Insights

Female leaders : Interview with Crystal SETLA

By Crystal SETLA, Content and Digital Marketing Manager for BlackRidge Group.

You have such as impressive career history working at several cutting-edge Engineering companies, what attracted you to this sector?

My position allows me to lead in supporting the development and innovation of recruitment solutions. Whereas before I was on the commercial side involved in sales, marketing and the launching and selling recruitment solutions.

I now get to work behind the scenes to partner with Engineering companies to help them develop an innovative solutions to the market that helps the needs of their clients.

I worked for large and medium size companies, and I continue to work with larger organizations, but I have a focus on medium and small size companies that need full service trial support with their innovative asset.

In a small business every leader is really involved in all aspects of the business and you can develop and fill in any gaps that you did not have experience in before.

What qualities do you have that have been key to your success as a practice leader?

Having the ability to see through the fray and create a vision, mission, and strong strategic plan for the brand.

You need to have a strong vision and understanding of where you want the company to go in 3 to 5 to 10 years down the road and know what that looks like, where you need to be and how you need to get there.

Having an effective strategic business plan behind the vision is essential. It’s important to be able to see where you need to be as a company and then build a strong plan with your leadership team and implement that flawlessly with check points and the ability to adjust your plan while executing.

If you don’t have that leadership experience and can select and develop strong leaders, you have to go find the experience and the job that will give you that skillset you need to make you a strong leader.

What’s one of the key leadership lessons you have learned along the way?

Your people are the key to your success along with your vision. If you don’t have the right people in the right role, moving in the right direction, then you’re not going to have the culture that you need, or the vision and alignment that you need to be successful.

Has it been a challenge to get your leadership team on-board with your vision?

It can be a challenge. As a practice leader you must have a history of hiring, firing, and developing strong high performing teams. It’s critical for leaders that are progressing to get experience in the individual contributor role, the manager role, the director role, the senior director role, VP role, and then a few roles that are lateral along the way.

The higher you go into a company, it’s less about what you know and your skill-set that gets you to the table, it’s how you can take what you learn and get people to follow you because they want to, not because they have to. That’s leadership. There is a difference between a leader and a manager. A manager is someone who tells you what to do and then manages you. A Leader is empowering your people to a vision and to a goal and setting them free to do what it is they need to do.