In the late 1990s, at 19 years old, Sheikh Farouk Sheikh Mohamed, FCMA, CGMA, moved from the coastal nation of Malaysia to the deserts of Arizona in the US to attend college some 8,500 miles from home.
The internet wasn’t yet widely available for his family in Malaysia. “When I sent news to my parents, it was only a postcard,” he said. But he was determined to make it work.
“Being from a small Asian country, 20 years ago … I wanted to be someone influential,” Sheikh Mohamed explained an recent FM interview.
He succeeded, going on to high-level jobs in Switzerland, Singapore, the Philippines, and eventually back home. He advanced his career and led international teams at Nestlé and other entities. Yet, nearly three decades later, he doesn’t think that ambition was his greatest leadership trait.
“What I learned,” he said, “was actually the skill of adaptability.”
Whether you’re moving to a new country or a new team, “you need to have an open mind … You have to adapt, observe. You really have to understand the issues. You really have to understand the change.”
Sheikh Mohamed is one of three finance leaders who talked to FM about the art of people leadership. Together, they discussed how to lead people through transitions and transformation, especially as the next wave of AI and other technologies arrives.
“As much as it’s about delivery and target building, it’s also about building the next set of leaders,” said Anushi Jayasinghe, FCMA, CGMA, who transitioned from finance to human resources and now serves as the chief human resources officer at Capital Alliance Holdings Limited (CAL Group) in Sri Lanka.
Also interviewed was Kathy Lockhart, CPA, CGMA, who works in the US restaurant industry as chief accounting officer for the US chain Noodles & Company.
“We have 7,000 employees, so this isn’t just me and my team that are impacted by all that’s going on. It’s a lot of people that we’re responsible for,” Lockhart said. “Regardless of where you are and what company you’re at, it’s literally one day at a time: ‘What can I do today to impact in a positive way?'”
The three experts offered the following advice on how to best lead and support team members.
Adapt to shifting expectations
Taking on a leadership role often means new people, new knowledge, and a new scope of thinking. (See the sidebar, “Leading AI Adoption”.)
That’s something Sheikh Mohamed learned in leadership stops across Nestlé‘s business in both Asia and Europe. Each role brought different expectations as a new leader, which made introductory periods all the more important, he explained.
“I try to research, and I try to understand the culture,” he said.
With each new job, he wants to learn about:
- The current operation: What problems do the company and the unit face? What can he learn from a review of historical data and conversations with the team?
- The expectation of the board or other leaders: “What kind of direction are they bringing the company into?” Sheikh Mohamed asks. “We need to understand and align.”
- The team’s dynamics: Even before he takes a job, Sheikh Mohamed is thinking about how he fits into the company’s culture. “I think the chemistry has to be there, of myself and the company and the team,” he said.
And each of those missions, of course, continues throughout a leader’s tenure.
Increase the frequency of communication
“Where there are people, they need engagement, they need feedback, and they need to feel engaged, like they’re doing work that’s adding value,” Jayasinghe said.
That’s easily said, but it takes a lot of effort to get it done.
The most common suggestion from these leaders was to engage frequently, and in depth, with direct reports and their work. The right tone for communications will depend on the team, they said, but communicating often is key.
“That sort of two-way conversation is very important, [especially] considering how it can get pushed back to the back bench,” Jayasinghe said.
Sheikh Mohamed similarly suggested pushing for weekly meetings, not monthly meetings, to enable an ongoing conversation. This results in not just efficiency and alignment, but also connection.
“The key is gaining trust from the team. Once you gain the trust, they’ll know you have a genuine heart,” Sheikh Mohamed said.
Jayasinghe wants to hear from her reports about:
- Day-to-day deliverables;
- Projects, including process improvements, automations, and strategic planning; and
- Progress on personal growth and learning targets.
It’s not just regular conversations, either. Leaders should establish a “review platform”, Jayasinghe said, that gives the team a chance to “showcase what they’ve done” and compare performance to measurable metrics.
Those goals should be holistic, she said. “It’s not just about your numbers, it’s about growth.”
And just as importantly, they should be realistic.
“When you’re setting timelines, it’s always important to have alignment, so that you set realistic timelines,” Jayasinghe said. “Otherwise, that can demotivate a team if it’s too tight.”
