I recently sat down with Birutė Andruškaitė, entrepreneur, idea generator, business developer, and innovator to discuss leadership as her guest for her new business insights series.
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A Leadership Conversation – an interview with a global business executive and change catalyst- Paul Rosenberg
There is no final answer for the questions about leadership, strategy, market or how to be successful, but we must keep on improving our knowledge and widening our mindset.
For that reason I would like to introduce my first interview with colleagues all over the world in order to share. Share the “know-how”, the “mind the gap” or some inspiration for today to keep you going!
Today my guest is Paul Rosenberg. He is an award winning leadership coach, global business developer, leadership professional, speaker and strategist and a writer (waiting for his book release on fall 2018th). Must say that Paul is an inspiring person I am glad to have such an opportunity! Let’s start the talk:
Birutė: How would you introduce yourself in a sentence?
Paul Rosenberg: A global business executive and change catalyst
Birutė: What role do you play in business world?
Paul Rosenberg: I am a leadership coach, performance improvement specialist, strategist, author, with Fortune 500 /Global companies, as well as small to medium businesses.
Birutė: What would you say is the best achievement in your life?
Paul Rosenberg: Aside from my family, it’s the impact I have had on the workforce and organizations all over the world. When you can help people grow and achieve their objectives, it is a great feeling.
Birutė: Since you are a leadership coach, what leadership tendencies do you notice? We can see some of the changes in the way we communicate, so do the leadership change and would Martin Luther King’s leadership would work these days? What about Mahatma Gandhi?
Paul Rosenberg: Commonly, leaders tend to put themselves in a bubble and forget to connect with their teams in a meaningful way. They get swept up by the noise and demands of the outside world and allow themselves to be driven, when they should be the drivers. They need to decompress.
King and Ghandi connected and communicated; they understood what their people needed. Their ability to really listen is often forgotten these days. Ghandi and King inspired people to right action.
Birutė: You use this “decompress” phrase. Can you illustrate further?
Paul Rosenberg: In my book in transformative leadership coming out in the fall. I write about needing to remove oneself from the noise of every-day life, especially when making decisions. The outside pressures need to be neutralized. Decompressing means just that. Creating a space where leadership can actually hear their intuition, listen to instinct, get feedback from the right people, and have clarity.
Birutė: Is the new generation capable to translate it via IT technologies or you need to go live?
Paul Rosenberg: This is the paradox. Tech has become a new god in a way. It has so much power but so much risk. Tech advances have created a world where if we don’t have the information immediately, and things are instantly taken care of, it creates issues for us. For the younger generation, the risk is losing that human connection. Going “live” and face to face will always be the better path, in my view. Both parts, human and technology, must be integrated to be successful.
Birutė: About the team management: What works better? The reward or punishment and what are your top 3 solutions for a team?
Paul Rosenberg: I’m a positive recognition and relationship person. Most motivators I have found are not money nor punishment…they are more internal: a sense of accomplishment, ability to contribute etc. This generation especially is looking at values and sustainability…what impact does my company have on the world? So my top four solutions are positive reinforcement, better communication, sense of value/alignment. And having fun in the workplace.
Birutė: What about salary? How much it means and when does a salary raise work?
Paul Rosenberg: Salary is important and critical. As is opportunity to grow in your role. A pay raise alone though will not sustain after a few months. There have to be other parts of the value proposition present. As one of my leaders put it, you look at the “job bank account” every day, and when the negatives outweigh the positives, you leave.
Birutė: Great sum of value 🙂 In my professional life, I have had a boss who, when something with a client’s Project was wrong, was always letting us (the team) know that we failed. How do you see it?
Paul Rosenberg: If all your leader was doing was pointing out errors, that is a path to ruin. Good leaders learn from mistakes with their team, and more importantly, work on what actions together to take the next time to do better. They are not stuck in the past dwelling on failure. The blame game is an illusion and false choice.
Birutė: So would you say, that during such times of failure, a leader should stand with his team and take full responsibility?
Paul Rosenberg: Not at all. What I am saying is that the leader needs to hold the team and individuals accountable, but understand that it is a shared interest in ensuring mistakes are not repeated. That learning should be done together. Just pointing out failures without working on solutions is not going to help. That being said, if one continues to make mistakes and harm the company, they need to own that.
Birutė: Let’s talk about the strategy. How important it is and what are the “must have” parts? What term short term strategy is a must? What about long term? Can we predict something or shall we try to be strong, grow professionally in order to avoid the black swan- the unpredictable?
Paul Rosenberg: Strategy is the path, the guide posts. Whether short term or long term, there has to be an end in mind, otherwise you are just treading water. The best leaders and companies understand the big pictures. When Jeff Bezos was ridiculed for selling warehouses of books and losing money with Amazon, it didn’t bother him. He has something greater in mind. For both short term, and long term, the key is to continually pulse the environment…have my assumptions changed? Should I stay on this path or adjust it? There always must be a dynamic interplay with the market and the data.
Birutė: Thank you, Paul, for your time!
I would like to invite people to ask questions for our next interview-article with Paul (you can send them to me, personally or via e. mail: b.andruskaite@gmail.com), any insights are welcome too!
Leadership is a tough work but it makes great changes!