Name: Yauhen

Title: CTO

Organisation: Eurasian Processing Company

All my life I've lived in Brest. I was a lecturer in the university, I was a software developer, scram master, team leader, finished BA courses.

So, now and last 6 years I am CTO and increased my team from 30 to 100 persons.

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

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

Cheers,

Jonno White

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

The most difficult thing for me was to achieve the goal of creating a new effective team in a short time with old team members.

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

I was a software developer, when the director called me into his office and said that it was necessary to quickly create a team for the project and lead it. All experienced team leads were busy, so there were no options. I agreed.

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

Every day I wake up at 6:30.

I have 2 hours to quick fit, have a breakfast and do my own activities ( writing a book, take park in the numismatics auctions).

At 8:30 I always at work.

Every working day has a strong schedule. There are meetings every 30 or 60 minutes with the 2 hours brakes (one before lunch, the second - at the end of day) for teams and e-mails answers.

At 18:00 I finished my work and free for my family till the 22:00 when I go bed.

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

I was not possible to stop in the endless changing :)

The world is changed, new rules and restrictions appear. So, we need to adapt our management to new conditions.

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?

Ok. It will be story not about book) I am sorry)

One year ago the number of meetings was really huge. There were 2-3 meetings at one time in the calendar and all of them were urgent. I wanted to be on all of them, because I wanted to know about all changes in our systems.

But it was not possible, I started burnout and decided to find some courses that should decide my problem.

I found the courses of Aleksandr Freedman and visited them.

So, his lectures about "exactly against of urgently" and "Delegation" helped me to organised my working day and feel happy.

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

Be confident in your decisions and do not wait for other people's advice. It's easier to correct your own mistakes.

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

Toxic person.

If you have such person in your team. Do all you can do to minimize his communication with others. For example, give him a long task, that he can do without help.

It does not matter whether he is professional or not - he harms the work environment.

I had such persons. Now - have not.