33: Building & Leading Teams Without Functional Expertise with Edwina Johnson
The COO role is utterly unique, demanding multidisciplinary mastery.
It begs expertise where you may have none, to become a cross-functional manager, and Edwina Johnson’s tenure at Alloy had seen her thrive in achieving exactly that
Edwina, now thriving as GM of MoneyGram Online International, joins us for this episode of Leaders Unscripted, as we dive into the art of building, leading and growing teams outside of your expertise.
This Episode Covers:
- Edwina’s grounding as a business builder wearing many hats
- How unexpectedly early businesses can bring in an operational role
- Overcoming the inner self-doubt of hiring experts as a jack of all trades
- Prioritising which hires should come first
- The challenges and rewards of managing a cross-functional team
Episode Highlights:
“There's this myth that people who are in C-suite roles want power, they want control. Some do, but there's so many like you who are interested in the work; ‘What can I do? What's the impact that I can have?’” - 5:10 - Suzan Bond
“I expected to have to manage finances, legal, people and that was intimidating as a newcomer to the States, having to figure out healthcare and tax!” - 11:00 - Edwina Johnson
“As a COO you often feel like a jack of all trades. So the inner self doubt says, ‘Who am I to hire an expert?” - 15:30 - Edwina Johnson
“People will thrive with good management, and you can really enable them to grow and succeed with personal development and growth.” - 23:10 - Edwina Johnson
“You get to work on really cool problems. So if they're cross-functional you know that they’re having a big business impact, because lots of teams need to be involved in order to fix something, or in order to make something new happen.” - 29:55 - Edwina Johnson
Links & References:
Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/
Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/
Edwina Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinajohnson/