BiteSize: Leadership Resilience: Embracing Failure and Setting Goals for Growth - Lessons from a DHL Executive.

Ever wondered how a senior executive navigates the challenges of leadership while building personal resilience? If you're curious about embracing failure as a learning opportunity and setting clear goals for growth, this episode is for you.

Welcome to this bitesize episode  where we delve into the topic of resilience with Heidi van Eldik, a senior executive at DHL. Heidi shares her personal resilience journey, highlighting the importance of experience, setting clear goals, and embracing failure as a learning opportunity. Her experiences in different countries have shaped her resilience, making her self-reliant and adaptable to new challenges.

Imagine gaining insights from a seasoned leader who emphasizes the role of self-reflection, proactivity, and surrounding oneself with the right people. 

By listening to this episode, you can:

• Learn from Failure: Understand how accepting failure as part of the learning process contributes to personal growth and effective leadership.
• Build Trust and Integrity: Discover the importance of trust, integrity, and being open to learning from others.
• Leverage Teamwork: Gain practical advice on leveraging the expertise of team members and moving away from perfectionism towards delegation and strategic focus.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Personal Growth Strategies: Insights into accepting failure, setting clear goals, and learning from experiences.
2. Effective Leadership Techniques: Practical advice on trust, integrity, mentorship, and creating a supportive environment.
3. Resilience Building Tips: Techniques for self-reflection, proactivity, and surrounding oneself with the right people.

Are you ready to embrace failure as a learning opportunity and build resilience like a senior executive? Scroll up and click play to join our enlightening conversation with Heidi van Aldick. Gain the insights and strategies you need to set clear goals, leverage teamwork, and create a supportive environment for success.

Full Episode from S3  E4:
Struggling to Lead Through Crisis and Uncertainty? Learn from a Logistics Executive's Experience.

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to It's an Inside Job Bite-Sized Fridays
• 0:34 Resilience Building Techniques with Heidi Van Aldick
• 1:32 Personal Resilience and Self-Reflection
• 4:38 Learning and Accepting Failure
• 7:17 Facing Adversity with Agility
• 8:47 Letting Go of Perfection as a Leader

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] Well, welcome to It's an Inside Job Bite-Sized Fridays, your weekly dose of resilience, optimism, and well-being to get you ready for the weekend. Now, each week, I'll bring you insightful tips and uplifting stories to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace a more positive mindset. And so with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:35] Hey folks welcome back to another bite-sized friday this week we're jumping into the time machine back to season three episode four where i had a brilliant guest with heidi van aldick a senior executive at dhl and so in this week's clip we're going to explore three different areas is Resilience Building Techniques, you know, where Heidi shares her specific resilience building techniques that have helped her and her team navigate different challenges and uncertainty. We're also going to be talking about adapting to change, you know, strategies for adapting to circumstances, emphasizing flexibility and innovation. And we're also going to talk about personal growth and reflection. And where Heidi discusses the importance of self-reflection and personal growth in leadership and in leading herself. Providing her own insights into maintaining personal well-being while leading others. Well, I hope you enjoy this week's Bite Size Friday.

[1:32] How would you define your own personal resilience? What is resilience for you as an individual? I think for me, looking at my past as well, resilience comes from experience. I think I don't give up easily as a person. I push through. I set clear goals from the start. I've done so all my life. I've been very pragmatic about it. This is where I am now. This is where I would like to go. Not necessarily in a plan where I need to land, but more in steps in developing myself. And I think what I've learned over the years as well is I plan, but I also accept failure and failure.

[2:11] To learn from that failure as well and not to let it deter from my attentions I'm a very proactive person I know how to take care of myself but I'm also my biggest critic at the same time as well and what I've learned over the years is that I know I do better when I'm surrounded by the right people and I think for me that's really become a key element in my life as well as as everyone I've had certain key things that are influencing me in life I think growing up I grew up in a in relatively a small town in the Netherlands yes and I found myself in a position early on in life where I had to take care of myself and and others felt a big responsibility early on as well and I think the circumstances that I grew up in made me vow to myself that I would always be able to take care of myself and be self-sufficient and in order to get there to really push myself to be successful and independent and looking at myself I moved to London when I was about 17 years.

[3:08] Old later when I was about in my mid-20s I moved to New Zealand and every time it forced me to build up that life from from scratch again I've always paid for example my own way through university always had a few jobs on the side while studying in order to support myself and I think especially looking back now that period abroad has really enabled me to build up resilience be self-reliant and at the same time put me in a position to create new bonds with people as well and so i think i i would say my resilience would come partly from within who am i as a person but it's also shaped by by many learning experience while while being thrown back onto myself and at the same time always being proactive allowing myself to feel once in a while but be ready to pick yourself up again and keep moving forward uh and find and and again find the the right people to surround myself with in order to feel safe and create that safe environment.

