Category: The Real Leaders Project

We had kicked this series off with an interview of my Mom. The more we move ahead with these video interviews, the more I realize I did not do justice to her and perhaps will do a proper video interview soon!

The great thing about interviewing someone really close to us is that we learn something new about them despite having spent many years in close proximity. There’s always more to learn from the ones we love the most.

Today’s interview is with Mr.Balasubramanian K, Dhanya’s dad. Dhanya has been an indispensible part of the Real Leader team since January. He shares his story from humble beginnings equipped only with his engineering degree, all the way till until his construction company, Dhanya Shree Constructions. He is motivated by the product of his work – his buildings and is proud of being his own man.

Dhanya: What drives or inspires you?

Bala: Right from my college days i.e. during my undergraduate years, I wanted to become my own man. I got jobs during my under-graduation and post-graduation but I never took up those jobs. If you ask me why, I am not sure where I got the idea. It was always in my mind. I wanted to build good buildings. Making money was not the motivation behind this desire. I always wanted to make buildings that stand out.

That’s how I got into this business. After my postgraduate degree I went abroad for a couple of years. I worked with an engineering consultancy there. I came back to Chennai, India and started this company. I am in this field for the past 25 years and I have been doing reasonably well. Some of my buildings are quite old by now, but I can still walk into any of these buildings and talk to my clients. That’s the kind of reputation I believe in. Quality is my most important goal. My buildings speak for themselves. That keeps me going. That inspires me!

Dhanya: What are some of the most defining moments of your life?

Bala: Well, it started with the time I got my engineering seat. It is one of those defining moments. I got my postgraduate degree a few years after that. I got a job immediately after graduation in a gulf country. That was another thing I will remember. Then I got married. I guess that is anybody’s defining moment! I got two lovely children after that. Life went on! In the recent years I have been proud, when my daughter got her engineering place in NUS. A year after that my son got very good grades in his tenth. These are some very memorable milestones.

All the credit goes to my wife, I should say. In the early days, I never looked after my kids. I was mostly running after business. I never had time to even enjoy them growing up. My wife tells me how much I missed the naughty things kids do. Of course, everything has its own ups and downs. You have to pay something to get something else.

Now I am looking for my children to settle down. My son must get into a good college soon!

Dhanya: How has the journey been with respect to your business?

Bala: After my return from the gulf countries I took up government jobs here in Chennai. I was working for an American consultants company back in Oman, so I was trained in a very quality conscious way. I tried to apply that here in our country. Well, it did not work well financially. The buildings are all however standing as testimonials of my quality – even the government buildings.

I tell my clients. If you want a taste of my quality look at the government buildings rather than private ones. Because they speak for the 25 years they have stood. I had a big problem financially though after this experiment. I lost heavily, in the early years. One of my friends Chandran, he linked me up to a big project. That turned around my business career. To be honest, that is one of the most defining moments of my career so far. It helped me wipe out all the losses I had incurred.

From there, it started becoming pluses. I picked up the company and formed this private partnership in 1999. I have nothing to regret about! If I look at the past, I have built nearly 100 buildings in and around Chennai. I have built a couple of engineering colleges and a campus for an Italian consulting firm. These are some of the moments that stand out.

Dhanya: What advice can you give for future leaders?

Bala: I come from a middle-class family. My father was working as a bank manager. Business was not in my blood. Neither was I trained in such an environment. There was no one to tell me about running a business or about the nuances. All that I did learn, I learnt the hard way. For future leaders I would say that they have to take their people along with them. Whoever they are, whatever they are doing. The entire team should share responsibility. They should be respected in their own company. Whatever you earn, share it with your people. They have to be well paid.

When you lead your company you have to be patient with your people. You have to understand that it is also a people problem. You cannot always think about your own agenda. That may not give a sustained growth. People will not be with you for long. You also cant run a business without the support of a good team. You have to understand their psychology. Yes, you can’t do a hundred percent to satisfy them, but you can try.

You should have followers. This will put you on a higher plane. That is one of the most important things. In my early days I used to fire people whenever they made mistakes. Anybody is bound to make mistakes. We have to be a little patient with them and teach them. We have to make them understand how difficult it is to keep a client. We have to make them understand that unless the company grows you cant grow. As a leader, ensuring this will be your role. Take people along with you and that will give you a rich support system.

