Mihai Boldijar, Bosch Romania: “A leader cannot be named or appointed”

“What would be a company without human resources and without leadership? What would be a company without purpose? What would be a company without understanding that people need leadership through a change we are talking about for a couple of years.

We are talking about transformation. Two years ago, we were facing something we were not used to have. We used to come to the office, we used to have our own offices, inspiring working conditions. Then suddenly, in March 2020 we were forced to stay put for a few months and since then the pandemic has changed everything. The entire paradigm has been changed. Everything that we have learned about cooperation, communication was demolished because everybody was standing in front of their laptops and trying to communicate with the others,” Mihai Boldijar, General Manager of Bosch Romania said during People Empowering Business Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Suddenly we were caught in a vortex which led us to the perfect storm, with the crises coming after the pandemic. The problem was that at that point in time we were invaded by fake news. Nobody could understand and accept that people were dying because of the pandemic, and nobody could imagine how the future will look like, how we were going to continue our lives.

Leaders were left wondering how they are going to motivate their teams, how they are going to inspire their teams. This triggered the transformation we are now going through and a new way of leadership. We were all in the same situation and we needed to keep the people informed, involved, inspired. KPIs transformed from Key Performance Indicators to Keep People Informed, Keep People Involved, Keep People Inspired.

The key word was empathy, we had to understand people needs, to ask them what they need to perform. It was a change in the way we lead the organizations.

A leader cannot be named or appointed. True leaders are emerging. True leaders must gain the respect and recognition of their companies. Nobody is born a leader but can become a leader with the support of organizations.”

Full recording of the conference: