Spotlight on…is an initiative of WICI (Women in Credit Insurance) aiming at highlighting females working in the Trade Credit Insurance business. Every month, a new interview article will be published on ICISA website.
This month on our spotlight we have Tanya Giles, Head of Atradius SME, founding leadership member and deputy chair of WICI Leadership Team:
What do you do to ensure that you continue to grow and develop as a leader?
It’s so easy to get stuck in your ways, we all fall into the ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ trap but it’s so important to stay relevant and keep up to date with latest trends across various fields. This can be from anything as specific as industry innovations but also as broad as advances in technologies, social trends around management or people and culture. The world is moving around us and if we don’t move too we run the risk of being left behind.
What is your favourite part of your job?
I love meeting people and solving puzzles. Day to day I get to do both through my role. Delivering to customer and commercial partner needs for me is like solving an intriguing puzzle. Looking at what we’re trying to achieve together for each situation and then building and delivering the solution gives me a real buzz and seeing happy smiles and receiving great feedback is the icing on the cake.
What is one frequent mistake you witness leaders making?
Losing the understanding and impact of being an accessible, positive role model. Being a positive role model as a leader is crucial for team success and motivation, ensuring you make yourself accessible to those around you reduces barriers to engagement and ideas generation. Putting it simply – not leading by example. Demonstrating the actions and behaviour we seek from our teams helps to solidify things like team culture and expectations. We often learn best by copying what we see, using this positively creates encouragement and engenders confidence where otherwise confusion and fear may reign.
What is the best advice you would give to an aspiring leader?
Don’t ever try to be someone else. Your successes will by and large be rooted in your approach and attitude, let this underpin everything you do. Embrace the learning experience and knowledge from your mentors and inspirational leaders but also use the journey to shape it in a way that works for you. Always be honest with yourself and others and remember every person is an individual with differing traits and needs. There is never one solution or one route for all and holding your hands up when you need help or have made a mistake will only help you to learn. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy the journey!
If you could be anyone for a day who would you be and why?
I would be Alecia Beth Moore aka Pink. I am a big fan of her music and I’m probably the only Welsh person that cannot hold a tune ! To have her singing voice even for a day and being able to hold an audience through the power of music I think would be an amazing experience. Also I wouldn’t say no for access to her vineyard for the day either😊