Leadership Is A Journey Of Unlocking Self, Others & The Business
Wes Booysen
C-Level Executive
Denver, CO
I was born and raised at the southern tip of Africa during the challenging times of the Apartheid era. After having lived and worked across 6 continents I can confirm with confidence, “there is more that unite us than divide us”. Thanks to great mentors I pursued a career with Deloitte in Accounting and Finance, a perfect foundation to pursue my business career on an International scale. My work has spanned across the globe while based in the USA, UK, Europe, Africa and Australia with fast-growing organizations from mid-market to Fortune 250 companies. It included the last decade with Molson Coors Beverage Company, a Fortune 250 company, including serving as CEO of the Asia-Pacific and Africa region over the last ~2 years.
I am an avid reader and studying great leaders inspires me. I have also experienced firsthand what great leadership can achieve. If it were not for Nelson Mandela’s ability to sow seeds of compassion and love as opposed to fear and hatred, South Africa most likely would have entered a stage of civil war during the mid-90’s.
I believe that leadership is a journey of unlocking the full potential of Self, Others and the Business.
I also believe that it is critical to lead others in a caring, authentic and respectful way, bring Love Leadership into the workplace. In a post-Covid world, and more than ever, the ultimate priority of any leader should be the well being and success of her or his team. Love Leadership is built on the foundation of trust and is the cultural foundation to unlock incredible potential within any organization and undoubtedly improve the bottom-line. It enables employees to become the best they can be and ultimately creates an environment where employees feel engaged and trusted. Trust does not only liberate and motivate people to do their jobs, but it also accelerates purpose and performance outcomes. It is knowing people want to do well and believing that they will.
A simple story to illustrate the power of one of [my self created] “7 Leading Others Habits”, everyone’s voice must be heard: I was in Korea with my team negotiating the final pieces of a major deal. We were in a deadlock and couldn’t agree on a key term. We just couldn’t see what later became obvious. First, I suggested we take a break from the discussions. Next, I asked the team to go for a walk…I sometimes do that. It helps to clear the mind and can unlock new perspectives. I then did what I always do; I asked everyone for their point of view. I wanted to evoke the perspective of all team members regardless of their functional expertise, including legal, finance, commercial, and others. It was the finance team member who raised an interesting point to help resolve what was essentially a commercial question. The solution was easier than we thought and after returning to our negotiations, we successfully agreed on the specific term and headed out for beers. Never underestimate the power of a tribe and listening to everyone’s perspective.
Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading the Organization is a framework that has worked well for me in consistently achieving extraordinary results through globally based high performing teams with best-in-class people engagement scores. My hope is that you will find something within this framework that resonates with you.
Wessel “Wes” Booysen lives in Littleton, Colorado with his wife Oliva and three kids, Ben (11), Adalynn (10) and Landon (7).