Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
GREAT LEADERS PUT PEOPLE FIRST AND BUSINESS SECOND: An interview with James Hunnybourne (# 1-31)
Episode 31 - An Interview with James Hunnybourne
A really fun, open and insightful interview with an old (time not age!) friend of Neil's (@neil) and mine. Genuine, honest and warm, yet extremely successful. Who says those dimensions cannot co-exist!? Thanks @James!
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SPEAKER_05:Hey guys, welcome back to the Leadership Detectives. You know they say people join companies but they leave managers. So by definition, I guess people may stay at their current company because of the leader they're working with. Or in the case of today's guest, people may leave their current job to go and join the leader that they enjoyed and loved working with before. So we're really excited to be joined today by James Honeyborne, whom Neil and I have known for many many years. A leader who is really proud to say, people first and focus on your people. But let me not steal any more of his thunder. Please listen on to hear how we went from professional to manager to senior leader and all the priorities that he holds high to deliver success and to have a happy team. Enjoy. Hey everyone, welcome. Welcome back to Leadership Detectives. Um I can think you can see out the window, but it's just late evening today. We're recording slightly differently today, but welcome back. Um just up front, just say thank you for all your comments and feedback that we've been getting. So that's good. We're into 2021. Neil, good to see you. How are you? You good? I'm great, thank you. Yeah, feeling good looking.
SPEAKER_04:I've missed talking to you, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into another episode. And also delighted to be joined by a guest and an old friend of ours uh that we've known for a long time, James Honeyborne, who currently is head of services business development at SoftCat. Welcome, James. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_03:Hi, Neb. I am good, thank you. I am good. Yeah, still awake, even though it's dark outside.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I know you're an early bird like me, so you're warm towards the end of your day, whereas Albert only drags himself out of bed about 10 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I know. Actually, it was sad.
SPEAKER_05:I was on conference calls at seven this morning. I didn't I didn't know there was still a seven in the morning. I thought it was only one in the evening, but it must have been a shock to the system.
SPEAKER_03:Good to see you, James. Welcome to the call. It's good to see you again, Albert. It's actually it's great to see you both.
SPEAKER_05:It's been a while, it's been a while since we've talked, so really good to spend the time with you. And Neil suggested you as a guest and we deliberated hard and decided we would go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna say I was really flattered when you asked me, but not so much now, right? Really good. Now you're number 31. I'm assuming I was the 31st choice that you got around to.
SPEAKER_04:We just wanted to practice a bit before we got to the you know, until you got to the important ones. We weren't ready for you yet, right? So let's start off with a nice, straightforward question to get going. So if you were being introduced onto a stage to present to a big audience of people, how would you like to be introduced?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, um, okay, so I'm just saying that I've been in working in technology for the last 25 years. Um, I am a developer of businesses, but primarily people. Um, I'm rounded with my skills, having done everything from selling through to delivery through to management and that. And and I love what I do.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, and what so what specifically, what do you love? What's the thing that you love most about what you do?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, in the job I'm in right now, I'm I'm really fortunate, right? I um I have a passion for creating things. I always have done that. I um I don't know, it probably goes back to probably goes back to when I was like a kid with Lego, um, or last week with a bit of Lego, depends on how you think, right? So um, but no, right now I've got I've got the opportunity to be able to take ideas for businesses and turn these into real things, right? So when SoftCat wants to develop a cloud business or they want to develop a cyber business, um, they would come to my teams and basically we would do the research, development, and then creation of the services. And these things like not only do they bring value to our customers now, but they also give me the opportunity to hire new people, develop new people, give people that are already in SoftCat other opportunities and other things to go and look at. So for me, that's one of my passions, right? I love I love helping people and I love developing people, and um and that's why I'm in that's why I'm in the job I'm in right now.
SPEAKER_06:Perfect.
SPEAKER_05:That's interesting, actually, right? Because I I think back to James, we you and I haven't kept in contact. Actually, when did you leave Big Blue?
SPEAKER_03:Oh god, nine years ago.
SPEAKER_05:Nine years ago, right? So I left five years ago, Neil. I think you left five years ago, but Neil's kept in touch with you more than I have. So my memories of James Honeyborne was a senior professional, a very competent one, a very good salesperson. Um, but Neil was telling me about how you've developed just your leadership career, and we went, wow, let's hear that. So, for my own part, you'd like to understand the journey from where you were, that that successful senior professional. I didn't even know you had aspirations of leadership, but I hear you're a really good leader. How did that work? What happened there?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so um it came down to like a like a life-changing mentoring session, right? And which is why I'm always really passionate about um wanting to mentor people, right? I I spent my entire life in IBM going around doing a number of different roles because ideally, my you know, my utopia was want to be a a business unit leader. And to be the leader of that unit, I wanted to understand what it's like to do delivery, what it's like to do some commercial, what it's like to do sales. And I figured if I lived the roles, it would make me the next, you know, the natural choice, the most rounded person. Um but what I learned uh quite late in my career in IBM was actually was to understand a little bit more about what I really wanted to get out and why I wanted to go in the direction that I did. Um, and some realization of what IBM was giving me um and what other potentials there were elsewhere in the world, right? So, and what it did was literally from this first session, I got a really good understanding of what it is I really, really wanted to do. And I was I was stupidly going round in circles rather than having a plan and moving forward, right? So I thought about this a lot. I under I thought about what my plan could be, where it is I actually wanted to go. And I'll tell you, the minute I made that decision, I had left IBM probably a month and a half after that decision. Um I become a manager, a senior manager, and then a director within 12 months. Okay, and it's you know, it wasn't a race, it I was very fortunate for it to work out that way. What IBM did give me, and all of that moving around and doing lots of different roles actually did give me a really solid grounding for the area that I was going into and just allowed me to pull all those things together. But I moved out of Big Blue and into the channel, and the channel was a very different beast and it moved at very different speed.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and it gave elements of knowledge with a bit of entrepreneur, entrepreneurial thinking that allowed you to be able to accelerate. Um, and that's exactly what happened. So um, and I loved I loved leadership. I really did. And I I think some of it comes back from the, you know, there's always that little bit of you in the background saying, I could do that better.
SPEAKER_04:You don't know if you could, right? But you know, it's very easy when you're not a leader to create. When you work for us, being made by leaders, right? Really go, I could do that. Yeah, and all right, let's brush over the fact I've worked for both of you in the past.
SPEAKER_03:Obviously, I'm not talking about you two, right? So um, but it was yeah, it was the the want to, you know, I could see a clear way, I could see how things could work, I could see how um I could do things a little bit better, or I thought I could do things a little bit better. And that's what drove me to want to take more responsibility and and go more for a for a leadership role was literally the autonomy, that and maybe you know, a tiny, tiny sliver of a problem with authority, right? So I went more autonomy I had. I do thrive in autonomy, I do like love making my own decisions, I do like steering my own ship and all that kind of stuff, and it's easier to do that the higher up you get, right?
SPEAKER_04:So just you you you said something really important at the beginning of talking about you did this decision process. You said you made a plan. Yes, we've we've heard that before, actually. That from um I think it was Carmina actually said the same thing. She made a plan. So how kind of just share with people here, because it's all about uncovering clues and leadership. Share what was that a detailed plan? Was it a high-level plan? Was it a five-year plan? What but what did that kind of look like?
SPEAKER_03:So there was what I had was uh I made a short, a medium, and a long-term plan, right? My long-term plan was hazier, right? But it was literally the longer term plan was built on my my utopia of what it is that I wanted to be, right? I tried to go back and think what it was like when I was like, you know, 10 years old. What did I want to be when I was 10 years old? But a starship captain was not really a common place nowadays, right? Um and being the first person to travel to another galaxy and and meet meet other non-human life probably wasn't going to happen in my lifetime, right? Plus, I think I probably missed the boat a little bit on that staying in technology for such a long time. But um, but seriously, no, I had to understand what it is that I really enjoyed doing and what I didn't like doing. And that's a little bit further along the lines of not just what I like doing, but what I'm good at doing and what I'm bad at doing, right? So once I started to work this out, and you know, I'll happily tell everybody it was you that helped me work this out, right? Um once I started to work this out, I had a much better idea of the type of roles that would make me happier and I would excel in because they would play to my strengths. And that's when, and I looked a number of different routes. It's like, do I actually want to just stay in sales and just earn the money and not be responsible for things? Or do I want to take on more responsibility? And if I do, why do I want to do that? What was the reasoning behind it? So it took me a while. I mean, this wasn't a quick thing, like I say, it was just took me like a month and a half of thinking, and I continue to refine it as time goes on. And as I I change as I get a little bit older, so do my priorities a little bit, right? But my what I love doing, what I don't like doing is still quite clear for me. And being in a position where I could surround myself with a good team that can help mitigate against the things that I'm not very good at and allow me to help them with my strengths really appealed to me. Um, and like I said, an early opportunity to be able to do that once I looked out into the market.
SPEAKER_05:From what I remember, James, you were big into martial arts, right? And and I think you're you're what are you now, third degree black belt?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But but that says to me, you've got focus, but you probably also like getting the medals, right? So, how much of that, what you've just described there, how much of that was about you wanting to be a leader because of what it gave you, and how much of it was about because of the impact you wanted to have?
SPEAKER_03:Do you know? I thought initially it was about me, right? And the recognition that I could get and I could be successful and that, you know, successful as a team, but it was about me. As I actually did the role, it became for me. I spend and I do nowadays, I spend way more time championing my people and giving getting them the recognition that they deserve than I do myself.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, um how satisfying is that, right?
SPEAKER_03:It is, it is satisfying. I mean, I'm you know, the they make me look good, right? There's there's there's no denying, but I've built a good team. The they know where my strengths are and I know where their strengths are, yeah, right. And I, you know, I am very, very happy, very happy to be the first person to say it was all this person's work, this person's brilliant, they're absolutely amazing, and that I'm I'm not the we did it a team, i.e., under my leadership, and that it was under my leadership, but that's kind of a given. People can see that. Um, the the bit that I got more passionate about was literally the people rather than the recognition.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. And and what's interesting about that was I was going to ask you a question around this, actually, was around loyalty. So, you know, I know from talking to you since you've been in leadership roles and know the people who've worked for you as well. You you you attract loyalty. People want to work for you and work with you. And it is that down to the fact that you focus on the people, do you think what what do you think that's down to? Why is that happening?
SPEAKER_03:It's a combination of things. Um it's you know, I think if you're a good boss and you are you're open and you're honest and you look after your people and that, then you know, people will move with good bosses, right? People leave jobs. We all know people leave jobs because they've got bad bosses, and we've all had like bad bosses that just made your life hell. If you have good bosses um that you know value what you say, and and you have the ability to be able to change their mind and input into the direction and the success of where you're going, then that brings an element of loyalty. That and you know, I must spend a quarter to a third of my time with my direct reports, you know, helping develop them um from a from a business and from a personal perspective.
SPEAKER_04:Does that have an impact on the way that you can contribute to the business then? So are you are you less effective at your job because you're spending so much time managing?
SPEAKER_03:The opposite. We're way stronger as a team, right? It's all about going getting the team to go through the same process that I did. So I understand where they're strong, what they're passionate about. If you stick the right people in the right roles and you can do that in in a team or with a team of leaders, you can have a really, really powerful unit, right? And it's it's proven it. I mean, the success that we've had in in SoftCat over the past four, four and a half years has been phenomenal.
SPEAKER_04:So, so, and which which is really interesting. And the reason I was asking the question a little bit tongue-in-cheek, because when I'm when we're working with leaders, typically you hear I haven't got time for my people. You know, in fact, I've come off a call today with another business where they were going through the agenda of everything in their leadership team that needed dealing with, ran out of time for the people piece. Um, and problem with the priorities, yeah. So I just it's interesting that you do that. Now, I know that Softcat is a very people-oriented company as well. So, does that help the fact you're in a company that recognizes that as a strength in leadership?
SPEAKER_03:It does, because I mean SoftCat's really strong on its culture, and its culture starts with people first, simple as that. I mean, and it is a lot of companies will say we put their people first, but I tell you what, I've seen leadership in SoftCat prove that time and time again, right? And it is fantastic, right? Um, but the way I see it, right, is when you're in a channel, it's it's not like back when I was in Big Blue, right? I mean, that they would manufacture uh you know and produce products, right, continuously. In the channel, my products are my people, right? They're the ones with the knowledge and they're the ones with the relationships and they're the ones that are actually going to make make us successful. So why wouldn't you prioritize your product, right? Above everything else. That's all I'm really doing. I'm I'm prioritizing my product and just making it better and better as much as possible, right? The tricky bit is continuing to get the oxygen mask of your own development in so you can continue to develop those because I've got some exceptional people, some because they've been built to be exceptional because they're in the right jobs doing the right things, and some of it's just pure luck. I have just inherited some of the most fantastic, very, very capable people that are going to go on and do fantastically well.
SPEAKER_04:Although it's easy to it's easy to upset people and lose them.
unknown:Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:People do that really well. I'll leave it with Albert, let's go down another line.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so look, so you've been you've been doing this for nine years now, right? You've been into leadership. Um, and there must have been some special times along the way, right? So let's think about a couple of proud moments. So moments where you go, wow, I did that. We did tell me about some proud moments as a leader, not about James the individual, but as a leader. Fine.
SPEAKER_03:So um, first year in SoftCat, I was brought in to do a particular role, and that was to um build a specific service. Um I set the team now that to Neil's point earlier on, I was I was able to bring some people into SoftCat with me because they had come with me through through you know a couple of previous companies. Um, so I knew I had a strong team behind me, and we went in there and we built a service. And I set the impossible task of one obliterating all the targets that were given for this service in the first place, and also I wanted it to be the very best in the industry. So I wanted it to win industry awards in the first year and all this kind of a really, really difficult task. Um, but 12 months in, we won. So first year in, yeah, we smashed those targets and we won the awards. And and these awards, you know, was it were against people who've been doing this for like 30 odd years in the industry. And for us to come in and take it in first year, really, really proud. That I brought in, the sales team that I brought in, they they won sales team of the year in the first year they were in the company, so they were brand new into the company, first year in, and they become number one. And so, number one people, number one product. It was a really, really proud moment. It was it was awesome.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, that's uh that's an amazing achievement, and congratulations for doing that. I'm interested because you know what you set at the beginning of that was a really ambitious vision and direction, which is clearly we we know from all the interviews we've done and you know our own personal experience that when you get that, that's how you get people behind you. But what what drove you to do that, to set such an am you could have just come in and done the job you were asked to do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, why come in and I wanted something for people to be passionate about and to get behind? It's like actually, I wanted a theme that actually, no, that's the goal. The goal isn't to build this, it's to be the best, right? It is to prove that we can come in and we can be better than everybody else, right? So a little bit of arrogance, a little bit of a you know, shoot for the moon. But every time we had those the meetings, every time we had those sessions, it was like, is that going to make us the best, or is that just good? Yeah, you know, and we continue to keep, which kind of what I was saying about earlier on about you know making sure that when you're you're you're looking after your team and you're you know you're spending all the time with them, they all clearly understand where you're going. And to give them one goal is is a really simple way.
SPEAKER_05:One direction. And you you said you said you brought some people with you, right? So just what's the definition of poaching? Let me just think. I believe it's I I tease, right? I tease, but actually the serious side they apply for. Well, the serious the serious side is they came with you, James, right? Why did they come with you? They could have stayed where they were, but they decided to come with you, all right. So let's just follow that. Why did they come with you? What made them leave where they were and come and join you in the company you'd gone to? Because you you didn't force them to come, right? Unless you had any photographs of them. They they chose to come and join you. Why was that?
