As the director of CVG Finance, Paul Lambess has the ability to understand and solve financial issues for businesses who are growing, seeking guidance, or want a review of all their financing facilities.

He loves that as a broker he is the representative; in their corner, going in to get them the best deal and outcome possible.

Paul looks to have the right people in his team and works hard to figure out what motivates them as individuals.

• What path led to your current role?

Well it was a path that you probably wouldn’t expect as I was actually doing a psychology degree because I had a passion for people and business. A colleague of mine asked in I would like to work in finance which I decided to and only gave me a two year window as I was finishing my psychology degree. To cut a long story short, I loved what I was doing as I was dealing with business people and hence started my own finance broking company and haven’t turned back. The psychology degree is still sitting there but I deal with people in business now and absolutely love it.

• What do you believe has shaped your leadership style?

I think my leadership style has been shaped by wanting people to do the best they can do and be the best they can be. So, I like to engage people and I like people to be an equal part of the team.

My leadership style is probably trying to be one of the team, not being a head or above them screaming down at them saying this is what I want, but engaging the team so that we work successfully all together.

What is one action or task you ensure you incorporate into your diary each week?

One thing that I try never to move is my staff meeting because I find that that gets everybody together and on the same page, it is a great time for me to connect with the staff. That really sets us up for the week ahead.

• What are your main tips to be an effective leader?

I think to be a great leader firstly you have to hire the right people. You have got to have the right people on your bus, in your team. I have learnt that hiring great people makes such a difference to how you can lead and how people want to be led. It changes the dynamic when you have got fantastic staff so I think that is number one.

Number two is definitely lead by example. I don’t like to ask the staff to do things that I haven’t done or am not willing to do. That is also in culture – that’s in turning up, it is in a whole bunch of areas that I am a leader who wants to lead by example.

And probably the third thing that I have learnt is to find out what motivates individual staff members. What can happen in a business, and as a leader, is that you can think that you are motivating people and rewarding people a certain way but it actually might not be a motivator or a reward for them. So get to know your staff and your team on an individual basis and find out what motivates them. It might be money, it might be time off, it might be extra conditions, whatever it is you need to know your people on a specific level as well and that I think enhances your leadership and connection with your team.

• What local businessperson do you find inspiring?

One would be Geoff Crews from Forsythe Recruitment – for those that don’t know Geoff you need to know him because he is such a personable person. He makes dealing with his business so easy. He is a recruiter and often you can say just put a SEEK ad on but dealing with him you understand what truly an expert does. He makes it really easy and that inspires me because we are in the service based industry as well and I want to make it easy for people to deal with me so I think how he runs his business and the culture that he has is fantastic.

The other person would be Paul Siderovski – he runs a successful accounting firm and he is definitely a guy full of energy! I like his entrepreneurial side, how he is aggressive in growing a business and for me, again being a service based business and wanting to grow, I find him quite inspirational in terms of taking risks and wanting to actually move forward in your business.  You can often get comfortable with where you are at and sometimes it is good to have people around you that are two, three and four levels in front of you and urging you on and encouraging you to take a few risks and have a go. So those two guys are definitely inspirational in the Hunter for me.