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S1, E3 The Career Coven: Leadership
170 Plays11 months ago
In the third episode of the Career Coven, Bec and Annie discuss leadership. We discuss the best and worst leadership characteristics we've seen our respective careers. You'll hear about how leaders can't be everything to the people they lead; and how expectations differ on female and male leaders. We both agree on the importance of a ‘well done’. You'll hear about our own personal leadership styles and values, and some of the mistakes we've made in leadership.
You’ll also hear us unpack some great questions from women on:
- Why are there so many people in leadership positions without any leadership skills? (eek)
- The reality of c-suite leadership - what happens when you get to the top of an organisation?
- What are the biggest leadership mistakes we’ve both made
Content recs, references & extra reading
- Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek
- Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard
- Please Yourself, Emma Reed Turrell
Are you a fan? Please like and subscribe on your preferred platform to help others find us too, and let us know what you think! hello@careercoven.com
P.S. Thanks for bearing with the audio gremlins, we are working on improving this for future recordings!
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Transcript
Introduction to Leadership Styles
00:00:05
Speaker
So here we are. Here we are, episode three of The Career Coven. Yeah. I'm Bec. Hello, Manny. And today we're talking about leadership style and values. We've got lots of really good content that we can talk about, but we've received even better questions. Yeah. Agreed. From people who have got in touch with us about this topic. So we want to make sure we have a good amount of time to talk about that.
Strengths and Challenges in Leadership Traits
00:00:31
Speaker
I would like to start by talking about something that I learned in the leadership training a few years ago now and this is about what makes you you and that's also what makes you really good and what is your key strength and the concept around this is the light that you shine the shadow that you cast
00:00:53
Speaker
And about this is you will excel as a leader by playing to your strengths. Yeah. And you can really highly spike on that. However, other people's experience of you will be the dark side of that concept. So to use myself as an example, what I'm really good at, and I think you are too,
00:01:14
Speaker
is around accountability. So I am really good at doing what I say I do, holding other people to account to do what they say they're going to do and getting things done and getting things moving. The shadow side of accountability is that some people find that really fucking intense. Some people are not deadline motivated. Some people will find that
00:01:38
Speaker
maybe even a bit aggressive.
Adapting Leadership Style to Perception
00:01:40
Speaker
And so having an awareness of whatever your key strength is as a leader and how someone might experience the inverse of that is I think really important. So if I know that I am working with someone who really, really finds accountability quite confronting, I have to change my approach to them. What do you think?
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. I obviously think that taking high levels of accountability is something that I like look for in people I work with and hire. And I think that's just really important to being great, to be honest. But, but I agree. I agree that it has like consequences. It has like things that you can be aware of that you need to be aware of.
00:02:34
Speaker
I think definitely in line management, if you are a very kind of...
00:02:40
Speaker
get things done and take full ownership for them. If you have someone who is less confident or like works less in that way, that can be very difficult for them to understand and adapt to. So yeah, I think this, I think the concept though, which is probably really what you were asking me, of the like, your stronger strength is also your kind of biggest weakness or your biggest thing to be aware of. It's like 100% true all of the time.
Diverse Leadership Styles
00:03:09
Speaker
I have never not seen that be the case. It's like the most visionary people I've worked with are also totally unstructured and really, really hard to kind of pin down. But like they have these wild ideas that you would never see come out of like other people. And so, you know, one thing comes with the other and the thing that's really great is always gonna be a really great thing. And the thing that's really hard is also always going to be
00:03:37
Speaker
really hard thing for many people so yeah I think that that concept is really really useful in in the guise of talking about leadership for sure. I think it's also such a good argument just building on what you said around the need for diverse leadership because all of your leadership have the same strengths you've really missed a trick
00:04:01
Speaker
And I am sometimes guilty of trying to hire a mini me when sometimes what I don't need is a mini me. I need someone who is good at the things that I'm really rubbish at so that we yin and yang out. However, that also makes for like, can be quite a conflicting relationship. Yeah, because we have totally different approaches. But I think it's always your job as a leader to try and meet the person who you're leading where they are.
