We are talking with Angela Cretu, Group Vice-President Eastern Europe at Avon Beauty Products, about her leadership traits. Angela believes that her most important quality is the ability to be a connector for people.
1. Let's talk about leadership traits.
I think it's a journey in discovering and I'm sure you haven't found yet a classic recipe. I mean there are thousands of books out there telling you what a leader is and also what makes a leader. But at the end, as you meet more people in different leadership positions with their own stories, you realize why you can't identify some parts and there is no one recipe that can fit all organization, nor times. You can have a perfect leader for today but for tomorrow that person might fail in new market conditions or in a new environment, new teams or new generations of people that are following that leader. Altogether, I think that everyone would say his own personal story but also competency they describe today might not fit tomorrow.
If it is to look at my own story, I would say that looking back, what proves to be the value I used most and what gave me value back and energy of being a leader, is my ability to be a connector, connector for people and their possibilities, opportunities, between people, between teams, processes. Being this link of energy helped me a lot to achieve success.
2. How do you do that?
The "how" is so different because days are different one from another, also years and business context and roles you have in your organization. I would say the basic definition of "connecting people" is always strive to put things together, put the pieces of the puzzles together in order to get the image you need at certain point. Whether it's a business process, business opportunity, competitive or strategic initiative, is it somebody's careers, somebody's development, you need to put things in context and really try to find out what will make that specific initiative or specific person maximize their opportunities in that certain situation. So the "how" is very different. Important is what you are striving for. And if you are a maximizer and if you really look for playing the game and win, and take the energy from that, and engage people around you and share the success and feel that flow of energy and feel that passion and drive - that's what connection really means. It's really about connecting people. It's about making people going the same pace and make them feel the vibe of doing something meaningful together.
3. Can you tell us more about maximizing?
This is a pleasure of the game. It's like for everything in life. We all are striving in one way or another, maybe we are conscious about it or not, it's to maximize your opportunities. It is around us. Not only accepting things that cannot change because it's not about accepting but using them in a meaningful way to create a better environment, better you, and better us. That's what life is all about.
4. Within your job you have to connect a lot of people who are not direct employees of the company. What specific skills a leader should have in order to be able to do it?
It's interesting that you observed that. You are actually the first in my last fourteen years of management who noticed that major difference.
It is. There is an army of volunteers. I mean we have 700 000 representatives just in Russia. They don't have a labor contract. They don't think twice before they take a decision. The moment they feel that their values are not met or emotionally we haven't been close enough to them, or they don't feel engaged or motivated, at that very second they leave. They don't need to think a day. They don't have to give a pre-notice of fifteen days, nor even justify their decision. So it's extremely important, especially, for the leader in sales to be able to build their success, not his own success, to be able to really give them that energy and passion and motivation and meaningfulness of what they do for their own life. The moment we miss this, the basic answer to the main question - why would she or why would he choose me? - is the moment the story ends. This is the thing that many other leaders should ask themselves even if their staff and employees are connected to the company with labor contracts. They still should ask themselves every morning: "If these guys had the choice, and I was not assigned to this position, would they choose me?" That is a burning question, every day to feel those butterflies in the stomach - "Would they choose me or not? And why would they choose me". This is the same question you ask about your customers - why would they choose my company? Why would I be their compelling choice and why wouldn't they choose some others? This is about competitiveness. As a leader it's the same. If these guys over there or in branches or wherever, if they had a choice, would they choose me and why?
5. Companies will start learn from Avon how to manage this new type of workforce.
We have a hybrid. We have employees which are more than 5 000 in the region. We know how to operate in a standalone company with clear organizational structures like any other FCMG company but also we understand the value of people truly following you because they believe in you, not because this was a choice to work for like a job. Check-in, check-out, you know? But even for the classic companies, there are new generations of workers out there. There are new generations coming in, and they don't look just for a safe place to be till they retire, they don't look to just rent their knowledge, experience and abilities for a certain amount of money. They all are looking for a meaningful thing. They realize that the life we spend at work it's a life too. This is not something we sacrifice for the other part of our life. So all of a sudden they don't want to waste even one moment, and they don't want to compromise during these 8-10-12 hours they spend daily in some other place than home. Their desire is that the place of work becomes a subject of their choice. Well, then the game is changing because subject of their choice means that they are looking at: is it meaningful what they do? Do I get respect? Do I get recognition? Do I find a place that is fun, entertaining? Is it a learning experience? Is it adding value back to me, to who I am? Am I treated more than somebody who is renting his knowledge here? All of a sudden this is shifting completely the culture of the organization, and I see even more now because the environment is very tough, people are looking for very deep answers to these kinds of life questions. So as a leader you need to be there asking the same questions and trying to provide the answers together with them. And the new winners will have completely different profile and completely different leadership skills.
6. Traits don't change but the environment is changing and leaders should take it into account.
They should be versatile. Maybe their core principles and values, let's put it that way, but this is about human being as well. That will stay in the leadership but everything else: the way you behave, the way you engage people, the way we learn, the way we take decisions - all this needs to change. It's obvious. Look at politics. Look, generally, the macro economic dynamic.... New abilities are required.
7. How to encourage people to take responsibilities and be leaders?
What I discovered is that the model of leadership that gets promoted in media is very intimidating for many people. It was even intimidating for me years ago when I started. Because it was very inspirational, nice black suits, certain composure, certain attitude, certain authority, certain way to talk and take decisions, etc. and many people don't see themselves doing that. Not because they lack the courage. They simply don't see themselves there. So they either don't try anymore or they are waiting for these kind of guys to come to their life and tell them what to do. And it's a shame because leadership can come from very different colors and from very different profiles. There is such a diversity of personalities out there that can have something to say or something that they can do that can inspire others.
This is what we've done here. We really appreciate who they are. We, again, maximize qualities they have. We don't challenge them to gain qualities from a kind of theoretical profile that would be hard for them to achieve. We just look into that every person has something that is special. They might fit into certain environment or not but if they find exactly that fertile environment, they can grow so nicely. We are looking really for all those people who would just try to do their tomorrow better.
8. Can you explain?
Either explore their own competencies, and really help them, give them the right exposure so they can gain the value out of it, or they simply can share - their passion for a certain thing, product, process, life in general - to other people like them. So we are enhancing their social skills. That's the thing. Simple as that. Any knowledge on this earth unless it's NASA, I don't know, but I believe any kind of expertise requires an average IQ. I don't believe that any kind of leaders you mentioned from the history had an extraordinary IQ but they had different kind of competencies and different kind of skills that made them who they were, and definitely passion, a lot of passion. And this, you can find in any regular person. This is what you are looking for. That's it. With the employees as well, you can nurture and enable innovation the moment you set them free, the moment you take away this very rigid framework of how a leader should look like or talk like. Then, they are free. And, then they understand that hierarchical rigid process and responsibility is just reframing people for telling what they want to say. And everyone has something to say.
Prepared by Good2Work editor Liza Barzova
