Reality Check Leadership

I am proud to share the result of 28 minutes of conversation with an incredible talented communicator, a former journalist, news anchor, leading nowadays a communication agency, a woman, a force of nature!

I am proud to share that my guest for this episode is the incredible Lara Santos!

Having a conversation with Lara is such a joy and a walk in the park because she makes it so easy! 😊She had so many stories and examples to share about leadership that this episode is full of goodies for all of us to learn and be inspired.

Life behind the scenes in a radio or in a TV is not all glamourous as it seems, and Lara had to take tough decisions to focus on her personal life and happiness. Still several people suffer from intimidation and although there are great examples out there of people leaders that know what they are doing, we can still see too many bad apples, and one bad apple can ruin everything!

“Dear leaders, accept that those starting their career can also teach you a lot! Being humble and human in an incredible skill”.

This week our incredible guest is Daniel Costa!

Daniel is on a mission to create value for clients, work colleagues and people who rely on him to achieve their goals. He is Partner & Executive Director at Growin and oversees International Business.

Daniel shared with us a positive story about his actual leader whose mission is (believe it!!!!) to help him become better than himself 😊 Simply wow!  On the negative leadership aspect, he shared examples of some leaders that unfortunately take decisions to negatively impact specific members of their teams.

As a surprise question... 😮 I've asked him on how to lead with someone with a difficult personality! Curious on his feedback ?

A quote: “As a leader you should first listen, lower your guard, look for points in common, and with that you will be able to better understand how exactly your team is feeling. Clarity and transparency on our purpose is essential” Daniel Costa

This week our incredible guest is Vanda Silva! She was challenged by a common friend to participate on the podcast and she accepted the challenge with a great smile on her face!

Vanda is the team leader of the SAP mobility team, working at ROFF for almost 20 years now. She manages the team as well leading Pre Sales activities, project management and implementation projects.

Vanda shared with us a story of an manipulative leader as a negative personal leadership example,  On the other hand, she shared an incredible leadership story that happened during a strong economic crisis and a decision that had a tremendous personal impact on her and all the team.

A quote: “Leading by example, welcoming feedback and being humble, that is my piece of advice for future leaders out there.”

Hi everyone! This is the 10th episode, 10 weeks since we’ve started this journey, targeting 20 episodes on this first season!

This week our incredible guest is José Pestana! José is a senior manager of Randstad Technologies and Shared Service Center, and at the moment he is focused on the enablement, execution and delivery of nearshore projects in Portugal.

He shared with us a cool negative personal leadership example involving the girl of his dreams, an incredibly special day, and the relentless desire of his own leader to interrupt him on a date! On the other hand, José worked with a leader that stepped up when he had personal problems that needed flexibility and support.

A quote: “The way we communicate and inspire others is extremely important. Leaders need consistency but are never at their best every single day, so take that into consideration!”

This week our incredible guest is Duarte Castaño! 

Duarte was challenged by a common friend that indicated him to participate in our reality check podcast. Duarte works in a world top player in Low code development named Outsystems and his job is to assess DevOps practices in place in OutSystems customers, analyze gaps and promote recommendations for improvement.

He shared with us negative personal leadership examples that involved stress, long workload hours, a lot of effort, but low recognition that had a big impact on his life. On a more positive note, Duarte worked with a leader that was able to motivate everyone to work with a smile on their faces even if the job was not so cool! That involved autonomy, responsibility, and a learning process when things didn’t go as planned.

A quote: “People are the best assets of a company, that is where the business knowledge is so take care of them!”

This week we have a special and totally unexpected episode of the Reality Check Leadership podcast 😊!

I confess that a couple of hours ago this episode was not expected neither planned, but my passion for American politics and excitement for this election night “forced” me to do something about it. I had to urgently speak and share with someone this topic… URGENTLY…!!! 😉

It is with great happiness that I present my special guest for this episode that is also a dear friend of mine, Miguel Rações.

Miguel works at Google in the amazing New York City and we just had an amazing conversation about his career, life in the states, politics and leadership.

This episode had no script, no boundaries, no timeline, and it was a really easygoing conversation between friends! ENJOY!

This week our incredible guest is Rui Pedro Alves. 

Rui is the Founder & Owner of RUPEALs group, including companies like InvoiceXpress, Kwan and ClanHR. Rui’s mission is to effectively create a culture of happiness, excellence and growth on his businesses and he loves to inspire others to do the same.

He shared with us negative personal leadership examples that involved platonic love, work and friendship!! On a more positive note, Rui shared another true story about of one of his employees that had to take a difficult decision after an unfortunate event and how it decision affected his future in the company.

A quote: “Treat people as adults, humans, take care of them and do not tolerate any BS! ”

This week our incredible guest is Rui Pedro Alves. 

Rui is the Founder & Owner of RUPEALs group, including companies like InvoiceXpress, Kwan and ClanHR. Rui’s mission is to effectively create a culture of happiness, excellence and growth on his businesses and he loves to inspire others to do the same.

He shared with us negative personal leadership examples that involved platonic love, work and friendship!! On a more positive note, Rui shared another true story about of one of his employees that had to take a difficult decision after an unfortunate event and how it decision affected his future in the company.

A quote: “Treat people as adults, humans, take care of them and do not tolerate any BS! ”

This week our incredible guest is Alexandre Martins.   

Alexandre is a high performance business and mental coach and author of the book “7 basis for success”. He is also the author of a podcast inspired in his book that has reached more than 70 countries!!  

He shared with us a personal leadership example that includes a leader of a restaurant where he worked in Switzerland that was always ready to shout and harass his employees! On a more positive note Alexandre shared his experience with a team back in Portugal that supported his growth and gave him all the abilities to grow and become better every day changing his life for the better.  

A quote: “Knowing what you don't want is the first step towards knowing what you do want!”

This week our incredible guest is Sheyda Sazedj. Sheyda is Iranian, she grew up in Austria and Portugal and she is the Marketing & Communications Director at BOLD by Devoteam, a company founded in Portugal back in 2009 and now part of the Devoteam Group, a global player in Digital Transformation for organisations across EMEA.

As part of her multicultural nature, Sheyda loves differences of opinion, differences of culture, believing that differences drive growth. She shared with us a personal leadership example that has affected negatively her motivation to continue working hard for a company. On the other hand, she shared a positive example out of her actual leadership, where she feels genuinely listened to, even sometimes without the reason on her side.

A quote: “People sometimes have the illusion they are lying very well and telling a story that makes sense. It is not rare to be caught on a lie, it is rare to get caught on a lie and be confronted with it.”