Meeting the Leaders

Meeting the LeadersOn Thursday 5th March 2015, the Future Directions committee welcomed over 100 of Perth’s young property professions to a sold out ‘Meet the Leaders’ event. This annual event has grown a strong standing as an event that gives its guests an opportunity hear insights and opinions from a select handful of WA’s most influential leaders. As a first time attendee to this event, I found the format refreshing as it was much more relaxed than the normal seminar style function. The evening too­k the format of an informal round table discussion which saw the leaders answer a question at each table, before moving to the next. This broke down the barrier that often exists between the presenters and guests, allowing for personal introductions and the opportunity to be able to contribute to the discussion. Everyone on my table certainly felt free to have a chat and ask those questions that you might not normally want to (or have the confidence to) ask the leader in say a seminar style event. This left everyone feeling like they really got to participate in the evening and get to hear the leaders present on a more personal level.This year, the event was privileged to have 10 of WA’s leaders from a range of industry backgrounds: Anthony Rowbottam – General Manger WA – Communities at Lease LeaseJosé Granado – Chief Executive Officer at Wood & Grieve EngineersGreg Kimpton – Chief Executive Officer at UNIR AustraliaAnn Manifis – Head of Retail Properties at JLLRichard Kilbane – General Manager at HawaiianAdrian Fini – Director at FJM Property Kylee Schoonens – Director at Fratelle GroupRyan Keys – Executive Director Planning at MRALuke Saracini – Executive Chairman at Westbridge Property GroupSharon Warburton – Executive Director Strategy & Finance at Brookfield Multiplex AustralasiaThe evening kicked off with canapés and drinks on the outside deck of the Parmelia Hilton, before moving inside where guests pulled up a chair on one of the 10 round tables. Newly elected Future Directions committee president Michael Ruescher did a great job of chairing the evening, posing well thought-out questions to the leaders and taking ownership of the novelty ‘gong’. The first question of the evening was possibly the most relevant to leadership itself; “In your opinion, what are he most important attributes of a successful leader; direction, emotional intelligence or technical expertise?” For this question, my table was joined by Anthony Rowbottam from Lead Lease. For him, successful leadership all comes down to EQ. Successful leaders need emotional intelligence in order to compromise and empathise with not only staff, but clients too. Leaders need to know their market/clients/staff and be able understand where they are coming from. Anthony was also of the opinion that employees recognise a strong leader if they aspire to be like them. To achieve this, leaders need to be encouraging, show staff the way and most importantly, be flexible. This was received by a lot of nodding heads at our table!Our next leader to join us was Jose Granado. Interestingly, he also made reference to the previous question stating that in his opinion, it comes down to 80% emotional intelligence and 20% technical expertise. Jose answered the question relating to a lesson that he learned early on his career, which played a critical role in defining his path to leadership. Jose explained that he learned to be very upfront with his first employer, openly acknowledging that he was a new grad who didn’t have any practical knowledge. He explained that he felt he was being a pesky ‘mosquito’ who never stopped asking questions. However, this was received by one of his colleagues who reaffirmed “you’d rather be a fool for one minute of your life, than for the rest of your life”. Kylee Schoonens spoke to my table about the worst part of her job. As she simply put it, the hardest part is when she works with people, either clients or team members, who don’t share the same passion for the work as she does. It’s especially hard to see a job go awry when she’s put her heart and soul into it. When this occurs, it’s on the leader to get people engaged and to push through.Ryan Keys was asked one thing he could be attributed to success; either luck, determination or studies. Whilst that he acknowledges that luck and timing play their part, it’s determination that leads to success. It’s what you do in-between each opportunity that makes for new opportunities. Work ethic, pushing into areas outside your comfort zone, learning something new and not being scared to do something wrong. He stressed that nothing beats hard work and there are no shortcuts.When my table was joined by Luke Saraceni, the question posed was “What lesson did you have to learn the hard way?” Luke was very honest with our table and spoke freely of his well publicised situation with his Raine Square development. He urged that the hardest lesson he learned the hard way was that in times of crisis, not to expect that agreements will last. This was a great example of the round table event allowing our guests to get a unique personal insight from the guest presenter.At the end of the evening, the room was abuzz with discussion about interesting insights and lessons learned. The guests and leaders moved outside on the deck, where the food and drinks and conversations flowed freely. A huge thank you goes to the 10 leaders who not only gave up their time to attend, but were happy to openly share their experiences and learnings. Their approachability and honestly was greatly received by everyone in attendance and it is certainly an event I will look to attend again.