Develop yourself and your people
Part of being a good leader is making the most of who you already are, Lockhart said.
“I don’t know that you can change a lot about your personality,” she explained, noting that some people have criticized her as loud.
“I can’t change that. I have to be cognisant,” she said.
But what leaders can change is their skillset. For Lockhart, that has meant continuously taking on new roles at Noodles & Company, a public company with nearly 500 restaurants in the US.
Besides leading the accounting department, she oversees the corporate office and takes the initiative on causes like loss prevention.
“Right now, you’re seeing a lot of layoffs, a lot of people struggling in the job,” Lockhart said. “From a leader’s perspective, the broader I can be, the better.”
Building skills is only getting easier, Jayasinghe said, with the advent of digital platforms like LinkedIn Learning and generative-AI-powered learning platforms. These include, for example, 360Learning and Docebo.
“Do not forget to invest in yourself,” said Sheikh Mohamed, who has regularly added degrees and certifications.
“If you still insist on [relying on] the degree that you took 25 years ago in the US — things have changed,” he said.
Address change with a direct message
Inevitably, leaders have to deliver messages that their teams won’t like. Noodles & Company mandated a return to the office — for core hours two days per week — at its Colorado headquarters.
After years of full remote work, the change naturally drew questions and objections. Lockhart responded by addressing specific concerns, but also by framing the need for the change. Other teams and staff — supply chain and the company’s head chef, who are critical to developing and maintaining the chain’s menu — had been coming into the office for years.
“There’s a core group of people who are there every day,” Lockhart said. Her message to her team: “What can we do to support the people that we are working with?”
Whether it’s a frightening change or a challenging project, the same lesson applies. “You cannot lead by fear,” Lockhart said. Instead, she asks her team what it can do to help the company, stressing that the “why” behind the change is “connection and community and commitment”.
The leadership mindset
“I know a lot of people who are domain specialists, and that’s also fine. But … there’s something really fulfilling about leading a team and delivering something together,” Jayasinghe said.
Leading in a finance role takes a special touch, especially with the crush of deadlines and change.
“You can see them firefighting. In finance, there are a lot of deliverables that are time-bound,” Jayasinghe said.
That makes it all the more important to lead with an eye toward developing people and strategy.
“It’s very important for finance leaders … to develop a personal leadership with the team that builds loyalty and builds empathy both ways,” Jayasinghe said.
At the heart of good leadership, she and the others said, is a desire to help others.
“I look at my role, as a higher-level leader in the company, to be the support staff for my team,” Lockhart said. “I want them to do the work, to be developed.”
Leading AI adoption
The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies is a challenge for leaders in several ways. Some team members may fear their jobs will be automated. Others may worry that they can’t learn the technology. Despite these concerns, leaders need to motivate and enable their team to make the most of new tech.
The goal, said Anushi Jayasinghe, FCMA, CGMA, is to “not let technology disconnect. Let technology connect you and your teams and other teams, and enhance that collaboration.”
Jayasinghe, Sheikh Farouk Sheikh Mohamed, FCMA, CGMA, and Kathy Lockhart, CPA, CGMA, suggested these strategies:
Model behaviour
Leaders should be “embracing technology themselves and talking positively about how it helps”, Jayasinghe said. This can ease others’ fears and get them thinking about practical uses of emerging technology.
Involve the team
Invite the team into discussions and planning about where technology might be best deployed. Lockhart recently led her team in a process to look for automation and efficiency opportunities at Noodles & Company. “It was valuable. It gave my team some time to do this thinking,” she said.
Focus on personal development
To maintain morale, remind employees that the advent of AI “gives you an opportunity to reskill and upskill”, Sheikh Mohamed said. Leaders can help by offering training resources and motivation. They also can establish reverse mentorships, with younger or more tech-savvy employees helping their less-connected peers to catch up.
Andrew Kenney is a freelance writer based in the US. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Oliver Rowe at Oliver.Rowe@aicpa-cima.com.
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Articles
“Approaches to Artificial Intelligence: Leaders Look for Answers“, FM magazine, 6 November 2024
“Why Digital Transformation Is More About People Than Technology“, FM magazine, 30 October 2024
“How to Engage Positively and Learn From Criticism“, FM magazine, 22 August 2024
