Know your environment
Cardoso says a good leader is one who has a nice balance between experience, emotional intelligence and IQ.
But of those three, emotional intelligence is something that brings it all together. Emotional intelligence is having self-awareness and knowing when you have to listen to others.
“There is time to talk and there is time to listen,” he says. “There’s a balance. There are times that you have to talk more than listening. And there are times that you have to listen more than talk.”
But it also involves getting a feel for the morale of the people around you.
For instance, with this current economic downturn, Cardoso is taking more of an active role with his leaders.
“It was very important for them to see somebody at the top that was calm, collected and was forming the strategy that we had, believing in the strategy and most importantly believed in the people that I have working for me,” he says.
When you feel something has rattled your organization’s confidence, you need to take action. If you are getting a lot of negativity in meetings or no response at all, there is most likely something wrong.
Cardoso gets a feel for the environment by meeting once a month with random employees to find out what is on their minds. He starts off the meetings with normal conversation and avoids coming across as the boss. If the Penguins or Steelers played, he will talk about the game.
“You have to create an environment that is conducive for people to speak up,” he says. “I believe people should be able to express their opinions and so forth. Obviously you get a pulse from that.”
While you may be tempted to only have these meetings during tough times, try to hold the meetings on a consistent basis.
“My view is you have to be consistent as a leader,” he says. “If you do a lot of these meetings during economic challenges and not during the good times, you run the risk of sending the wrong message. You run the risk of losing opportunities with employees.”
Cardoso began to get the feeling that his leaders below him became stressed out because of the economy, so he not only stepped in but he had to carry himself in a way that told the employees that he knows what he’s doing.
“People lose confidence in environments like this,” he says. “The leader’s job is to provide confidence in the organization. I often tell people if you are the top guy in the company, you have to smile even when you’re hurt. Because, if you are going through a difficult time and you smile while you are going through it, people get a different take than if they see you frowning in the morning because, ‘If Carlos is worried, we should all be worried. We don’t know why he is worried, but we should all be worried.’”
The sooner you take action, the better off you will be.
“If you do that after a bad quarter, then you are just reacting” he says. “That’s not leadership; that’s management. I find there is a big difference between leadership and management.
“Management takes order from top leaders. Leadership is you skate where the puck is going to be. You have to know where things are going.”
How to reach: Kennametal Inc., (724) 539-5000 or www.kennametal.com
