During my undergraduate days, I hated attending seminars, symposiums, trainings, and talks but I have no choice because it is mandatory or equivalent to a quiz. I used to fall asleep while listening to their talks because for me, its nonsense. I can read those stuffs in books or in web and I have tons of time learning about the real life when I left the academe. My priority is to read the books, study my professor’s lecture, submit all the course requirements, and pass all the exams. Little did I know that I’ll regret it one day.
I am in the real battlefield now for more than five years. I am currently working in a financial institution and the only theory I can use in my work that I learned in the academe was the four basic math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and present value and interest rate. I don’t plot the value of x and y to calculate its intersection or even the chemical composition of the calculator and laptop which are the only thing I need to do my job. Everything is now about life—reality.
Good thing I got the chance to go back to academe. I promised to myself that I’ll take advantage of listening to people who are already successful, market leaders, champions in their field of specialization, and experts in their profession. I want to know the hence and whence of their success. Thank God, it is a course available in the program I enrolled.
Nine weeks into our term, we had the chance to meet seven CEOs from different industries but among the seven speakers, I learned a lot (obvious because it might be the longest journal entry in my blog so far) from Mr. Ramoncito Fernandez, president and CEO of Maynilad Water Services Inc.
Leading with Integrity
I observed that all the seven speakers talked about integrity. Why integrity is important? Mr. Fernandez talked about a leader in their organization who falsified his credentials, but the latter was pardoned by the board because he is kind to his people and delivers his KPI well. But time comes that they found out that aside from falsifying his credentials, he is also involved in some fraudulent activities inside the organization.
Mr. Fernandez reminds us that people who are dishonest in small things are also dishonest in big things. First characteristic that a leader with integrity should possess is honesty. He further stressed that “As an individual, we carry our father’s name and as an employee, we carry the company name.”
I believe everything will boil down to the root of everything—our values. What we do are reflections of who we are and who we are, are reflections of the values we got from our parents. If we want to be market leaders, we should also give significance to company’s image. In everything that we do, and if we really want to succeed, we must always value our integrity. We can learn the skills but can never ever bought integrity.
Facing paradigm shifts
A good leader can always bend in all sides.
Mr. Fernandez handled different industries such as telecommunication, packaging, toll way management, and now, water. When asked how he handles changing environment, he just said he is up to changes. Other speakers stayed in the same field since the start of their careers, which honed them to become a successful CEO, but Mr. Fernandez became a CEO because he experienced different disciplines.
I am guilty of staying in my comfort zone sometimes. I want to be an expert in what I am doing and my thinking was if I want to be an expert, I should continuously do what I am doing without setting targets and limitations. What I learned with Mr. Fernandez was to be able to be a successful leader, I should be a jack of all trade in a positive way. I should not settle to what I know. Instead, always accept challenges and opportunities that will make me a good leader.
Encountering challenges
There’s a saying “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” It can also be used in assessing how well we are “tell me what are the challenges you championed and lose and I’ll tell you how great you are.”
Challenges make our life colorful. It is not a problem, rather an opportunity to test our capabilities and learn. Mr. Fernandez gave a good example of a common office challenge—managing difficult but talented people. He is someone you cannot lose but also someone others cannot live with. What he did, he promoted that person (positive and rewarding) but managing no people.
We encountered and we will encounter challenges but what is important is how well we handle these challenges. Again, it is still our values that will expose our attitude in managing these challenges.
His last piece of advice, “When leading, don’t forget your personal advocacies and management requires continuous learning.”
The author is an MBA student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business. This essay is part of a journal he kept in fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Trends and issues in Business and Management: CEO Series. Visit his blog at https://abelreyes.wordpress.com/.
The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.