An HR perspective on leadership with Erika Enberg

Human Resources is transforming with organizations starting to see HR as a more proactive part. Erika Enberg, VP of Talent at door2door, a software platform for ridesharing services, shares her perspective on what makes a leader, helping your team take care of themselves, and being a leader in a new culture or company.

I’ve jotted down all key takeaways for you below so you don’t need to scribble along as you listen. And don’t forget to download the leadership checklist featuring Erika’s key insights at the very end!

As the VP Talent at door2door, a tech company providing a software platform for ridesharing services, Erika is motivating and leading the expansion of a highly ambitious and diverse team. With team members from over 30 countries and offices in Berlin and Porto Alegre, Erika is applying her over a decade’s experience in people management in fast growing companies around the world to engage with her peers and empower every team member to thrive. She is passionate about building scalable global teams, creating innovative work environments to retain and attract brilliant talents globally and is always looking to learn and share knowledge with her colleagues and the industry.

Learn more about Erika: LinkedIn

Having worked in different countries in Asia and Europe, Erika noticed that especially in a leadership position, expectations can be very different. And with a global workforce, there can be many different cultures and nationalities within one organization. She shares strategies she has found work well to integrate successfully into new cultures and companies.

How you can succeed in a new culture or company:

• Be curious: Be open minded and curious to learn about the organization and the people in it.
• Make friends: Making local friends in new culture or befriending colleagues at a new company helps you get inside knowledge on your new setting.
• Understand expectations: Regardless of culture or organization, it’s all about understanding individuals’ different expectations and needs.
• Be patient: Take a step back, and don’t rush. Building honesty and trust takes time.
• Create mutual understanding: Show the true you and ask to start dialogue to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding.

Erika firmly believes that leadership is not just having a certain position in an organization – anyone can be a leader.

How you can be a leader without the title:

• Be a coach: Make a point of helping and teaching others.
• Step up:  Volunteer to take on and lead projects to show what you can do.
• Don’t be afraid of failing: Have the confidence to try and do your best, and if it doesn’t work out, to just try again.

Erika wears two hats – one as the VP towards the rest of the company and one as the leader of her team. And especially for HR teams, who are expected to take care of everyone else in the organization, it can be tough to have your team members also take care of themselves.

How you can help your team prioritize self-care:

• Be open: Honesty builds trust. Create and environment where your team can talk openly about their struggles by doing the same.
• Support each each other: Show up and support your team members when they are struggling so that they know they don’t have carry everything alone.
• Understanding is a two-way street: Know your people and also let them know you to build an authentic human connection.

To really grow and evolve as a leader, you need to know yourself. It takes a combination of internal work and external feedback to explore your strengths and weaknesses to continually improve.

How you can get a clearer picture of yourself:

• Find your blind spots: Look into your leadership and communication style, and get feedback on how others perceive you.
• Don’t be a know-it-all: You don’t have to – and a can’t – know it all. Create an environment where you can openly say you don’t know something.
• Be authentic: If you’re honest with yourself and others, you create space for open dialogue.
• Lean into fear: If you don’t know how to do something or are fearful of doing something, that’s the thing you need to do.

In all successful organizations, but especially in startups, times of exponential growth are both a blessing and a curse. It can be tricky after all to navigate rapidly-changing team dynamics.

How you can be a growth leader:

• Look at the organization design: Observe how people work together to see how new team members could disrupt those dynamics and find solutions to avoiding that from happening.
• Raise awareness: Be transparent about the challenges you’re going to face. People feel more comfortable when they know what’s going to happen, and if you provide them with a concrete plan of how you will guide them through it.