Name: Flavio Lima

Title: Partner

Organisation: MOVEO Consultoria

A career of 20+ years always encouraging innovation, entrepreneurship, customer satisfaction and governance. Since ever applying a professional legacy based upon business development by focusing on 3 pillars: THE PEOPLE, THE PROCESSES, and THE RESULTS..

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

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

Cheers,

Jonno White

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

Being a leader can be a difficult task. One of the most challenging aspects is understanding how your leadership style affects your team on a deeper level.

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

I just wonder if my start as a leader it is the common way for someone like me. I was originally an excellent technician, but the company made a mistake and promoted me. At first, I struggled and caused my teams to suffer. It was challenging to lead over 300 people with different cultures, and backgrounds, and some of them even older enough to be my parents. However, with the motivation of my youth, I did not give up. One day, something clicked and I was able to put myself in their shoes. I changed my attitude, my speech, and my purpose. From that day on, my main goal was to understand how to engage people and be honest, clear, and fair about what I believed would make us successful.

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

My daily schedule has changed from my previous 20 years of working in big corporations. I start my day with breakfast with my wife, and if the weather permits (sunny days are rare here), we go for an hour-long jog. Once we're back home and refreshed, I check my schedule for the day and prepare for any meetings I have.

I also take some time to update some social media accounts. After lunch, I take a break to think about anything than the work (this little mind-wandering time helps to arise new ideas). In the afternoon, I attend more meetings and work on my studies for my MSc in Innovation and Technology. If there are no late meetings with my partners, I wrap up my day.

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

I have been reminded to keep fascinated about individuals' will to do better. No matter the social, economic, or cultural background. Everyone is keen to learn and to better. The point for me is to understand how they intend to do it and which are their particular motivations. A Brazilian famous writer (Millôr Fernandes) has a say: "All men boil at different temperatures."

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?

I am a bookworm. My reading started when I was at the age of 2. And since there I read everything, from the billboards on the roads, and medicine leaflets to scientific articles. No matter the subject. I just enjoy the reading. In the particular case of leadership, there's the biography of Winston Churchill by Lord Jenkins.

Obviously, there's no need to tell the story, but I can tell about the main points that called my attention: One individual with lots of flaws and qualities, with an unfavorable scenario, has a true purpose in life and engage a country to the most spectacular victory of all times..

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

Be ready to understand the deep impact you will have on your team.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

In one of my assignments in a big automotive corporation, we were in a real green site. The plant was implemented with the state-of-art of technology (at that time) and all new employees were coming from the countryside with no previous experience in the industrial environment. A big part of my recruits were women.

Strong women that were submitted to the inequality, disbelief in their potential, with narrow perspectives for the future. In this phase of implementation, the company's systems were unavailable and I had to create employee identification and records for everyone. I started improvising with cardboard and pictures of everyone to do it. Sad faces, no confidence, lots of doubts if that adventure will become successful.

We did our job well. Training, tryouts, discussion about competencies, leadership styles. And all that women were presented to a new and different world. At the end of my assignment, we did new photos and put them on a big panel and we could compare the before and after and smiles and the "power posing" that became natural for all of them. For me, this is leadership.