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Thank you Bala uncle for your interesting views! It was a pleasure listening to you.

From the Real Leader Team – Dhanya, EB and yours truly..

Dhanya met Carlos at a talk about Social Entrepreneurship last year. He spoke about a lot of his initiatives and ideas on the matter. One that struck a chord with her was about a bunch of school kids. He mentioned how they all wanted to be computer engineers. Not because they are truly wanted that. Somehow, they had been brought up to think the only way out of their current life and towards a better future was to become a computer engineer.

Dhanya spoke to Carlos for a Real Leaders Interview and enjoyed his take on doing good in business. Hope you find his story interesting too!

About Carlos Miranda Levy

Carlos Miranda Levy knows disasters-and how to help people transcend their devastation with dignity, inclusion, and an equitable distribution of wealth. Following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, he collaborated with Stanford’s Peace Innovation Lab to create Relief 2.0: a disaster response model that uses independent units of local stakeholders and foreign volunteers with mobile technologies and social networks to fill the gaps bureaucracy and top-down hierarchies leave. With the National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Centre he developed Relief Enterprise, a disaster recovery strategy based on social entrepreneurship. He now leads Relief B2B, a business collaboration initiative for disaster recovery in Japan.

CNN named Carlos one of Latin America’s twenty most influential people on the Internet. No wonder: his education, literature and local portals engage four million people worldwide. Governments and international organizations such as United Nations consult him on public technology policies and strategies.

Dhanya: How did your interest in Social Entrepreneurship stem up?

Carlos: That is an interesting story. My generation of social entrepreneurs and technology developers never thought of us in those roles. It was a natural state. That’s why it’s fascinating when we see social entrepreneurship being taught at schools. Only in the last ten years it has made into mainstream academia.

I always tell a story. I was invited to Stanford University to be a fellow for a digital vision programme. Google sponsored us. There were 16 of us and we were a team of people from all around the world. They had a guy who came to talk to us about social entrepreneurship. There was this other guy from Latin America. He looked at me and he said ‘Ah, so that’s who we are!’. That’s how we learnt that we were social entrepreneurs. Until that time were struggling with the fact that we were making money but we wanted to do good. We felt we were less than the NGOs because we were in business. We thought of our friends in the non-profit world as the real heroes. They were the ones devoted to social good. However, we were the ones who were on a path to find out how to do good with efficiency and innovation!

We never set out to be social entrepreneurs. We did not feel comfortable asking for people’s money. We did not feel comfortable with doing inefficient things. Basically, it started with a drive in you. I think it’s a similar story for many people in business. You create your own business, but then you don’t just want to run a business. You also want to do good.

You are not easily content with the things around you. Not just the society. So you say we can turn this into a business. You see a problem, or an issue or a challenge and then say we can do this. Maybe we will succeed, maybe we wont. Lets still go ahead and do it.

That’s how it started for people from my time.

Dhanya: How did Educar.org and BibliotecasVirtuales.com start?

Carlos: It’s amazing because they are stories of failures and mistakes. Educar.org and BibliotecasVirtuales.com are two of my largest websites. Each of them has one million active users. Funnily, I never wanted to do either of them. I created CIVILA.com in May 16, 1996. It became too big too complex and too fast. It is a virtual community and the users always wanted more. They were using the resources we gave them and uploading more content. And we were struggling with it. At the same time it was also the biggest lesson we learnt. Although we were a community network, what set us apart was that our content.

One of our co-founders of Educar.org wrote to me in 1997, telling me that she wanted to do something for students. I however, only received the message 9 months later. She was so enthusiastic that I wrote back to her and promised all my support. She wanted to do something for the community. I was not very keen then and she kept persisting.

In a while, we said there you go and set up Educar.org. I still told her that I did not have any time to spare for that. She took up the challenge. She set out to working on it everyday. And in less than a year it became the most popular website. It had good content and it was built on a very natural and sincere way. Till this day it is our site with the most traffic!

