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, my attempt is 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.
In the interview, Simon spoke about the importance of respecting other people’s opinions, even if they are opposing ours. We spoke about continuously learning, the art form of working with people and building relationships, and how people are always wanting to do good, look good or feel good.
You can find Simon at the below links
In the interview, Simon shares
- I’m a serial learner. I love to learn things and read.
- My thirst for knowledge Is really what drives me.
- No two people are the same. People might dress similarly and look similar, but actually their motivations, their backgrounds, shape who they are really.
- People generally have three sorts of main motivators. They either want to do good, look good, or feel good about what they’re doing.
- I take every interaction very seriously. One should always do one’s homework and make sure that one understand the people you are dealing with, whether that’s governmental, whether that’s political, whether that’s industrial or otherwise.
- You’ve gotta be likeable. I mean, you’ve got to, you know, genuinely show interest. You’ve gotta be inquisitive in your nature and you’ve gotta ask lots of questions that aren’t deeply personal necessarily, but are informative.
- The evidence really matters and being authentic and then saying to people, Here’s my evidence trail or my vapour trail of evidence and things I’ve done. So judge me on that. Don’t just judge me on what we’re doing here right now.
- I write a lot of poetry. Um, and I find it very therapeutic. I dunno, I must, I’m 200 poems some of them are brilliant in my own mind. Some of the just are slightly average, but nevertheless, they’re all heartfelt and they were all written with a purpose in mind.
- I enjoy language immensely. Um, and I enjoy playing with the words. That makes me happy.