00:04:30
Speaker
And they may come with a different energy.
Sharing Credit and Acknowledging Contributions
00:04:33
Speaker
And I've, you know, I've received feedback before that I lead with a load of energy and enthusiasm, I'm a driver at work, and actually what that can sometimes feel is really exhausting to someone who has just a totally different mode of operating. So I try, I know when I'm sending an email that I'm like, this is going to send someone into a spiral where I'm like, I'm going to temper that down, or I'm going to speak to that person before they receive that email so that
00:04:58
Speaker
they know that I'm not dumping a load of work on them and expect it to be done yesterday. Yeah, I mean, as you say, I think an important part of leadership is recognizing both the need for diverse, diverse strengths and diverse kinds of people around the table, but also I think it is giving those people opportunities to let their
00:05:22
Speaker
know, lights that they shine, like shine to other people as well. So I think part of, you know, to keep the kind of light analogy going, it's like sharing the spotlight is a really important part of leadership, I think. And definitely the leaders that I have seen
00:05:42
Speaker
operate the best, but also motivate their teams the most and that people enjoy working with the most are people that don't pretend that all the work was done by them. That is like the worst. That is the worst. And I think that that really affects like that has like this cascade of confidence impact where like everyone doesn't understand why they weren't recognised for that piece in that thing. And it like erodes at the people that have done all of this work. And I think that's really, really damaging. So I definitely feel like
00:06:12
Speaker
It's really important to know who around the table has the strength, give them the opportunities to shine, but also to share the spotlight and always to acknowledge that rarely once you are a leader, is it only you that has done the thing?
Recognizing Team Contributions
00:06:33
Speaker
You are usually getting information from multiple different people, sources,
00:06:39
Speaker
many of those people will have worked very hard to get you that information. And I think acknowledging that for me is a big part of leadership and what you should as a maybe non-leader expect from your leadership if you are expecting high quality leadership. So many good points in there. I feel like, and maybe this is something for me to reflect on,
00:07:06
Speaker
more I saw grown accustomed to some people taking credit for my work. And that's not even necessarily my line manager, but where you work in a kind of cross discipline program or whatever. I've had many examples where people take credit for my work. And I feel in some respects that as long as the people who I think are important to me and who I am,
00:07:36
Speaker
in my work know that it was me. I don't really care. In fact, I find it quite flattering. Like I'm like, oh, it's so cute that you thought that you came out with that or whatever. And actually I talk about this with a couple of my colleagues that the best, one of the best ways of influencing, and I know we're going to have a separate episode on influencing the future is to make someone think that your idea is their idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
00:08:03
Speaker
But I do really hear you on giving people recognition and credit where it's due. 100% think that that is part of you rising up. And I would also say, just to kind of double down on the point that you made just then, part of my job as a leader is to get out of the way.
Leaders as Champions for Their Team
00:08:23
Speaker
And actually, I am senior enough to know that I actually don't ever need the spotlight unless I want it. And if I want it, I can get it. But it's actually my job.
00:08:32
Speaker
to create as many opportunities for my team to be spotlighted as possible and to be their champion and their cheerleader. And when you're managing someone who's really talented, it's really important that you give them that exposure and that increase in responsibilities and stretch them, but they know that you have their back. Yeah, I mean, that to me, especially once you're in a bigger organization is sort of like the whole point, really, isn't it?
00:09:02
Speaker
you are there to point your team in the right direction, to coach them, to get the best out of them, to give them opportunities to have demonstrable business impact, which is also then therefore your team having demonstrable business impact.
