The Winning Leadership Mantra; Mr. James Michael Lafferty

With a 360-degree view at Westford learning, we aim to turn boring presentations into a dialogue in real time. With every speaker, our webinar series has gained momentum. Bringing together bright minds to offer ideas-focused discussions, on a variety of topics, that encourage learning, inspiration, and, most importantly, wonder. Our series of We connect webinars is our commitment, to bring learning beyond classrooms and engaging with the industry’s top leaders.
On Saturday, 19 September 2020, the esteemed We Connect Webinar speaker was none other than Mr. James Michael Lafferty, Fine Hygienic Holding ‘s CEO. The focus of the session was, “The winning leadership mantra of a Fortune 100 CEO,” resonating with his accomplishments and journey.
Mr. Lafferty has many accolades to his name; presently, he has been recognized as one of the world’s most unique and diversified CEOs. Not only, is he a successful CEO, but he is also an Olympic coach, an award-winning journalist, a college professor, a competitive athlete, and, a philanthropist to name a few. Mr. Lafferty has held CEO positions for Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola, and British American Tobacco, in the past.

The Burj CEO Awards affiliated with the Government of Dubai and the GCC Best Employer Awards CEO of the Year, have recently awarded Mr. Lafferty the ‘CEO of the Year’. In addition, he was named “The Wellness Pioneer of 2019” by Daman Health and named one of the top 50 CEOs, by the Forbes Magazine Middle East.
Leadership is the most widely used term in the corporate world today, but to fundamentally understand the term, we need to look at the real leaders around us. Leaders who have been through the talk, and live the part. A leadership in management aims to develop your leadership capacity and better prepares you for the critical transition into Strategic leadership roles. The leadership management is affected by how well the roles of strategists are performed. Also, the role of leadership isn’t always easy because of the dynamism of the various fields, multiple constituencies of organizations and the potential need for extensive sharing of leadership roles. Mr. Lafferty ‘s session was a testament that of, it was engaging and inspiring to say the least. He emphasized points like finding passion in whatever one does, having a winning mind, success depends on your mindset, and much more. The session was a practical and realistic projection of how to thrive and excel in life in general and in the corporate world in particular. He advocated that we must believe in the idea of serendipity, how to dream big, and even how we need to embrace every aspect of achieving it.His key message is “Find your passion for what you do!”. Few of the most captivating and intriguing questions posed by the audience were about how to balance work and personal life? How can you overcome these challenges? How do you address the career gap, that one might have? Mr. Lafferty had a personal story to link to each of these questions, so learning was from his life experiences that were genuine, practical and adaptable.

The appeal to audiences, was to never to give up on oneself, we may have different aims or aspirations at different stages of life, but how passionately we live and work each day determines the fate of the success! One of the webinar attendees said, “This is a master class in leadership,” while another said, “The webinar gave them the much-needed insight on what we see as success.”

Mr. Lafferty spoke of successes and failures, with the same level, of dignity and tenacity! This is a winning leadership mantra right there.