myself. No, no, I muted myself and then I wanted to unmute and I was like, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. What do I do? Just the two of us? No. What are you doing?
00:34:23
Yes, we hear you. Do you hear us? All right, so we can restart where we have been. So, Cedric? No, yeah, from an engineering perspective, right, and becoming a leader, I think the most difficult situation or the most difficult conversations that I have is actually the ones as a leader where I should not be giving my solutions and should allow the team to come up with their solutions. And even if they might be wrong, to allow them to hit that wall. So, how have you dealt with that one? Like, I'm very curious as an engineer. You're the last person to speak at the meeting because the minute you sit there and you give your advice or you give your opinion, everyone will gravitate towards that because, again, that fear of, oh, I don't want to go against my manager, you know, he might be right and I might be wrong.
00:35:16
So, people start, again, the self-limiting beliefs, the doubts, the insecurities, all that stuff kicks in and there will be very few people that will actually, you know, speak up and, you know, voice their opinion. So, you always try to stay quiet until everyone presents their case and then, you know, you can speak last. The other thing is I always give some sort of freedom to my team to make decisions. And my rule is if you have a problem, don't come to me with just a problem. Come to me with a problem, give me two or three options and give me a recommendation for your option. And then, we can look at it to see if we can justify it. But if you're just throwing problems at me, what do I need you? I can solve the problem myself, right? So, this is how you empower them. It's very important to empower your employees because when you do that, self-confidence goes up, they start to believe in themselves, and you create an environment where it's okay to make a mistake because at the end of the day, my hand goes up. I'm accountable for my team. So, I always tell them, you make a mistake, my hand goes up first. You never throw your people under the bus.
00:36:41
Definitely not. And I can recognize the two tips or advices that you gave because like the first one I actually put in my personal development plan this year like where I actually put myself down like look this year to really grow myself to that next level of leadership is I want to become the last person to talk in a room. And the second one I also learned very recently from Boris Groiberg from like a teacher at Harvard where he said like one, three, one, which is three solutions and then based on that you help choose the right solution moving forward. And we've been trying to reinforce that I think at home but also within our team.
00:37:23
What I do see is that people get uncomfortable with that because then they come with like two solutions and then you're still like give me another one and then they're like yeah but what should I do? So like how do you get your people then to get over that stage of uncomfortability of getting to three different alternatives? At the same time let them know that they're safe in the environment that you're not going to reprimand them for giving you the wrong answer or bringing something that doesn't make sense. It takes practice and it takes trust. They have to trust you so you have to walk the talk. So if you're telling if you're going to tell them hey it's okay to make a mistake but the minute they make a mistake you reprimand them they'll never trust you again. So here's an example and I guarantee you go to any organization, look at any manager you want including the managers you've
00:38:52
Gibbs loves.
00:39:03
Not for all of them, probably.
00:39:26
That's really nice. Yeah. I hate you.
00:39:39
I have usually that there are three good things you can afford to do one negative stuff. So that's because it's like also like to achieve some kind of like balance that also like with in the relationship, like, it's the three positive things. So like, give your partner flower, give them the chocolate, then invite for the wellness, for example, and then you can, you can screw one thing. But if it's versa, that you screw three things, and then you bring a flower, it doesn't work like this.
00:41:09
It's quite challenging though, because negative news doesn't sell. That's why also in the news you will only see negative stuff usually, because it's very difficult to sell news only based on positivity. Like, hey, the Earth will survive for another 500 years. Good job. No, that's not going to work.
00:41:34
It's a very good question.
00:41:44
Yeah, it's like addiction and it's addiction. It's dopamine. It's bringing you the, the kind of like, uh, not excitement if the word is finishing tomorrow or something, but it's like dopamine, dopamine. It's also like while you are watching the TV shows, you see drama, you see gossips, it's entertainment, et cetera. And it's, uh, it's, uh, definitely like the grateful things I really needed. I usually do it in the evening, uh, that I usually repeat, uh, 10 things, uh, that I say, I thank you today for something. I thank you today for something. And I do it usually in the evening and in the morning, I didn't yet try. Maybe I should start. Uh, but, uh, I really go along with this like positive mindset and what we eat and what we hear is like shaping ourselves.