Collective Team Performance Responsibility
00:09:19
Speaker
And, you know, their progression is your progression as a leader. And I think that like a common misconception about people who are in a leadership position, I think can be that that's,
00:09:30
Speaker
not the case and also you know when you've got a really shit leader it can definitely feel like that isn't what they're trying to do but ultimately like the point I think of leadership is that like you're leading a team now therefore the team's performance as a collective is your responsibility you are not anymore only responsible for like
00:09:55
Speaker
you and you being good at things and you having the answers and therefore like by definition I think good leadership kind of acknowledges whether or not you know possibly people take credit for different things but I feel like in those examples
00:10:12
Speaker
as long as they have acknowledged at some point that you did the work and thanked you for the work that you've done, then it's probably less painful when they say like, and this was my idea and it was actually yours. Like, yeah, I think that's fine. But as long as they have at some stage said, thank you for your hard work. This is so useful, you know, and made you feel like valued and that your work was recognized by them.
Acknowledging Small Efforts
00:10:36
Speaker
And, you know, I guess that the,
00:10:39
Speaker
The flip side of what I think is really bad leadership is when people don't feel like their work is kind of taken on board, respected, noticed even. And there are many reasons why a leader might not be like noticing you, giving you the time and attention. Many of those reasons I think it would be fair to say are often not to do with you as the individual, but to do with the things going on in their lives.
00:11:05
Speaker
or the things going on at the leadership level that you might not be able to see that might take up a lot. But it is still their job and what you can expect from your leaders as people being managed by them or being led by them is it is still their job to make the time and to find the time to give you as a team member, like what you need, whether that's clarity on direction, whether that is like acknowledgement of the work that you've done.
00:11:33
Speaker
I think that like, there is always a reason why you might not send that email saying thank you, or you might not say, just let you know, I've received that bit of work, I'm super busy by, I'm going to get to it. And those small things, I think are what makes the difference often to the perception of being a great leader versus like, you know, kind of being quite detached. I will say that a thank you email is really underrated, like,
00:12:01
Speaker
It has such a big impact just to say thank you or a reply all saying, that was a really brilliant update. Thank you so much for leading this. Well done. Yep. Also a good phrase. Well done is a great one. That was really useful. Well done. That's like five, six. How would you describe your leadership style? I definitely am a fan of kind of like subservient model of leadership. You know, I,
00:12:30
Speaker
believe very strongly that I'm sort of there to serve the outcomes of the team, not to serve my own outcomes. And I guess within that, you know, humility is a big kind of value of mine that I try and sort of practice in leadership. Every leader that I've seen that I enjoy working with, that is a common thread. They are fairly down to earth. They are humble. I like to be kind to people.
00:13:00
Speaker
I've always tried to be kind that can be more difficult as you get more senior and have to make harder decisions. But I do actually believe that you can still make hard decisions with and be kind at the same time. It doesn't always mean that that person has to receive your decision as kind, but you can try and deliver it in a kind way and conduct yourself in a kind way. I'm sure I haven't always succeeded at that, but I've definitely tried. I spend a lot of time trying to kind of communicate well
00:13:30
Speaker
I think that communication is always the thing that's like where you get off track is it's always bad communication. So I spend a lot of time kind of experimenting with how to communicate better, experimenting with the meetings to try and make sure that like people are getting what they need without having too much of a meeting burden because yeah, you know, I want a high performance culture in every team I've been in. That's what I want. I want everyone to feel like.
00:13:57
Speaker
They can do the work to the best of their ability. They want to come to work and they're excited by what they're doing. So yeah, I guess that's, that's some of mine. What about you? I think when I, when I think about people's experience of being managed by me, what I'm trying to do is emulate
Bec's Leadership Style
00:14:17
Speaker
how I like to be managed, which is not necessarily how other people like to be managed, but I use that as a baseline of
00:14:23
Speaker
I've had some really awful line managers and I've had some really amazing line managers. And through each of them, I've learned something, even if it wasn't necessarily an experience I'd like to get. There are certainly different elements that I have learned from that I translate into how I run a team. I think what is kind of underscoring that is that I will always be a leader that has high expectations.
00:14:49
Speaker
And that is not something that I apologize for, but I need to always, when I have a new team, devote, and I have like a very specific email that I send about it, when there's a new starter or I'm kind of inheriting a team that explains my approach to how we do things. And that is because my goal is to get the best performance and the best output from the team. And I have quite particular views about how
00:15:19
Speaker
that should look. I'm open-minded if it could be different, but I have a very high standard overall. And I know that that can be confronting to some people, and we always go through a journey with a new team of people finding that hard, and people kind of being like, oh my God, I can't believe she's like this, and I can't believe she's, you know. And I have, especially in the last few years, really come to peace with the fact that I don't really need to be liked.
00:15:46
Speaker
And I actually find it really liberating. I obviously want people to like me, but I'm also okay if they don't. Because it's not my job to be their friend. It's not my job to be their mum. It's not my job to be their therapist. Their support system. And it's your job to be their manager. But it is my job to be their manager and I want to get the best out of them and of the work environment. And I want all of our team to succeed.
00:16:16
Speaker
Basically, you know, every light, I want every light in the chandelier to be glowing. Yeah. And so that can be a bit difficult for some people who are new to working with me, but I also know that it's really worked for me and having high standards is something that helps you succeed and grow. So even if they don't like it, I know that it's good for them.
00:16:40
Speaker
So I think that is one thing so I think it's a blend of I really want you to be good and I know that you're going to hate this but it's really going to work and that comes from a good place in me for them even if it takes them a while to realise it and then I am a kind of I am a driver much in the same way that I would expect high expectations I also expect
00:17:04
Speaker
kind of timeliness to the work. But I also really, as you know, from episode two, have really good boundaries. And I want other people to have really good boundaries. I think it's possible to be effective and efficient. And that probably means stopping doing stuff rather than doing more stuff. And I would way rather do that. And the other thing that I would say is that I'm sort of like overly empathetic person, I really sponge up people's feelings.
00:17:30
Speaker
in my natural state. And I found it really hard when I started line managing being a sponge for everyone. And I really wanted to play that caring role for them. And that's just not humanly possible. It's not sustainable. And so I care really deeply about my colleagues, but I also have to have that emotional boundary there for sure.
Empathy and Boundaries in Leadership
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean,
00:17:58
Speaker
love that you are so unapologetic about your high standards as you should be. I think that's like such a great answer to that question and yeah I'm really empathetic too and it's definitely been a journey to yeah put some light boundaries around that but yeah as soon as you start managing a bigger team
00:18:25
Speaker
especially, you know, once you get over like five direct reports, I think if you are the emotional sponge more than that, it's just not, it's just not possible. And that doesn't mean that you can't be really, really supportive when you need to. But definitely I feel like, yeah, there has to be some limits. And part of your responsibility is part of, I think your responsibility as both a leader and a manager is that they don't
00:18:56
Speaker
people know where those boundaries are and they know that you are there to help make sure that they are okay in every way but your sphere of influence and action is only within the workplace and you cannot correct or fix or help with anything that sits outside of that because it's just not really possible or plausible but I've definitely you know as a highly empathetic person I definitely kind of
00:19:22
Speaker
totally crossed into the realm of like therapists supporting best friend you know and every single time i've done that it has been a fucking disaster so um definitely trying not to do that anymore um and i think part of this goes back a bit back to people pleasing and um there's a really good book by emma reed terrell i've mentioned her in a previous episode about people pleasing and i absolutely gobbled it up it's so good but
00:19:51
Speaker
there's a really interesting concept around people pleasing.
