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Active listening: a key trait for any leader
Mastercard Bangladesh Country Manager Syed Mohammad Kamal says at The Daily Star’s The Chief Executive Show powered by Marico
Dwoha Chowdhury, from Sylhet
Active listening, which requires the listener to fully concentrate and understand with patience before responding, is a key value for any leader, according to Syed Mohammad Kamal, Bangladesh country manager at Mastercard.
“Be it within your team, organisation, customers or the new generation, if you really listen, something might come up that you never thought before and can bring a right solution,” he said.
Kamal believes that a company’s top brass must always share information in different layers before taking strategic action.
Even at Mastercard, the New York-based multinational financial services corporation, information dissimilation is done in a fitting manner.
“If a top leader can take a decision collectively by involving everyone, it brings a better result since everyone feels like they are a part of the initiative,” the country manager added.
There are times when members of the top brass are required to take decisions on their own but these are exceptional cases that only happen during times of emergency as a form of crisis management.
“But still, if you are able to discuss with a larger team, it gives good output,” Kamal said.
A leader must also be capable of accepting ideas that aren’t his own and without this ability, he or she will not be able to make their organisation successful, he added.
Since being a member of the top brass requires you to make the right decisions at the right time, Kamal suggests that taking calculated risks is the way to go.
“The industry we work in, a small mistake could be a huge risk for us and for our consumers as we are giving financial solutions to people,” he said.
“If we cannot regularly bring in the right solution by finding customers’ pain point, it’s hard to survive in the financial sector, which needs continuous innovation,” said Kamal, who has been Mastercard Bangladesh’s country manager since 2013.
“Evaluating values of customers, addressing their pain points, bringing in continuous new innovation, educating customers about the innovation -- these all are interconnected with a huge workforce to ensure that our customers stick around,” he added.
A majority of financial products would fail if the right ingredient is not added.
So, a leader must have the ability to foresee because if he cannot do that, survival in the long run will be impossible.
Kamal also emphasised on the need to build long-term strategies while keeping a weather eye on what one’s competitors are up to.
The Mastercard country manager was born in Dhaka and brought up in Chattogram, where he attended the Chattogram Collegiate School, Chattogram Commerce College and Chattogram University.
Later, he completed his master’s in business administration from the Royal Roads University in Canada.
Even though Kamal has been working in the financial sector since 2005, he never worked at any bank.
“As I work at Mastercard, people think I must have been a banker, but not really. I worked half my career in FMCG companies,” he said.
From zonal sales manager of ACI Consumer Brands from 1998 to 2003, he moved to Berger Paints and served as regional sales manager till 2005.
After a 14-year career in FMCG, in 2005, he got an offer from Western Union, the world’s leading money transfer company, and started a whole new path. Then in 2013, he joined Mastercard Bangladesh as country manager.
“I thoroughly enjoy my career. From the beginning, I always like to take challenges. I’m always passionate about my job and always try to own the institution I’m in,” he said.
Throughout his career, Kamal experienced how the financial industry changed from analogue to digital and embraced a more digital means of life amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Kamal said during the pandemic, notable change has emerged in digital commerce and the country is moving towards a digital future by 2021.
“We saw a majority of payments were made digitally amid the Covid-19 outbreak. Be it mobile financial service (MFS) or cards. We already achieved the momentum and if we are able to continue it, there’s no reason not to call us digital,” he added.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, ATM transactions stood at Tk 14,327.5 crore as of February 20 but rose to Tk 15,328.8 crore by October.
But a more significant change happened in ecommerce. In February this year, the ecommerce transactions through cards were Tk 247.1 crore and grew to Tk 640.4 crore by July and Tk 543.1 crore in October.
In Bangladesh, 70 per cent of the people are still out of banking coverage and most rural residents are comfortable with traditional banking systems.
“But it’s changing as people are adapting slowly. Now people are using MFS and agent banking to transfer money and the number is showing that a huge change is visible now. People started being digital savvy,” Kamal said.
Besides his professional career, Kamal is involved with the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh, Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services.
Kamal believes that networking is important and one major scope is by attending public speeches or programmers, where someone gets to talk or mingle with a set of people.
“During networking, you have to open up, speak rightly, do constructive discussion and try to get input from the person you’re talking to,” Kamal said.
For newcomers in a corporate career, he has one key suggestion to give.
“Whatever you do, do it passionately. Until you enjoy the work, do it. Once you feel you’re not enjoying it, leave it and start something new.”