An In Good Company podcast with Leigh Gammons, CEO at Tangent
Turning problems into opportunities
If we define entrepreneurial leadership as bringing people together to achieve a common goal, whilst optimising risks, innovating, and managing change and all within a dynamic environment – then our guest today definitely ticks all the boxes.
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At 32, Leigh Gammons stepped in to his first CEO role in the fast-evolving technology, marketing and digital industry. 10 weeks later the world imploded when Covid struck and leaders across the world had to rip up their strategies and radically adapt in order to survive. In this podcast Leigh talks to Dan about what entrepreneurial leadership means to him, how a human-centric approach to leadership enabled him to grow his organisation during the pandemic and the danger of greenwashing in the technology industry.
What does it take to be an entrepreneurial leader?
I’ve come across two different sorts of entrepreneurial leader. The initial starters who can get a company from one person to 30-50 people. They’re fighters who are directional in their leadership style. Then there are people who can scale it beyond 50 people, with more clarity of vision, enabling others to come with you, growing teams and building trust. There are not many people I can think of who can do both – and I'm definitely the latter.
“Employ better people than you and treat them as you wish to be treated and I think you're going to be on the right path, to be honest.”
Can you be human-centric in an economic crisis?
At the start of the pandemic, we met virtually for what felt like days talking about what we really need to do. We wanted to prioritise saving jobs and protecting 500+ families over anything else. It felt like the right thing to do, but it was also calculated as it would cost our business if things bounced back, and we’d lost our highly skilled workforce. Our positive strategy led to us inheriting three other companies and onboarding over 250 people in South Africa, Hungary and Poland before we’d even met them. Becoming the boss was a crazy roller coaster, making sure you had the principles by which you want to make decisions.
Continue with Dan and Leigh’s conversation here:
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
Watch our interview here:
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009: Women in leadership with Louisa Rodriguez, UN Women Delegate 2023
Coming up
011: Putting the human in human resources with Iwan de Leeuw, Toll Group
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