Gender Expectations in Leadership
00:19:54
Speaker
And that is basically that you, when you are people pleasing, you are training people to expect you to be generous and that they have an expectation that you will give all of that to them. And it's taken me a long time in my leadership to just be less generous. And that makes me sound pretty clinical, but
00:20:18
Speaker
there is only so much that you can give and they are your colleagues, but they are not necessarily the most important people in life. Yeah. And I think this is where there is a big difference between the expectation of female leaders and male leaders. I don't think anyone expects male leaders to be like your therapist, your best friend. Like I think it is usually reserved for like empathetic, more sensitive female leaders and
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fucking nonsense. I think there is a happy medium that everyone can strike, which is being a great, empathetic, caring line manager. And that's not limited. That shouldn't be, the expectations shouldn't be different based on gender. But yeah, I think that women are expected to be nice and to be caring.
00:21:12
Speaker
in their role as both a leader and a line manager, whereas I think men are rewarded for often not being that. So true. And I would, I think this also extends out further, like the expected, this is probably not the same in, in the world of femtech startups, but I think in most, most of the larger organization environments that I've been to, the expected owners to do things like
00:21:40
Speaker
organised team drinks, a team lunch, away days, someone's baby shower, blah, blah, blah. All of that sort of social activity that is, you know, it's taking away from them being able to do their work. Sometimes people fucking hate it. And it is a lot of work. It's fairly thankless. And all of that falls to women. I have
00:22:09
Speaker
never seen a man in the workplace organize like a team event. So I actually have to say in credit, someone who is one of both of our friends, but certainly was my old manager, he did all the organization of team events. And was exceptionally good at it and really did take a very kind of pastoral role in the team's kind of overall wellbeing. But I would say that it's very rare I haven't ever seen
00:22:39
Speaker
I haven't actually ever seen anyone of any gender take that much responsibility in any organization. So I think that's actually more about him as a person and what he cares about. And, and, and it was, it was like really impressive because it was a huge amount of work to be fair, like to take on all of that responsibility for a team.
00:23:01
Speaker
was big and it had a lot of benefits, I think, for the size of organization that we were, which was very small. But yeah, I would say in other larger organizations I've been to, it does tend to fall on women. But I also, yeah, I just think that the care expectation is different throughout your career and throughout your progression. You're expected to be caring, you're expected to be
00:23:31
Speaker
to be harsh or abrupt. Yeah and I think the things that are different for women are really social conditioning that actually starts before work. I think it starts when we're little girls. And it's something that we have just conditioned to be like that is just extrapolated out into the working environment. But what I would say is like some of the best leads I've worked with are women and I feel very fortunate to be able to say that and I am absolutely sure that they have all had a huge
00:24:01
Speaker
influence on my career choices. Okay so I'm going to jump into questions because we had, I would say, more questions about this than in most rather topic areas, probably because leadership basically touches everyone's jobs.
Skills in Leadership Roles
00:24:22
Speaker
First one, and I have to admit I laughed when I
00:24:27
Speaker
read this question but I definitely think it's true. Why are there so many people in leadership positions without any leadership skills? This is such a good one. So I think historically and still probably in the majority of organisations now, progressing in your career means managing people and those are directly correlated. I think there is
00:24:55
Speaker
a real mis-trick on not letting people progress as a solo contributor rather than a team leader because frankly some people aren't made to lead other people and I mean that in the kindest way possible they have no natural aptitude for it and I've seen these people and it is fairly fucking disastrous and you can learn how to be a leader of course but you also want
00:25:18
Speaker
have to want to learn and you have to put it in practice. And there are certainly people I've experienced who have done neither of those. So I agree, it's really annoying that there are people in leadership positions who have no leadership skills. I suppose how could we answer this more constructively? What would we recommend? So I think corporates and startups are really different here for different reasons. So one,
00:25:47
Speaker
in startups often there is an individual contributor track. That's been very common. I would say for like five years now, I definitely think that's a great idea. You should absolutely be able, in my view, you should be able to get to C-suite as an IC. If you are that good and you have that much impact on company strategy, you should not have to, I don't believe, take on the management burden. I think being practical rather than just kind of nagging on these kind of high flyers,
00:26:17
Speaker
It's like, I think being really practical, if you're being managed by one of them, just tell them what you need. This is what I need, assert your boundaries, as we've discussed really clearly, and ask them explicitly, can you do that? If they can, hold them to it. If they can't, then understand why they can't and tell them what for you is non-negotiable. But basically, you're going to have to do some of the management yourself. You're going to have to manage yourself better if you've got a bad line.
