My first future professional guest is Umut Yelbaşı, my son. He is a 19-year-old, university student in the UK, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Sound Engineering and Production, following his dream. He is a musician, pianist, and composer. Like many of his friends, he has many interests, such as music, photography, film-making, writing, and more. He wants to be doing what he makes him happy, which is the ultimate blessing.
I asked him what he thinks about leadership, being an outsider to the professional world. Here are his answers — I find them educational. I hope you enjoy reading!
Thank you Umut, for your sincere answers.
What does the concept of leadership mean to you?
Leadership is the act of guiding, supporting, taking responsibility, and helping others achieve their highest potentials.
How would you compare a leader and a manager? Should a manager always be a “leader”?
A manager is a team’s overseer. They don’t necessarily think about the ones below. Their priority is the end result. A leader is an equal; they are not above the other team members. The leader’s goals aren’t selfish, they care about the people they lead. Their priority is the benefit and development of the people who work with them.
Which one would be more effective for a successful business and talent management, dictating leadership or empathetic leadership? How?
Empathetic leadership. A leader who understands what the people are going through will lead better, because they will understand the most effective ways of connecting with them. They will understand what are the team’s needs, and they will provide the best environment possible for maximum efficiency. They will know that a final product doesn’t necessarily mean a happy production timeline, but a happy production timeline will most certainly yield a final product of high quality and consistency.
What kind of workplace would you like to work at, regarding its management approach?
I would like to work in an environment where people don’t need to be reminded of deadlines. If everyone knows and follows their deadlines, the production will be more efficient and enjoyable, and the general atmosphere will be more positive. I can’t work in an environment where I’m constantly being audited or questioned. If I’m working on something I will know when/how to finish, so I would prefer to have more freedom in a project that was assigned to me.
How important is mental health in a workplace?
Obviously mental health is extremely important for a healthy and happy workplace, and no-one should make major compromises in order to make someone else “happy”. To give a very basic example, as a person who gets irritated and sick when people smoke around me, I would expect any smoking colleagues to smoke away from me, but also I wouldn’t do anything that would disturb any of my colleagues. To get into a more serious issue in today’s workplaces, stress is a global problem which everyone suffers (or can suffer) from. People in a workplace should be understanding and realize that everyone there is on the same boat. Even if some people may have more ambitious goals than others, it doesn’t change the fact that people get stressed and it shouldn’t be normalized.
How would you react if you were bullied, overstressed by your colleagues and/or superiors, when your knowledge, abilities, and work were not acknowledged?
I don’t necessarily look for acknowledgment and praise, but I can’t accept it if someone else takes credit for my own work. I put a lot of thought into most of my work, and I think it is both disrespectful and dishonourable for someone else to take full credit for something they had little to no contribution to. As for bullying or being overstressed, my motivation would decrease rapidly. I would try to keep up with the work without paying too much attention to any negative comments, but I have my limits. If I reach that limit, I will leave whatever I’d be working on and get out of the stressful environment. This happened last year in a conference for which I was editing the closing video, and I was also the Co-Head of Press. The second Head was keeping all of my videographers for a secondary video which could be shot with a single person behind a camera, but my team was standing around, watching without doing anything, while I was waiting for footage. The deadline was approaching, and the edit wasn’t even close to being done. I ended up storming out and leaving campus for the day. I managed to collect my thoughts and came up with an action plan for the team to follow for the next day. With that action plan, the next day was the smoothest and most productive shooting day of the four-day conference.
What should a leader's approach be about mental health at work?
A leader wants their people to succeed and be at their best. One way of ensuring they are performing and feeling well is to make sure everyone is at a good place, mentally speaking. A leader should be aware of any major/minor problems in and out of the work environment and should act accordingly. This doesn’t necessarily mean intervening or trying to solve someone’s problem for them — it means empathizing with them, trying to understand them, and thinking of ways to make them feel as comfortable as possible with the current situation they are in. This is to say a leader should care very much about mental health at work, and should know better than putting people under immense stress, which would undoubtedly harm their mental health.
How should the education system and the business world evolve, especially considering the COVID-19 era?
Since the pandemic broke out, 95% of my education has been online. I personally have no problem with it, but I can understand why some people might miss the traditional way of working/teaching (and I miss it too from time to time). What I do sometimes miss is the human interaction, especially between classes. The joy of going to school was mostly having friends to talk to, who could turn even the most boring classes into fun times. Losing that aspect of face-to-face teaching, especially in my first year in a new country was hard, but it wasn’t impossible to adapt to. I can safely say that I got used to it.
I think this pandemic proved that for most jobs, being present in an office isn’t necessary at all. People are happier and more productive when they are at their homes, where they can spend time with their families or take breaks in their own environment. I think education and business should transition to a blended system. For schools for example, students could go to school three times a week and they could be taught online over the other two. Or for business, the same schedule could be applied with meetings being scheduled on these “in days”. I think the morale would increase for both students and working people.
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