What impact can leadership initiatives have on teamwork?
In our newest episode Jon Talbot, Senior Vice President Leadership Tribe at Deutsche Telekom, and Dina Tsybulskaya, CEO at Crnogorski Telekom talk with Hanne and Svitlana about the heart in leadership. How can leaders create followers instead of just manage employees? And how can leadership initiatives influence the way we work together?
So, what did they discuss about leadership’s influence on collaboration?
Hanne Lindbæk
Welcome back to the human centric podcast. We are honored today to have two very busy people visiting us from the Deutsche Telekom universe. And we are discussing a topic that’s been up a couple of times already, but I don’t think we’re ever going to leave it behind us. We are going to spend time today discussing leadership, leadership initiatives in corporations, how as leaders, we should take them on board, how they can actually steer and aid and help us what gets in the way. How can we humanize and make real the leadership challenges that we are facing every day? I can’t wait to explore that with our guests today. Svitlana, who is in front of the microphones right now.
Svitlana Bielushkina
We have some great guests today. We have John Talbot. Hello, hello, there. And John is a senior vice president. Suppose if you check his LinkedIn, it says he’s driving in leadership. And John is not coming from the HR organization. He’s actually having been working in marketing, in transformation in marketing; transformation and strategy. And for three or four different markets, John, isn’t it?
Jon Talbot
That’s correct. That’s great. Yes, I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Germany recently, but also worked, obviously, in the UK and in Holland as well.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Welcome, John. And we also have Dina Tsybulskaya connecting from Montenegro. Dina is our seasoned CEO. And she’s right now managing our business unit in Montenegro. And Dina is experiencing the leadership in day to day leading teams leading country, leading the European settlements along with us. So welcome, Dina.
Dina Tsybulskaya
Thank you, happy to be here. And I think it will be interesting for all of us to talk about leadership, as it’s an everyday job for us now.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. And thank both of you guys for showing up. I think the time has come to try and kind of put into a frame what we’re doing here today, because it’s such a huge, big topic of leadership, isn’t it? And it’s kind of one of those words that we just kind of use without really filling it with content. If I can ask the both of you, what lies at the heart for you of leadership here now in 2021? Should we do ladies first dinner? What would it be for you?
Dina Tsybulskaya
Okay, what lies in the heart of leadership is, as always, you have to be taking people behind you on to something which is new into something which is different, and being courageous enough to go the first steps so that you can serve as an example and that people can follow if they need to. On the other hand, this one is a little different, maybe lately now is that, ideally, if it’s not about courage, but it’s about skills and understanding, then you should be in out together with people and making sure that they do have enough skills, and they do have enough that they can read it themselves.
Hanne Lindbæk
So you’re describing very accurately this phenomenon of, like, needing to look ahead and venture into the unknown and being someone who goes in the light first. And then at the same time creating following and followership and looking back and understanding and showing empathy. It’s a bit of a gap sometimes, isn’t it? That’s a beautiful definition.
Dina Tsybulskaya
It is a yes, that that’s a way you need to feel it was yourself. Oh, that’s what your role is, I believe, as a leader.
Hanne Lindbæk
Oh, that’s brilliant. Jon, how are you going to follow this?
Jon Talbot
No, I think yes, that’s it. Oh, sorry. I think I like the difference between managers and leaders, really, I think sort of managers manages the sort of current situation. And I’m always looking for leaders who are prepared to disrupt and make the changes and also disrupt themselves. So when when everything’s going well, are you prepared to make the changes as well and not have the changes just happen to you? And of course, when you disrupt, and you make the changes, as I said before, are people prepared to follow you? Otherwise, you’re just the lone nut going in a direction. And that isn’t as powerful as when you make the team with you. So that’s the big thing. I think that makes it strong? Yeah.
Hanne Lindbæk
I felt that, as you said it, we fail to disrupt because we shy away from the change if something is actually working quite well, don’t we? Yes.
Jon Talbot
Exactly. It takes a much stronger leader to look ahead. Think about potential issues and risks, and also chain something that’s good rather than wait until it comes upon you. And then everybody can manage those situations because they’ve got no choice.