[4:07] And so the different environments whether it's the Netherlands whether it was England whether it was New Zealand and the different trials and tribulations that you've experienced through your life they've they've formed a crucible they've they've shaped you because a lot of people speak to the idea of learning uh learning and to accept failure and to moving on but for many people when they get hit by failure or life does not meet their expectations and that kind of, it's like a punch in the gut, it wins them.

[4:38] What advice would you give someone to learn and to accept failure? What does that mean? How can they do that? I think looking at myself, what I've learned over the years, in order to build experience, you need to learn and you will make mistakes during that period. And I think the key point is accepting that it's part of your journey. Don't be too hard on yourself, but learn from it, grow from it. And that will be a better leader in the end as well. And again, coming back to people around you, surround yourself when you're building your team with people who are smarter, who are more skilled in certain areas.

[5:12] Don't micromanage them, but give them your trust. for me trust and integrity and those are the key words and when it comes to trust also learn to trust in yourself i think that's been a big part of my journey um while growing up and while developing myself as a leader and trust to listen to that voice within yourself and at the same time and that can be quite difficult especially when the trust aspect comes in be open to other people as well be vulnerable learn from them listen to them and success does not come from you it comes from at least what I believe and it comes mostly from a team and not an individual and I think it's it's the variety and skills and personalities that are complementary to each other that that sets you up for that success and I think coming back to the coaching that we talked about earlier as well I've had several mentors and coaches over the years as well which I think at different stages in my career they were able to either be my sounding board or give me the ability to reflect with someone on difficult situations and the main point there is they were never directly connected to either my place of work or my family life at home it gives me it gave me a place to yeah that's kind of almost as a third party to to trust in and and and.

[6:27] A bounce off with ideas and try the things that they might not necessarily try first time within the organization or at home and I think that that allowed me to get the outside view and it still does because I still I'm working with coaches and it creates that ability to learn from from a difficult situation taking the time to reflect as well on what happened it at least for me it works it gives me the right tools to do it differently next time learn from it and that That allows me to grow as well and be more resilient as well, coming back to that. And so when you're confronted by some sort of adversity or challenge that comes unexpected to your doorstep, are you in the present and are you conscious of

[7:14] your own thinking as you face that adversity? Or is this something that is automated in you?

[7:21] I think it sits within me, I have to say. But it's also something that I've learned to adapt and become agile over the years with as well it's it's something hits you you have two choices you can sit down and be really sorry it happened to you and wonder why it happens to you or you can start in the action mode which is usually me and then afterwards reflect on you know why did this happen how did I end up in this position and how do I avoid ending up again but my first instinct always is action how do I get out of it how do I get away from it and how do I fix it not just for me but for the people involved as well you've actually sort of articulated very well what a lot of those clients that I've worked with how they move forward how they've climbed in organizations how they've you know they've mastered different parts of their life whether professional or personal they get hit but then they they immediately start thinking okay how do I move through this storm what do I have to do how How do I take the first step? What actions do I have to take? And that's what it sounds from you. And what I also hear is that you speak to being humble and vulnerable, that sometimes you can't fix everything. Sometimes you need to find a sparring partner or to find team members who are stronger than you, but who report to you and that you can use their expertise, knowledge, and experience to help you through a conundrum, through a problem. Is that what I understand? Yeah.

[8:48] Yes, absolutely. And I think that was for me growing up and learning and moving through the ranks as well is I'm a perfectionist at heart as well. Because I thought I needed to do everything right and everything perfect because otherwise I would fail and therefore people would see me as a failure. And I think the biggest challenge for myself over the years has been able to let go of having to be perfect and put that pressure on myself. Well and I think especially the situation as a leader I'm in right now you know perfection goes pretty fast out of the window if there's multiple locations that many team and even more number of people involved as well it's really had to learn to let go of certain things start to delegate.

[9:28] Um I put the bar high for myself and I put them high for others as well and I think that's been one of the biggest steps I had to take as a person and as a leader as well let go of perfection action um create trust and learn to listen in that organization and learn to to read even if it's not spoken out loud learn to read what people need and be successful and have them be successful within the team that they need to work in as well i think that's really enabled us as well as a team to move away from that day-to-day operation and to move to a more tactical and strategical level and really be able to focus the attention on the long term and put that vision out there as well, rather than run and fight the fires every day. I really believe we're no longer in a position at this point where we are afraid to voice our ideas or speak up or also look at the personal impact something might have on a person while taking a business decision. If you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? You will find the link in the episode in the show notes. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. And I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational episodes on Monday and the latest Bite Sites episode on Friday. And have yourself a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend.

[10:49] Music.