The Importance Of Leadership In Business

The following article is based on the keynote address given by Dawn Gibbins, founder and chairman of Flowcrete Group plc, world leaders in specialist flooring, at the Institute of Quarrying’s annual conference symposium in October 2005

I have the most wonderful job in the world – I am the leader of the most innovative flooring company in the world, Flowcrete Group plc. I am the strategic visionary who sees opportunities and then energizes my team to get up and go for them. My official title is chairman, but my role covers strategic direction and leadership, HR (happy relations), PR and marketing (if you are proud about it – shout about it!).

I adore people; I cannot survive unless I am among like-minded pearl fishers (positive people). I have been called Mrs Motivator in the past; personally I see my role as the team-builder, the stimulator of harmony, constantly keeping my team up to date with news on our global and local performance and events from around the world of Flowcrete (globally we have eight manufacturing plants and 26 offices).

My recognition as Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year in 2003/2004 stimulated many demands on my time and over the last two years I have been on an evangelical public-speaking road show – sharing my passion for business and leadership with audiences ranging from military leaders to motor mechanics.

I now sit on the National Manufacturing Forum panel, which is jointly chaired by the Rt Hon Alun Michael, Minister for Industry and Construction, and Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of GKN. I am also a director of our local Business Link and sit on the North West Strategic Board for Women in Enterprise, which advises government on how to energize more women to become entrepreneurs (I am lonely).

Oh, I nearly forgot – my other job is a mother of two wonderful teenage daughters, homebuilder and wife to a sensational man called Mark Greaves.

In the beginning

Following two years of travelling around Europe (12 months of which were spent living in a tent) I came back to the UK and started to work with my father, Peter Gibbins. He was an industrial chemist and his speciality was developing products for companies in the construction sector. My role with him was technical assistant.

One day an engineer called Gerry Bryant from Mars Confectionary called my father requesting he design an attractive, sugar-resistant floor for their factory in Slough, which he did within two weeks. He was about to sell the formulation of the system to Mars for a minute sum of money, but explaining this over dinner one night my mother went ballistic: ‘For goodness sake Peter, set up in business with Dawn.’

Throughout my father’s career he had been exploited; he shared his ideas with all and never put a commercial price tag on his technical innovations. So, in 1982 my father and I founded what is now Flowcrete Group plc, with him as technical director and myself as managing director and chairman. I stayed as MD until 1995 when I appointed a high-flying MBA to take Flowcrete to the next phase of growth, which we did through the acquisition of Isocrete Floor Screeds (UK) in 1995, Attako Corrosion Protection (Belgium) in 2001 and Perstorp Construction Chemicals in 2002, as well as Ivory Industrial (South Africa) in 2006. I am proud of our achievements and believe in and trust my people.

A dynamic decade

In the last 10 years we have increased turnover by over 800%, transformed our bottom line, won major awards for innovation and business excellence, and achieved more than a 100% increase in customer response by saying yes first time. We now have manufacturing plants in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Perstorp (Sweden), Putte (Belgium), Durban and Johannesburg (South Africa), Houston (USA) and Sao Paulo (Brazil).

Two men

Leaders need inspiration too and I was inspired by two men. The first was my dad – I can hear him now, saying ‘come on Dawn – go for it girl’. He was the one who always had so much enthusiasm and gave me the will to succeed.

The second was a man called Edward Sheldrick, a trainer from TMI (Time Management International). In 1989 my husband recommended I take a time-management course, which I did with TMI. I was so bowled over by the trainer that I closed down my company for two days, hired a castle and the amazing Mr Sheldrick, and subjected all of my staff to the same two days of life-changing inspiration.

I will never forget my dad was two hours late for the course, but I have never seen anyone hug and swirl around the trainer like my dad did after the course. So, Edward Sheldrick, if you happen to read this – a big, warm, sincere thank you for changing my whole attitude to management and inspiring me to succeed.