00:26:46
Speaker
an inexperienced line manager. And we've got another episode coming up on Managing Out where I think we'll talk about that in a lot more detail. One thing that I would give these sort of people who we've classified as horrible human beings, biased and not horrible human beings but probably horrible line managers is I would also just say line management
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah. Takes a lot of time. Takes a lot of time. Takes a lot of mental energy. Takes a lot of emotional capacity. And every person is different. And every person on the whole planet is kind of weird. And you have to work out, like, what flavor of weird this person is. And like, what motivates them? What demotivates them? What are their ambitions for progression? Like, it's so complicated. So I would also maybe
00:27:38
Speaker
really depends on who they are. Possibly cut them a bit of slack. Ooh, okay. Not what I expected you to say, actually. I don't know how I feel about that statement. Little shit manager Annie of past, I hope, times definitely feels like, yeah, cut them a bit of slack. Really practical Annie, having seen what I've seen would say,
00:28:07
Speaker
As the leader, if you have people like that managing, you need to fix that fucking fast because you will lose people so quickly if you have someone managing who doesn't have the capacity to manage well. And it's not fair on the people you hire to put them into that position. You will not build a high performance organization. And honestly, if people don't want to manage, you shouldn't ask them to manage because it won't, it won't work. And I'm obviously speaking from the,
00:28:37
Speaker
From the position of like startups which have high velocity, there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure to get other things done that aren't just being a good line manager. But yeah, I think from personal experience, I would definitely say that it's unfair on both the people being line managed and the line manager to put people who do not have the skills or the attitude into that position.
00:29:02
Speaker
And you will just feel the consequences, either as you having to do that job like by proxy through them, or because people will start to leave. Because I think we would agree, me and you, that your single most important person in your organisation is your line manager. Oh, 100%. That is the person whom like all of your
00:29:23
Speaker
future and support and sponsorship and anything, your requests, they are the controller of all of those outcomes. So you need to have a good relationship with them and they need to be good and take their responsibility seriously. I think when I was thinking about Cutlass and Slack, I was also thinking about like my first line management experience.
First-time Line Manager Mistakes
00:29:43
Speaker
And I think for anyone listening who's a first time line manager, you're basically going to break yourself like the whole time and it will get easier.
00:29:50
Speaker
Um, you're only breaking yourself because you haven't done it. Yeah. Yeah. So you not like the people that really struggle and the people that are the first time or whatever, and they're not good, but they don't really care because they don't want to do it because they don't have to do like, you see what I mean? Those are the people that I'm saying. Just take them out of line management because that's not, it's not what, where they're going to put their time and energy. Whereas little you. Okay. No one's a good line manager on their first go. No one's perfect. It is really hard.
00:30:20
Speaker
But the reason you felt like that was because you understood the consequences of what it meant to be a line manager and you wanted to be really good at it. Yes. Okay. Give little me more credit. Um, you know, I think this will be really fairly obvious that depends on the level of experience of, um, our listeners today, but you know, there is a sort of hygiene level of line management, which is like, I have one-to-ones, I understand the strategic direction.
00:30:47
Speaker
I know what the opportunities are ahead. I know how I fit into the organization's work. I know where I want to be in 12 months. I'm supported through all of those journeys. That I think is like the minimum expectation that you can, that you should have of your line manager. And if you're not getting any of those, I would encourage you to make them happen.
