“Purpose fuels passion. Passion creates energy to deliver. It is up to leaders to define the purpose and build a team around it… Purpose and passion actually help people unlock the potential they never knew they had.”
– Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures, Head of GE’s Growth and Innovation Business
This is the third instalment of exponential leadership tips from exceptional women-leaders. These insights were presented by Sue Siegel at the Abundance 360 CEO Summit and shared by the organiser, Peter Diamandis.
With more than 30 years of commercial experience, Sue Siegel heads GE’s growth and innovation business. GE Ventures is the venture capital arm of General Electric, which is involved in starting and growing companies via its New Business Creation Unit and heavily invests in and partners with the entrepreneurial ecosystem across Healthcare, Energy, Software, Advanced Manufacturing and Lighting. Here are Sue’s valuable leadership insights:
8 Exponential Leadership Insights from Sue Siegel
- Always be an Ambassador for Your Team: Always reflect your company’s values and be on the lookout for great opportunities, tools, people and ideas that would be valuable to your team.
- Resolve Team Issues within the Team: If you have an issue, take it up immediately with the team and solve it there. Don’t gossip or complain outside the group. The spread of gossip can only be detrimental to team morale and productivity.
- Support a Decision once it is made: Don’t start second-guessing a decision after it’s made, start executing. If you need to change strategy, use the implementation learnings to enhance the next decision-making meeting.
- Proactive Problem Management – Go directly to the Source of the Issue: To avoid conflict or confusion, proactively manage problems by first going to the person involved to resolve the conflict.
- Assume Noble Intent: Hire team players who are inspired by the company’s mission and purpose. Then trust your team and assume they have the team’s best interest in mind.
- Practice Ambidextrous Leadership: Exercise both investor and operator thinking. Make better decisions by stepping back from operator thinking to analyse opportunities from an investor’s perspective.
- You can’t delegate culture: Be the Culture bearer and torch keeper of your organisation. Culture must come from the top and must be very high on a leader’s list of priorities. You can delegate culture keeping, but you cannot delegate culture creation as leader. Walk the talk and embody the culture.
- Purpose and passion: Purpose and passion drive people to do what they do. Hire people who are motivated by purpose. Purpose fuels passion, which empowers people to believe they can and creates the energy to deliver. As leader, define the purpose and build a team around it. Purpose and passion help people to unlock the potential they never knew they had.
Wondering where to start? In a nutshell:
Effective leadership, purpose and passion lie at the heart of high performing teams.
- Be clear on your purpose and your organisation’s purpose
- Hire and inspire in alignment with the company’s mission and purpose
- Tap into people’s purpose and passion to unlock their potential
- Create and embody the culture of supportiveness and trust. Expect the best from your team and always look for opportunities that will add value to your team
- Proactively manage problems and resolve conflict directly at the source
- Don’t forget to step back and analyse opportunities from a big picture, or investor perspective to best leverage your resources
Need help with this?
Are you wondering how you can help your team to unlock their potential? I can help you and your team reconnect with your purpose and passion; to realise your strengths and to be empowered to find the drive and hidden potential so you can enhance your individual and team performance.
Take the opportunity to add value to yourself, your team and business by tapping into the purpose and passion to unleash potential and performance. Get in touch to organise your personal impact strategy discussion so you can get started.
