8 | How can you be an Irresistible Leader?

Welcome to Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. Welcome to episode 8 of Face Forward, the Inspiring Change podcast on all things leadership, engagement, communications, and change. And here I am again, another beautiful day down in Ballsbridge, up on the 5th floor of Bank Centre, looking out across Dublin Bay. I'm really excited to be sitting here today with Pedro Ângulo, the Head of Leadership Development in AIB. And actually, Pedro, this is not his first experience of being in some, some Inspiring Change Communications, because a talk that he gave some months back was the subject of Blog number 18. You might want to go back and have a look at that, where he focused very much on how leaders can help to make projects really successful and some of the things that they have to do to make that happen. So I'm excited to be here today, Pedro. It's nice to be back at Bank Centre.

Thanks, Scott. Delighted to be here, delighted to be asked to do this.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Why don't we kick off with the usual, the usual simple one. That we do on the podcast and you tell me a little bit about your background briefly and then what your role is in AIB.

Great, thanks, Scott. I suppose I will start by saying that I am somebody who is highly passionate about helping people grow, develop, and become the best version of themselves. That for me is probably my purpose. So when you look at my career and my background, it all goes to, you know, through that lens of what I'm passionate about, which is helping others achieve their potential. Just to say, Spanish man, just in case, you know, the name didn't give it away.

Or indeed the accent. That's not a Dublin accent.

Or the accent. I have been in Ireland, I stopped counting after 20-odd years. Love the country, love the people. But I suppose in terms of my personal background, I like to think of my background or my career as a set of experiences rather than jobs. I have done customer services and sales, I have done, I have had my own business, I have done management consulting, I have done HR, very involved in coaching, very involved in lecturing with different organizations, and also very interested in work around human rights and environmental causes. So I suppose I'm a mixture of things, but again, it all goes back to my common purpose of you know, development, growth, and helping others and organizations to achieve their best potential. Currently, Head of Leadership Development in AIB. I've been doing that job now for the last 2 years or so. I'm very excited because I believe that over the last 12 months, if you look at research in the area of HR, there is a clear trend that organizations now are finally, not just talking about leadership development, but actually putting the resources required to really drive leadership development to the next level, not just talk about it, but actually drive it. I seriously think that, you know, Scott, when you think about leaders that you work with, the good, the bad, and the ugly, you can see the huge impact that a leader can have on people for the better or for the worse. And it's not just in terms of performance, but in terms of your health, your well-being, your confidence. And when you think of a leader that you love working for, you get a warm feeling, you know, you felt great with that person, you achieved great things. And equally, when you look up a bad leader, you know, you saw totally the opposite. So delighted to be working in AIB as Head of Leadership Development, as I think we can have a real impact on changing lives for the better. For the better.

I agree, I agree. I think leadership is so central to helping an organization function, work, and be successful. And I think when you look back to that Branson quote where he said, don't put customer first, put people first, put your staff first, because if you can do that, they'll ultimately put your customer first.

Totally, totally. And it's quite interesting because, you know, when you look at people in the front line, you know, a lot of people say, oh, let's do a staff survey, let's do a 360, 'Let's do psychometrics.' We don't need to do anything. All you need to do is just walk in, and as soon as you look at those people, you shake their hand, you know if they want to be there. You know if they, if they're passionate about serving the customer and if they're happy in the place where they work. So to your point, I think if we have people that are happy, they're managed properly, and they're being developed properly to serve the customer properly, that's where the magic starts.

Yeah, absolutely. And what do you think makes a leader a great leader? What are some of the things that that person's doing?

