Leadership By Example

Danny left the interview room after attending a long meeting. For Danny, was a very different experience, an experience that has virtually changed his perception of an interview process, an experience to know and understand how successful leader, an experience to understand why some people become very successful as a leader and, above all, because successful leaders do things differently, not things different.

In his last ten years of experience in the complex field, Danny has attended numerous job interviews with top class MNC's / fortune five hundred companies for top and senior management positions. However, he never developed a unique experience, as it has developed today.

In fact, Danny has asked the position of Vice President of Corporate Planning at this company weeks ago through a headhunter. Because of that he received a call on an interview and performed for the same day. This company happened to be at 8 billion dollars in cash rich Fortune 500 business conglomerate with strong presence in the international market. The estate is predominantly family-run, if the new CEO has 34 years young Chartered Accounting background is making a serious attempt to inject professional top class youth in the system. Since taking over the company as CEO, a nice little 'new young faces joined this company of the middle and top management cadre. The new CEO believes strongly that to support the continued growth in the rapidly changing market, management must change its philosophy of a family business to a professionally managed. Young highly qualified professional should be given the responsibility of the company very soon. Therefore during the next few years, this company will definitely undergo massive transformation.

As for the program, Danny came to the interview at 9.45 am in the morning. Exactly at 10.00 am was called to the meeting. There were three managers available in the meeting room, the group's managing director, Executive Director and the Director of Human Resources Group. to start the interview process, the CEO of the company off his cell phone, organized couple of glasses of water and instructed his secretary not to allow anyone or any interruption in the room until this meeting is over. As a next step, the CEO Danny involved in a few minutes of casual conversation to make it psychologically comfortable with the new group. Once you discover that Danny is quite comfortable with the environment, CEO started the interview itself. However, it was a totally unconventional approach. CEO began to ask questions relating to children of Danny, his primary education, curriculum life outside of school and other similar memories. He was mainly interested in what the life of Danny children beyond the school.

Then the questions, Danny was asked related to their experience of secondary education, media type, Danny has received from his family, his circle of friends inside and outside the school, good and bad experience with them and other similar memories. CEO similar process is performed to know the experience of Danny during the post-graduate studies in the early stages of employment and life outside the corporate environment. Initially, Danny became very surprised to see the interview was carried away, though he was enjoying the process much. But Danny soon realized that this was a conscious attempt to know how his personal value system developed and matured during the period of time, what is professional ethics and moral value systems as an individual and appreciate Danny why? What are the different dimensions of the character of Danny? What is your passion? What are the thing excites Danny as a person and why? What is the purpose of his life? What is your definition of success, success and excellence? What are the factors that pushes Danny to go beyond its day to day life? etc. This interview has continued for two hours and 45 minutes. During this period, Danny just spent 10-15 minutes answering questions about the content of his work. Rest of time he spent in discussing his personality factor of an individual. Therefore the focus of the meeting was completely understanding of the person as an individual.

Danny has also noted that the CEO has gone through every detail of his profile in advance, well trained and very disciplined. He conducted the entire meeting in a highly systematic and sequential approach. Also instantaneous impressions were not developed on all matters of Danny. The CEO went into depth of each topic in depth, collected sufficient data and evidence and, more importantly, physically documented all vital information given by Danny in a well structured notebook instantly, which is a rare observation Danny made rapidly changing business today. His approach was very passionate knowledge of people, anxious to know the person as an individual, rather than grilled or evaluation of the candidate. At the end of the meeting is extremely confident that Danny has never shared much information about him to anyone in his past that he shared here today. He learned many things from this interaction, which could also learn from his last ten years of professional career.

In his past, Danny has seen many business leaders who speak on best practices, but today he met with a person who has demonstrated good practice at operational level. Danny is fully convinced that regardless of his or her selection in the company, the CEO has the passion turned into an ambassador lives long for his company. From now on Danny wherever he goes, will enjoy and appreciate this company and its leadership with the outside world for no-compromise their passion for perfection. This is an extraordinary experience Danny would remember for the rest of his life.

In his past, Danny has seen many business leaders and executives who give presentation on leadership, etc. on the people in national and international forums. But today he met a CEO who has never written that people are the most important resource for him, but he has proven itself through his passion, through his actions and commitment. Danny finds out that today is highly competitive marketplace, all leading companies are investing heavily on building employer brand in the labor market. But Danny's experience during the interview today, remains a classic example of building a brand ideal employer in a highly competitive fast moving work. Danny believes that if companies can develop many more as ambassador through their daily actions, a very good image and employer brand can be developed in the labor market. But for this to happen, right leadership is a must. A leadership that has the courage of conviction, a passion for no-compromise best practices, the ability to lead by example, and especially the ability to redefine the status of best practices and Danny is proud to say that he has met with a leader today ....