Jeff Jacobson, CEO of Xerox was interviewed about leadership, change and his first eight months at the helm of the company.
Susie Gharib from Fortune interviewed Jeff Jacobson about leading change in a big organisation like Xerox. His answers were lead by “I am learning quickly about what it takes to be an effective leader.”
In the interview with Fortune, he also explains that he believes in “People relate to people at the end of the day” so as part of this philosophy he writes a weekly personal blog for his 35,000 employees even writing “about his wife on Mother’s Day and he shared life lessons he learned from his father on Father’s Day.”
Jacobson explains: “If you’re going to follow your leader, you have to know who they are and you have to trust them. And there has to be an authenticity. And they have to know you really mean it.”
He adds: “You have to be relentless. You have to know when to figuratively kick and when to figuratively hug. And you just have to keep it going. I keep telling them it’s a boulder we’re turning. This is part of a transformation. This is part of a turnaround. And when we have that boulder going, you don’t want to slow it down. You don’t want to roll backwards. You want to keep going forward.”
The interview can be viewed below: