MM Leadership FIP by Leader Ferdinand Gabriel

Final  integrative  paper

Will my new leadership

knowledge be effective?

Ferdinand Gabriel

Ateneo Graduate School of Business

Middle Manager Program

Leadership Class 2015

Prof. Jorge Saguinsin(g)

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is the one that is most adaptable to change."

                                                                        Charles Darwin - Naturalist

Introduction

It has been a short but meaningful journey for the past four months in my Leadership subject here in Ateneo Graduate School of Business under Professor Jorge Saguinsing. The question now, did Mr Gabriel learn anything from the last four months?

If he did, what are those? Will he be far more effective leader than before? Will the new knowledge affect his existing leadership style as a Sales and Marketing consultant? Did he discovered something about himself that he never knew before? Let us try to find out…

 

Part - i

Before we begin with my Leadership adventure, let me tell you a short story of my life, for the sake of those who are not my classmate in this class.  I was born September 11, 1975, in a not so known hospital somewhere in Sampaloc, Manila. My Mom officially introduced me to this world around 10:00 in the morning. She said that, she never have seen a baby as white as me back then which I am not surprise today. So if you guys are wondering now, am I still white? Yes I am still white. Growing up as a kid, the little me always ask so many questions and my curiosity drives the people around me crazy. Until one day my Dad told me to read books titled "Encyclopaedia" which he said can be found at the library, because my family cannot afford to buy a set that is why I settled for the Library copies which I am quite happy because at the library there are tons of reading materials. Unfortunately, having limited attention span, my focus were diverted into Basketball and a lot more, some meaningful and some are stupid things. Guess when you're young you are really supposed to do stupid things. I went to Knox Bethel School and partially in Tenement Elementary School in my primary schooling days, then back to Knox Bethel High School in my secondary level, then to University of Santo Tomas where I took up my degree in Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management. And now, taking my Masters' degree at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business under Middle Manager program, to which I am proud of.

Now you have a little background of my childhood days, let me tell you now, something about my professional (sometimes unprofessional, at some point) life. My first job was a Front Desk Officer at a small hotel somewhere in Ermita Manila called The Mabini Mansion Hotel under the, The Mansion Group of Hotels owned by Mr Ruben Tiu who happens to own also The Discovery chain of hotels and Sterling Bank. I stayed with them for almost seven years while transferring to other properties also, such as the Dakota Mansion. After that, I went to telecom industry, got hired by Globe Telecom as a Platinum Account Manager, which I stayed for four years. Then after that, went to Sun Cellular as a Corporate Account Manager which I stayed also for about four years. Then after that I signed a contract with St. Luke's Medical Centre as a Department Manager for Industry Relation and Special Project team where I met my Defining Moment adventure, which is plainly written in my Defining Moment Reflection Paper. My tenure with SLMC lasted only for a couple months and then went to another industry again, Logistics Industry. Logistics Business, for me is a very challenging yet lucrative industry that will require any leader a strong character and values to overcome the financial temptations that he or she will face on a daily basis. And now, I am a Sales and Marketing consultant for three different companies.

Looking at the previous paragraphs, those experiences from childhood to adulthood, if you try to connect the dots, will show that those experiences made me what I am now, a street smart person with a lot of battle scars all over the body, though it is not obvious but it's true. Am I proud of my past mistakes? Yes and no. Yes because it made me a better person not bitter a one, for now. No, because there are some mistakes I could have clearly avoided but did not. Nevertheless, those mistakes made a huge impact in my life and in my leadership skills. Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life) said, "We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it". And I strongly believe in that.

Before taking this subject, I already have a leadership style that worked fine with the companies that I am handling now and handled before. What are they? I am not sure if it is quite unique or what, but a surprising one I guess because my approach are a combination of scientific, emphatic, systematic and people first method. One thing I like about my job is profiling people. If you know how to profile them properly, with the help of Neuro Linguistic Programming or more known as NLP, it would be beneficial for the both of you that will aid achieve your personal and companies' goal. I also use the Strategy Map plan of Norton and Kaplan in devising my clients' long-term road map. Norton and Kaplan said "You cannot manage what you cannot measure, you cannot measure what cannot describe." Having a Strategy Map makes it easy for the company and employees to be align with the company's goal, might it be short term or long term. It gives them a clear direction where the company is headed and what plan they will use to attain them. I believe this also applies in our personal and leadership life. We need to have a clear goal where we are going, then device a strategy how to get there, study your strengths and weaknesses then improve them and then have a form of measurement to know where you are and how you are doing against your goal. To reach your goal using the Strategy Map, there are four perspective you need to consider. Using the bottom-up approach, first, is the Learning and Growth Perspective, second is the Internal Perspective, third is the Customers Perspective and fourth is the Financial Perspective. Taking considerations of the four perspective while having the right achievable goal or target, will help any company or leader achieve their targets effectively.     Of course along the way there will bumps and hurdle, who said life is a free ride, it is not. But it's the skills and knowledge that you have honed your whole life will help you overcome them. There is no such thing as a perfect plan, your plan must be adaptable to change and challenges but you must remain eyed to your goal. If circumstances arise that your goal needs to be alter, it should be for the better and will benefit a number of people not just an individual. But if the change of goal requires a painful process for all the stake holders, be short and transparent but also considerate to those who are directly affected by the decision. Share the pain, share the gain approach is always sad and happy situation in life. It is always how we see it and how it is delivered.     

Going back in the beginning of this paper, I entered what are the things that Mr Gabriel have learned or discovered for the past few months in his Leadership class. Did he clearly understood the core learnings of this subject?