Hanne Lindbæk
So there is this; we can talk about like before, and then the present tense. And we can define the difference between kind of the bosses of old, and the leadership philosophies that kind of govern the space these days, has it changed in the last few years for the two of you.
Dina Tsybulskaya
I just wanted to say, I mean, probably still in the very essence of leadership of team building, it doesn’t change because still is pretty human to look for someone who is capable of taking the entire responsibility. And to know that wherever decision, you will be taking whatever path you will be going, there is one person who says, okay, whatever happens is my responsibility still, it’s still on. And I believe that that’s something which will never change; and this is why we need leaders in structures, a dial another dial, lean, whatever. And that’s not about position, it’s about the person who says, Guys, I’m with you, I’m standing strong behind you with you. What did change is that I believe that the hierarchy, this looking upwards, is already no value per se? And that we all understand that just being there somewhere in the tower on the hill, does not add any value, that people don’t follow you because you have a position or a description, they follow you because they believe you. And that’s I believe something which is probably sort of normal, normal, more than, or at least it was stipulated like that recently between, and we sort of all adopted it. But I believe for a change.
Hanne Lindbæk
That’s a brilliant point, I think it’s easy to believe that all the social hierarchies are kind of flattening out now, because of all the agile and the growth mindset and all of this and it, it certainly is flattening. But, you’re pointing to the very important idea that we still need a hierarchy, we still need someone at the end of the day to be going. We’re going this direction.
Dina Tsybulskaya
Yes. And don’t be afraid. Because even if you know, go south, it’s still you know, me who will cover you if needed.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. But, still, Jon, pretty tough act to follow this.
Jon Talbot
I’ll pick up. Now, I think, in the past, a lot of leadership was information is power. And a lot of leadership was, you know, I know what’s going on, then I will cascade it. And now, I think generations coming through have access to lots and lots of information, everything is much more open. In fact, if anything, teams are even more knowledgeable than their leaders now. So this information imbalances have gone. And I think that’s where leaders now have to find their new value add. And it doesn’t come from the nicer seat in the meeting room, or the title. It comes from inspiring people. And as said before, do I want to work for this person? And team’s labor market is much more open, young talent comes in. They work for a few years trying something does it work for me, if not, I’ll move on to something else. So there’s a constant flow, there’s a constant opportunity space. And teams are much more demanding as to what they want and take control of directions. So leaders have to be very aware of that inspire empathy, understanding, as well as driving to a business outcome. And if you get that balance wrong, then you have a huge disconnect.
Hanne Lindbæk
Absolutely. So the information flow, having changed, so severely that has created a new dynamic, and together with the idea that people may be more kind of able and see the idea of moving from even moving companies is not that much of a threat or so dangerous anymore. That flow also changes the role of the leader. I think that sounds recognizable. I’m also very aware that the power dynamics and the information dynamics have shifted in the last year because of the COVID pandemic. Right? Because suddenly the people who are in the know, are maybe the people who went into the office in some cases, or the people who weren’t in that meeting, or were in that meeting. Things have changed a lot in the last year. But
Jon Talbot
Also, we’re all in it together. Let’s build on that. That’s the big leveler. We’re all in it together. Everyone can catch COVID. Yeah, everybody’s sitting at home feeling this is strange. You know, and so leaders can add value and support, but they can’t suddenly give this magic answer. But in a way that brings out the more human centric side of leadership, because you’re following that person because they’re listening. They support, and they’re working with you, because we’re all in it together. And that’s what the pandemic has done.
Hanne Lindbæk
Oh, I love that. And isn’t that weird how that is juxtaposed to the idea that suddenly we’re not able to be in the same room anymore. So we will have the same experience, but we share it via screens as the COVID pandemic. HDR leadership, Dina?
