Putting your personality to work
Text by: Tiina Parikka Photos by: Matti Immonen
As a leader, you need to know yourself – and other people. Clarisse Berggårdh ponders the challenges of good leadership.
Clarisse Berggårdh (43) has held the position of CEO at Sanoma Magazines Finland for one year now. Her career has not been about the conscious pursuit of power but about a willingness to work and organise things.
“People who just strive for power have not experienced responsibility,” Berggårdh says.
“One of the most important features of a leader is the ability to accept and bear responsibility – and that is not easy. Immediately after my appointment, I felt the same kind of overwhelming sense of responsibility as I did after the birth of my first child. It takes a while getting used to.” This is the first CEO position for Berggårdh, who moved to Sanoma Magazines in 2006.
“This is quite different from leadership of operational personnel. Of course I’m a part of the management team, but I don’t have colleagues around me in the same sense. All the members of the management team are promoting the interests of their own units, and my role as the team leader also includes the mediation of any disagreements between the members,” Berggårdh says, pondering her changed role.
For the first year, she was supported by Tapani Haavisto, CEO of Psycon Oy, who visited about once a month for brainstorming.
“When your own supervisor is not in the same building or even the same country, it is good to have the chance to discuss and share your thoughts with someone else,” Berggårdh notes, commending the coaching programme.
She admits that it is sometimes lonely at the top.
A model leader
“The role of big sister was my first leadership position. My little brothers always needed some guidance,” Clarisse Berggårdh says with a smile.
She has a very humane approach to leadership. When asked about role models, she says her image of leadership has been influenced by a number of people during her career, but more as human beings than as leaders. When pushed for a name, Berggårdh mentions her current supervisor Eija Ailasmaa.
“I started admiring her long before she became my supervisor.”
Although Berggårdh has not contemplated the challenges of leadership in terms of womanhood, she admits that it is easier for a woman to look up to another woman. She is also puzzled by the low number of women in leadership positions.
“Women are such good matches for these positions. A good leader is interested in people, interactive, conciliatory and capable of handling stress. These qualities are often associated with women, aren’t they?”
Naturally, leadership also involves features that have been traditionally considered typical of men, such as the ability to take risks and make decisions.
“Very different people can make good leaders. The main thing is to know yourself, because the most important leadership tool is your own personality. In addition to knowing yourself, you need to be a good judge of character. Different situations require different approaches, and only by knowing people and their motivations can you recognise the right approach.”
Mirrored in measurements
As a counterbalance to personality, a leader must be able to handle a variety of roles. In Berggårdh’s opinion, the success of leadership is gauged by the handling of roles. She mentions 360° assessment as an important measurement tool.
“The same people now laugh at my jokes harder and longer than before. Without feedback, I might lose sight of myself and my work. Therefore it’s important that employees have the chance to provide anonymous feedback.”
Berggårdh considers the right kind of feedback important for a leader’s development.
“Personally, I’ve learned the most from the feedback I’ve received and through my own mistakes.”
According to Berggårdh, reaching the (financial) objectives set is only a result. What counts more is how the desired result is achieved, and this is where 360° assessments come in. They measure both employee leadership and self-management skills.
Magic Dust
Leadership is about motivating people. Clarisse Berggårdh thinks that keeping people motivated and supporting them will become more and more important.
“How can you make employees use their entire capacity? How can they go on working under pressure coming from several directions? There’s a lot of talk about well-being at work and coping with related stress, but at the same time work-related pressure is increasing and schedules are not going to get any easier. We are often inspired by the world of Disney, and I always speak of magic dust that gives our work a boost of new energy and passion.”
Berggårdh’s schoolmates say they already saw her potential during their study years.
“You only start to understand your own abilities once you are faced with challenges,” Berggårdh says.
In addition to intelligence and talent, she wants to emphasise the importance of a high energy level and good attitude.
“Talent alone is not enough.”
With a humble mind
“My mother was a housewife, but I always lied at school that she had a job. I found it embarrassing that mum didn’t have an office number I could call,” Clarisse Berggårdh says.
This is why she has always found it important to have a job and earn her own money. She started working immediately after upper secondary school.
“I wanted to travel, so I started working for Finnair as an airport employee. I worked long hours and travelled on off days. I soon noticed that I started thinking about better ways of organising work.
The desire to develop and organise led Clarisse to economic studies. At Hanken, the 23-year-old woman, back to school after several years of work, suddenly felt very adult and experienced among the fresh 19-year-olds. As it was, she did not spend much time at student parties and got her degree in three years.
“In the end, I got my degree around the same time as other people my age – I just took a slightly different path.”
Most of the jobs for graduates in the early 1990s were in telemarketing. Clarisse was lucky and proud to land an export assistant position at Valio.
“I think that those of us who graduated in 1992, 1993 or 1994 share a certain humility. When there simply weren’t any jobs, you learnt to appreciate what you got. Those who graduated five years earlier were practically dragged to the job market and quickly became big leaders.”
Clarisse’s next move was characteristic of the influence that the job market has on career development. The IT boom at the turn of the millennium led Clarisse to start consulting work in the field. Her first child was born around the same time, followed by another one a couple of years later.
“We always halved our parental leave. My husband taking his share of parental leave was a natural, self-evident choice of us,” Clarisse says, explaining the balance between family and work.
Having worked with the media in the role of purchaser, Clarisse Berggårdh became the director of customer relations at the media agency Dagmar in 2003.
“When I joined Sanoma Magazines three years later as head of media sales, I was already familiar with the company in many ways.”
She was appointed CEO in December 2009 and started in the position at the beginning of February 2010.
