We believe one of the keys to effective leadership is the ability to transform ideas into action. Describe a time within the last three years in which you exercised such leadership. What did you learn about your leadership strengths and development needs?

In late 2005, I visited one of my customers, OCA Communications, which is a Cable Television company in Minneapolis. In general, cable companies are extremely cost conscious and reliability focused. The initial volume of products for a cable company tends to be low but can have significant long-term growth potential.

OCA asked me about a new product that our competitors offered. My company did not offer the product, but I knew that we could easily develop such a product based on a design I had created a few months earlier. I decided to convince my Vice President of Marketing that we should design a new product to address OCA’s need. New products inherently have a high investment costs and he was reluctant to commit to such a small-volume product; however, he agreed to let me explore the design among other tasks on my list.

I dug up the design I had created earlier and led a cross-functional team to integrate more functionality into the existing product. I decided to send a few prototypes to our customer to test their performance, and a week later, the customer reported that our product was excellent, and superior to those of our competitors. They placed an initial order of 4,000 units. Management was delighted with the business opportunity I had created. Over the last 15 months, this product has generated over 2 million dollars in revenue.

I learned through this experience that I have a natural talent to mobilize resources and motivate people. I am quick to establish trustful and direct personal relationships. Leading this project required working with various organizations and individuals, and I led with a partnership and sponsorship mentality, instilling a sense of shared purpose in the team. I also learned that my openness to new ideas and adaptability are key strengths, when I was able to see an opportunity in a customer problem.

The weakness I saw in myself through this experience was that I have a hard time working for or with people who lack motivation, and do not share my enthusiasm and commitment to a project. It is frustrating to watch team members who hold back opportunity within a team. I lack patience when I am excited about a project, and I often overlook details and underestimate my time commitment. In this case, I realized later that this project consumed a lot more of my time than intended, and if it had been unsuccessful it might have been wasted time. When I am enthusiastic about a project, I am emotionally vested in it, which creates strong motivation. The weakness in such emotional attachment is that it often leads to an unbalanced commitment on my part. In order to mitigate my weaknesses, I have worked with mentors to help me pay attention to details, and learned to participate in outside of work activities to create more balance in my commitments.