So, I mean, where do you start? There's so many things. Recently I did a blog on what I call irresistible leaders, those leaders that get us to do things that, you know, I suppose leaders that inspire us to achieve more than we think is possible. And to me, you know, as I was doing research for this article, you know, and some of my own experiences, there are a number of things. The first thing is that these leaders are highly emotionally intelligent. So they have good self-awareness, they know what they're good at, they know what they're bad at, they understand their emotional states, they're just so in tune with themselves, what makes them tick, what is their values, what are their passions. They're just really self-aware, but not only they are self-aware, they're well self-regulated. So they know how to control their emotions, they know how to control their attitudes. And this leads me to the next thing of emotionally aware leaders is that they are always looking at the impact that their behavior has on others. And they're very aware of it and they manage that very, very, very well. The other thing that I have seen is that Leaders that are not just good but great, they have a growth mindset. They're always, always driving for learning. They're always stretching, they're always looking for feedback. They're always looking for how can I be better? And another one that I think is, look, great leaders empower people. And what I mean by that is they create a psychological, a psychologically safe environment where people can be themselves. They can bring their best version of themselves to the work, and they are not afraid of mistakes because they see them as opportunities for learning. And they're just, they're just to create a good space for people to take ownership and to do things. And a couple more, I believe that leaders grow leaders, and that means that leaders invest in people, they coach them, they mind them, sometimes they let them go to another manager in the business because that is what is best for them and their development. So they are not selfish, they don't look just at them and how they can be successful, but more importantly, they follow on the people they work with and what is best for that employee. A couple of other things, I think, you know, the leaders that are really good that I have worked with are what I call, they create emotional bonds with people. I have found that in a world where there's just such a high level of urgency, I feel that people are becoming a bit too transactional. So always running, always chasing the next thing, always doing the next meeting, always the next thing. And we have got very efficient, but I just think that sometimes I think we're losing that ability to connect with people on a human level. Exactly. So I believe that leaders that are really great are those that are great at creating an emotional bond with people, where that person feels that you respect them, that you care about them, that they actually truly are interested in you as a person, as a human being. And I think creating that emotional bond, it creates some really special relationship with people. The other word that I like to use with great leaders, and just this as a final thought, is the word they inspire people. And I am from Spain, so I didn't know what that meant, but everybody was talking about inspiration. So I did a bit of Googling and I came up with the word inspiration comes from the Latin inspirare, to breathe life into. So I thought, wow, how wonderful is that? As a leader, you know, do I breathe life into people or do I suck the life out of people? Just a very quick check. So in summary, I think, you know, if you put all of those things together, for me, it's all around the emotional connection of the leader with the people. And somebody that makes people want to come to work, not because they have to, but because they want to, they feel safe, They feel supported, they feel respected, and they feel that they have the back of the leader. As simple as that. And I feel that those leaders achieve extraordinary results.

That's a great answer and some really good insights. I was chatting to a guy this morning and we were chatting about rugby. I know you're a big rugby fan as well.

Yeah.

And he said that great leaders watch their teams play. And that's not something that he sees very often. And he used the analogy of Joe Schmidt going in after an Ireland international and they've been beaten 40-nil, and Joe Schmidt didn't watch the match, but he goes into the dressing room after and says, lads, that was a terrible performance. And they all go, how do you know? You weren't watching. It's that whole idea of leaders watching their teams, seeing what they're doing, being aware, as you said, of what's going on within their teams is is so important.

So important. And, you know, like, leadership, in my opinion, is not a difficult thing. It's the practice of leadership that becomes difficult. So we all know what good leadership looks like, you know, be respectful, you know, the simple things, smile at people, say hello, connect, you know, just like some of that stuff is really simple. It's the practice of those things when you are under pressure, when you are under stress, when you have had a crappy morning, How do you show up regardless of what has happened to you in front of people? How you make them feel. There's a great quote, I don't know who is, I don't know where it comes from, but people, a lot of the times they don't remember what you tell them, but they will never forget how you make them feel. So let's just try to do that. Let's just try to create a sense of, as a leader, what is the emotional print that you leave on people? I think for me, that is, you know, As head of leadership, like, if we could have a cadre of leaders that really inspire people, really connect with people, make them feel all of those wonderful things, I think we'll have a better bank and better customer service and better, better everything.

Very good. I think it was Maya Angelou who said that quote. So yeah, that's a great quote. While I think about it, where can people, if they want to read your Irresistible Leaders blog, where can they find that?

