This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.
I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, I attempt to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.
What happens when common sense and good intentions are not enough to lead people well?
Csaba Toth lost his first business. He built a restaurant booking site that grew from 35 restaurants to 5,500 across the UK, then turned into a joint venture he could not make work with the other CEO. On paper it all made sense. In reality, it did not. That loss sent him looking for a blueprint of why people think and behave differently, and it became ICQ Global, a people development company now available in more than 50 countries through hundreds of licensed partners.
Csaba and Sumit explore why most leadership and management models were designed for the challenges of another century, why cultural intelligence has lost credibility, and why culture is not who we are but what we are used to. Csaba is candid about the cost of promising less than the market wants to hear, about the loneliness of being the coach nobody can tell their problems to, and about building a business of independent partners rather than a company of employees.
The conversation turns personal when Csaba explains what drives him: in three years he lost his parents and grandparents, and the company is the legacy he wants to leave behind. He calls himself a capitalist monk, and closes with a Post-it note idea from a partner in Thailand for every leader: leave your ego outside.
You can find Csaba Toth at the links below
In the interview, Csaba shares
- “Common sense and good intention are not enough to be successful.”
- “Just because something used to be a best practice doesn’t mean that it is now, because the world completely changed.”
- “Culture is not who we are, it’s what we are used to.”
- “Your personality determines how you want to behave, but culture determines how you have to behave.”
- “It’s much easier to reflect once you have a blueprint.”
- “I would rather be honest and transparent instead of sugarcoating things and promising more than I can deliver.”
- “The higher up you go, the more lonely it gets.”
- “People don’t do anything until it hurts enough, and a solution is not valuable unless the problem is crystal clear.”
- “More than 70% of transformations fail because of people, but less than 5% of the budget goes there.”
- “If you focus on more than yourself, you make much better decisions. So leave the ego outside.”
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