Name: Alan Sablich

Title: Chief Marketing and Digital Officer

Organisation: Ferreyros

Strategy, Marketing, and eBusiness professional with experience at large Industrial, Financial, and Retail corporations in Top European, Australian, and Peruvian Corporations, like Ferreyros (Caterpillar) and General Electric.

Specialized in deploying transformational projects through human-centric Change Management and Agile processes.

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

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

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

Managing the expectations of the business and the people you lead. You need to put a lot of effort into creating a great working environment so that your employees are motivated and appreciated and trust is built between you and them. And at the same time deliver challenging results. Results will not happen if you don't have a motivated team. Exceed goals and having your team engaged and productive is always the greatest challenge

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

Becoming a leader is not the end goal, it is a journey that never ends. I don't believe I can put a badge on my shirt saying I have already become a leader. I learn every day how to be a better person, a better professional, a better dad, and a better husband. Some days I feel like a great leader, other days not, and I need to rethink my strategy and actions to improve myself. I've always been humble and results and people and so far it has worked.

Now I lead a Division of more than 80 people, from different backgrounds, professions, and ages. We have been outperforming our business goals over the years, being one of the Divisions with the highest working environment score in the company. This makes me feel like a trusted leader

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

I usually start with some sports activity. I like to play tennis, sometimes running. I usually have my business agenda already built for the day on the previous day, so that there are not surprises. I have a lot of meetings, but always try to save some time to work on my pending tasks. By 6 - 7 pm, I call my day off and go home, many times to take my daughters to their sports training. At night I try to read something, spend time with my wife, and check my meetings for the next day.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

My division has been growing and we have more responsibilities and projects than we had over the last years. This means more things to follow up, more goals and more initiatives to focus on. When we were less people, and a smaller division, I was able to be on top of everything and I felt I was in control.

But now that we wave grown I wasn't being able to cope, so I decided to create a new Management structure, regroup teams, have fewer direct reports and start to delegate more, and trust my managers to take the control of many things I used to control before.

Even though I trust them, and they are doing a great job, it is diffiult to let go on many things and feel comfortable looking at everything from a higher ground. Trust, and delegation are critical skills on a leader, and going through this process is someting every leader needs to do.