So the best way to go and get it is in the IMI website. So if you go to the IMI, the Irish Management Institute, and if you look at their blog area, you will see that there is about 3 or 4 blogs from me, and one of them is Irresistible Leadership.

Fabulous. But plainly, don't go to the IMI blog until you've read all the Inspiring Change blogs, because they're good as well.

They're even better.

Let me talk a little bit about about failure, because that seems to be a bit of a theme that came out in actually a blog that I wrote this week and in the podcast that I did last week with Eric Bowman from Zalando, and the whole idea of how leaders handle failure, because obviously they have two choices. They can handle it when something goes wrong, which things just do.

Yeah.

They can handle it really badly.

Yeah.

Or they can handle it really well.

Yeah.

How do leaders handle failure well?

Well, for me, it's about just being happy failing, but failing quickly. For me, it's all about fail, but fail quickly. If you look at agile organizations, it's all about failing quickly and learning and then doing it again and failing again and learning. It's quite interesting, you know, research has shown that the slower you fail, the bigger the failure, the bigger the impact, negative impact on the organization. So we have, even though it sounds counterintuitive, the quicker you fail, the less the risk to the organization. So for me, there's nothing more wonderful than to have a leader that knows that people are gonna make mistakes. It's just human nature. If there is an area that has no mistakes, that would really worry me because that can't be true. Everybody makes mistakes, no matter how wonderful anybody is. We all make mistakes. We all have a bad day. And for me, the key thing of a leader is to create that psychological safety where people feel that they can say, "Hey, I made a mistake, Pedro." Jesus, help me out. And then work with the leader to sort it out quickly so that it doesn't have a big impact. And then the most important thing, which is not just to correct the mistake, but what did we learn from the mistake? And how can you make sure that that mistake is not repeated? So for me, that's the key thing. It's about learning from mistakes, being okay making mistakes, But, you know, it's about failing quickly if you're going to fail.

And I think the downside or the flip side of that coin is by not putting your hand up, by sweeping an issue under the carpet— makes it worse and becomes much bigger over time.

Makes it worse. If you look at all the systemic issues that organizations have, in my experience, they all started from— a lot of them started from the small things that were fixed really, really quickly. Correct. Small things that were not fixed quickly, and then they became a much bigger thing. And then it becomes a systemic issue, and then you have a real problem. Problems, you know, problems are day-to-day things. Not only that, I see problems as an opportunity to improve your customer experience. You know, like, customers are human beings. They know you're going to make mistakes. But it's how you deal with that mistake. And do you make things— do you show them that you really are sorry, that you really want to understand what happened? And that you are there for them and that, you know, you're gonna make sure that you put whatever it needs to be put in place not to make that mistake again. But the key thing for me is own up to your mistakes and deal with them quickly before they become, to your point, a much bigger thing.

Yeah, there was a great story a while ago and it was kind of a pivot point for Ryanair in terms of changing from being the company that, as Michael O'Leary put it himself, a company that pissed pisses people off unnecessarily. That there was a very sad incident in the UK where somebody had put petrol through the letterbox of a house, set light to it, and killed a mother and child. The dad of the family was here in Ireland. He was a neurosurgeon. He was doing a lecture in Trinity. He went back to the airport with the police and went to the Ryanair check-in desk, said, listen, my family— there's been an accident, I need to get home.

Yeah.

And the girl typed at her keyboard and said That'll be €190, please. And there was such an uproar about the way that man was handled. But all, all that person was doing was following protocol.

That's it.

She clearly wasn't, um, allowed or empowered to go. Well, of course, you know, we're not going to charge. Here's your boarding pass. In fact, I'm going to call to the gate, get them to hold the gate for 5 minutes while we get you there. And here's a fast-track pass to get you through security. But he had to get down on bended knee, eat humble pie, and that has dramatically changed for me the customer service culture in Ryanair. It's nearly pleasurable to fly on them now.

Well, it's very interesting. So many learnings out of that, okay, but the first thing that came up to my mind is that in companies we really shouldn't be looking for process followers, we should be looking for problem solvers. So process is important, of course it's important, Risk, you know, we have to manage risk, we have to do all of these things. But we cannot follow process to the point that it kills the customer experience. So to your point, I want process followers, of course I do. But more importantly, I want problem solvers, so that when they encounter with somebody like that gentleman, they know what is right to do. And they're not afraid to take the chance on the punt. And, you know, here is an opportunity that rather than becoming a fiasco,, it could become a moment of magic for that customer. Couldn't it have? You know, just say, look, we'll make a space for you, don't worry, we'll get you home. And suddenly, you know, something that was a crappy moment, it could have been turned into a moment of magic. That's the difference between, you know, somebody who is in the frontline really trying to solve problems versus just ticking boxes.

It makes an old saying spring to mind, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

And, you know, for me, you know, if you look at organizations, most organizations are trying to differentiate now on the basis of creating a better customer experience, which I think is fantastic, right? But it's about how do you bring that to life on the day-to-day? How do you make sure that when people are facing a customer within the confines of the organization, you know, they are aware of that, but they know how to just do things slightly differently, deal with customers in a slightly more personable manner, Basically, how do they bring the magic to those moments when they are connecting with the customer? And there are people that we have that are really good at that, at creating those special moments for people and doing it in a process, risk-aware way. And there are other people that they just tick the box. We all know which ones we want more of.

Absolutely, every time. Let me talk a little bit about engagement and the leader's role in creating an engaging workplace, because I know that when I run sessions, I I hear so often things like, you know, I've done my engagement, you know, I did my engagement on Tuesday. And actually Mary Davis in the very first podcast back in January, Mary Davis said the same about leadership. People, you know, almost it's like they schedule leadership for an hour on Tuesday morning.

Da da da da, here we go.

Yeah, tick, I've done my leadership. Yeah, it's all good. Well, I wonder what role people have, or leaders have to play in making their teams more engaging places to be?

Oh, Scott, look, I truly believe that when you look at the leadership style, leadership, our leadership style creates climate, and climate impacts on performance. Direct correlation. There are stats everywhere. So the way you show up as a leader creates the climate of your team and that drives performance or destroys performance. There's nothing, look, leaders can complain about the structures, the processes, not enough money, not enough resources. I look at, I've been there, I've been that soldier and if you don't have those things, it doesn't help. But I truly believe that if there's one thing that really impacts on engagement is the whole, the leader and how they show up. And to me, I'm very passionate, that's why I do what I do, because I believe by creating, not by creating, but by nurturing, cultivating better leaders, we can change the climate, we can improve the climate, and that just leads to results. Look, If I look at all the research on engagement, at the end of the day, for me, it boils down to one question. If I look at my leader and I ask you a question, does your leader really care about you? If the answer is, mm, then you know that you're not fully engaged. It's as simple as that. Scrap all the whatever else. Does your leader care about you? And if the answer is yes, engagement levels will be high. If the answer is, eh, you know that there's going to be some issues. As simple as that.

And it is so simple. It is so simple. That's a fantastic takeaway for people. Yeah, for sure.

But just to say, you know, like, it is simple, but again, you guys know, and Scott, you know better than I, that to show that you care, that's a hell of a lot of work. Like, I'm a busy man, you have a big team. To show each one of these people that you care, That means that you have to give them your undivided attention, you have to be non-judgmental, you have to be present, you have to listen seriously. It's a hell of a lot of work in making people show that you actually care. And actually, it sounds more simple than it is, but again, to me, that's the key thing. And as you know, care again goes back again to emotion. And environments that are with highly engaged people, those people are emotionally connected to the leader, to the organization, and to what they do, and they're working on their passion. And that's the other thing around engagement, I think. I think, you know, when we hire people, we hire the person because we love what they bring to the table. And then what do we do with people? We put them on a box. And we forget about the person that we hire. And what I would say to leaders is that for me, the biggest thing that we can do to people is help them connect with their personal purpose. What do they love? What makes them be in the zone? What are their strengths? What is the impact that they want to have on the company, on society? And the moment that a leader, A, shows that they care about those things, and B, creates opportunity a work where they can allow people to do work that taps on their strengths, on their passion. Wow, that's, I think, I think that's when the magical moments happen. You become the new Disney.

