Name: Dennis McMahon

Title: General Manager

Organisation: Wercs Hire

I run Wercs Hire, an equipment rental business in Kilcoy Queensland https://wercs.net.au

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

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

Cheers,

Jonno White

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

Getting staff to see beyond the day-to-day and understand the real potential of the business.

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

For this role, I reached out to the Owner of the business and presented a vision of a much larger opportunity that we could create together.

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

My main goals are to build Systems that enable the business to run smoothly and efficiently so my days are spent reviewing what the business should look like when we scale and creating workflows that will accommodate that growth without breaking the business or the people.

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

Engagement with both staff and clients and building relationships is still the most important role of a leader - nothing great gets done unless your team members are willing (and enthusiastic) participants.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so

far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

"Start with Why" by Simon Sinek. Because if there is no why, there is nothing to fall back on when times are tough.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Listen Listen Listen. Then only act. And when you do act, act decisively.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far? Back to the Why and the listening I'd expressed my view on the Why we were doing what we do, and then had the team open up about what the Why meant to them. One team member opened up about their family situation and how our Why would have greatly helped in that circumstance. Which meant we should have been doing what we did earlier!!