To kick off this year’s Leadership Event Series, we were delighted to host keynote speaker Mr. Grant ‘Upbeat’ Bosnick, Managing Director and People Strategy Consultant, YES (Your Empowering Solutions) Pte Ltd this morning. Grant shared key learnings from his recently published book about how self-leadership is the most important pillar in the leadership development process. Immediately after his keynote address, Ms. Rohaya Roslee, D&I Practice Lead (ASEAN, Greater China Region, Japan and Korea) Global Diversity & Inclusion, Microsoft and Ms. Uma Rudd Chia, Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director, KVUR joined Grant in a moderated panel conversation to share and discuss the key attributes of self-leadership and the link with people management and workplace culture.

The 3 key learnings are:-

1. You need to effectively lead yourself before you can successfully lead others. This means regulating your emotions and building and sustaining a positive mindset.
2. Use multiple tools to help you respond to different people and situations to achieve positive outcomes.
3. Be self-aware. How you see yourself is not necessarily how people see you. Find out by asking them and adapt, if necessary, to be more effective.

Leaders must lead by consistent example personifying the values and behaviours of the organization while staying authentic, humble and vulnerable. No-one knows everything. The job of leaders is to champion a positive workplace culture in which everyone can feel safe, have access to development and excel for themselves and for the business. Leadership is a journey without end – a yellow brick road of experimentation, innovation, successes, failures and continual learning.

Many thanks to our expert panel for sharing their insights and experiences and to our very engaged audience for contributing to a learning opportunity for us all.