00:42:35
But I think that every, every one of us ever met somebody who was toxic, who was rather boss than the leader. And especially young people, they are struggling with this because if you are in an organization where actually is the hierarchy, and then there is a boss who is suppressing you because you are in the hierarchy right now in the organization, it's really killing the leader that you can become because you are maybe like them thinking, maybe this is how the world is. And I am maybe broken because I want to be different, but it's, it's not that tomorrow it will get better. It's usually long-term development and not a lots of people, especially young, they survive this development.
00:43:20
So how would you work with this, with the young, uh, young people who are having, uh, the toxic boss at work or like boss in general in a hierarchy? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So again, I think I'm going to go back to using the example that we've all, um, we've all been, a lot of us have been exposed to bad bosses, right? And in today's society, I find that to be a major problem because now you see the mental health come to serve surface. A lot of people are struggling and you know, your manager doesn't only impact you at work, but when you go home, that impact is on your family, on your loved one, on your kids, however way you want to look at it, right?
00:44:10
Why are we tolerating that? Like, why are we allowing ourselves to tolerate it? So one of my examples is, you know, you're not a tree. If you're not happy, move, do something about it, right? Simple. At the same time though, again, if you, if you've got that control of your mindset where you can control your emotions, you stay, you learn a little bit and then you move on, you don't let it impact you like some people let, let it impact them quite a bit and if it's way too toxic for you and it becomes very aggressive, move. If, if something is not in your control, you can't do anything about it. All you do is beat yourself up and you stress yourself out. It's not doing anything to the other person.
00:44:59
It's just impacting you. So why are you allowing that to happen? So it's on you. You've made that decision to stay, to let this impact you and you're just taking a beating in every, in every way. It's actually funny. I just, uh, I just screenshots, uh, I just made a screenshot today of exactly the same thing on LinkedIn, uh, and it was said by the CEO and founder of the diary of a CEO, uh, and he said, if you don't like your job, quit the sooner you do, the sooner you will find work that aligns with your core values, leading to greater productivity and success. It's quite, uh, it's quite funny because I just, uh, actually read it today for the first time, which, uh, was like, I was like agreeing on it.
00:45:49
So I screenshot it and now we are actually telling, uh, the same thing. So it's, uh, yeah. One thing I learned in my career, and I give this advice to all the younger people. When you're out searching for, for work, don't look at a company, look at the manager, look at the hiring, the person hiring you because they will either make or break your career. And I promise you that, right. And if do your, you do your check where you want to be in somewhere where there's a good culture, you know, culture starts at the top. So if there's that toxicity at the top, guess what? And there's an example that people, you know, using their content, people don't leave, uh, you know, companies, they leave bad managers.
00:46:38
I partially disagree with that because think about this, that it's the culture that accepts that manager to be where they are and they don't do anything about it. So maybe that manager isn't trained to be a good leader. They've, they don't have any leadership development plans. So can you always blame that manager? No, but you can blame the people on top that are creating that culture. That's allowing those managers to stay. Right. Yeah, I, I, I can feel this, uh, I actually like was thinking about the same thing. Like, uh, when I started, uh, the job hunting and when I got, uh, into the labor market, I was actually thinking if, because like you have managers all over the place.
00:47:30
I mean, like everybody's called somehow manager, like social media manager, project manager, community manager, all of us are managers at some point. And I was like thinking if there is actually an infrastructure, which is training these managers. And then I read somewhere that the people who end up being a managers, they don't necessarily have degree or the training in being a managers. And this totally changed my mindset about, uh, proceeding with my career because I was, I look at the manager and I really assessed by the critical perspective. If I like, how do they manage? If I liked it, I implemented it. If I didn't like it, I said how I would do it differently. And, uh, I didn't, uh, I was not dependent on their style of management because I think that not a lot of people know that managers actually don't get the training in management and that it's really rare actually.
00:48:30
Absolutely. So I'm going to ask you a question. I'll ask both of you a question. What's the difference between a manager and a leader? Hmm. That's tricky. Um, I would say that for me, a leader, uh, first of all, would not speak the first as I do right now. If I took something from this podcast, it would be the number one, but, uh, I see a leader navigating, uh, the landscape of the ship. Uh, and, uh, as you said before, like, uh, there is, uh, not the direct impact of, uh, actually you are giving the freedom to your managers who are responsible to the different departments or the different expertise in their area. And they are having different teams. Whereas the leader is someone who is setting the scene and navigating the ship, uh, for me.