Dina Tsybulskaya
In a way, yes, from the point of view that, you know, you have to also coordinate a lot of things much differently. So you have to give people more actual freedom, and more trust that, okay, you once met up, you discuss you made a decision. And that decision will be now going its own way and being realized, I think from this perspective, definitely, you cannot just, you know, knock on different doors and say, Aha, how you’re doing. And I’m not only talking about me, and I’m talking about all the leaders in the company, as it does take away this personal touch in a way, but it’s also requiring extra empathy to still keep this connection with people even though we are remote. Plus, I think, on the other hand, COVID helped us all to build a more personal relation, because it’s now okay to ask, like, how are you? How is your family? You know, and it was a regular thing, and people were sharing much more openly because it was, you know, much more normal thing to share, which was strangely, you know, strange development. If something, were you sitting at home and talking over zoom.
Hanne Lindbæk
There’s been strange consequences hasn’t there of like seeing suddenly you’re in somebody’s bedroom, and suddenly, you’re seeing someone’s cat, and you’re this, this stuff going on? Anyway, let’s bring us to today’s topic. Svetlana, bring us to the initiative that is so fresh off the trolley here and telecom.
Svitlana Bielushkina
You know, I was fascinating to follow John and Dena talking about personal perception of leadership and how you live it and how you view it is also very important to have company perception of leadership, what is expected? What is changing, and be very clear articulating? What is leadership with Deutsche Telekom, per se. And interestingly enough, Deutsche Telekom started to transform and revisit leadership, just before pandemic hits. Right, John. And I loved how the whole work was created. And now it’s called Leadership anchors. And if you take a moment, if you just think of the word anchor, yeah, it’s something that grounds you. It’s something which gives you home, that’s where you can connect to if you really have to check on yourself, you know how you’re doing. So don’t just help convert now have a few leadership anchors, which we really encourage, and you want to see those anchors in our leaders, and being very transparent, very open what they are in June, you’ve been driving that. Tell us a bit more what those anchors are, and how you have been designing them.
Jon Talbot
Okay, thank you. Yeah. I mean, Deutsche Telekom, has some very strong guiding principles, which go out through the company. But we were looking at the principles and thinking, well, leaders are almost in a unique position to influence and what behaviors do we want leaders to work on within those guiding principles. And we didn’t want to sort of produce another set of posters or big books full of philosophical themes, which we can all read in the books from Harvard professors. He wants you to find some sort of behaviors in there that leaders can really demonstrate for future leadership. So what we decided towards, let’s work on some leadership anchors, and rather than, as they be too theoretical, we put them into our interviewing approach. So we said, let’s make them very practical and simple. So, when we’re interviewing people for leadership positions, yes, we ask about the guiding principles, that’s great. But as a leader, you have a unique position to push something. So let’s really dig into some of those. So let me give you an example. So we have a guiding principle of getting things done in Deutsche Telekom is a new one for the last year and a half. And it’s everybody in the company needs to get things done. But for leaders, I want our leaders to be courageous and take risks to disrupt. So within getting things done, I want to see some of those behaviors in there. And here in our interview guide are four or five questions that you would ask for potential candidates to see whether that individual has that kind of caliber, and could add value to the Deutsche Telekom family, and we have over 700 interviews, a year, conducted leader on leader. So getting this sort of standard getting some focus on some of these leadership anchors, it is very important for us to raise the bar of overall leadership in telecom. And to be fair, its leadership is pretty good in our company. We’ve just been having the pulse results. And when we ask all our people about leadership, and how would you rate your leader, it’s in the high 80s. So the teams are pretty pleased with leadership generally, but as I said before, the trick is to keep disrupting and keep changing. And we’re still not happy. And we still want to keep raising the bar.
Hanne Lindbæk
So here’s a kind of leadership anchor actually telling us that it’s allowed to be courageous, you’re allowed to take personal initiative and take personal action. And you’re showing that even in the interview guide, I love how this is actually showing leaders out there, what their mandate is, in a way.
Jon Talbot
Yes, absolutely. And I think people watching this podcast who are in big corporate companies probably share this challenge, that you could take an approach in leadership of just following all the processes, going to all the meetings, ticking all the boxes, and then you have two years later, you look back, and you think, what have I really changed, you know, where have I really taken it from here to here. And the people who manage that are the people who, at certain points, show courage, take some risks, and focus. And that’s what we’re looking for in leadership. It’s a big company, you’ve got to get cut through. And I’m looking for some of those qualities, both internally and also when we recruit for the marketplace.
