Direct Leads – Direct Leads by Tokopedia?s Aswin T Utomo

William Tanuwijaya and Aswin Utomo made history in Indonesia by joining their e-commerce business in one of the most valuable technology companies in Southeast Asia.

Aswin shares how he developed the essential traits and skills to become a strong leader. He learned how to step out of his comfort zone and how to consider people from different backgrounds.

1. Challenging

Indonesian technology giant Tokopedia is on a mission to democratize business through e-commerce. Its high growth is the proof of its success: the company has reached 99% of the country’s districts and has empowered almost 12 million merchants across the country to help people #FindYourPurpose.

Whether spending his younger years in Australia or pursuing his Computer Science degree in Los Angeles and San Diego, Aswin embraced challenges that pushed him outside his comfort zone. Life experiences have taught him how to walk his own path before leading others, and he credits these lessons to shaping his leadership style.

Today, the CIO is expected to lead strategic business decisions as well as implement emerging technologies that are changing the digital future of the organization. CIOs are also often called upon to serve as a trusted advisor and partner to other C-suite executives. It’s no surprise that many experts are questioning the role of the CIO as we enter the 2020s.

2. Self-leadership

Self-leadership is about taking initiative, being proactive and directing yourself in difficult situations. You can use self-leadership skills to help you overcome challenges, be successful, and create an overall positive work experience.

While some people have a natural ability to lead themselves, it is possible for anyone to learn and develop this skill. For many, this means becoming self-aware and focusing on their strengths and weaknesses.

This includes recognizing when you are reacting rather than responding and using self-management strategies to stay calm and centered. It also requires a strong sense of accountability.

Previous research on self-leadership has focused on theoretical propositions about autonomous action and general self-esteem, and has shown a positive relationship between these two factors. In addition, research has found that there is a relationship between focused behavior, natural reward, and self-leadership strategies for constructive thinking. These individual subscales can be combined to form a single measure of self-leadership.

3. Feelings

Empathy is a key soft skill required for effective leadership. It involves the ability to put yourself into another person, feel what they feel, and understand their emotions.

Empathy helps diffuse conflict and makes people more willing to compromise. It also helps you build and maintain important relationships, especially in a group setting.

The underlying factors that influence emotions are a combination of nature and development. Genetics play a big role, but so do the beliefs and values ​​instilled by family, friends, and society.

For example, imagine that your friend’s grandmother is diagnosed with a serious medical condition. Practicing emotional awareness can involve thinking about how they must feel, such as deep fear and sadness. Such feelings are often accompanied by feelings of compassion and a desire to help. Other types of empathy include emotional empathy, where you can actually feel someone’s feelings, and empathic empathy, which encourages action to help.

4. Working together

Teamwork skills are required for effective collaboration in the workplace. It can help increase measurable business results, increase efficiency by sharing responsibilities, increase productivity by allowing individuals to work with others on tasks they may not be comfortable with (think “two heads”. is better than one”), foster communication and build strong working relationships, encourage personal growth, and act as a support mechanism for employees.

Having strong teamwork skills can also improve your job satisfaction, especially when working on a collaborative project that requires interaction with many people. Additionally, you can develop your teamwork skills by seeking out a mentor who can give you honest feedback on how you are contributing to the team effort.

Using PagerDuty to manage alerts helps Tokopedia provide high-quality customer service by reducing alert noise and enabling teams to prioritize the most critical incidents. It also helped the company build a culture of ownership around service issues.