SPEAKER_03:It's a difficult question to answer because I would hope it's because they saw something in me as a leader that they um felt passionate enough to to leave the job. They had enough belief in me that I will be successful at what I do next and I will make them successful as well at the same time. Um and to be honest, I'm the and this is this is difficult sometimes as well. I'm the kind of I've got three rules about trying to be a boss, right? Um, or three pieces of advice. And you know, one of them is about really getting to understand yourself, yeah, your passions, you love your shades. One of them is about building a plan, I mentioned the third one is just don't be a dick. Yeah, right. So and I think I know who helped you with that one.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, fairly enough. Yeah. There's um there's there's lots of there's there's good, there's good ways of dealing with things, and there's bad ways of dealing with things. And and I think if the people below you know that you will do everything possible to look after them, um, then that breeds loyalty, and the loyalty means that they they come with you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So so I was just gonna ask you, and so so it sounds like there's a there's a a James Honeyborne recipe to being a great leader here, which is this having an ambitious vision and goal and striving towards that. And I'm guessing you just don't communicate that once at the beginning of the year, you're constantly focused on that. Um, the other piece is about focusing on the people, that's clear. What else would you say is an important factor in great leadership?
SPEAKER_03:Knowledge, networking, diversity, right? Just don't just because you know, it's a risk moving into a new company, doing things maybe the way that you would do them that have worked previously isn't always the great, it's got to fit the culture, it's got to fit the shape of the company. So getting as many voices in as possible to listen to, listen to your team, never believing that you're arrogant enough to have all the answers yourself, right? I mean, it's it's it's kind of a given, but um, but then don't just keep it to your team, right? I have a good network of people and people that have absolutely nothing to do with IT. And you talk to them about IT, and it's just like that doesn't make any sense. Why didn't you do that? It's like I had never thought of that. Yeah, that's really honestly I'd never thought of that.
SPEAKER_04:Was that like a circle of mentors then outside that you can talk to about business type issues and they will kind of bounce stuff off you?
SPEAKER_03:It's friends, it's family, it's people that I've known that have gone on to now do different things, it's people that are left over from uni days or education or courses, and it's just a mix. It's just a mix, and that's my my network's quite eclectic, right? And it's difficult, it can be difficult in the role that I have because when you're constantly pushing forward and you're trying to break new ground and do new things, it's and you are the leader of that area. There aren't many places you could go to say, can you help me with this? Right? I was thinking of doing, is this a good idea, or is this a bad idea? So you feel a little bit of the loneliness of having to having to always make the decision. So if I can make that as informed as humanly possible and make it just a bring as much diversity into that as possible, I will.
SPEAKER_04:So I would summarise that what you've just said there, really, because it the firstly, the listening piece is really key, and and that we've we've heard that time and time again, but not enough people do it. They think communication is all one way. But this is a really interesting point that I don't think's come up before, and I think it's so important to just focus on it is having this network, this mastermind group of mentors, friends, sounding board, people that you can go to because you can't you don't have all the answers, you can't make all the decisions, you do need to uh have somewhere you can go. And um, I'm not sure how many leaders actually do that or actively seek that. So that's a really good tip, I would suggest from this discussion.
SPEAKER_03:Cool. It it works, yeah. You know, so it's nothing better, it's nothing worse. You've had a really bad day, right? And things that seem really, really important to you. You just go and explain it to somebody who has absolutely no investment or interest or even knowledge about what you're talking about because they can't relate. It's a really cool way of just like taking the fire out of it, yeah, right. Um, and just grounding you a little bit. So I I use it in that way, but also, like I said, just you know everybody looks at it through different eyes, right? If I hired a whole bunch of about probably stuff that you've probably heard a million times, a whole hired a whole bunch of people that thought the same way that I did, we would always get, we'd always go in the same direction and do the same thing, right? Um and if you can't do that, we should become stale, right?
