Regis Cebu Leadership Bryan Evangelista Reflection Paper 1 Defining Moment

Regis Cebu Leadership

Leader Bryan V. Evangelista

Reflection Paper 1: Defining Moments

Leadership is hard. For the uninitiated, leadership may mean bossing
people around. To a certain degree, there is some truth in this.
There are some people who I work with that have the misconception that
authority emanates from your rank in their business card. They fail to
realize that authentic leadership happens when there is trust. People
believe and trust in you and their respect and willingness to follow
is earned.

As I gathered my thoughts on which defining moment to use for the
purpose of this reflection paper, I came up with a few moments in my
life which were life changing. Moments such as when my Mother and
Sister joined my Father in Singapore (as he was an expat back then)
and my younger brother and I were left in Manila to finish our studies
and I was left in charge of our household for 3 years until they came
back ,no big deal as we had 1 house help and a driver back then. Or as
a young adult, I left home (Paranaque, Metro Manila) for Cebu to
pursue a career and a woman and started living on my own; learning to
become self-reliant and independent. Or the day I married the Cebuana
whom I met in Dagupan or maybe the day my first child was born which
taught me many things such as unconditional love, sacrifice and
patience. In the end, I decided on a more recent defining moment as
this changed my paradigms not just in my career but in my personal
life as well.


I've been in the Insurance Industry since forever. It is my first job
right after graduating and getting my diploma from the university. I
still find it amusing how I ended up in this career; but that's for
another not more than 2 pages and not less than 1000 words reflection
paper. I started with a local insurance company and now I'm with a
multinational insurance company. I rose through the ranks starting as
a marketing assistant, promoted to training executive, then on to my
first management role as agency development officer to my current
position as Sales Director for Visayas. My defining moment was my
transition from being a Manager to the current
work-in-progress-so-called Leader.

With all humility, I believe that I was competent Agency Development
Manager (ADM). This position spanned 5 years, starting with the
junior role of Agency Development Officer to eventually my promotion
as Agency Development Manager. In this role, I worked closely with
our Distribution channel commonly known as Agencies. I loved this
position as I did nothing but execute plans and strategic initiatives
set forth by my Regional Manager. Coming from a training background,
I was technically skilled/competent. I was good in networking and this
helped me tremendously in doing collaboration work with other
departments. I had the respect of my peers, colleagues and even our
Agencies as I considered them all as partners in the business. This
was a high point in my career as I was respected, well liked, and
people sought me for advice and consultation. In 2009, with a new
Executive Team in place, we had a reorganization. Departments were
streamlined. My boss, the Regional Manager for Visayas and Mindanao
was eased out and with the reorganization, the Sales Director position
was created and I was promoted to this position. This is where my
lessons on leadership began. As a Sales Director, I know had the
responsibility set the direction of Visayas. I now realign the whole
territory to the new direction the company is taking and this was not
taken in stride by Agency.

This was my defining moment in my career as my management and
technical skills did not prepare me for my leadership role, or so I
thought. From being one of the most productive territories in the
company, the Visayas became a group of bickering and complaining
agents and managers. I struggled and I'm still struggling but through
the years I've learned a lot of soft skills important in leadership
and one of them was the value of influence.

I did not call in influence back then. I called it getting the buy-in
of our Agencies. In my new role and the new direction of the company I
started with dictating the company directive and our Agencies resented
me for this. Coming from a collaborative role, they were not used to
me telling them what to do. As always, we learn our lessons the hard
way. Later on I realized that the buy in or influencing is an
important tool in my new role. Simple things such as reciprocity
helped me improve my influence on our agencies. Simply put,
reciprocity is the old adage "scratch my back and then I'll scratch
yours". Since I was able to develop a good network with other
departments within our company; I coordinate and resolve issues
between home office and field office. Sometimes I even catch myself
saying, "why does the Sales Director have to follow-up to get things
done in Home Office?" Complain as I may, but I do find this useful in
gaining the buy in of our Agencies.

Another old adage "absence makes the heart grow fonder" is actually
another influencing technique. Some leaders call it scarcity. Given
that I handle the Visayas territory, my official business visits to
the different branches maybe far and wide. The most recent example of
which was just this November where in the first two full weeks of the
month I was in Manila for various meetings and trainings. When I came
back to Cebu, low and behold, our agency actually missed me. They
were more cooperative, a little more accepting of the initiatives I
had planned for November, they were more open to new ideas.

One last influencing technique I've learned is Authority. Authority
not because of the position you hold but because of your expertise and
skill. I've made it a point to know more than my Agency so that they
rely on me for information. I want to be the person that can answer
most if not all of their questions, be the one to solve most if not
all their problems. I want them to rely on my expertise; that I know
what is right and therefore put myself in a better position to
influence them in other issues. Admittedly, this technique has some
drawbacks specially now I'm on call 24/7 for consultation.

The first lesson was the value of influence. The second lesson I
learned was the importance of shared values. To get the trust and
confidence of our Agencies I needed to find values common in our team.
People will follow Leaders whose values reflect their own. It took me
some time but the value we shared was staring at me right in the face.
We are in the service business and one thing in common between me and
especially our agency leaders (managers) is our value of helping
others. Our business is not just selling insurance products but we
provide a service that makes sure that someone's family, their dreams
and aspirations, their lifestyles, their future is taken cared of no
matter the circumstances in life. We also say "that we do not pay
commissions because you sell insurance; but because you are expected
deliver a check when a grieving family needs it the most". Be in the
service of others is what we do and I anchor on this value of
selflessness as a reminder to our leaders on why we are in this
business, why we do what we do.

What is my reflection? Leadership is hard and I am a work in progress.
For as long as I stay true to our shared values and have the energy
and patience to influence the people I work with, I think I have a
chance to move from competent manager to becoming an authentic leader.
With a wink and nod from our God above and cross my fingers.