Vladimir Sterescu, CGS: “Leaders must always raise the bar and get the best outcome from the others”

“Looking back to what happened 2-3 years ago, we had to change our leadership style. In 2020-2021, the leadership style adopted in our company was more like autocratic, and I’m not scared to say that. We needed to take decisions without necessarily consulting the others like we were doing in the past, without presenting plan B, plan C, without giving our colleagues the chance to express their opinions.

We had to be strong, and we had to be able to take the best decisions. We were all navigating into uncharted territory. I’m happy to say that after a certain moment, the employees started to appreciate this style,” Vladimir Sterescu, Senior Vice President, and Country Manager Customer Support Solutions, CGS said during Romanian Business Services Forum organized by Outsourcing Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“In those times, they had the need to feel a strong leader near them, a strong leader to steer the company in the right direction, a leader able to pay their salaries and to ensure the continuity of services to our customers.

Those were some areas where we as leaders had to step in and make sure that these activities can continue without a second of interruptions. We always must raise the bar and we always must get the best outcome from the others.

The hybrid working model and the working from home model put us in a position to have a very transactional relationship with many of our employees. We didn’t have this situation in the past, a few years ago, and it’s necessarily good for a sustainable business on long term. It definitely affects loyalty.

We are trying to empower more and more the middle tier of management in our organization to deliver the message and be fully responsible and own the engagement with the base of the pyramid, the entry level positions.”