MeetMyPotential Deepa Natarajan

A key aspect of Leadership is realizing that you cannot be in every detail of a project for your organization. Instead, you have to trust your team to run experiments, fail often and quickly and provide you with feedback of what is working and sometimes more importantly, what’s not working. So, how do you let go of being in control of all the details? What ingredients are needed to create a culture of collective responsibility instead of control?

Today Deepa speaks with Jan Gilg about the limits of a controlling culture. Jan tells us how we can create empowered workplaces that build trust and growth for all.

Jan’s Tips for Avoiding Control Culture:
- Clarity is key. Give your employees the freedom to make decisions. Giving them this environment lets them get out of their comfort zone and grow. Stay away from the “how”.
- Over communicate with team members. Give boundaries and set up the right framework.
- Fail often, fail early is a key philosophy, not only in the Technology industry.
- Total consensus is not the goal in projects.
- As a leader- the more concerns you can hear, the better.
- Vulnerability is needed for all of these aspects of a product: running experiments, having feedback sessions and how things are going, and there is a sounding board as well.
- Articulate a clear vision and strategy in addition to acknowledging nothing is going to be perfect. Create the safety to have open communication, including challenges. This creates collective responsibility in the system.
- It’s important to acknowledge and accept the realities of the world and life. We need to give employees more flexibility.
- You have to take time to create team spirit which builds collaboration and connection.
- Everyone needs to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, make sure you connect your people to that purpose and vision which will unlock potential and motivation. This creates amazing things.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know, what’s a piece of advice from Jan that you’d like to start incorporating in your organization?

Please feel free to connect with Jan and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Jan

Jan Gilg is President and Chief Product officer of SAP S/4HANA, which is SAP’s flagship product that encompasses ERP, finance, and supply chain. In this role he has global responsibility for the development, delivery, and product management of SAP S/4HANA, SAP’s Industry solutions, as well as the Digital Supply Chain portfolio. He is a cloud evangelist, a customer advocate and a business problem solver. He is based in Walldorf Germany, but lived in the US for many years.

Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Have you ever felt a disconnect between who you are outside of work and who you are at the workplace? Have you ever felt like you can’t be with the politics and the way restructuring and tough decisions are made inside your organizations?

Today Deepa speaks with Anjana Sivakumar about authentic Leadership. Anjana has real tactical advice that you can start to use immediately. These are things they don’t teach you in business school!

Anjana’s Tips for Authentic Leadership:
- Authentic Leadership starts with knowing who you are and having a good sense of your personal values. You have to feel comfortable in your own skin. And this comes across in every role you have - be it Executive, parent or child, volunteer.
- How to stay true to yourself while dealing with sensitive information at work and dealing with colleagues/friends.
- Don’t feel like you need to stay in a rigid box in a Leadership role. Bring your personality to the role.
- Being Authentic builds trust and connection. Acknowledge the uncomfortable or hard things.
- Don’t go the easy route and blame another person, own your mistakes. We lose a lot of time doing impression management and stressing over these situations!
- Communicate organizational changes and then listen to others as they go through their emotions.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - what’s hard about being authentic in your Leadership role? Do you feel comfortable enough to be human?

Please feel free to connect with Anjana and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Anjana

Anjana Sivakumar is a dynamic HR executive with over 20 years of experience across various industries. She has worked with C-suite and senior leaders in numerous global organizations, both large and small. Her experience spans various facets of HR, from talent and leadership development to operating model and organizational design to DEI strategy development and implementation.

Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

As a highly driven person, you are so good at problem solving. And most likely, you have been promoted again and again because you get things done, you achieve and solve the problems at hand. But at a certain point, these problem solving traits do not help you get to the next level. So, are you ready to take your leadership to the next level?

Today Deepa speaks with Tony Stead from Airbus Defence and Space about stepping into Leadership. It’s important to acknowledge the different mindset that is needed between management and leadership - leadership requires letting go and building collective responsibility. Let’s move from management into leadership!

Tony’s Tips for Stepping into Leadership:
- As a manager, you can be great at all the doing, problem-solving. Leadership is more about stepping back and reflecting - seeing the whole picture.
- When you are growing within your company, the way to stand out is to deliver results. When you are promoted to a higher leader, you have to focus less on delivering as an individual and focus more on the bigger picture and delegating to your team. Leadership is about letting go.
- Leaders need to focus on the problems of tomorrow instead of problems of today.
- Making the transition from management to leadership is much like going from a parent to a grandparent.
- Leadership is about finding the needle in the haystack. It isn’t about knowing everything.
- You can’t lead with buzz words. You will lose connection with your team.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - where are you getting stuck between moving from management to leadership? And where are you succeeding at becoming a leader?

Please feel free to connect with Tony and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Tony

Tony Stead is currently based in Munich working for Airbus Defence and Space. He has been working within the Middle East and Europe for the last 15 years. He focuses on the agility of the team, the agility of the business and the agility of the project to improve our operational effectiveness and ways of engaging the stakeholder community. Tony is also a Fellow at the Institute of Leadership and Management.


Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Have you ever been in a meeting thinking, “I have the best idea - no one else’s even comes close to mine”?

Then this episode is for you! Today Deepa speaks with Bjorn Ekelund about diversity and the need for all perspectives to be shared by everyone on the team and organization. We tend to believe our own thoughts and processes are the right way, but it is so important to hear from everyone and get curious about ideas and structures.

Bjorn’s Tips for Diversity Ice-Breaking:
- It’s difficult to discuss cultural differences because it is so much a part of our identity.
- Culture is not only a personal matter; it is important to business.
- We have been given a certain structure for how to succeed at life through our upbringing and culture. Every person is unique.
- Diversity Icebreaker is about getting a group together to recognize differences and our own processes.
- Many times what happens is the participants realize it is very easy to have an individual think their way is better than another person’s way. The process brings awareness and consciousness to each person so that going forward they will acknowledge another person’s idea differently.
- We need all perspectives, this is a level set for the icebreaker. It creates understanding and respect for the team. It creates psychological safety.
- Go find someone that you disagree with and talk through the topic with openness and curiosity.
- Managers and Team Leaders who expect the unexpected will make the best leaders. Listening is a powerful tool.

We hope you liked this episode! Take the challenge this week and go find someone to disagree with. The point of this conversation is to get curious about their different viewpoints rather than arguing who is right and who is wrong. Be open to learning something new!

Please feel free to connect with Bjorn and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Bjorn
Bjorn Ekelund is a psychologist with over 25 years experience. He is most known for creating the Diversity Icebreaker – a concept that combines assessment of cognitive styles with an experiential learning seminar. Besides running his own companies, he has been lecturing at management schools in organizational psychology and international management. Learn more about Diversity Icebreaker here - https://diversityicebreaker.com/.

Thanks for listening and stay cool!
Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Is your organization looking to build and sustain an innovative growth culture? What is holding you back from fully embracing this change?

Today Deepa speaks with Tobias Klein about the essential shift organizations and senior leaders need to make this culture change happen. It is not sufficient enough to only build an organization with knowledge and expertise. So what else is needed?

Tobias’ Tips for Making the Essential Shift:
- It’s time to take a look at the inner game of leadership.
- Cultivating a culture of failure is key. The point is not about failure, it is about how you move forward from the failure.
- Organizations need to take a look at how they measure success and how they reward their employees.
- Societal norms have set us up to have to finish what we start - but it is necessary to evaluate when is it time for something to stop, to come to an end.
- You cannot do everything at once, everything cannot be the priority.
- The top level leadership should take the time to ask and listen to their bottom levels.
- Empower the younger employees to be creative and innovative. Don’t be afraid of trying new things.
- Critically look at your recruiting approach. What values are you looking for and what is missing from your current team? It’s important to have shared values.
- Everybody is better than you at one thing. This is a great way to embrace and include everyone on your team.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - what are the values that your leadership team shares? When was the last time you spoke about your organization’s values? It’s so important to be on the same page.

Please feel free to connect with Tobias and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Tobias

Tobias Klein is a Chief People and Culture Officer at SEBA Bank. He has full accountability for building, maintaining and continuously improving the entire HR Life Cycle. He has implemented objectives and key results as one of the 1st financial institutions in Switzerland. He believes to win the marketplace, you have to first win the workplace.



Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Leaders are often judged by their decision-making. So, how do you make better decisions? Is there a formula to making better decisions?

Today Deepa speaks with David Siegel, author of Decide and Conquer, where he offers three main principles for better decision making.

David’s Tips for Making Better Decisions:
- Not making a decision is actually still making a decision
- Culture matters, don’t ignore behaviors.
- Don’t only make decisions based on tangible items. There can be a lack of accountability around toxicity.
- Be kind and nice as a leader! You can be nice and clear.
- Surround yourself with people who will disagree with you. This will ultimately lead to a better decision. Make sure you ask your team to disagree with you before the meeting.
- Repeat the same message many times in order to change your organization’s culture.
- Embrace optionality - think about what options you can give yourself based on the decisions you make.
- Be careful when decisions are made by your ego.
- Be willing to share about your mistakes and failures.

Remember that being vulnerable as a leader will make you a better decision maker, which will lead to becoming a better leader. The vulnerable leader creates a culture of learning and developing by being open about their own failures and successes.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - what’s the hardest part of making a decision for you? Please feel free to connect with David and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About David
David Siegel is the Chief Executive Officer of MeetUp, with 20+ years’ dramatically growing revenue and profit in digital media, subscriptions and e-commerce. He has recently authored Decide and Conquer. He is a motivational leader with full decision-making and PandL ownership. His experience includes MandA, turnarounds, scaling operations and growing post startup phase. David is a Management Professor at Columbia and has an MBA from The Wharton School.

Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)