Hanne Lindbæk
So I’m really sorry to have to quote Harvard to you. But there’s an old Harvard leadership definition. It’s very quick, and it goes like this. Leadership is the instigation and the implementation of change. And that also, to me, speaks somehow of a curve kind of ending. There’s a beginning, there’s a middle, and there’s an ending to these initiatives, and also maybe, therefore, a chance for leaders to move on, after something is finished. Dina, what are your thoughts on this?
Dina Tsybulskaya
Usually, initiatives need to finish, they need to have a result, because otherwise we are tricked into having a process and enjoying the process, which can lead to nowhere inventions. So yes, I mean, everything has to be measured. Everything has to be, you know, tangible in the end. On the other hand, you know, it always about, you know, something short term and long term. Typically, they’re saying leaders are about long term, mid to long term, they need to see strategy, they need to understand where are we going big time, which is true. But in reality, I believe that my only relief that a good leader is that he understands what our short moves today, which will have a long term effect tomorrow. And sometimes it’s extremely difficult, because when you decide to something big and something bright, and something so tempting. And let us go all there, and it sometimes goes you go nowhere, eventually, yeah. When the small steps which are not visible today, maybe or which are sort of seem so mundane, so routine, and still keep people believing that you are actually going a big way. I believe that’s one of the biggest challenges actual, so let’s do small things today, so that we will have something big tomorrow, you need to convince people.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And I think convincing is exactly in this area of also minding the gap. Our poll survey results right now are excellent, and we have a clear picture of the anchors, which we really want in the company of Deutsche Telekom, both here in Germany and across our international entities. Still, I think we should continue to strive to close the gap between what we used to have, possibly before it’s what we need to have in the future. How do you close gaps in your country, how do you work with a gap in your day-to-day role as a CEO in Montenegro, and also from your side job as the leader of a leadership tribe across all countries? What do you do to help people close the gap between where we are and where we need to be?
Jon Talbot
Yeah, I think the first thing on any closing the gap thing, and this is my sort of commercial head coming in, again, is finding the pain point or the problem you’re trying to solve. So much of what we do, we sort of throw training at things, or we throw a solution already before we’d been really clear what the issue is. And that can be from a personal point of view, or a task. So for me, it’s always about, you know, identifying that very concretely where the challenge is. And then it’s like when we worked on this interview guide, then, very quickly, you know, pilot and try some things. So, you know, try some solutions. You know, don’t wait too long, try a few things. And then if you find that that is something that works, you just get on with it and move quickly. So for me there, it’s about being razor sharp on the challenges you have, and then experimenting very quickly on some solutions. And then when you get the right one that fits, you know, getting after it.
Svitlana Bielushkina
So there is no one answer, fusing all, so it really has to be connected to the problem. So I appreciate how this interview guide helps in the day-to-day, very practical, very down-to-earth, when you’re hiring a manager or a leader, you can really use it, because it helps you choose the right person. We want to have in the company to be a part of our DNA in Deutsche Telekom. Dina, what about yourself? How do you work with the minds of the gap on the country level with your people?
Dina Tsybulskaya
Now, I believe in small groups and tools, I very much believe in tools. And that’s why I love this anchor initiative so much, because it’s concrete, and its big values turned into something very concrete, which you can use, and I love things like that, you know, these are these small steps that eventually lead to something big. And I very much build on what we discuss now about commercial initiatives. And it’s sort of relatively easy, because yes, has to fail concept, you have the couple of ideas, you test them. And then you follow. Yet for me, there are things which are not that easy. From this perspective, especially everything connected to HR, or people management. And their failures are very difficult, actually, to manage after that. I mean, we had our experience in the company where there was a couple of let’s say HR related signs, which were not that successful from exactly people eyes. And then I believe the biggest challenge here is to make your team believe that you learn lessons from that, but you are capable to fix the mistakes. First, that you’re able to admit, some things were wrong. And this admitting takes courage because in somebody’s eyes, admitting you made the mistakes, makes you weak and makes you a leader, which is not good enough. So you know, combining these two being still a leader and saying, Guys, everything is okay, we know we’re Where are we going? This is probably the biggest challenge for me. And this is this, closing the gap. You know, okay, let’s take this other small steps, which I believe will lead us where it’s needed.