Another teacher who joined our team came up with the idea for BibliotecasVirtuales.com. ‘What do you think about giving people access to books?’ she asked. She is a teacher from a small rural town in Argentina. She said her students didn’t have access to books. I said ‘I don’t see any value in it’. She kept insisting saying there was a need for it. Actually, if you are looking for a particular book in Spanish its not easily available online. That is something I learnt later. There was indeed value there!

Then we did build a website for the books. We would work everyday on it. I set up the website and servers. We even registered the website on her birthday. Me and her went 11 years without meeting face to face.

Both of our ideas have become the most successful ones. There is something different about the website, BibliotecasVirtuales.com. Most websites have the books and make them available for download as pdf. We did not do that. We actually turned them into html. I did not initially believe in this. Who would sit and read the text on a computer. Surprisingly, people are willing to read online!

We did try to set up a download once or twice. It does not give me anything back as an entrepreneur. It uses up bandwidth and slows down the system. When people go through a book page by page, I can have ads and sponsors on these pages. I can also try to make them read something else. It was creating the online experience.

Another advantage we have is that, when someone searches for an excerpt from a book, our pages show up as one of the first searches. This is because our files are in html. However, a book available as a download would not show up. And that’s our competitive advantage.

Dhanya: What is the inspiration in your life? What are some defining moments in the story so far?

Carlos: I remember going to this conference in Mexico city. In the first hour, I made two friends. We started with ‘Where are you from?’ and we were together for the rest of the conference. There was something about the fact that we were Latin Americans that allowed us to connect.

My mother got cancer and she had to go to the US for treatment. I was alone for an entire summer. During this time I made a friend from Brazil. There was no messenger those times. I found her on a mailing list. And guess what, three months later I was visiting her in Rio de Janeiro! I stayed with her family. It was a nice time.

These two experiences taught me that people could actually connect. It’s never been about technology for me. It’s about people. Long distance friendships that were glorious taught me so much. We were talking everyday and we decided to meet during the Easter week. There I was in Brazil. I did not speak her language. But it did not matter. Her friend met me at the airport. They took me to this sailing club and we had fun. I was in a Caribbean island with 10 million people and boom; all of a sudden I was in Brazil. I was one of them. I had friends, I went to their parties and I stayed at their house. It really touched me how. No one had to explain globalisation to me. It was real and I knew what it means. In 1996 I created a Latin cities social community website. Meeting people face to face touched me and changed my life. It really altered boundaries and the goal was always to share.

At that time I was part of a failed initiative in the US. For one thousand dollars you would get a server. I had to pay 1000 dollars to go online. It was just the initial cost – a big sum of money in those days. Also, I wanted to share it with everybody. I gave my username and password to people I did not know. In the first days of CIVILA.com the content that was generated was using just one username and password. These were people I never knew. I just trusted them and no one abused the power. There was no security what so ever.

Those were the real milestones for me. The fact that I was able to meet people and connect with them reminded me of humanity. People are people.

Dhanya: Can you give some advice for the leaders of the future?

Carlos: Follow your dreams. Allow yourself to dream. Listen to others but always do what you think is right. If you do something wrong, it’s okay. Make it a mistake you will learn form and grow from.

If you don’t have a dream follow your heart. Be authentic. Don’t try to be the next Apple. Don’t try to be the next Creative Labs. You cant. Don’t try to replicate Silicon Valley. Just be authentic.

Listen to others but don’t renounce your beliefs. That’s the most important character. In a global competitive market, there is huge global knowledge; the only competitive advantage we have is the local knowledge. It’s the added value of local perspective. You cant do anything better than the people in Silicon Valley, unless you bring Singapore in perspective to it. Because that’s your edge!

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Thank you, Carlos for some enriching words. It was a pleasure having you here at Real Leader Interviews!

From the team – Dhanya, EB and yours truly..

Regulars here have heard of Aaron Klein before. He has been an inspiration of late for a few things (the most visible of which has been a change on font on this blog).

Aaron and I met via Disqus at AVC.com a few months back and we’ve been in touch thanks to commenting on each other’s blogs since. Aaron is one of those full of energy and inspiration. He is the CEO of a start up, a Trustee at a college, leading charity projects to help educate kids in Ethiopia and most importantly, a husband and father of 2 wonderful kids Casey and himself brought home from South Korea and Ethiopia – 2 kids who have changed their lives. Oh, and he also has a wonderful daily blog.

