Latest / Daily Influence / 696. Leading with Trust: How Structure, Service, and Self-Awareness Create Lasting Influence

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696. Leading with Trust: How Structure, Service, and Self-Awareness Create Lasting Influence · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Grecoino.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today I'm excited to welcome Sileana Bojilaba.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sileana has spent over 17 years building and leading teams across customer experience, operations, and business development in startup and scallops.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: As the customer support manager at UKG, she leads multicultural teams and helps shape service standards focus not just on speed, but on meaningful resolution.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's also served as a consulting COO and CEO in early-stage companies, building company culture, structuring systems, and driving growth strategies that increase sales performance by 30% through partnerships and new channels.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: The uncorporate leadership, Soliana, co-founded the co-working space nebula, which won the 2020 hack the crisis hackathon supporting families during COVID, and has mentored young entrepreneurs for more than six years through Tinavator.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the core of her work as leadership rooted in trust, structure, and empowering others to step into their potential, something that aligns beautifully
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, I'm happy to be here.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I could share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today with our listeners.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: My path here has never been linear.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been in various customer support roles for the past 17 years and also since 2019, I've been supporting startups and scale ups in different roles as well in the capacity of a CEO and a CEO as well.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also, like you've said, in 2020, when COVID heat,
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: helping families that lost their income.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's been interesting journey and I've learned a lot throughout all my experience, how to help others and help them lead authentically themselves and others while doing so.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love how your journey blends structure with her operations with empowerment.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our entire team series, we talk about how influence begins with the individual choosing, how they show up, which leads me to responsible influence.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We emphasize that leadership starts with personal accountability before it becomes positional authority.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: How have you seen individual
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It always boils down to leading by example and let people find their own place within the team and kind of lead the team's dynamic coming through from their own values, core values, and how they see themselves bringing the best of themselves in the work environment, leading themselves and the people around them and showing what's good by leading by example.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: My self being someone who would like to embody the principles I am, I value, I'm showing them what it should look like and so I hope.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think my biggest achievement in doing so is the fact that a few people that I've let in the past have now become powerful leader in their own area and have become directors and senior managers in other companies and
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is like probably my greatest achievement.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm seeing how they flourishing, how they develop and what they embodied throughout our works together and the core values they kept and keep developing.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've worked across cultures, time zones, and startup environments.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: All places where clarity can either strengthen or weaken a team.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've built SOP service standards and go to market strategies.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many people see structure as rigid, but in our work, we often say structure actually creates freedom.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you view systems and standards as a form of positive influence rather than control?
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: If they're not in place, people tend to react rather than keep their calm in certain situations.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So with structures and process and procedures help them not give up under pressure, giving under pressure.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And keep their calm and also rely on what's in place to help them do what's needed in the best possible way.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: even in challenges circumstances.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think they supports individuals, but they also help and everyone act as one when it's needed and also support each other and also help them rely on something bigger than individual common sense in some situations.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that idea structure creating empowerment is powerful, especially when trust is present.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience when you felt you made a positive impact on someone's life, whether through mentoring, leadership, or building community?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes, definitely.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: One thing that I can think of right now is a person I used to work with, that we don't.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: no longer work together because she had to go on a maternity leave, but when she joined the company, she was at a very tough spot balancing her own personal life and professional life and career and inspirations and coming out of a very challenging professional experience where she had lost all her confidence and self-worth from a very toxic work environment, basically.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: allowing her to be her and allowing her to breathe and allowing her to find her ground through support and understanding and giving her enough time to find her strength again.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Supporting her in that process rather than imposing KPIs or demanding results necessarily from day one or asking the impossible only because those are business needs and business
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is those that we were looking for shelter and long term, but giving her the space keeping the space for her allowing her to find her ground, she very quickly stepped up in so many different ways is now very accomplished professional in very different areas, so she created many different personalities that allowed her to do the job even better.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: mentorship is such a meaningful form of influence, especially when young entrepreneurs who are still shaping their identity.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Through your work with Tinavator and startup mentorship, how do you help young leaders understand the difference between influence that is ego driven versus influence that is responsible in community centered?
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's a very good question.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well,
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We showed them the impact they have when they lead authentically and when they lead thinking about the others and not themselves in the first place.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: They put they might see it through different examples which have in our daily lives and also comfort, like business examples that we see every day, companies that have not only business goals, but also goals to impact.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: society environment, help people interact with each other, support each other.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's even proven we've get so many examples, recently, where unique concepts become companies that are actually very involved in the communities and with people giving back to basically giving back, not only taking from people.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: giving them those examples of understanding how things work, why this is important, and why this is so much more powerful than just making business and making money.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think even when the team of other programs is a nine month program for teams from 16 to 18, and so we have nine months to build an MVP, like pitching front of investors, build the team, and the different roles
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: and how to present themselves and how to fight for what they really believe in and what qualities they need to develop to become leaders for themselves in the first place and then for others.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That awareness often comes from experience and sometimes from lessons we wish we had learned sooner.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you could go back and offer advice to your younger self, what would you share and how might that guidance help others who are early in their journeys today?
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think step up for myself and also speak up for myself.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is something I would probably advise my younger self.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also something that I only started learning about a few years ago how thoughts can become actions and how feelings can influence how we act and our thoughts can influence our feelings.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if being more self aware and more aware that I can control what I think and how I
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think this is something that could have really helped me in my earlier years.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that reflection can expew deflates as something we talk about often and that's the influence and influence is not about perfection.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about growth and intention and having that positive influence on ourselves and those around us.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Selena, what message or words of encouragement would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world, especially those maybe building teams or businesses
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: that it probably, it's not about you, it's about everyone around you.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we see you have an idea if you feel inspired, if you think of building something to get back or to support others, just go and do it, don't think about how or when or what you need to achieve, X, Y, and or Z, just go ahead and do it because people that believe in what in your mission and what you believe in will come
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is something I learned from the Hackathon experience.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've asked the world around and no one wanted to join me in that initiative and I still joined being alone in with my ideas and I've met amazing people and I've built the team with five strangers and we won with five strangers because we all believed in the same values in the same mission in the same idea.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we feel inspired to do something just go ahead and do it make the first step and everything
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is great advice.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that in Soliana.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the best way to do so is probably just email me at Siliana at revenuelab.pro.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is probably the best way to reach them right now or just LinkedIn, I guess.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, LinkedIn as well.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Eric, we'll put both of those links in the show notes.
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am so grateful for you joining us all the way from Bulgaria today.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, daily influence, we believe that positive impact begins with individual choosing responsibility and choosing trust and structure and choosing to elevate others and your journey reflects exactly that.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining us
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me it's been great and to our listeners thank you for tuning in to daily influence I hope today's conversation right you inside an inspiration if it spoke to you share with someone who could use a little positivity today remember influences not about the title or position it's about how you show up today and every day the standards you set the trust you build and the environments you create because you how you influence matters.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember small actions create, they impact, keep showing up leading and growing one day to time.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye.