Jari, what does good leadership mean to you?
For me, good leadership means leading from the front and showing the way when the situation demands it. Inspiring your colleagues to reach common goals. Having the ability to combine clarity and demands with empathy, humanity and warmth. Being accessible and open in your leadership. But most importantly, being a fundamentally confident person with good and healthy self-awareness.
Can you share any important lessons from your time as a leader that have decisively influenced your leadership style?
Since I have worked mostly in FMCG, I have learned that speed is more important than perfection. More recently, I have worked on a large scale with Digital Transformation and learned a lot about how important it is to "evangelize" enough around big changes and what a radical effect a well-functioning cross-functional organization can have on efficiency and creativity.
In this week's "Under the Skin" podcast, you talk about laziness. The counterpart to this is the virtue of diligence. How do you see this virtue?
In the corporate world, I translate diligence into work ethic. A high work ethic definitely has an impact on company performance. High work ethic usually comes from the values you have as a person and a leader's ability to inspire. It is therefore important to recruit the right leaders with the right values.
However, in the long run, no one can perform at their best throughout their professional life unless they also allow themselves to be lazy. I myself am really good at being lazy at home. In free time both for better and worse😊