Tag Archive for: empowerment

Leadership Spotlight: Leadership is Learning

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #38 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Moncef has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Moncef Lakouas leads the Boys and Girls Club of Moncton as Executive Director. Moncef has worked as the First Vice President and President-Elect of the New Brunswick Multicultural Council and acts as a board and community member of various not-for-profit organizations. He supports multicultural talent, entrepreneurship and aims to retain international students and immigrants by making communities more inclusive and welcoming.

Here are the top 3 insights he shared with the community.

1. Tell us a little more about your journey and how you came to where you are today?

So I didn’t have a plan in my younger days, I was spending most of my time being good at what I did, which was studying, but I didn’t have a plan.

Until my mother came to me one day and she was like, what is your plan?

I was like, what do you mean?

She asked again, what’s your plan? What do you want to do? What do you want to become?

I was like well, I never thought of it. I’m just having a blast! That was at 18- 20 years old and it made me realize that you cannot live your life on a daily basis, you have to have a 10-year plan or a 20-year plan to get at it and make it even bigger.

So I sat down for the first time in my life and made a plan. I’m going to finish whatever I’m doing right now and I’m going to pursue my higher education. I sat down for a family meeting. Back then it was my father and my mother and myself. They asked me, OK, what do you want to do? We’ll support anything that you choose.

I said I guess I’m going to Canada. Why do you want to go to Canada? Well, I guess I’m intrigued by winter, and I’d like to see it, how it feels to live in winter for six months at a time and I just heard so many good things about Canada. A country of peace and the country of fairness and the country of human decency and what you can achieve, your full potential.

And then there I was on a plane. I’ve never travelled outside my country my whole life, and I packed my bags with some tears and goodbyes and I got to a land where I did not know a single person, but it was a plan. The first one that I ever had was just to finish my B.A. That’s it.

So my parents pretty much sold all they had to be able to help me afford my living conditions and to fulfill my dreams. My mother and my father invested a lot in my education, which was only enough to get me by for the first two years and I had to manage to find a way to pay for my tuition and my living expenses for the next two years.

So the plan was just to get by for the first four years and get a degree. Failure was not an option because there was no way on Earth that I’m going back to my mother and my father and I say I failed just because I couldn’t be disciplined enough to really get at it and graduate with my first degree, which in the end I did.

It was phenomenal, but mostly I was doing it for them. The first one was mostly my gift to them. And then when you get to that level you have some kind of empowerment that if I can get this small one done, I can go after bigger plans. That was the journey that if I can get this one done with all the struggles that come with it, I can probably adjust and recycle that plan and make it way bigger!

2. What has been your biggest ah-ha moment stepping into the role of Executive Director?

Well, sure. In the business world where I come from, it was all about clients. If you drive the client value, they’ll stay, and you survive kind of thing. So the most the big question of the day was what is the most important asset for an organization? And everybody had to answer “the client”. But when you lead a team without proper management of a team, there are no clients.

So who drives the value every single day for the clients?

It’s the team who drives, who wins the triangle of value from clients? I think it’s the team. Who excites the clients on a daily basis? The team. And who’s there to improve and innovate and make sure that the client gets the best product and services based on what they need or sometimes solving the problems for clients? The team.

So there is a lot of things that lead in this organization that made me realize that you cannot drive the value for the clients without first driving team development. If the client is not perceiving the value of your team they probably decide to move on to a different organization, can provide them with the values and the services they deserve to have.

So I’ll have to take a stand and will definitely go with the team first, client second. And that’s really interesting. It seems like the pandemic has allowed a lot of businesses to pause and it feels like there’s a shift from having the best infrastructure or I.T. to having the best teams.

3. What is a guiding principle that has an impact on your work?

My previous boss, Merv Simms, will say, perfect is the enemy of improvements. So if you have that perfect idea, you will never act because you’ll just delay, delay, delay for things to become perfect.

Instead, just do it and be good at it. It’s like almost the idea of building a plane while flying.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leadership, check out Tanya Priske share about Supporting Women Leaders in Business.

Leadership Spotlight: Supporting Women in Business

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #39 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Tanya Priske has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Tanya Priske is the Executive Director at the Center for Women in Business. She brings global and corporate connections to drive her community forward with big-picture strategies with a focus on women business owners across Nova Scotia. With a passion for people, economic development, and the ability to identify new opportunities where ever she goes, Tanya and her team are on a mission to provide the resources women entrepreneurs need to overcome challenges and thrive.

Here are the top 3 insights she shared with the community.

1. How do you create the type of environment that enables your team members to thrive?

Covid has given us a gift, and I hate to say it that way, but it has. It has allowed us to reach more women, especially under-represented women, because through video chat, and through interactions like this, we have evened the playing field. During meetings etc. there are interruptions like kids popping up, but it’s happening to all of us.

