Leadership Role Interview

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Leadership Role Interview

Recently, I have had the honor of interviewing an international leader with a vast experience in the financial sector. Scheduling the interview in mid-morning I thought it would be short considering his tight schedule. However, it turned out he was quite willing to share his experiences in leadership as much as I wanted to know his approaches towards achieving success. I realized that much of what he had to say was of much influence in my career and life too. Dr. David E. Martin is the founder and chairperson of M-Cam Inc, which is a leading international innovations corporation dealing in finance, trade, and tangible asset finance. Dr. Martin is actively involved largely in global finance matters, especially ethical economic development that acts as a serious current issue. In his position, Dr. Martin provides information dealing with financial engineering and investment, monetary advice and public speaking to many international organizations and countries in the world. Dr. Martin is recognized as the chairperson of financial innovations globally (M-cam, 2011). More so, he has received much recognition from the United Nations in his stewardship in community-based value interests, which is considered a forefront strategy in global financial innovations. These posts and recognition drove my curiosity to find out from him what has been key in his leadership path as well as what he has learned and had to say about leadership to upcoming leaders.

For Dr. Martin, the path to leadership has not been easy, although it cannot be viewed as hard either, considering his strategy as a business student. The interviewee noted that with great mentors and role models, learning what it takes to be at the top position is not quite hard. Therefore, Dr. Martin attributes his success to the top to having the right people in his life, those who added value in his career through skills impartation. His career path commenced after school with his initial position being a training manager in one of the small companies. Through hard work and a lot of learning from his mentors, Dr. Martin was soon enjoying vertical ascension concerning his position. By demonstrating superior leadership skills through organizing people in developing strategies, he was soon identified as great leader in the making. Dr. Martin was later employed in other firms in different posts that offered a gradual enhancement of his job positions. Little by little, he was rising to his much desired position and career. Dr. Martin also attributes his success to subjective hard work in academics to the highest point in attaining a PhD. This has positioned him at the top of his organization, and through hard work, he has managed to gain respect from other leaders.

In his path to leadership, Dr. Martin has learnt a lot about the practice and he says that any person striving to become a leader should start with practical sessions. First, Dr. Martin acknowledges that from personal instances, listening is among the first things a leader should do. Leaders should appreciate that they are handling people, who bear their own ideas and principles concerning handling of various issues. Convincing individuals to follow one’s ideas is quite hard and requires much learning from the people before imposing any decision. Dr. Martin reveals that accepting such a realization is a hard lesson, which he has had to learn. In his early days as a leader, Dr. Martin thought that leading meant giving direction and orders and it was not until after people opposed his ideas when he first got a leadership position that he acquired the given insight.

Secondly, the interviewee stated that being a leader means a lot of recognition from people in terms of the influential capacity, not from authority bestowed upon a position, but through personal skills and intelligence. To lead people, one has to help them develop issues like skills, towards empowering and guiding them. To achieve this, great efforts and the demonstration of such skills and knowledge is vital, hence leaders should evidence superior skills in terms of learning. Thirdly, Dr. Martin has learned that leadership styles do not depend on personal preferences with leaders choosing to practice a certain style, but largely depend on situations, nature of work and people that a leader is dealing with. Handling technicians in an assembly line is not same as dealing with professionally skilled staff in a financial innovating company. For such professionals, establishing a teamwork kind of relation is of great importance in acquiring many ideas for innovation purposes.

From his experience in international affairs and dealing with many global organizations, Dr. Martin has realized that different situations and circumstances require diverse leadership approaches. Regarding this reason, he has adopted the situational leadership style with the consideration that different situations in his work place require different leadership styles. This is also in view of the dynamic world. Dr. Martin asserts that many organizations are remaining stagnant especially governmental or parastatal bodies still practicing the authoritative leadership style. In overcoming this, the interviewee adjusts his management style according to a current situation. For instance, in areas necessitating quick measures, Dr. Martin chooses to be more authoritative in enhancing quick planning and ideas implementation (Northouse 104). Despite adopting such a shifting leadership approach, Dr. Martin can be termed as a people-oriented leader. This is because he believes that establishing a good relationship with the staff allows them to have a sense of being unlike in task-orientation where the leader only cares about operations within the work place. Showing concern gives good morale and confidence to other employees since they feel needed. Dr. Martin appreciates workers issues since they affect output in terms of creativity and other general terms. Assuring employees of their importance in a company establishes a strong connection with the workplace making them deliver best results. Dr. Martin interacts with his employees by giving them inspiration and helping them in attaining their optimum output towards benefiting the company. He is also concerned with outlining everybody’s strengths and weaknesses in order to issue tasks according to individual capabilities. Dr. Martin offers simple and direct associations with his followers and performance depends on employee trust (Northouse 104).

When I asked him what kind of advice he would give to aspiring leaders, he sighs a little to reflect on his leadership experience. Dr. Martin says that current businesses are very involving and keep changing all the time. The future of such institutions unlike in earlier periods where a few establishments dominated large markets depends on survival practices. Hence, it is good to be all rounded by adopting skills that allow quick responses to changing situations and learning factors that affect one’s work. He adds that, in such business environments where everything including customer behavior as well as increased awareness of organizations roles to their employees, developing skills in the workplace is of most importance. Additionally, learning from one’s followers is quite useful especially through involving them in decision making since imposed policies offer a direct effect on such employees. In the present setting, a leader cannot risk facing resistance from his followers considering rivalry and the competition intensity. Hence, aspiring leaders should be quite intelligent and educated towards maintaining a good relationship with their followers while at the same time minding the organization’s welfare (Northouse 103). Dr. Martin summarizes by stating that aspirant leaders should realize that leadership deals solely with influencing people and not objects, meaning that they should be aware of workers needs and useful motivators dealing with the same.

Work Cited

M-cam. Dr. David E. Martin. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.

Northouse, Peter Guy. Leadership: Theory and Practice. New York: SAGE, 2009. Print