Episode 41 | Be humble, drive excitement and be a transparent leader - with Jordi Ferrer of ServiceNow

Our guest this week is Jordi Ferrer, VP & GM ServiceNow - UK & Ireland, one of the fastest-growing global SaaS companies. 

We talk about what traits make an effective leader and this comes down to the ability to listen to your team, seek to understand them and enabling a sense of trust. Jordi shared an analogy we really liked,  'allow the team to take the risk & I'll provide the safety net.'  This relates to helping your team feel supported and empowered, knowing that if things don't quite go to plan they will not be negatively affected or blamed. As a leader, Jordi is there to encourage people to be proactive and give them praise when it works out, but if things go South, he is there to be held accountable, not pass the blame to his team.

We discuss one of the challenges he first faced when he became manager of a team, many people unfortunately referred to as the 'screw ups' team.  However, after taking the time to understand each person in that team and building the right culture of transparency, respect and purpose, the team went on to become very successful within the organisation.

We discuss the importance of building mutual trust with your teams, in order for both parties to get more out of the relationship of working together. Listening more to one another to ensure both are understood, especially important if the relationship between an employee and manager is perhaps not as smooth as one would like. But also being able to reflect and be hungry for feedback as a leader is very important, like holding up a mirror to yourself, how do you know how well are doing if your team don't tell you? This comes back to the aspect of building mutual trust so that your team feel enabled to give you honest feedback, without fear of recrimination. 

We wrap things up by discussing what the future holds for business in the UK. Jordi believes we will continue to see the creation of new jobs that don't currently exist, flatter structures in organisations (such as managing upwards) and more emphasis on being an emotionally intelligent business - exciting times ahead!

As always a big thank you to Jordi for being on the podcast with us today and thank you for listening.

 

The Lead to Succeed podcast is presented by Callum and Rebecca Jenkins. It is sponsored by RJEN a business that unlocks the growth potential in companies by finding, gaining and growing the best fit clients.