SPEAKER_05:So but that but that network could be your buddies down the pub, it could be people you have dinner with, and you didn't plan to have this conversation at dinner, but it could be leaders or anything like that.
SPEAKER_03:No, not at all. It's just somebody that you can say somebody who has a different perspective from yours who doesn't know really what the problem is.
SPEAKER_05:When you look up the question that Neil pursued there around you having a network and wherever those people come from, seems like a very strong angle we've not thought of before because you also said the word James, right? Which you've not heard before. Leadership's a lonely place to be. Well, it can be. It can be if you haven't got anyone to keep you company there. So that's something we might want to also think about for the future in advising leaders. Make sure you've got some company that can have the same conversations with you and understand what you're going through.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I would also recommend a challenge doesn't understand what you're going through because that's sometimes where I've had some of my best ideas. True, true.
SPEAKER_05:Really good point. Yeah, really good point.
SPEAKER_04:I would also recommend leadership coaching as well.
unknown:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:We can give you some good details after this.
SPEAKER_06:Fantastic.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so Albert, let's do one more question and then we'll go on some quick file. I've got one more. So Neil likes to do research before we we go on to these subjects. Uh, we did slightly different research this time. We thought we'd get a view from people who are affected by the contribution you make. Um, what one of the people that we spoke to, we'll tell you who that is later, I guess. Um, one of the questions they'd like us to put to you was um how you've got here, all the things you've done, but you've some of that, and I think you've said it earlier as well, James. But if we just drill it a little bit more, what's the best advice anyone's ever given you about leadership that has helped get you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_03:The best advice. Um so if we brush over the make sure your people know, make sure you know what motivates your people, what what they're passionate about, and move them into the roles that will see them to be the happiness. Um that would be that would be a big one. But I would just it's difficult. I would just say don't forget it's all about your people, right? It's not about you, it's not about your ego and your drive. Everybody loves a pat on the back and everybody loves the recognition that that comes from because you're the one that takes the risk. You're the one that's gonna, you know, you're the one that's potentially gonna get fired if it all goes wrong. Yeah, all that wonderful stuff, right? So there it is nice to get some recognition for what you do, but remember, it's it's your people that have allowed you to get where you are, even if they're following your ideas, right? It's still your people. So yeah, my my one thing as a leader, just your people have everything. So mentor them, look after them, develop them, um, and put them in the right roles.
SPEAKER_04:So, so so that's advice you'd give to leaders, I think was basically what you what what Albert asked, and I'm really be really interested in the answer on is what advice, what's the best advice you've been given about leadership?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, apologies, the best advice I've been given. Um that was that was plenty of strengths and mitigate against your weaknesses. It's really, really obvious, right? Um, but it's it's exactly what it is. Don't don't spend your entire life trying to get better at the things that you are bad at. If you were just bad at them, drop them and find other people to to do them for you. Just you will be far happier and far more inspirational as a leader if you continue to do things you're passionate about.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think the um the readers of horse and hounds would be very happy with that answer. Thank you. So actually, actually, it was Freddie, by the way, just so you know, but you probably know that's who we went to to get.
SPEAKER_03:No, but I'd assume there's there's a there's a few common ones that you know, so I'm assuming it could have been a yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Actually, the other question was what does he do every day? But we thought we wouldn't ask that. So we're gonna do some quick fire questions now, okay? I'm gonna I've added one in album, so I'm gonna start off. Yeah, sure. Okay. So in the Star Wars movies, James, which leader do you most look up to for their leadership qualities?
SPEAKER_03:I would say the Emperor.
SPEAKER_04:The Emperor and why?
SPEAKER_03:No, actually, no, I would say um Hansolo.
SPEAKER_04:There you go. Okay, and why?
