Name: Joanne Jacobs

Title: Co-CEO

Organisation: Disruptors Co

Joanne Jacobs is Co-CEO of Disruptors Co, a firm that facilitates innovation and helps scaleups to achieve growth. She's an Industry Fellow at University of Technology Sydney, and she facilitates programs for the Australian Commonwealth and Scientific Industrial Research Organisation. Joanne has worked around the world, running software companies and marketing agencies. She is a business coach, trainer and strategist.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Joanne's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

I believe the way to build trust is to deliver on what you say you are going to deliver, to be kind and to recognise the contributions of colleagues and customers, and to offer insights where they may be valued.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

A vision is what you want to become. It's your massive impact on the world. Your mission is what you do today towards that impact. In business, a mission should change regularly as you progress towards that impact. But it's amazing how few businesses revisit their mission as they evolve their products and services. And it's concerning. Because if you're not progressing as a business, you are potentially stagnating.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

Giving employees a chance to lead is always instructive. On projects, or even in team or company activities, the chance to lead, usually with layers of support, is profoundly empowering and can help teams understand how best they can contribute.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

My first real mentor was my university professor, Trevor Barr, at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Trevor was a great storyteller, and his stories about Australian business and policy around telecommunications took a dry subject and made it fascinating. When I started lecturing at the tender age of about 24, Trevor helped me to understand that I didn't need to have the life experiences he had had to catalyse interest in my students.

I just needed to tell stories in my own way to make the complex accessible and dry subjects compelling. I use that storytelling technique to this day to help my team and my colleagues understand the importance of various aspects of business, and to help inspire interest in solving problems.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

Discipline and commitment to a way of working is key. I always ensure there is an hour a day to explore new ideas and to create, but otherwise I stick to me schedule as much as possible, to ensure that I complete the work that's needed to deliver something valuable to a client or to the business, every day.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

We have ongoing planning in our Agile way of working. We engage with customers to understand their needs and problems, and we build products and programs that continuously evolve over time. Our weeks are planned in team meetings and standups, and our sprints are planned through the development of user stories.

Our forward planning is based on our impact and exit plan, and the manifestation of that changes over time. So we adapt to the circumstances before us. We are survivors. We've pivoted our business on several occasions, and we believe our plan flexibility has facilitated this resilience to market change and disruption.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

No one will value what you do until the experience of what you do is shared.