In short, a great guy and someone I’ve been looking forward to meet for a long while. I am sure you will enjoy this interview..

About Aaron:

Aaron Klein is the co-founder and CEO of Riskalyze, a technology startup that is revolutionizing how we make risk/reward decisions with our investments.

He’s also been elected twice as a Sierra College Trustee, and advocates for adoption and ending the global orphan crisis as a co-founder of Hope Takes Root.

Most importantly, he’s a husband and a father who believes in Isaiah 1:17’s radical mandate for changing the world.

One of our goals with Real Leader interviews it to keep it to short 15 minute interview. With Aaron, that was simply impossible. It was a laughter fest from the first minute as he rolled out one funny comment after another.

Please note that the internet connection in the Sierra foothills (the beautiful area where Aaron lives) is not the most predictable – so the video is not the clearest at all times. Our champion editor has worked hard to make it seamless. Our apologies for any part that may not be all that clear!

Rohan: Hi Aaron! Would be great to hear your story. How did it all begin?

Aaron: I have a rather interesting background! I started working for my dad when I was 12. He had a wholesale distribution business for security equipment like automatic gates. I literally started with packing boxes. I wanted to work with my dad and he thought ‘what else can this 12 year old kid do anyway’! I was gradually learning though. I started doing inventory and then operations. Later, I got into marketing for his products. At one point, I had to do slow down on college work because his industry had taken a dive. Suddenly they needed all hands on deck and there was no time for anyone to leave. Especially an 18-year-old low paid college kid like me! That was some experience.

In 2000, one of my good friends, my dad and I decided we should start something new with the internet. I was very excited about it! I have been on the computer from 1994 and I got network in 1995 in my dad’s office. My dad would often ask me to shut it down because he had to send a fax! Coming back to 2000, we started off with a web-consulting group. Towards the end of 2001, dad’s industry was getting tougher to stick to. I was trying to sell the company to a bigger competitor at that time. And in December 2001 we did sell it!

It was a bunch of different and varied experiences for me! And so, by the time I was in my 20s, I had moved from packing boxes to selling a company. My dad started working for the company we’d sold his business to, while my friend and I worked with the web-consulting firm. We later figured out that real value was in building a product. So we sold the web consulting company in 2005 and launched a business operation software for wholesale distribution companies. Our first client was the one we sold my dad’s company to! We got funding from that contract because we built it to suit their needs.

We made a boatload of mistakes with that company! It was good to learn from the mistakes though. Our biggest mistake was that we did a sort of exclusive-for-that-industry product. So we made the best business operation software for them, but we could not sell it to anyone else! Nevertheless, we were doing quite well. We had established contacts.

It was starting to get tougher though. In 2005, I could not make any venture capitalist believe that small businesses were going to buy their software over the Internet. No one bought that idea! They said small businesses buy their software off the shelves and this is never going to work. We started wondering what we were going to do. We needed about 25 million dollars of capital in this project.

We raised the first million and I sunk way more of my money than fit my risk tolerance into that company. (This is going to be funny in just a moment!) We were doing okay but about 2 weeks before the deal was going to close, the lead investor expired. And we hit the wall at 90 miles/hour. It was a huge life lesson. I don’t want to go through that ever again.

I learned a lot about risk tolerance, that’s for sure! I am not involved in the old company now, but that software is still running today with a couple of clients.

Then, a financial services company came calling as they needed to build a product developing team. They had a great marketing team but needed the ability to build technology products. So I went to work with them for about 4 years. That was the first time I was working in financial services. I explored a lot of areas there. I think it is a very interesting industry. It’s both dynamic and static in its own way.

One of the things I saw there was the huge holes that exist for individual investors. There are probably 14000 stocks in the ETFC that you can invest in and 269 million web pages where you can get ideas for investing. On the flipside there are all kinds of places you can go to execute these investments. There is no shortage of ideas and no shortage of execution. An investing decision involves figuring out the execution.