Hanne Lindbæk
It seems to me that, somehow, this connects with initiatives like growth mindsets or agile work models, because what you’re pointing out is having the patience and vulnerability to be able to share and stay. Dare to fail and fail fast, it’s so easy to preach, but when you actually do it, sometimes it takes a long time, or you know, there are real expenditures, there are real costs associated with it. So I think it’s one of the things I think a lot about leadership is that we need to keep it real and keep it human. I now kind of get into all of these big philosophies, because we all know what it would be nice to do or to be. That’s not where the difficulty hits us. It’s where the idea of whom we ended up being the whole time, but gets in the way heart stress, too little time, people’s emotions, your own emotions, right? There’s all of these obstacles. Really? I don’t know. Do you have any experience with that, John? What gets difficult, you who teach other leaders how to lead? What gets difficult for you as a leader?
Jon Talbot
Yeah, I think, again, with this kind of corporate environment, I think the challenge is always the balance between the sort of lights on day-to-day activity, which, if you drop the ball on that, there are immediate consequences. And that is the thing that is always pulling you, versus the more transformational stuff that you know, you know, long term that will build change. But somehow, it’s never quite on the urgent list. So for me with my teams is always trying to get this balance between doing a great job today, but also having a few topics where we keep disrupting in a given example, and diversity. So we’re pushing diversity heavily in telecom, as most companies are at the moment. And, you know, we’re very good at you know, we interview people on a one to one basis, and we’re thinking, Oh, that’s great, you know, diverse candidate, good international background, you know, worked in many places, you know, quite young and dynamic new ideas. So this is all working. Now, that’s kind of Horizon one great activity. But how do you put some things in which systemically change the process, so you don’t have, and we have a talent pool that I think you’ve discussed before on this. And so in the talent pool, we do, actively put in, we want 30 to 40%, for example, people you know, with divers, or females or whatever background in that pool, so leaders can look at that pool when they’re looking for vacancy. So, at one level, you’re tactically dealing with situations of interviewing or the other level, you’re thinking, what are systemic things can I put in place, which actually mean it starts to become normal and automatic. And for me, that’s the big challenge in leadership, trying to balance that To You can’t be all the way over here, and you can’t be all the way there. And that I think, for me, personally is my one.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love what you’re saying about how the systems we create today can become the norms of tomorrow. So how important isn’t that to pay attention to that? What is that challenge? If we take ourselves to like zooming in on the telecom industry, if we dare to do that for a second? Is there something telecom specific in terms of what we need our leaders to do these days? What is particularly needed in telecom right now?
Svitlana Bielushkina
Yeah, technology leader. And real fun, I think about Deutsche Telekom is one of the biggest brands on the planet. And they’re doing fantastic things impacting societies in bridging digital divide, and importance of the passion for technology. I think it’s unique for our industry, passion for technology, opening up the expertise and experts inside the company, getting them up from the market to join Deutsche Telekom to create impact for our customers, is a unique thing. And I know Hannah, this is our episode number, I don’t know what is the number but every time we talk about in different topics, energy, and passion comes up. So I see a lot of passion in the tea for technology, I see a lot of passion to change, passion to really make an impact on the customer.
Hanne Lindbæk
That’s unique, it is very easy, looking from the outside. And it’s very easy to see the intense pressure you guys are under, in terms of disrupting and understanding what lies ahead of you and understanding the future. So am I right in assuming that courage plays a part here?
Jon Talbot
Yes, it does. But let me just build on Atlanta’s point, I mean, technology business, got to understand had technology. But most of our customers don’t really care about the technology part. I just had a new router put in this week at home. And I suddenly realized how little knowledge I had. And I ended up asking questions like, I just wanted to work in the bedroom here, I just wanted to be faster in the lounge here. And that’s how a customer thinks they, they want us to take away the complexity of technology. They don’t know whether it’s a mesh, or they just want it to work, they want it to be simple. They want to know how to fix it. And so the job of leaders and telco is to really take all this great technology and leading technology and make it as simple as possible for customers. And then it just works and everybody’s happy. And so it’s a very simple thing, but hard to do. Because technology is changing. Daily. In our sector, we move so fast. There’s always a new fold and new technology. You know, the cloud is now normal, you know, 10 years ago, nobody knew what that was. So all these trends come in and customers will, why is this cloud. So leaders have to really be up-to-date and telco to translate into something that works.
