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'Leadership success is always down to people and how you engage with them'

yahoo finance uk
Norman Chambers says success in finance has come from a 'university of life' outlook. Photo: Matt Chung Photo
Norman Chambers says success in finance has come from a 'university of life' outlook. Photo: Matt Chung Photo

Norman Chambers is managing director of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB), the largest independent trade body for intermediaries in the UK commercial finance industry.

After 30 years in the banking sector working for leading financial institutions including NatWest and RBS, Chambers joined the NACFB in 2014 and has moved the Association forward with a progressive approach.

Chambers also attends regular meetings with HM Treasury, the Business Finance Council, the British Business Bank and the Bank of England, discussing how the UK's SMEs can better access finance for growth.

I seem to succeed at whatever I turn my hand to in leadership roles, whether its chairing the parent teacher association and raising more money than ever before, hosting pantomimes or running a boys’ football team and winning trophies. But it’s not down to me, it’s always down to people and how you engage.

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I’ve come across bosses in my time who are good listeners, give people autonomy and the right direction. It’s not just about setting key performance indicators. I’m firm but fair and try to ensure that everybody is given the freedom to operate in a comfortable environment.

I left my comprehensive school and started work at 16 before spending over 30 years at NatWest and RBS. I’ve had countless roles, managers and first bosses that I’ve had and it’s difficult for me to recollect a specific individual, which would be unfair but equally there have been so many I could talk about.

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So, leadership for me is about being bold, brave, being able to demonstrate to people around you that you’re calm, applying clear direction, that you know what needs to be delivered and you’re there for guidance and instilling confidence.

I started stuffing envelopes and doing general clerical work at NatWest before climbing the career ladder moving into a head of lending role and later moving into retail and private, being a regional director and then an implementation director at RBS.

Part of my character is being able to mix with so many people, rather like the university of life. While working at NatWest I also tried my hand at many part-time jobs like mini cabbing, and I ran a pub for three weeks – which concluded with a villain coming in and wrecking the place. All this has given me the chance interacting with people from different walks of life. Buster Edwards, a member of the gang of the Great Train Robbery, even did the flowers for my wedding. We were drinking neat whisky on the morning of my wedding with Buster telling tales.

Read More: My first boss: Elona Mortimer-Zhika, Iris Software CEO

This has all helped me in how I interact with staff and my lenders and brokers at the NACFB. You can adapt the skills you may have, but it's the people around you who make you as the leader, not necessarily the leader themselves.

The key is to get to know the individuals within the team. You identify what skill sets you need to deliver the goals and then find the people who can do it for you. Everybody wants to be valued and if you can build a rapport with people value and care about that individual then you will get more out of them. Empathy not sympathy is key for me.

When I joined NACFB, the then CEO needed help with the association starting to grow and it took me a few years to understand how the NACFB worked. He had got the business to a very good place but there was still so much that could be achieved.

We are a people led business and people buy from people, it’s an old-fashioned phrase but it still holds true, particularly in commercial finance. If you are going to support small and medium enterprises you need to engage on a personal level and adapt your own persona to make everyone feel important.

We started to grow with more brokers and lenders joining us and we are up to 20 staff now. Our retention rate of staff is high and our attendance record is good. We are probably market leading in that regard and I’m proud of that.

Covid was a challenging time to keep morale tight. What I did learn was that everybody was apprehensive and looking to me to provide direction and calmness. I encouraged all the team to consistently call each other on a regular basis to talk on personal matters, not just work-related issues, we changed our working patterns and slowly started to build trust in the team.

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I’ve often looked in the mirror and wonder what causes success and it’s down to being surrounded with good people. If you treat people in the right way then it’s amazing what they can achieve.

We have been established now for 30 years and it’s now about developing the brand. We are widely known within the commercial finance industry but not elsewhere. We have 2,200 brokers and they are the new bank managers of the future. We facilitated £40bn in 2021, and our annual business activity survey suggests that it will have exceeded this figure in 2022. It demonstrates that the commercial intermediary is here to stay and provide great support for the government in terms of supporting access to funding.

Turning the clock back 25 years, if you wanted a personal mortgage or insurance you would go to your bank or building society. Nowadays, 70% of consumers who want a mortgage go to a broker, I now predict that like the consumer market, SMEs will look to a trusted advisor for access to finance. The NACFB will fill this gap for the whole of the SME community.

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