There is this great technology that quantifies risk tolerance. An old friend of mine invented it. He has a PhD in complex computer systems. He started to invest his money and he saw the way financial services assess risk in portfolios and he felt it was total baloney! He decided to come up with his own way of doing it and patented it. We started off with that.

And that’s our company – it’s called Riskalyze and it’s going very well. It looks at the investments and finds the one that fits the user. It’s helping people understand investments better and take decisions better.

Rohan: It’s been very interesting so far. It would be great to hear about some of the defining moments in the journey so far?

Aaron: It sounds funny but I’ve had a 21-year-old career by the age of 33! (My dad clearly had no idea about child labor laws!) The business operations software experience was a big learning. There was a team working for me, there was money involved and it was a very painful experience. In the learning process, sometimes you cant avoid that.

However, I feel it’s my job as a CEO to make sure that we are always headed in the right direction; that we are not stuck on the wrong trajectory. That’s one of the biggest learnings. Assessing the trajectory you are on in a startup is quite important because running a start up is a bit like taking a leap off a cliff. And they don’t allow parachutes!

You have to figure it out and make sure you are aware!

Rohan: It would nice to hear about things you do apart from your work life. Your kids and the projects with Africa..

Aaron: My wife and I decided to adopt in 2006. My son Spencer was born in South Korea. We flew to Seoul and brought him home. We did that again in October 2008. Our daughter Emma was born in Ethiopia. We met her Christmas morning in 2009. We flew home with her on New Years Eve 2010!

They have changed our lives! It’s hard to explain. A lot of people meet us and go ‘Thank you for what you are doing for these kids’. I don’t really see it that way. These kids are bringing more richness into our lives than what we could ever do for them.

Adoption is really about finding families for kids and not the other way around!

Rohan: You had a two-day trip to the South of Ethiopia as well right?

Aaron: When we went to adopt, we didn’t really travel throughout the country and left with a limited view. It’s like going to Central London and thinking that’s all there is to the UK!

There are a lot of core issues behind the situation there. It has to do with poverty in the developing world and how a lot of aid has not reached where it has to go. One part of the world cannot adopt another part of the world’s kids. That is not really a solution to the issue. We have to go deeper than that.

We thought we should solve the problem by preventing kids from becoming orphans in the first place. It starts with food and education. If you can ensure this and make them self-sufficient, we can break the cycle of dependency and ultimately poverty.

I took another trip in September 2010 and travelled throughout the country. I walked into Adami Tulu, this tiny village of 3000 people and it hit me. The kids were there and at one point I played a video for them on my phone. About 80 kids just piled around and the sky closed in! It was amazing. There is a school in the nearby village of Ziway. We have invested there too.

The biggest industry that region of Ethiopia, is made up of 22 acres of greenhouses. And they supply roses for the entire country of Denmark! Remarkable right? So, outside these greenhouses there are people sitting and hoping that someone inside falls sick and leaves because, that way they get to work. There was very little hope in the area.

We have built a couple of classroom buildings there. It was amazing to see it all come together. Some more buildings are under construction now. We have launched a sponsor program for the kids at the school. $19 a month is giving a kid food and education. That feels amazing!

We want to start some self-sustaining business ventures to fund the operation of the school. The goal is that 50% of the school’s operating costs will be covered by the business ventures in 5 years. At that point we will be able to cut the cost of the sponsorship or redirect the funds to other places of need!

Rohan: What a great story! Could you sum up Riskalyze for us in a few words?

Aaron: Riskalyze is all about quantifying your investment decisions. Making your decisions should be captured into an equation. And really, half of this equation comes from the risk tolerance. So, it goes back into the Internet and finds the investments that fit you! If you go to Google to do this, you’ll find investments that were hot in the past and a bunch of ads from companies that ask you to pick them. These are not ideal.

When you go to the software and tell it that these are your ideas and this is your risk tolerance, it calculates an optimum portfolio that fits you!

Rohan: What are your words of advice for the leaders (and aspiring ones!) out there reading this?

Aaron: The most important lesson is that every moment counts! We have to be purposeful and very intentional. I don’t think people spend a lot of time thinking about the kind of life they want to have and about the things they want to do. We don’t spend nearly as much time building the structure and the systems to achieve that.