Also, because we are working in unprecedented times, I put a lot of focus on employee needs and creating a human-centred environment. Do you need another screen? Do you need your computer from work? Do you need your chair from work? Do you require help with professional development?

When we first went virtual, we connected no less than three times a week, so checking in to make sure everybody is doing okay is important.

I mean, I’ve worked remotely for 17 years, so it’s easy for me, but the transition was difficult. And even some of our team members, who I had said before to them before the Pandemic closed us down, you don’t have to be in the office.

I feel it is important to trust and understand that objectives and tasks will get done, regardless of what my team has on their plates.

2. What programs or development are you seeing women business owners seek in relation to growth during this time?

Over the last 14 months – a lot of the changes have been digital assets. Upgrading of websites, upgrading of shopping channels, for trainers and facilitators it was taking their programs totally virtual. There were also a lot of opportunities. A lot of businesses couldn’t keep up, depending on what sector they were in. I’m growing exponentially!

There has also been a focus on maintaining employees, both from the financial perspective of the business owner as well as the human perspective of their employees.

And of course the mental anguish the current situation is presenting, women are suddenly all things to everyone: babysitter, teacher, caretaker to elderly parents.

I try to help women understand that there are outlets for them and that they are not alone.

3. What exciting things can we expect to see from The Centre for Women in Business in the next 12 months?

We are turning 30 which is big! We’re looking ahead in terms of helping women with growth in their companies in terms of export markets and virtual markets. Virtual markets have been great, especially for women, because it can be challenging to not only just get away from your office, but also, to find time away from family, so the opportunity to be virtual has been tremendous.

Getting more women into supply chains, and making sure that women know of the advantages has been my passion for ten years. So that’s a piece that we’ll continue to look at.

In a few weeks our Greater Heights for Growth project is launching, which focuses on working specifically with women across Canada that have a million plus revenue.

We will also have a new President at Mount Saint Vincent University in the coming months, and we are excited about the new direction, and the focus that the Mount is putting on helping women on the entrepreneurship side.

If you enjoyed Tanya’s discussion on supporting women in business, check out Todd Usen’s spotlight series on Building Team Trust.

How Perfectionism Impacts Performance

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Have you ever wondered the impact of your perfectionism on performance?

I’d like to tell you about my ‘Why’ in becoming so passionate about helping professionals elevate their performance.

The world has a funny way of pushing you into paths. I won a Facebook contest and could choose a 1/2-day group session or a one on one coaching session. I choose the one on one session as I am conditioned for coaching. My intention was to grow from coaching, but I had no idea what I was about to discover. And (know now) subconsciously believed I could breeze through it.

For the coaching session all I needed to do is show up, be honest and vulnerable, discover and choose how I will move forward. EASY I thought.

WRONG! What came out of this session with Ricky Goodall was a flood (I mean literally a flood) of emotion that my perfectionism was a result of feeling like I am not enough. I am not smart enough, experienced enough or brave enough.

Let me back up. Throughout my career I’ve always done well, finding ways to make it to the next corporate step but feeling small along the way. I’d do one of two things: 1) avoid and delegate; or 2) often time take personal time to perfect the report, the program or strategy.

I’d go out of my way to help other leader’s successes instead of focusing on my own success.

After self discovery, and responding to some really hard questions: it boils down to; am I enough and what does that have to do with performance, you ask?

EVERYTHING! Working through my career, I was sarcastic (which many found funny), and wore a corporate veneer while letting others take the limelight because I always told myself it wasn’t important to me. But that was a fib. It was a defense mechanism to navigate through corporate worlds from fabulous bosses to the bosses that shouldn’t be bosses.

It gave me an out from things that may intimidate me or challenge me in a good way.

As an entrepreneur, now, those defense mechanisms are stunting me, come to find out. I’ve read so many books and articles and follow the Gary Vee’s, Simon Serik’s, etc. that you do not have to be perfect but you do have to put yourself out there.

My gap was always things like: someone else has talked about it, someone else is the subject matter expert or someone else says it so much better.

My own realization: You do not have to be perfect and you do not have to be the first to the mark, because no one will say it how you do. Perfectionism and avoidance are red flags sometimes disguised as being too busy.

My defense mechanisms are what drive my passion to help others grow their performance. Now, however, I have a different lens, a developing lens that says I can play ‘big’ AND help others.

I do not have to downplay myself to help lift others. I can sit with them, in their communication language and help them elevate their performance from within.

I’d enjoy sharing more of my learning opportunities with you! Feel free to subscribe to Intuity Performance for more great performance, coaching and facilitation moments!

Contact us for your complimentary consultation.