Victor’s 10 Reflections on Leadership - Bonus: What does tough leadership mean
Steve Rosvold 00:05
Welcome to CFO talk. I’m your host, Steve Rosvold, Chief Learning Officer at CFO.University. Joining us from Wichita, Kansas today is Victor Ojeleye.
We’ve had a couple of conversations and I have learned how you approach people. So when you speak of toughness I know you are not talking about being mean spirited, rude or disrespectful. How does toughness fall into your 10 leadership observations?
Victor Ojeleye 00:41
I think it’s just in taking the direct approach. I recently took a survey, and they talked about your communication style, is it direct or indirect? And it’s just simply eye contact and speaking slowly; addressing the person that owns or is accountable for the for the task or the initiative and saying, Hey, what you’re working is not meeting or goals or what you’re doing is not working. We’re not meeting expectations, what do we need to do differently? Or ‘ We committed to’ . using the phrases that help us understand. What is the thing that we agreed to? What is the timeline, we agreed to get it done? And what are the roadblocks? And then also, how can I help? Like, what are the roadblocks? What else do we not know? So I try to blend those things together. And again, it’s not perfect, but I’ve tried to use that style.
And then there’s times where, yes, I’m smiling now. But there’s times when I am pretty frustrated that we’re behind schedule on something. So the emotion you have to be authentic. That, hey, we’re not doing what we said we would do so what needs to change. I think there’s a balance again, we’re all human, you can make mistakes, but I definitely always try to make sure I’m cautious of, hey, I gave that person feedback, or I said this that way. And I try to ask for feedback on “Hey, how did I come across in that discussion?” So it’s, it’s an evolving process, but definitely, as I said, I’ve tried to continue to learn because I’ve gotten the feedback that if you are a nice guy and you have good intentions it still may be hard for you to get things done, especially when you’re influencing people without authority. So, it’s a journey again.
Steve Rosvold 02:23
You are learning a lot. I can see that by the way you strive to deal with people. Stephen Covey uses this term, “with people slow is fast and fast is slow”. The point he’s trying to make is, relationships are really important. You have to be careful and be thoughtful, and it sounds like you’re really taking the time to know how to deal with people - how to how to work with them, how to appreciate them and how to make sure they know you’re working for them, even if you have to give tough love or whatever the words are that we use to help them keep accountable.
That wraps up this video short taken from our longer interview with Victor, Reflections on Leadership. CFO.University is a community of member scholars, companies and trusted advisors committed to the professional development of chief financial officers. Learn more about us at CFO.University.
Until next time, Enjoy. Learn. Engage
Find Victor’s other Reflections on Leadership HERE
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