347. Mike Schneider, Managing Director of Bunnings on career diversity, genuine empathy, and the 4Hs of authenticity [Best of Series]

The Inner Chief

“The danger for CEOs is to allow yourself to be surrounded by people who tell you how good your ideas are. You actually need a balance of people who tell you when you’ve got something wrong or if you could have handled something in a different way.”

In this Best of Series episode, we replay a chat we had in 2019 with Mike Schneider, the Managing Director of the Bunnings Group, on career diversity, genuine empathy, and the 4Hs of authenticity.

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Before being appointed to the top role, Mike was the Managing Director of Bunnings Australia & New Zealand and had also led the store operations teams, having joined Bunnings in 2005.

His career has seen him hold a range of senior operational, commercial and human resource roles, both in retail and financial services, most notably at Target, Westpac and The Warehouse Group.

Mike holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of NSW and has completed the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD, and the Advanced Strategic Management Program at IMD.

In this episode we talk about:

✅ How having a diverse career path has been to his benefit

✅ Why genuine empathy and being a consistent, not predictable, leader is vital to success

✅ What he means by an integrated life as opposed to work-life balance, and

✅ His 4Hs Framework that allows him to lead an authentic life.

Stay epic,

Greg

Connecting with Mike Schneider

You can reach Mike on LinkedIn.

Books and Resources

• World’s Best by Ric Charlesworth

• On Violence by Natasha Stott Despoja

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