Hanne Lindbæk
And making sure that we normalize living with the uncertainty of the new anyway, even as customers I really recognize that because I’m constantly left feeling foolish, that I don’t understand why that I do. So it’s reassuring to hear that it’s the same thing to you guys. What about you dinner? What do you if you were to kind of go, this is what a leader in telecom needs?
Dina Tsybulskaya
I think that the difference between telcos and other industries is that we have a history as funny as it sounds, but I’m relatively long and short at the same time. And now, because we have a history, we have also our standards, and we are very much, you know, zero failure companies, by our nature, we are very, very prudent in how we operate, unlike, let’s say, all these startups and, you know, this minimum viable product concept, etc. And that’s now how we should transform this unique skill of being so reliable, into the fact that we are proud about it. And we are still capable of operating in this very demanding surrounding which we created for ourselves, that we are still with the customers, we are happy about it and we can provide it. It’s pretty challenging, and it’s very demanding. On the other hand, we lost the pride in ourselves a bit. We are so challenged from all the signs here, you know, the big companies from this challenge that challenge this disrupted. And we sort of forgot that actually, we are our only one company, and as a telco who is which it was the customer 24/7 But like really 24/7 And that’s actually something we should be so proud about. And
Hanne Lindbæk
I have to I have to stop you right there and celebrate that dude, I think that is, that was one heck of a point right there the idea that when there’s so much pressure, and so many layers of pressure coming your way, kind of at the same time, here, you are so good at delivering. And for those of you listening in, guys, if you didn’t hear the last episode, this is like the 23rd most successful brand on the planet these days. So there’s no small company we’re talking to today, the idea of actually taking the time to stop and feel the pride and to celebrate. Oh my god, that just speaks to me. That’s quite profound. What do you think of the celebration? I mean, it’s so self-explanatory. But take me there. What does it do when you as a leader, Dina managed to celebrate and tell your team members that you’re proud of them? What does it create?
Dina Tsybulskaya
I mean, it creates happiness, actually, as simple as it sounds. But people at all of us want to be part of something good. All of us want to be part of something in our where we can contribute, where we can do things better for others, as well. And when you’re saying, Guys, let’s be proud of ourselves, we are very important. And COVID, by the way, brought it to the next level. It made it so obvious that without telcos, our world would collapse much faster and much more disastrous, disastrous way. And that also was a bit of an eye-opening to ourselves. We understood how significant we are, and how much responsibility of course it has behind but still, you know, it feels good. And I believe feeling good moves you forward. Always.
Hanne Lindbæk
Hopeful. Yeah. So John, is there something in the leadership anchors about feeling good about celebrating.
Jon Talbot
Lately, there’s been there’s a lot in here, let me choose the best one. So I gain and give trust by being authentic and empathetic, accountable for the good of our people. I grow myself and others. I provide thought leadership for teams, so a lot in there are about people. And I think that’s a big shift as well, in the current world and future leadership is a lot more is about creating diverse teams, or looking at the skills of your teams. And these things are becoming more important now than perhaps in the past, which was very heavily on a vision and your own personal skill set. It’s now about how you develop others in your group.
Hanne Lindbæk
So leaders growing other leaders. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. I have to ask you, because I was curious as an onlooker to the organization, I’m aware that you are called the head of the leadership tribe. Like you’re the kind of the Gandalf of leadership development in dice at some stage and then maybe not Gandalf?
Jon Talbot
No, no. Okay. But yes. Leadership tribe, then yes. So what do we get there? My role is about raising the bar of leadership. Yep. And we have a group called the leadership tribe. And we have two teams really, and one looks at the lifecycle of all executives, and supports them through that journey. And the other team looks at the development tools that are there, the trainings, the programs that can take you to a high level, and we call it a try, because we’ve gotten into agile as well. So we have chapters, we have squads, which is new for us as well, we’ve been doing that for only a year now. So we’re also in that to think so hence the tribe piece.
