Episode 40: Elton Simoes – Leadership and Power in Challenging Times
In this episode, Elton discusses:
- The kind of leadership required from political, organizational, and corporate leaders in this time of COVID-19
- Leaders being guided by values during a crisis
- The need for increased transparency in times of uncertainty
- Consequences of errors in crisis versus non-crisis
- Key principles for leadership during chaos
- Making creative, collaborative, and democratic rather than authoritarian choices
- Real versus perceived uncertainty
- How time crunches impact leadership decisions
- The importance of leaders being able to say “I don’t know”
- Taking advantage of diversity
- The skill of cultivating buy-in
- How to have a good relationship with power
- The wealth of energy and information released by conflict
- Transparent communication leading to more creative productivity
- How the “feedback culture” in a separate career helped him make peace with conflict
- The importance of focusing on the problem, not the person
- Similarities between organizational leadership and an orchestra
- Why leaders need to be secure about people disagreeing with them
- Viewing conflict as transcending, not threatening
- A scene from A Bug’s Life that teaches us rule # 1 about leadership: it’s not your fault, but it’s your problem
- How the higher one moves up in an organization, the more isolated they are, which decreases their access to important information
- Why there’s no such thing as a rational decision
More About our Guest
Elton Simoes practices arbitration, mediation, and Med-Arb in complex commercial disputes involving shareholders, intellectual property, technology, entertainment, and sports.
Elton has lived, worked, and studied in Canada, the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, where he held senior leadership positions such as:
- Vice President at Disney TV International (U.S.)
- Board Director at HBO Latin America (U.S.)
- Managing Director Sports at Globosat (BR)
- CEO and Chair of the Board at Playboy Brazil (BR)
- International Business Development at Nethold B.V. (NL).
He currently serves as President and Chair of the Board of Directors at ADRBC and is Vice President, President‐Elect, at the ADR Institute of Canada (ADRIC).
He completed degrees in business and law concurrently from two universities in Brazil. He has a Masters in Dispute Resolution from the University of Victoria and is currently a PhD candidate at Royal Roads University in British Columbia.
Elton’s Resources
Resources Mentioned in the Episode
- A Bug’s Life (movie) (here is the clip that Elton refers to)
Riffcast
To hear Julia and Gordon’s riffcast about this interview, please click here.