A few months ago, we reached out to Victor Leung and asked him to share his journey to success and on Thursday 25th July, Victor was our speaker for our Story to Success event! Parity would like to thank Victor for sharing his story to success – it was a wonderful evening, full of insights and laughs.
So, who is Victor Leung? Victor is the General Manager of Marketing and B2C Products at Equifax Australia, with over 20 years’ experience leading teams in Marketing and Product Management; as well as a lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School where he teaches both post graduate and undergraduate courses in Digital Marketing. Victor completed his MBA in 2006 – funnily enough his worst performing subject was marketing and favourite subject was leadership and finance! Victor shared that completing his MBA taught him how to look at things from different perspectives –
“having that lens and having appreciation where different people are coming from helps you frame conversations.”
Fun Facts:
Sneaker Freak – Victor owns about 50 pairs of sneakers and the collection is still growing. His favourite pair are ones that Kobe Bryant wears!
David Copperfield asked Victor on stage to help with a magic trick whilst on holidays in Las Vegas.
Despite being a lecturer, Victor has a fear of presenting and public speaking – he still gets nervous before presentations/speaking events!
How does Victor stay motivated?
- The Right Team
- To do list although he shared that sometimes he feels a sense of frustration at the end of the week when he sees the things he hasn’t ticked off).
- Challenge
3 Values Victor puts above all others:
- Trust
- Respect
- Resilience No matter how many times you bang your head against the wall, be resilient. You might be thinking to yourself: ‘how can they not see that’s how you do it?’ Pick yourself up when things aren’t going well – think about sports; when you’re winning, everything’s great, but it’s how you deal with things when you’re losing – pick your battles to win the war.”
Victors advice on what makes a good leader:
What makes a good manager may not make a good leader – you can be great at managing tasks or projects, but when it comes to leadership, it can be harder. Expose yourself to different kinds of leaders and “don’t do as I say, do as I do” – set a good example.
A ‘leaders’ role is to help people navigate challenges and support them. It’s very easy to say “let me do it”, but this won’t help in the long-term or help you let go and delegate when you have more responsibilities.
Engage as a leader; ask your team WHAT they think and WHY they think that way. Help them grow and develop, and let them step up into the situation. Create an environment that allows them to grow, make mistakes and feel safe while doing so. Seeing them grow is like a nurtured baby – it’s really fulfilling.
Receiving feedback – Performance Reviews
Victor asks his team for feedback on what he can improve on and how he can help them. It gives him visibility to potential blind spots which he might not be aware of. Victor recently asked his team for a performance review and they came back and said ‘Victor doesn’t fight hard enough for us and for problems/issues.’
After receiving the feedback, Victor held a debrief with his team and was told that although he most likely did fight for his team and/or issues and problems they were experiencing, he maybe didn’t always let them know he was doing it. Victor now makes sure he tells his team, even if it’s a result they don’t like, but now they understand that he does back them up.
“Fight for it and close the loop. Let them know what happened.”
Our 3 Key Takeaways:
- Don’t be afraid to take on a challenge
- Manage your career
- Enjoy work
Thank you to everyone who attended our Story to Success with Victor Leung and the team from Parity, and to Victor himself – we hope you walked away with some great takeaways and would love to hear back from you on what your highlight of the evening was!
Keep up to date with future Parity Plus events by following Parity on LinkedIn! To get in contact with our team, email us at info@parityconsulting.com.au or give us a buzz on +61 2 8068 2016 or +61 3 9016 8606.
We hope to see you at one of our next events!