I would say, yes. The things that I have learned from this class are fairly profound, from the Enneagram where my personality results is 3 with an 8 as wing. Those result made me realize a lot of things in my Leadership abilities strength and weaknesses. It gave me a logical idea which, where and how to improve myself in terms of personality as a leader. The next one is Genogram. It made me comprehend that my Leadership talent are also present to some of my relatives. Though still, I strongly believe that Leadership is made, to some degree, maybe they are born. The other one is the Defining Moment, which is surprisingly interest me a lot. In my DM paper, there were two subjects I mentioned both are very interesting and made huge influence in my defining moments, Michael Jordan and The Eagle Transformation. I think all of us has our own defining moments, it is just in the manifestation of those experiences we need recognize properly, as a lesson perhaps rather than misfortune. If not from this subject, I would have not known that there are some things my adventure in leadership has more to offer than the way I see it before.

"If your emotional abilities are not in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far."

Daniel Goleman – Social Psychologist

Part – ii

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

                                                              John Quincy Adams – 6^th US President

 

Where do you think this new acquired knowledge will lead me? How am I going to use them to help and inspire other people? What kind of a leaders will I produce?

To be honest, I am very excited with what I have learned yet nervous at the same time. Remember the line from the movie Spiderman? "With great power comes with great responsibility". It is like if you are in the edge of a mountain and you see a lot of people walking towards the edge unknowingly that death is waiting for them patiently at the bottom, blinded by their lack of knowledge and ego, they do not see the danger. You and me as a Blue Eagle produced leader, standing at the edge of the mountain, it is our responsibility and duty to tell and guide them or better yet open their eyes for them to see the danger that they are about to face and if given the circumstances train them also to become a better leader in the future. By not doing so, clearly states lack of maturity, empathy, character and values.  Therefore, you are not ready to become a leader.     

Leading people is not always easy, but using the proper approach, being a good example, giving good advice, making sound decision, unafraid to take calculated risk, having a good listening skills, putting people first, setting the right goal and showing empathy in times of misery will probably make you a leader where people will follow, sometimes gamble their life, no matter what the circumstances are, because they know, they can Trust you..

The lesson I have learned from this course made me already a better person and a better leader. The self-awareness aspect made me realize the true person I am. As a student, classmate, son, brother, father, partner, consultant and a Christian person, it is my duty to help inspire other people and become a role model for other leaders to follow.

It is also my goal in life to develop a new breed of leaders where their hunger for knowledge and passion to be better are relentless. To be able to that, I must continue learning and keep developing my leadership skills to become effective in achieving my goals. I promise myself to always raise the bar, not to be complacent, look for new ways or methods of learning and not to do all of them for the reason of money. I believe wealth always follow if you have the proper mind-set in Leadership. Be service, people and goal oriented rather than profit oriented.

My aim as a leader is to continue reinventing myself to become a better a leader and to become adaptable to new style and methods of business management. I am planning to take another MBA course or program after this, maybe in London or Singapore to further enhance my skill set. The way I see it in the next 5 to 10 years, because of technology advancement, new breed of leaders will become younger and younger but heavily dependent on technology. I would love to be one of the few to provide them what leadership is all about without being very dependent on technology.

"You should not focus on why you can't do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions. "

                                                                                          Steve Case – AOL

Part – iii

"The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools."

                                                                                                       Confucius

 

Becoming a leader in the 21^st century requires a lot of effort and proper acquisition of right knowledge. Sometime last October, I went to National Bookstore warehouse sale and it was amazing! There were thousands of books of different kinds from all types of subjects and topics. The discounts I got was almost 70%. I was able to buy 12 quality books for not more than Php.2,500.00 with an average regular price of Php.800.00 per book. While I was there scouring for books, I noticed this one guy who keeps following me and scouring for the same books that I'm into then eventually he asked me, how did I find the books that I have in my cart. I told him that, I don't look at other books or go to sections that doesn't have the kind of books I'm looking for which is mostly Social Psychology ones and Leadership enhancement books, I was very specific. It made sense to me right away that he had, had a hard time looking for the same books because he looked at every book that comes across his eyes that looks interesting. He was not focus on the type of books he was looking for. I gave him some few tips on how to scour and eventually he started going on his way. Just like leadership development, if you are not focus and do not know what kind of leader you want to be, you will eventually lose your way and sometimes you are not aware that you lost track already. You need to be focus, know the fundamentals, talk to right people, read the right books, or better yet enrol at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. Only by doing so will ensure your personal success and the success also of the people you lead or going to lead in the future.

One of the book I bought in that sale is entitled "Leading the Way", by Andrew Leigh and Michael Maynard (Pearson Education Limited 2012). I highly recommend for every leader to read it because of the profound information it provide. The book has two skill foundations and five essential capabilities. The foundations are individuality and insights and the five capabilities are initiate, involve, inspire, improvise and lastly implement. To sum it all up, the book is all about preparing the aspirant leader for the future as from the word of authors "Although the world is clearly changing, leadership is failing to keep up. While leaders regularly change their cars, computers or mobile phones, they are far less ready to adjust their leadership style. Some still cling to the notion of hierarchy and rely on command and control in a world that is loudly demanding agility, empowerment and speed of response." What do you think? For me the statement is so true, I have experienced them first hand and I am glad I made the right decision (hopefully) enrolling in this program. But will I stop after finishing this program? Of course not. Like what I have said from my previous paragraphs, I will continue enhancing myself as a leader and as a person and continue to stay an Authentic Leader.  .

Thank you.

"Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing consistently. This build trust, and followers love leaders they can trust."

                                                   Lance Secretan – Higher Ground Leadership