Hello, my name is Patrick Jones. I'm a HIDA board member. I am the president of Fisher Healthcare, part of Thermo Fisher Scientific.
How Has Your Approach To Leadership Evolved Over The Course Of Your Career?
When I started my career, it was very much “directive”. Leaders were, you know, “this is how you need to do it. This is what you need to say. This is the outcome that we expect.”
I'm sure many of those leaders still exist today, but today it's much more collaborative. It's much more in terms of understanding the skills and capabilities that you have in the room and extracting the best out of people – and identifying that.
What Are Some Habits Or Routines That Have Been Essential To Your Success As A Leader?
It's not about, you know, a gotcha moment. It's very much about giving people the time and the space to act on those follow-ups, whatever those follow-ups were, and then checking in at the appropriate time to say if you need additional help.
And so it's almost like a clock that I've developed in terms of, whatever the actions or directive was given and following up with those people or those associates at the right time.
What’s One Skill Or Mindset You Think Is Critical For The Next Generation Of Leaders?
I think emerging leaders will have to be able to not only process a lot of information, but be able to translate that information effectively, more broadly.
And the only way to do that is to be curious about the information itself. Stay curious about your industry, stay curious about adjacent industries. Stay curious about not only your role and getting better in your role, but more importantly, stay curious about what your colleagues are doing in different roles and in different functions.
I believe that the best leaders, the best emerging leaders will have a certain understanding and not deep understanding, but a certain understanding of many functions, many areas, and they're bringing different insights into their company, different insights to their team and different insights to their customers.