And it's that, it's that idea of bringing your whole self to work. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

Exactly.

For me, leadership really comes into very sharp focus during change.

Yeah.

And when you've got a team that's changing, whether that's within their team or more broadly in an organization, the leader has such a critical role to play. When I think about change, I automatically think about storytelling to help people get through that change. And I wonder what your thoughts are. What do you think of when it comes to leadership and change?

Well, let me pick your point about storytelling. I don't know any, like if you look at organizations across Ireland, everybody's looking at coming up with a new purpose statement. Everybody is focused on the same 4 strategic pillars. Like, you know, like everybody's trying to create a new culture. So, you know, like how do you differentiate yourself? How do you really go about creating something special? And for me, you know, storytelling plays a key role. So when I talk about culture, what creates culture? Stories create culture. Stories help you bring purpose to life. Stories help people relate in a personal way to what does good look like. Let me share a quick story about how in Disney they bring magic to a day-to-day encounter with customers. There's a story of two parents that, well, parents that had three daughters and went to the theme park. And they were in Disney and they were all excited. Ah, you know girls, I have one of them, so they were all excited. So they dropped their dolls in the room and they went to the theme park. But guess what? When they came back from the theme park, the three dolls were sitting on the bed playing cards. So the girls were going ape. Ah, look at the dolls, they're playing cards. They were so excited. Then they went the following day back to the park, and when they came back, the 3 dolls were in the same place in the bed, but this time they were having a tea party. Oh my God, the girls just couldn't believe it. Here it is, the girls were more excited about going back to the room than actually going to the theme park. How wonderful is that? And here it is, it's all down to one person. That went out of his or her way just to create that absolutely magical moment. And you know what? People relate to those stories, people, you know, link to those stories. And here's the most important thing about storytelling: very hard to forget a story. Stories are a great way of remembering things. If you look at the way that our ancestors used to learn, it was through storytelling. And here is the good thing. I think Irish people, we have it. I talk about we, I've been here for long enough, okay?

We are Irish. We are Scotsmen and Spaniards.