I have a good example on that. 12 hours ago, I received an email from you saying ‘Aaron, let’s chat directly on Skype. I don’t check emails for 24 hours on Saturday.’ You do that to help yourself achieve what you want to do and that’s a good example.

Build a routine that works for you! In my case, I work on my start up on the weekdays and often do a 6 hour day on Saturdays. That’s life! On Sunday morning, we go to church and on Sunday afternoon, we always do something as a family! I make sure that I do as much as I can on Saturdays so I can keep Sunday focused for family. That’s not going to work for everybody but it’s up to you to build systems that work for yourself. If you are intentional in how you plan your life, you are going to be a lot more successful!

My dad taught me a lot about business and about life. He and I are still fantastic friends and we get along great. He was always dedicated to his family. I learnt all this from him. I remember this song called ‘This moment’ which talks about living in the moment and not in the future. A lot of that thinking has led me to be more intentional about things..

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It’s interviews like that make me thankful for the many who have worked hard to make this ‘Interview Real Leaders’ idea a reality. I had so much fun and have taken away an immense amount of positive energy going forward.

Thank you so much, Aaron for your time. As I’ve told you multiple times after our chat, I cannot wait to meet you – hopefully in California this year!

Over the last month, 3 of us have been working on getting these Real interviews out to you. This was the first one that was entirely a team effort. I did the interviewing, our talented iPad artist EB did the editing and talented artist and blogger Dhanya did the transcription. We hope to make steady incremental improvements to our efforts.

And we look forward to all your thoughts and feedback on what we could do better.

Happy Monday! And have a great week!

Today’s interview is thanks to RealAcader Justin Yiu who had also contributed a very interesting interview with his Professor John Rubedeau, one of our first interviews.. It’s over to Justin now.

Chantal R. Cotton was my resident advisor during my first year at the University of Michigan (In universities in the United States, it is common to have a senior student to be a counsellor to the students living in the dormitories. They build the communities within the dorm through the organization of events, and maintain the safety and affability of these communities). She was very easy going, upbeat, and optimistic. She also took the time to connect with each resident on a personal level. Even with her ridiculously busy schedule, her door was always open to residents.

Even when residents were chatting at 3 AM at night, she would drop by to join in on our conversations. Chantal was my inspiration to become a resident advisor, and her leadership as a resident advisor definitely influenced how I approached the job

About Chantal: Chantal was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan and earned a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science, a Master of Public Policy degree, and a Master of Urban Planning Degree. She has worked for the City of Ypsilanti, Michigan and is currently the Assistant to the City Manager for the City of College Park, Maryland. She plans to be a City Manager in the coming years.

1. What drives/inspires you?

I’ve always dreamed of making life better for everyone around me.

This was especially important since my hometown of Flint had such a bad reputation for unemployment and crime. I saw a beautiful place, full of potential when I looked at Flint. I saw a community that cared about each other and really wanted to see everyone excel. But that isn’t what I heard from other people outside of the community. I always dreamed of making communities like Flint better places to live for everyone there. I guess that is what drives me, knowing that there are still people who need access to better opportunities.

2. What has/have been the most defining moments in your life so far?

I guess I’ve done a couple really cool things in life, but I think my most defining moments are always the ones that I spend with my family and close friends. When I’m with them, I always learn something about myself and why I care about the things I care about. And those moments mean the most to me.

3. What advice would you have for future leaders?

Take a moment by yourself and think about what really matters to you.

Then find a way to build that into your everyday life and the work you do.

Also, look at every situation and think about how you can excel no matter what. If you think the world is out to get you and make you fail, then you’re right. If you think that you can be confident and excel regardless of how the world treats you, then you are also right.

There’s a famous quote that I love and agree with wholeheartedly –

“If you think you can, you’re right. If you think you can’t, you’re also right.”

One of the big improvements you will see on RealAcad Mondays is the presence of a video on every interview. We’re hoping to have that happen over the next couple of weeks! I realize it makes a huge difference, especially when you think of an inspiring interview like this one where every word has been thought through.

Thank you, Chantal and Justin. I enjoyed every line and best wishes to you, Chantal to make a dent in this world! I’m sure you will.