Hanne Lindbæk
So hence the tribe. It’s so because words are important, aren’t they? And you can have such a dualistic relationship to a word like tribe, I, for one, really, really buy into that kind of thing. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? It’s tribal. And we like to commune and connect in ways that can only be well described if you use words like tribal, but it can get so wishy-washy or weird content, it’s so essential to keep on the right side of the words did not you’re laughing, what are you thinking?
Dina Tsybulskaya
I love the job terminology. Generally, I’m skeptical about it. I have to. But you know, it sort of makes you feel younger. And if you are called Gandalf. Yeah,
Svitlana Bielushkina
I think it’s a fun part because yes, indeed, being global HR in Deutsche Telekom, we did have a job transformation. And we are operating a bit differently these days. But what I love about leadership tribe is that these are the people who are caring for the leadership and careers that are doing systematic changes, systematic changes in how we hire leaders in how we raise diversity in building up talent pools that we need for the positions of the future, but they’re doing that also on such a down to earth level. Even this podcast I’m enjoying so much, we’re not talking about strategic thing. Scott’s talking about down to earth behaviors, which we expect every single day from our people. And sometimes we are good in them. Sometimes we are not so good. But you’re on the journey, right? And we have moments to celebrate. And that’s what’s in my view. That’s what leadership is about. Yeah.
Hanne Lindbæk
You know, on the idea of Gandalf, to get serious for a second, Gandalf, by talking, he plays a really, really important part, because he plays the helper. He’s the helper, he’s besides the main heroes, and he’s always the one they can come to, if they need help. And in a way, that seems like a lovely metaphor for the leadership anchors. They’re meant as a kind of resource and a place to go to have, like you said to Ghana, they can ground you in land you and help you define and decide that gives you home
Svitlana Bielushkina
to me, you know, leadership anchors, why it’s also quite important, because you are in your, on your personal mastery journey. And very often, you have a feeling that, you know, you could have done it better, or I wanted to improve, I wanted to maybe become a better version of a leader in this company, or just as a person, per se. And that gives you the grounds to see what can I work on, you know, what can I improve at, and it doesn’t have to be philosophical, you know, theoretical level, it has to be really as Jeannine Jun has been saying Down to Earth, what behaviors were habits, I was going to say habits can I have that can help me improve day to day. And very often those habits are routines. That might not sound very inspirational. But this is routines and my habits, we share what we do on a day-to-day work life, which helps me improve and become a better person, a better leader.
Dina Tsybulskaya
And I’m sorry, I just wanted to build on the habit piece, because I believe it’s very important. Actually, I believe that’s exactly this gap thing we were discussing before that leaders, they are first saying, Guys, we are going there somewhere, and it will be new and change. And then the role of the leader now today is to listen to the people where to go is sometimes just you know, giving the people all the conditions that they come up with, where to go and why to go and how to go. But the good leader is then making sure that the all the new ways which we created or the new practices, how we’re going, what we were building is becoming a habit. And that requires so much consistency, which is actually pretty tiresome from time to time. Because sometimes even like, Okay, think leader, I’m the big boss that sort of showed you the big way, you know, but in reality, the leaders, and I’m not talking about all the layers of leaders are those who are consistent enough to say, sorry, this doesn’t fit the new ways. It should do this, or no, no, here, we deviated let’s go back to trap. And be attentive, be persistent. And that I believe is what is the biggest failure of the leader today. Sort of, you know, as Gandalf action in the guy’s back on track.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yes. Yes. That’s the metaphor du jour, Gandalf. I think what you’re coming back to and coming back to the consistency that being the Stayer, that stays with the project stays with the process and does it step by step I’m reminded of Aristotle, of course to Atlanta saying that we are our habits, right, what we do every day becomes us. So therefore, excellence, therefore, is not a something you do. It’s a habit. That was really, really badly paraphrase, but it’s in there somewhere. And then I think the little steps, making it concrete for people really helps me to take on board leadership philosophy, in the overwhelm of the day to day as well. Because being as busy as we are, we don’t have time to read a 300 Pager from Harvard. What we have time to do is some very specific and concrete advice about what to do on a day-to-day basis. To again good thing about the anchors. What about trainings and programs and initiatives? D now before we finish off, what are your favorites when it comes to actually like initiatives from headquarters? You know, when it’s time to train the leaders and develop them? What are some insights you have there?
