Changing the Game: Positioning a product, service or personal brand as an ‘authority’ is a powerful way be a leader in that field. Steve Brossman and Jomar Reyes explores how the experience and how you make your customers ‘feel’, can set you apart.

Values are what a brand, company or person stand for. A company with strong values will most likely have strong brands, great people and be delivering great products and services to society. A leaders’ role is to really define and to be the ambassador for the company values.

Values are also a defining factor in how a person, brand or company behaves, the decisions or paths they take. Success of any kind is often associated with with strong values, and leadership should be the guiding beacon for assimilating the right values. 

Culture is at the very foundation of doing business. Culture in business can be defined in many ways, with cultures from the different nationalities, different companies or working culture formed by guidelines and personalities involved.

Leadership should be defining and ‘walking the the talk’ of culture and it is something that has a direct impact on people, their productivity, innovation and overall happiness.

“(Culture) is the very foundation of organisation development and business development”, as stated by Jens in this episode

Failure has a value when it comes to leadership. Jens Nielsen and Jomar talk about how failure has shaped their lives and careers and how leaders should take on leadership as something that can take them to the next level.

Fear of failure can also be paralysing, and can also hold back progress and opportunities that may not have been apparent. For a leader the easy path could be to say ‘No’ to ideas or project, and this is often from the leader’s fear of failure.

Jens and Jomar explore how failure can be managed, learned from and also how to reduce fear of failure.

Goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) relate directly to the vision. Often a goal can be confused with a KPI and vice versa. In this episode Jens Nielsen and Jomar Reyes talk about their thoughts and experiences with setting goals and KPIs.

Goals have to be realistic, and be a motivation factor that is aligned with the vision. Goals should also bring teams together as they support each other’s individual and team goals. In today’s world, live dashboards help display Key Performance Indicators that can guide teams and organisations on what can be done.

Achieving goals & KPIs are also showing customers that you, your brand, product or service is ‘walking the talk’.

Jens and Jomar also touch upon how goal setting has been impacted by digital transformation, and implementing digital transformation in itself is now a critical goal for virtually all companies and brands.

Keep your goals achieveable, ensure that they are aligned and make sure that establishing or maintaining digital transformation is included in your critical set of goals.

The ‘Vision’ is the north star for leadership. ‘A vision is where you dream of being; as a company, organisation or person’, says Jens Nielsen who together with Jomar Reyes explores the factors that can help in working towards the vision. ‘If you don’t have a vision, you are probably already there’, says Jomar in having a look at companies, brands or people do not have a vision or a purpose. Chloe the dog can also be heard in the other room at Jomar’s place,  as Jens and Jomar start to talk about examples of companies with a strong vision.

In this digital age, having the right vision can be challenging as the world is rapidly changing. Should a vision be future proofed and should strategies be agile enough to change with the world.

Friday 22 November 2019: In building the framework for the Thoughts on Leadership podcast series and website, Jomar Reyes and Jens Nielsen have a casual talk about the ideas behind this project. The first season will be kicking off in January 2020 with 10 weekly episodes of 20 minutes.

Sitting in Jen's kitchen, the two explore the ideas on the meaning leadership. They discuss how leadership is not necessarily represented by an individual, but can be a team, product, brand, organisation, a society or even a movement. 

Jens Nielsen brings 30 years international business experience including Managing Director of Netbooster, having also worked in London, Copenhagen, Stockholm & Helsinki. Jomar's background includes his career starting at IBM then working for global organisations such as ACNielsen, SaxoBank and he has also consulted to brands such as Apple, Autodesk, Disney, Google, Sony & Panasonic. He is currently the Head of Events & Partner Relations at Copenhagen based IIH Nordic.

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