Talking about we as Irishmen. But you know, even the Scots are good at this as well, and the Spanish. But we are good at storytelling. And I think if you look at great leaders, Great leaders are great storytellers because stories connect with people. People remember stories. I must honestly say, anytime that I go into any leadership development course, people always remember the stories. They never remember the— well, they might remember one or two figures, but I found that the power of storytelling to change culture, to create culture, it is very, very, very Powerful. In terms of the role of the leader at a time of change, it reminds me of another story quickly, is that when I was in America, I was a student, I was passionate about change, I was learning all about change, and there was a lady called Rosbeth Moss Kanter, author of many, many books on change. One of her top books is Change Masters, and she was giving a chat in Caracas, in Venezuela, And I thought, oh my God, I'd love to see this woman live. So at the time I had very little money. Now, some things never change, Scott. Anyway, I spent all my money to go to see this woman at the conference, and she finished the speech, which was pretty cool, and then she said, any questions? So the little Spaniard at the back, you know, after all the money I had spent, hey, Rosemary, Rosemary, Rosemary, I have a question. Guess what, they came to me and they said, you know, what's your name and what's your question? So I said, hello, Pedro here, and I said, "You know, what are the 3 things that you would say to people are the key things to drive change successfully in organizations?" And guess what she said, first one? "Communication." And I was sitting there going, "Ah, come on now. I spent all of this money to come here, you're telling me communication is key?" I said, "Come on, tell me the second one." "Communication." And the third one? Anyway, I said, "Look, don't tell me." And you know, at the time I was very young and naive, and I really didn't value that advice. But the older I get, the more I have driven change, the more I have dealt with change, it is all about communicating. Even if you have nothing to say, still communicate. Let people know that you are actually there. You know what I find? What I find is that when you are driving through painful change, what do leaders do? We put our head in the sand, we lock the door. Yet we tell people that we have an open-door policy. It's just bizarre. Time of change is when people, the leaders, really need to be in the front line, visible, leading from the front, sharing the pain, talking about people, not being afraid of hearing from people that are actually having a shit day, as they say. And that's okay, but let's work together. Communication is just absolutely critical. And you know, I'll leave you with a little tip. There was some guy to me that told me, Pedro, that the 4 Ps of change, the first one is Purpose. Why are you doing what you're doing? What's the business case? Why are you doing this? Most people don't understand why are we doing the change. And let's be honest, if you're doing some change, it's not to get you to, you know, because of a wrong reason. But you have to know why are you doing what you are doing? What's the purpose? The second P is a picture. You have to paint on the head of people the picture of the future state. Where are you taking me to? What does good look like? What does success look like? The third P is what is the plan? Do you actually have a plan? At the highest level, you know, what are the key milestones? What are the key kind of training stations that we're going to go through in order to get to that final destination? And then the fourth P is what's my part? What's the part that I have to play in making that change successful? I think if as a leader you keep communicating from the four Ps, this is what we're doing, we're doing, This is what we're aiming to get to. This is a better place. Here is the plan. We're hearing the plan. I know there's some pain, but this is what we're doing to make it better. And here is the role that I still need from you to help us get there. Very simple, but it helps people answer some of those questions that they have on their heads. And anyway, it's something that has helped me to lead people, I think, through change a little bit better. And my final thought is that when I look at research from IVEC around performance and why people don't perform maybe to the expected levels, they found out that it's not necessarily because people don't want to perform or they don't have the skills not to perform. Most of the times it's lack of clarity, lack of clarity. People don't know what you want them to do. And if people don't know what you want them to do, how can they do it? You can burn the midnight oil, work 24/7, but sure, you're working on the wrong things. So as a leader, we have a responsibility to communicate our expectations very clearly and not just communicate, but make sure that people are on the same page.

And there are a number of blogs and podcasts that I've done and thousands of articles out there about purpose. And for me, the key thing is creating that North Star so that everybody is pointing in the same direction. And that's, that's absolutely critical. Let me just, conscious of time, let me just come on to some advice that you would give your 20-year-old self. What's the one piece of leadership advice, something you know now that maybe you wish you'd known when you were 20, which of course was only 15 years ago, Pedro?

Yeah, not that long ago.

What's that one piece of leadership advice that you would give your 20-year-old self?

Okay, well, I'll keep it very simple, and I'm going to copyright this, by the way. It's just very simple: learn, learn, learn. It's as simple as that. I think that the leaders of the future in the context of volatility, uncertainty, and there'll be roles that are not there now, and there are roles now that won't be there in the future. The best advice that we can do to our kids or any kid is learn, learn, and learn. Learn about anything. It doesn't matter what it is. Learn. That increases your neuroplasticity. That gives you muscle on your brain. That opens your perspectives. That gives you agility. And my father, he was not a, you know, He was a normal man, but he said to me from a very early age, he said, Pedro, I want you to learn from Karl Marx, the communist, to Mother Teresa. Read everything, learn about everything, and then take the goodness, learn from what's good about each one of them, and then create your own story, your own dialogue, your own self, your own personality. And to me, I think that was the best advice I ever got. And I still believe it's the best advice I have to offer. I think, you know, just let your kids learn and learn. If you are learning, you're being curious. If you are being curious, it's such a wonderful quality. If you are curious, you're more innovative because you see things that other people don't see. And that brings it back to what organizations look for, which is innovation, agility. Big thinking, things that we are losing because we are not allowing people just learn. Doesn't matter what it is, just learn.

I love that closing thought. As I expected before coming in here, that was a great conversation, really interesting, really insightful, and I hope that everybody listening will agree. Pedro, thanks so much. You've been a pleasure.

Scott, always a pleasure. Lovely, lovely, lovely to be here. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Thank you, Wayne.

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