Sami Hero - Founding Partner

I think it's critical to listen to understand - whether it's the receptionist or the CEO. There's always context to why and what we do and offering authenticity and empathy to your colleagues, co-workers, and customers usually bring out the best of them. A great leader requires a healthy dose of humility and empathy to be truly effective.

It's easy to jump into action but the right approach in my experience from small and huge companies is to take the time to "peel the onion" and find the root cause. Once identified, you can start working on the potential solutions. Focusing on the right things will allow for the most effective use of resources.

Once you've identified the right things, you need to execute well. I never forget Bill McDermott giving a speech at the SAP kick-off where one of his prime directives was to "execution at art form level". Without great execution strategies and plans aren't worth the electrons the powerpoints were stored on...