Name: Flaminia Fazi

Title: CEO

Organisation: U2COACH and The Performance Solution

Flaminia, started the first coaching company in Italy in late 1999, U2COACH, which she runs since as CEO, and since April 2018 she has taken over also The Performance Solution, a UK based company which has branches in Middle East, Australia, Kenya, and several countries in Europe with a world wide capability. She is an executive coach, leadership and talent developer, trainer and speaker . She has a significative experience in working with senior executives on leadership development initiatives in a variety of areas including developing strategic approach, managing change, designing organizational systems and facilitating critical teamwork. Author of books and articles on leadership, personal effecitiveness and coaching

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Flaminia's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

I believe that credibility and committment not only to the business but also to the wellness of people is the cornerstone of trust. Then, the consistency of focused and effective hard work that people can always experience in support of best results and best quality of work are what supports the trust through time

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

I always start with designing the vision of the business, which includes the vision of the organization that will be able to support the results expected. As for the mission, i have always thought that when you have to intervene on the mission statetement, it means that you didn't think enought ahead and wide when you designed it, plus to me means you are changing significantly to focus of the whole business. For this reason, for my main company I just refined it once in 25 years of business.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

A good leader has to observe and listen with attention and care every people they work with, and understand what are their best skills and attitudes as well as their pitfalls , and works effectively raising awareness of the whole, linkining them on the results the people achieve and offer continuous feedback and coaching to make them progress and grow

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

As a coach myself, I had many coaches and mentors who have helped me shape my evolution. For sure the one that has been the most powerful has been Robert Dilts, when we worked on my identity as leader. At that time I was not allowing myself to fell it fully, flash and bones, body and soul. The work we did together was very powerful also as he took the responsability to feedback me the leadership I was already expressing and acting out with success, which I was definitely underestimating. I think we all need to see the "giant" who sleeps within our selves and wake it up for our good.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

I pay attention a lot on not doing what I am very quick and good at doing but that could be an opportunity of growth for any of my people, and teach them how to attend that taks or activity. The challenge stays in accepting their way of doing and any difference from my own performance to keep on building their skills, attitude and help them succeed in delivering a good performance at the end. I think good leaders are as such if they help other people grow and get very good at doing what they are asked and go beyond expectations, so that they can strenghten their self efficacy

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

I have very different approaches for short, medium and long term planning. Short term is always very detailed and is revised regularly during the week: its a to do list that has always space for incomining urgencies. Months are grouped and become quarters, and they have different parameters depending on the flow of the work: we have big projects that are ongoing, and then periods of the year in which we need to take care of different and season's specific results. Year by year I generate a big coloured and creative mind map, that is usually accompanied but a list of targets that then inspire the whole planning of the year, quarter by quarter. I hope I made sense. The larger the time lapse, the bigger the picture, the smaller the time lapse the more detailed and specific is the plan.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

First of all trust the intelligence of other people and never get into the trap that your intelligence is better performing that others, as they are just different and in the differences there is the gold to mine in order to grow a great team. Second, delegating requres time and attention and is a key activity if you want to have more fun doing your job as a leader and not get trapped into operations as they need to be fully delegated so to have the time for the strategic part of the role. When your time is 90% occupied by strategic thinking, designing and plannig, and 10% is on sharing the results with your people you have achieved your role goal.