Gina Cruceru, Rompetrol: “It’s very important to walk the talk as a leader”

“We are all in the game of making humanity work. Then the entire concept of leadership becomes broader. It includes formal leadership, but also individual leadership. By individual leadership I mean that, at the end of the day, we all make decisions that have an impact on others and ourselves.

The change I see here is a change in mentality. Day-to-day decisions by middle managers are actually supporting the entire work architecture in the organization. That’s why they become very important decision-makers,” Gina Cruceru, Group HR Director, Rompetrol (KMG International) said during People Empowering Business Forum 2023 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest

“Sometimes, the middle managers have more important decisions to make, and the burden is on them. When it comes to leadership, is very important to establish a vision at any level, to communicate with people within your team, to make people follow you by being authentic.

It’s very important to walk the talk as a leader. For example, on social media, if you have 10,000 followers now, you can’t have them for life. You need to constantly work on that community that you have. HR people and senior managers also have to work for their communities at work. It’s no longer the case of people following you just by having the formal role. You need to constantly be a role model for your people, and this is a difficult thing to do because you have to be aware of all your decisions and actions.

As an energy company, we are still in the transition from oil & gas to new types of energy. Part of our business is traditional; another part of the business is the new energy sources. We are highly impacted by all the regulations. The main challenge for us is the labour market change. We have the challenge of bringing young generations to work for the energy sector. It’s very important to have the right talent in place across the entire value chain. We have within the organization all the five generations active on the labour market, so there is a lot of diversity to manage. In this context, it’s very important for us to make sure that we are competitive at the end of the day.

We still have the KPIs structure in place, and it’s very important for people to achieve their targets. But it’s also important in the current hybrid working model to have that coaching and mentoring part.”

Full recording of the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y4LQs5x6Ng&t=3385s