By Valeryia Iuleva.
My name is Valeria and I’m a Business Management student at Tri-C. During my first semester here, I enrolled for a summer internship. The first person who I spoke to at an internship fair was Geraldine Weiser –the executive director of Corporate College (Client Solutions department).Her request and my professional skills matched –and I started learning and helping here, working with Mural software and designing instructional boards in it, developing both hard and soft skills with the attention and support of my supervisor.
Wrapping up my experience, after almost two months being her intern, I decided to organize an interview with Ms. Geraldine to collect some gems of her career track, experience and managerial superpowers, recommendations and tips for future leaders.
The first part of the interview was connected to interviewing and team selection processes. As the career fare was organized as a 1-on-1 interview in most cases, I was curious how staff-connected decisions are made in the average life of the college.
(The interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
V.I.: What qualities are you looking for [in a candidate], even beyond skills and experience, maybe specific personal qualities?
G.W.: During our interview process, we ask behavioral based interview questions. We want to see how people are thinking, how they react, what’s their process and so forth, because some of the qualities and values that we have around personal accountability, basically owning it. So, owning it in critical thinking, thinking through problems, trying to do some self, you know, some diagnosis yourself before immediately going to somebody else for assistance, you know, so you know it’s having that. It’s really knowing when to, you know, seek support from a team member too.
We try to see how people interact with others, how they carry themselves in the interview.
The second portion of the questions was about building motivation and maintaining productivity of the team.
V.I.: How do you recognize that someone is losing their inspiration and becoming less motivated? And how do you react to such situations?
G.W.: You can usually hear it in their voice and how they and how they interact. They may not be as energetic, right? And it may be quieter. They may talk but they only say a little, and they don’t talk in depth about something.
So when I see some of those signs, I start asking more questions and start identifying those things and really try to just show them that they’re apart of the team, that I’m really interested in what they’re doing,and what they’re doing is important.
I’ve seen Ms. Geraldine as a “soft power leader” during my internship, so wanted to know what led her to choose particularly this leadership style.
V.I.: How did you develop this approach, and why did you choose particularly this way? Is it coming from your nature or maybe it is like some knowledge from workshops or whenever led you to make this choice?
G.W.: Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, I think you know some of it is my nature, but we all need to learn skills, and learn tools to use them better. So, I have learned it,and we offer those courses here[at Corporate College], so I should really know it, right?
But I would say a lot of it also comes from working with great leaders. I’ve had the good fortune to work for some fabulous people with great leadership skill sets.
And then lastly just asking for feedback. That’s the hardest one because everybody gets very shy: nobody wants to say that “oh, you could do something different”. But I’m really working hard right now to develop that culture there.
The next part touched on the delegation and empowerment–each leader’s routines. I asked this in connection with my major;leadership ambitions and plans for the future.
V.I.:So, how do you understand that you need to delegate and how you maybe choose the right person to do some tasks?
G.W.: It really depends on so many factors. It depends on the project itself: what it entails, how much expertise, how much exposure or risk there is to give it to somebody who has either a little experience with it or a lot. So,it really boils down to the individual and what the goals are for that person who must complete that task. Um, and it really depends on how the output is going to be received by the end user: if it’s very critical information, highly sensitive, very high profile, then I’ll use those considerations in my decision-making process.
Sometimes leaders have to prove their skills in difficult situations and conversations. I asked Ms. Weiser about her strategies for how to overcome disagreements within the team and resolve conflicts.
V.I.:What is your personal approach to staying calm and clear within any kind of conversation or conflict difficulty?
G.W.: The first thing is remembering it’s not the end of the world. You know, it’s really having a good perspective on truly what the issue is,and the impact,and that things can be fixed so it’s not a matter of life and death. So, making sure to have that perspective,and then it’s making sure that trust is still there. To have that conversation with that person. And confirming your confidence in them, even though at that moment they maybe let you down, but it doesn’t change the overall confidence-it takes a lot before that goes away.
To sum up this fruitful dialogue, I wanted to collect some recommendations for future leaders.
V.I.: What would you say is the crucial point to start leadership career or considering leadership career in the future?
G.W.: I would say the most important thing is having strong values. Because I’ll never forget my son when he was very young. He did something, I looked at him and said: “Oh, you would be such a good boss”. But he answered: “I don’t want to be a boss, because all you do is go around telling everybody what to do.” I explained that he described a “bad boss” example. A really “good boss”,you know, helps their team and helps their co-workers do a great job.
I look at it, it’s kind of like being a parent. You want to make the whatever the business is successful, right? But you want to do that because everybody’s enjoying what they’re doing, and you value them. And you want to see them succeed, just like you would want to see a family member succeed.
So if you have that kind of energy, because it does take energy, if you have that kind of energy and desire, then I think you should consider leadership because we need good leaders.
Geraldine Weiser is one of the best supervisors I’ve ever met, and it was my pleasure to discover the mosaic of her experience and share her answers with you in this article.
“I don’t like to micromanage, so I don’t like to always be checking up on people. I really try to build that trust so that they can work and do their jobs but come to me in the time of something’s not working properly.”
In case you’re interested in Corporate College and programs it offers, connected to much more than personal development and leadership, check out the link:
https://www.tri-c.edu/corporatecollege/index.html
