Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the 2019 Talent Summit in the Convention Centre in Dublin. The event was a massive success and very enjoyable so a big congrats to the team at Sigmar Recruitment for organizing such a great event. For me the key themes from the day were authenticity, trust and courage and it was truly a thought-provoking experience.
The wonderful Margaret Heffernan talked about the importance of social capital and how it’s more important how people work together than how they perform individually, as she put it “it’s not the bricks, it’s the mortar” that makes the difference. She also talked about wilful blindness and how we need independent thinkers in organizations, doing a good job should not mean obedience as our “culture of obedience has a horrible history”. She called for leaders to be their authentic selves in all their interactions, a sentiment echoed by David Dempsey SVP of Salesforce.
Many speakers talked about the importance of trust but Neil Gibson, Chief Economist with EY really called this out as something that not only organisations but society needs to work on in his highly engaging talk.
The final keynote was given by Monica Lewinsky her powerful talk discussed cyberbullying. She called on the audience to have the courage to be“upstanders” and stand up for people online as well as offline. She is using her unique life experience to advocate for resilience and compassion in the digital age.
Finally, one moment for me stood out in the whole event that really exemplified leadership and courage. Talent Summit presented the Dermot Costello Excellence in Leadership award which honours the late Qualtrics EMEA chairman, to Graham Shaw for leading the Irish women’s hockey team during their recent successful world cup campaign. The award was presented by Dermot’s sixteen-year daughter. She spoke eloquently about her father and the leadership lesson he had taught her as a young girl and pushed her to have the ‘heart of a lion’ even when she feels like a mouse. Truly an inspiring moment.
Looking forward to next year!