Dina Tsybulskaya
I believe there is always time to train leaders because training I don’t believe in big programs with a lot of theory, if people already made to a leader position and most likely they have already some you know, theoretical background and even some practical background to get there. And especially in DT we’re not talking about people you know, zero education guys level. What I believe in is that you are doing a lot of your own training on the job, so every day talking to people every day doing you are training yourself and that last with you. You never should stop developing yourself. But what I like about the trainings is that they are very short, very up to the point. They are made of different topics, and you are really, really agile in terms of Okay, today I can listen to this one, this one I can pick up, oh, I have, you know, some challenge here and there. Let me now look this up in some digest form, in a way, they said very much love about the way how now this level, our program is organized in DT. And another one is that I really love all kinds of interactions with other leaders. Force you learn from others much more than you can learn from books, people get theory through them, they get it into real life, if they’re ready to share. And this is the most important thing. If people are sincere and ready to share, you’ll learn from that more than anything else. And for me, the let’s say HR function is to ensure that people are not scared to share. They don’t need to be always telling good stories, success stories, etc. that they know they’re valid for the job and results. But they can also share something which bothers something which may be not was not that big success, something which was maybe even a failure. But you can learn from it. I hope that our ctio community will forgive me for that for sharing this with others. But there we have, I mean, somehow happened to be there as well. And there is a cold aha moment sharing, you know, evening wine session, where people are sharing actually failures. Like, you know, that’s wonderful. Which Yeah, which was in are supposed to be that. And then it was not exactly that successful, or it didn’t work easily. We’re, and I believe the fact that we can even have that sort of conversations is very telling. And that’s I believe the culture, which is built and something that the group should be very focused to continue building. We need to, you know, escape any sort of, you know, PR and self selling. That’s not what we need. We require real sharing, we require real common building.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yes. I love that. And there’s so much learning, when you unpack a failure when you untangle it and go, what was this? And why was that there’s always so much learning that maybe sometimes in the end, we end up going Oh, thank God, I made that mistake.
Dina Tsybulskaya
The success, usually there is a beautiful big picture and everybody on okay. But in reality, the success is the sum of many, many small efforts, which you aren’t actually, when you’re looking at the big lair, big picture. And again, sharing about it was a success, because we these days, these days, and also that and that and that, I believe is something that we should, you know, share we should all learn from other leaders have different again, different levels. I’m not talking about CEOs, for example. Yeah. Well,
Hanne Lindbæk
I guess we’re coming to the end of this one to whom we speak. Lana, is there anything you’d like to say to round us up?
Svitlana Bielushkina
No, as I mentioned, Dina, Hanne and Jon, it’s been really incredible for me to reflect again, that’s its day to day leadership is nothing more than actually day-to-day work. Into your day-to-day habits is your day-to-day mindset on how you meet people, how you meet challenges, and actually how you react. And the way we learn about his day-to-day habits and rituals, or small things is actually how we interact with each other, how we sit down and reflect and talk and learn from peers. So for me, the key message out of today’s podcast, is actually day-to-day work. Yeah. And they work in human environments with other humans, when you share your knowledge, and you also learn from others.
Hanne Lindbæk
Beautiful, it feels like the old kind of bigger, more pretentious leadership initiatives. They would kind of not land in the everyday life of the leader, but now that we’re making them so concrete, so specific, so like this is to do with your every day, you know, this is what you do on Tuesday and on Wednesday and on Thursday. This sounds like a cool way to go with leadership development. Here’s hoping and here’s thanking, you did not, so much for showing up. Thank you so much for being a guest and absolutely my pleasure. And also you John for taking the time and good luck with the leadership anchors.
Dina Tsybulskaya, Jon Talbot
Thank you, we really enjoyed that. It feels like we could be talking for hours. So thank you very much.
