“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred CEOs are useless. But from time to time you need to be able to jump in and make a difference. That’s what you’re paid to do.”

JL What was the most important lesson you learnt about leadership during the pandemic?

AC It may sound abstract, but if I had to choose one thing it would be the importance of the organisation’s culture, specifically the element of trust with colleagues and volunteers. By closing the office and changing our working habits, we tried to make sure that all our projects and activities were clearly delegated to people, so everyone would have their portfolio of activities to take care of, but, as far as possible, keep a normal relationship with times, dates, and quantifiable metrics. It was about being there to listen to each other, to guide people where necessary, but at the end of the day it was about trust and trusting that people were there for the same reason and the same mission.

JL What was the most challenging period for you during the pandemic and why?

AC The first phase of the pandemic, where nobody knew exactly what was going on, how deep the problem was, or for how long it would last. You were out of control – and you needed to quickly regain control and make quick decisions - and the right ones - to stabilize the organisation. For ESTRO the first three months of the pandemic coincided with planning our meeting, which was scheduled in May. It became evident very soon that we could not do it in-person – and then you enter a big decision-making process: do we cancel, postpone, or go online? At the time nothing was clear. You had to change the decision-making structure, shorten the command-chain, realign everyone behind the same understanding, and that all had to happen very fast. Everyone had different opinions about the severity of the problem, which was useless for decision making! But we were having to make big decisions without any historical data or background context.

JL What were your daily coping mechanisms for workload and stress?

AC There was this strong sense of responsibility towards the organisation's staff members in terms of them keeping their jobs: that was stressful. But dealing with these things is what CEOs are trained to do. A CEO is useless 99 times out of 100, your teams are perfectly competent and often know better, but from time to time you need to be able to step in and make a difference. You must be ready to jump on the situation - and if you’re not ready you should think about doing something else. It sounds strange, but as a CEO you live for these moments really, you need the reflexes to deal with these situations.

JL When you look back on the last 20 months what makes you most proud?

AC Holding the ESTRO Congress in Madrid in the last week of August. We were among the first ones to restart having live events. We were taking a role of leadership to show that it was safe and manageable to do live events at a time when there was still some uncertainty. We had 2,500 people onsite and about the same online. To have had the support from the board and the staff to be make that possible – to cope with the late decision to go-ahead – all of this makes me proud.

JL What did you learn about your own leadership style?

AC That the true self always come to the surface. You can pretend to be something else, because that something else is more acceptable or more appropriate, but at the end of the day your natural traits, the way you react to situations, come out. And when you’re in a situation where the routine has gone and the structure has gone, all those things come out even more. In terms of style, don’t always hide it away, let people know what’s going on with you, be transparent, and sometimes it’s okay to be fragile. That might sound like a contradiction in someone who is there to lead and drive things forward but you don’t always have to show that you are the strongest ever. You also have emotions and moments of defeat. It’s about creating a transparent dialogue.

JL Did you make any changes to how you manage your team and, if so, what were they?

AC We have adopted a completely different way of functioning. The lease on our office was ending, so we moved into a new, much smaller meeting place. The idea is to reorganise the ability for people to socialise at work, but not lose the better work-life balance they have gained over the last 20 months. We surveyed our staff members regularly during the pandemic about how they liked to work and asked them to think of three typical situations in their work. One is about creativity, thinking, studying, a time for reflection, another is a time for administration, implementing things etc., and the third is a time to meet and connect – but you can’t do all three moments in the same place. So we give people a place to meet and connect – i.e., the office - and we give them the tools to work from home, in terms of ergonomic furniture, screens, computers etc. Then you let people decide how they manage that – when you go into the office, work from home, segregate or not segregate your time etc. And they are completely free to decide. The idea is that ‘work’ is not a place that you spend five days a week but something that is more in your mind.