SPEAKER_03:Um, because more like the reluctant leader, the one who um was just the best person to do the job, but didn't see themselves as as necessarily having to be the leader, right? They were just better, all right.
SPEAKER_05:Good, okay. So my so mine is similar, I'm just not in Star Wars, right? So I'm in a buy let's let's look in a wider world, a role model. Who would be a leadership role model for you? Anywhere in in commerce, world, politics, acting?
SPEAKER_03:No, I I um I have a couple of them are similar to to yours and Neil's, right? But I'll I'll go on and qualify this quickly. So I love Obama because of the class that he brings to the I mean it's just he was just a world apart to to Richard's and sorry, to um Neil's point earlier. I I like Rich Branson, right? I've always, I've always because he's very much about his people and that as well. Um but realistically, it's actually been a few of the people I've worked for. And I've taken different things from from each of them, right? I've taken Mark Durnley was was a manager that I worked for ages ago. He taught me about patience and keeping my powder dry, right? Uh Neil taught me about learning who I am and how to be inspirational and that. And the the recent managing director of SoftCat taught me how to be successful and humble at the same time. Yeah, so I try and take traits from people that I respect. So they're not just these these like like Bill Gates and people like they are fantastic and they have achieved a lot, but the impact that people have made to me is is closer to home. Okay, next question.
SPEAKER_04:When it comes to a leadership book that you gift, if you were gonna gift a book to a new leader, what would be the one book you'd say you must read this?
SPEAKER_03:Uh good to great by Jim Collins. Yeah, yeah. That's great. I've only got a bunch, radical candor, seven habits. Uh start with why. I've I've I've throw them out randomly. Yeah. And so um, and if they're really entrepreneurial, I take your advice, Neil, and give them the uh four-hour work week.
SPEAKER_05:Four hour work week, yeah. Yeah, so we've got we've got a good audience following here, they'll listen in. What what quote about leadership would you like to make that they'll remember James Honeyborne by?
SPEAKER_03:That'd be a dig. That'd be a dick. Okay, that works.
SPEAKER_05:That works.
SPEAKER_03:I'm sorry, but that is really important, right? A lot of work goes into finding the right balance of doing what's right for the businesses, what's right for your people, right? And there is always a solution there somewhere. And if you have to do bad things and you you have to deliver bad news, which we all hate doing, right? Uh just just do it with as much compassion and empathy as you possibly can.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Fantastic. And I to be honest, I think that's the problem. Should we wrap it up there, Albert? I think I think we're there. I think with that. Listen, that was really, really good, James. Um, you know, joking aside, I was teasing you a little bit at the start about why you were here. You're here because Neil believed you were a great leader, and the feedback we were getting in the marketplace is that you're a great leader, and I believe you are, right? And by the way, I love the conversation here today. Um, I also think that was James Honeyborn, right? I don't think there was anything there that wasn't from the heart, which is fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:And it works for me. So, and thank you for those kind words, but it worked. I found the thing that works for me, and it doesn't work for everybody, and different companies are different. I'm very fortunate enough to be in a company that allows me to really be me because I am very pro-people and softcat is very pro-people. So, um, but if it wasn't, I wouldn't still be there. Yeah, you know, I would go and find because at least I'm aware enough, self-aware enough to understand the qualities of a company that I want to work for, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, brilliant. All yours, Neil. Yeah, so I'd just say, you know, big thank you, James, for joining us today uh on the on the podcast and on the the leadership uh YouTube channel. Really great to see you, great to see your progression and how you do it. And and it's great to see you developing as a leader. And thank you, you've shared some fab tips there. So that's really great stuff. Thank you for that. And to to the listeners out there, the audience out there, if you like this, please give us a thumbs up. Uh please subscribe. James has just subscribed, so he's increased our subscription. So we really appreciate that, James. Um but no, guys, thank you for listening. Please, if it's anything you'd like to hear from us, let us know. Otherwise, we'll see you in the next episode.
SPEAKER_05:Good to see you, guys. All the best. Take care. Take care.
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