director profile
Fujitsu Ireland CEO ReginaMoran is upbeat about both the prospects for her organisation, and the long-termprospects for Ireland. She speaks to Grainne Rothery about leadership for success
LOOKING LONG
Her concern around the impact she has on the people she works with through their day-to-day interactions says a lot about Fujitsu Ireland CEO Regina Moran and her style of leadership. Moran, who was appointed to her current role in May 2009 following the merger of the three existing Fujitsu businesses in Ireland, claims that one of the most important things she has learnt around leadership over the years is the effect leaders have on people, both positive and negative. “I’m very conscious when I come into work that how I interact with people, even just walking down the corri- dor, can have a positive or negative impact on how they feel,” she explains. “I think good leaders are more con- scious or maybe more self-aware that they have that potential impact on people.” She’s also very clear about the fact that people don’t
gain respect and instil confidence as a result of their job titles. “Fundamentally leadership is earned, it’s not given to you,” she says. “And how you earn it is by hav- ing people that want to follow you. It sounds very simple but actually why would somebody follow you? A lot of it is about how you behave, what your value system is and how you treat people. “Some of the most successful leaders in the world are
people who others want to follow because they instil con- fidence in them. I hate the American word ‘empower- ment’, but in some ways they do allow people to grow, whereas managers are much more about tasks and about assigning jobs and making sure that systems work. “I think organisations will be more successful if the
leadership potential that exists within them is unleashed.” Looking at the bigger picture, she adds, the same is true of Ireland as a country.
Trying to unleash that potential is something that
Fujitsu Ireland is working on at the moment through a new leadership programme on which Moran herself is delivering some of the modules. She believes that leaders can be found in all areas of businesses and, reflecting this, the programme is open to every one of the compa- ny’s 320 permanent staff. “I think management is hierarchical and leaders can
come from anywhere in the organisation,” she says. “It’s been amazing actually because people from all parts of the organisation – people who are working on the serv- ice desk, some of the engineers who are out in the field, plus some of our established managers – have combined and there’s about 55 people on the courses that we’re running.” The challenge, she stresses, is to grow the organisation
fast enough to give these leaders the roles they now want. “But a lot of people need to have the skills anyway because we don’t have everybody coming to the same office with a very strict managerial line management structure. So I think we’re going to get huge benefit out of this.”
Route to here Moran’s own route to the top job in Fujitsu Ireland was somewhat circuitous. Interestingly, her background is in engineering but, as she didn’t have the option to study physics or honours maths at her Presentation Convent school, she started out by doing a certificate course in what was thenWaterford Regional College. She followed up with a diploma in engineering in Cork. A few days after completing that course in 1983 she got a job in Little Island-based company Compucorp,
Winter 2010 Irish Director 27
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