Edward taught us how to become ‘pearl fishers’ – always looking for the good things in people; he taught us how to ‘eat elephants’ – to complete major projects in small chunks; and he taught us how to balance our lives between work, rest and play. My dad was the old school; he believed staff should come in at 8am and stay until 8pm, just like he did, so when I put my foot down and said we were going to work smarter and not inflict long hours on our team, he groaned a little – but in the end I was glad we did.

Inspire your team

I inspire my team by catching them doing something right, by organizing parties to celebrate our success, by ensuring we distribute our global monthly newsletter full of success stories and profiles on people and their achievements, and by being a manic champion of change – challenging staff and pushing them to expand their capabilities.

I also inspire them by being creative and surprising them with new ideas, by communicating our clear vision, goals and strategy, by explaining how we are going to win and by constantly reinforcing the fact that TEAM at Flowcrete stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. I also provide my team with constant feedback, providing them with the excellent Thomas International Personality Profiles, which take a good look at each of them as a person so they can understand their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, inspiration comes from trusting them to get on with their job and having faith in them to succeed.

Dual agenda

Leaders need to stimulate a dual agenda for their companies to succeed:

1. Focus on Innovation – to make a company unique its leader needs to develop a clear strategic proposition for the company that outshines that of the competition. My motto is Dare to be Different.
2. Focus on Excellence (operational excellence) – today’s leaders need to be very holistic and I believe every major player in our industry should apply to become an Investor in Excellence.

I believe leaders should give clear direction, set clear goals and then support their team to success. Leaders need to focus on both unique strategy and operational excellence and they will succeed.

I also believe leaders should follow my Do it Policy:

• Do it differently – surprise customers both internal and external.
• Do it better – than competitors.
• Do it with passion – a passion to please.
• Do flaunt it – be visible, get noticed, self-promotion is not a sin.
• Dare to enjoy it – make friends internally and externally, network.

Leaders should cast off their grey sombre image and be colourful characters full of ideas which inspire staff and customers all over the world.

Are you an inspirational leader? Inspirational leaders must:

• be visionary, enthusiastic, champions of change – who dare to be different
• be there to lift and support people
• engage in dialogue with people by asking, requesting and listening
• believe they need to seek the answers
• believe in using purpose to inspire commitment and stimulate creativity
• believe their job is to celebrate learning
• believe in facilitating others to solve problems and make decisions
• believe in creating a vision and promoting flexibility through values as guidelines for behaviour
• believe in focusing on the people that create the bottom-line result.

I believe we need to look at the role of being a leader in a new light. There is too much of a dictatorial style of management in our industry and we need to convert this to management through kindness instead of fear. I also believe that if you have the right material in the first place (ie a person with the right attitude and ability to change) you can develop them into a great leader – but this will take time and lots of coaching.

Companies are now recognizing that an autocratic, dictatorial style of management is not the way forward; you only need to use this in the military in times of war or at times of severe crisis in a company struggling to survive. I believe there is a wave of positive change, which is being reinforced by our universities and management schools, and even government, sweeping through industry.

Company owners, chairmen and CEO’s are now aware that the greatest assets of their companies are the hearts, minds and attitudes of their people, and if they do not inspire their people their bottom line will be depressed.

The change will be recognizing that ‘leadership’ styles need to change from transactional to transformational.

More and more companies are focusing on developing and motivating their people, but I believe the biggest problem lies with the little companies — small-to-medium-sized businesses — who do not have access to inspirational management training facilities as they are too busy surviving. The construction industry has a major issue here. Small subcontractors are sandwiched between companies who can help them change if only we can get them to listen. I believe many companies are now focusing on developing their people but we need to keep this momentum going.

We in the construction and manufacturing sector should all register to become an Investor in Excellence and make our people proud. Let us all aim to be world-class companies – we can do it! I believe pride is the key; if we do not talk about our work and our achievements with pride we will lose the opportunity to change people’s perceptions of our industry. If we want to attract and retain the best people, especially young people, we need to show them how innovative, forward thinking and exciting our industry can be. I love it!