More to follow, as always, on RealAcad Mondays..

Happy Monday! :-)

While it is still Monday in Hawaii, I’m pleased to present a ‘Real Leader’ interview from Frederic Kuonen, a RealAcader from Stanford’11.

Frederic is currently doing his Masters in Banking and Finance at the University of St Gallen, where he also completed his Bachelors in Business Administration. Frederic has had a stint at the in-house consulting department at Credit Suisse. He discovered his passion for entrepreneurship while studying business models of Swiss Social Enterprises and led a market entry project in cooperation with a Swiss e-bike sharing start up.

Frederic is well travelled and spent a semester in Hong Kong. He was also an avid tennis player and was among the top 150 ranked players in Switzerland (i.e. from the land of Roger Federer!). He also has a great sense of humor!

Below is the interview with a note from Frederic.

Rolf Kuonen, born in 1950, grew up in Leuk, a small town in Switzerland. After spending 6 years in a Catholic residential school he completed his high school with a major in Greek and Latin. He graduated from the University of Fribourg with a licence (Masters) in Psychology and completed a secondary education in Psychotherapy. After his studies, he worked in Switzerland in different therapy centers. Currently, he is the director of a state-owned therapy centre in Visp focusing on youth’s problems in school and life. Through his work, he acquired a broad knowledge about people in different life stages, as he ha treated hundreds of people so far. Additionally, Rolf is very passionate about the 3^rd dimension and was a private pilot for several years.

I know Rolf because he is my father ;-). I interviewed him because I think he has a different perspective on leadership, as he doesn’t work in a corporate environment. Also, he knows how people think and behave from experience, and I thought it was a great opportunity to understand his ideas of leadership.

1. What inspires/drives you?

As a psychologist, I’m in contact with people every day. Usually they come with some problem they have in their life, which is sometimes extremely difficult. I cannot give concrete examples, but I’ve had young people who’ve lost both of their parents within two weeks. So, in these situations my job is to stabilize the person and be a safe haven for them. At the same time I will have to encourage the patient to find their own solutions to their problem. So what I do is empower people to use their full potential and thus overcome their difficulties. This is a very rewarding and satisfying feeling.

2. What has/have been the most defining moment (s) of your life so far?

When I was 12 year old, I was sent to a Catholic residential school. This was one of the most defining moments of my life. Even though the education was very good, I lived through a difficult and (often) frustrating period during these 6 years. The main reason was the closed environment in the presence of monks and priests. We were seldom allowed to leave the campus to visit Fribourg (a Swiss city nearby). Also, the values, strongly influenced by Catholicism, were very conservative.

During this period, I discovered a strong drive of freedom and an urge to revolt against the institutionalized authority. For example, we fled from school once in a while, caught a Taxi on the street and went to Fribourg to watch a movie in the cinema. These movies inspired me and we started to produce our own movies, which were very critical of Catholicism. I believe this experience gave me a lot of self-confidence and a strong independence versus institutionalized authorities as well as social obligations. This independence has had a strong influence on my therapy style. After several years of studies, I started developing my own therapy style, which is a combination of different theories, as I don’t believe in one ‘right way’ to do it.

3. What advice would you have for future leaders?

As a director of a therapy centre, I have to be a leader. Like with everything else, I have my own personal leadership style and I try to empower people. It’s the same philosophy as in my therapy. In my opinion, there are three important factors on how to be a leader.

1. Being authentic. For me, this means accepting one’s strengths and weaknesses.

2. Self-responsibility of team-members. I give my team the freedom to find their own solutions and this means I take time for them and support them if necessary. In my experience, when people are given responsibility, they begin to feel that they are taken seriously, which is very motivating. It’s like being a guide with regular control so they stay on the right path to achieve their goals.

3. Humility: While you have to be self-confident, self confidence, for me, means being humble when interacting with team members. Thanks to my experience, I sometimes know better but I don’t have to show that off. Being humble to me means being respectful to my team-members, encouraging their strengths and giving them time to speak up.

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I loved the note about being authentic. It’s often forgotten. Thank you Rolf and Frederic.

More to follow as always on RealAcad Mondays..