00:49:22
Okay. Cedric? Uh, yeah. So I think a manager manages people so they can go into really detail as well. Like looking, okay, what's your workflow? What's your structure? What's your day to day? Like they, they, they manage, they can manage people. Whereas for me, a leader is they provide the North star, the moon, the, the what, as well as the why, but they give the freedom towards their people on the, how they give the framework. And then within that framework, the team is, is, is allowed to operate free freely. And if pressure from the outset comes into that boundary, the leader is also the first one to step in and to protect that boundary that, that for me is a, is a difference between, between a leader and a manager, a leader is giving that boundary, giving the why, the fire, the passion to get to the North star and giving the freedom to the, to the, to the team to get there, whereas a manager. Could be more like, look, you're not doing this right. And then you need to go there and then you need to go there. So they're managing the people along that workflow, which yeah, is a difference with a leader.
00:50:47
Bye.
00:52:19
I'm just wondering why then do we have the positions, the professional positions called managers, but we don't have professional positions called leaders? Why we don't have social media leader? I mean, I never heard, I never heard this. So like, it's, it's for me, like you are not, you usually are not selected as a leader, you become one, but why we don't actually have someone like positioned to be called leader in society?
00:53:00
I hope later. Hmm, Until it'll be sustainable.
00:54:33
So I have the last question from my side. What actually would you recommend or advise to young professionals just joining the labor market and wanting to be a leader, not becoming a toxic boss or really going by as an example, what kind of advice would you give to that person? And it can also come from your own experience, what you actually brought yourself from your practical experience. Yeah, I think again, I'm actually having, I'm organizing a young professional leadership summit this fall and I'm bringing a whole bunch of leaders to talk to these points too. My mission is to create tomorrow's leaders and I see that as the biggest gap in a lot of the industries and a lot of people that I talk to.
00:55:28
And I've seen it throughout my career and I want to do something about it. That's my purpose and my mission. I think the best thing young people can do again is learn to lead themselves. Start working on yourself, figure out who you are, find out your purpose, be a good human being. When you're leading people, you're leading other human beings. These are not animals, these are not robots that you're dealing with. You see people being treated like animals and robots, but we're not, right? The minute that you can understand that and have compassion and have that kindness, I promise you, your people will go above and beyond for you. Thank you. I think that's quite impressive indeed and really good advice.
00:56:21
What about like, is there any, let's say tech tool that you would recommend for anyone looking to, let's say, enhance their leadership skills? Because I mean, leadership skills is more you as a person, but are there any technical tools or tech tools that you can advise that can get people to take that next step when they have it inherently in themselves? So again, when you say tech tools, I'm going to gear towards, okay, there's social media that you can follow certain people. Like I said, I always like to share content for those purposes is to, because a lot of people don't have mentorship. Mentorship is also very important, right? They don't even know how to approach people to get those, like start that mentorship relationship.
00:57:09
So I think social media can be a bad thing, but it can also be positive. So again, how you look at it and how you deal with it, there's content on there that can help you. There's videos that are inspiring, motivating, whatever you want to call it. So there's a lot of information online using technology. So utilize that, right? We look at AI and we always, again, people look at the negative aspect right away. Oh, I'm going to lose my job to AI. Why don't you look at it in a way that it's going to enhance how you're doing your job? So if you're poor in writing emails or letters or reports, learn from AI. Like don't allow it to take over your brain and you know, you now numb yourself, but learn from it to say, ah, this is how they wrote it.
00:58:01
This is the structure and learn from it and practice. Don't let the limiting belief to over-conquer yourself. That's perfect. All right. So I think that we are here almost for one hour and we get really lots of insights about how you can get out from the toxic boss or how you should start as a young leader starting on the labor market. We also covered the innovation and tech in the leadership where actually for the networking, if you start just with the social media posting, it might be the exact thing to do because then you will more coin your leadership as well as the confidence and what you are offering to the world. And the last but not least, be a good person because the good person is doing more good persons. So thank you so much, Rob. And we will be in touch with you soon regarding this podcast and also to our audience. Have a nice rest of the day, wherever you are. Thanks for the very valuable conversation, Rob. Thank you so much. Thank you.