00:31:08
Speaker
in whatever way works with you and your line manager. I think as you get more experience as a line manager, you get much better. And I think, at least for me, it's much more intuitive now. I don't, you know, I don't feel like I need to stress or prep or really think about a one-to-one before I go in because I already know
00:31:26
Speaker
what's on their plate, what's coming up, what their priorities are. I always think about it before I go in, but it's not like I'm not worried about it. It's much more second nature now and it does get easier at the time, but experience helps.
Indecisiveness and Conflict Avoidance
00:31:47
Speaker
Okay, what are the most common mistakes in leadership that you've both seen in your careers? And I think this person might have meant that we've both done. And what would you have done differently? I feel like I touched on this earlier. One of the mistakes I made was wanting to be liked, like people pleasing, wanting to be liked, feeling like I had to go the extra mile all the time. And at the, like it all sort of feels like you're,
00:32:16
Speaker
what was certainly inauthentic to me. I don't feel like I need to go the extra mile now. I don't feel like I have anything to prove as a line manager now. I don't have to. And I think at that time I was more junior and I wanted to sort of really impress people by what an amazing line manager I would be. And actually I feel much more content in myself now and much more confident in my leadership skills that I don't have to feel like I have to go the extra mile to give my team.
00:32:44
Speaker
an experience that at a bare minimum they should expect, but I will exceed their expectations. So mistakes I've made, being indecisive, always a mistake. Talk more. I have just taken a long time to make decisions that should
00:33:04
Speaker
where I've really, in my heart, kind of known the answer. And every time I haven't made those decisions, the consequences of inertia being quite high. Can I ask specifically, are you talking about getting rid of people? Yeah, yeah, usually. Or giving feedback. So I think it's usually to do with negative performance and not acting on it quickly enough. So a bit of conflict avoidance. Yeah, yeah, definitely conflict avoidance.
00:33:36
Speaker
Conflict, yeah, conflict avoidant, but also I think there was a bit of that wanting to be liked, still wanting to be liked and wanting to be nice and wanting to make sure everyone was happy at work. Now I don't, to be honest, I don't think that is my responsibility to make people happy at work. There are a lot of things that can make people unhappy at work. It's my responsibility to make sure they perform as well as they can on every given day and that I don't get in the way.
00:34:02
Speaker
where I see leaders just like lose all credibility in a couple of sentences with like everyone they've ever worked with is through just kind of like bullshitting their way through and kind of pretending all the good stuff was just them on their own and like it's just so easy not to be that guy. A poorly crafted email can really go down like an absolute sack of shit and
00:34:27
Speaker
I think, especially if you're a leader and you are recognized as a senior person, people, whether you want to or not, will probably read your stuff. They will probably misinterpret it. And they also might gossip about it. And you are probably going to be the subject of some chatter and some of that might not be good about you. And so that I think is a really good
00:34:55
Speaker
reminder to everyone to never send the first draft. This also really inspired me for one last mistake before we go to the next question, is flapping. I have such a nick for leaders who flap. It really annoys me because someone, someone by flap indecisiveness. No, just, just sort of
00:35:21
Speaker
panicking and I think someone once told me that as a senior leader you are paid to be the calmest person in the room. Yeah I believe in that consistency. Yeah and it is if you are senior everyone is going to see the body language that you have, see you like ripping your eyeballs out, hear you sort of running around flailing your arms in the air
00:35:49
Speaker
such a good point actually and that shit is contagious and it is your job to just be like this is fine we're gonna work it out yeah and I think that is what I spent a lot of time doing doing crisis response in the pandemic was like
00:36:07
Speaker
oh my god we've got a 10 minute deadline for like this really important thing for the secretary of state and I'd be like that's fine we can write this in 10 minutes like here's how I'm gonna do it even though inside I was like I'm fucking kidding but like you just have to tell them yeah something you have to give everyone even if it is a false sense you have to give them a sense of confidence that
00:36:28
Speaker
it's happening, it's fine, and it's going to be fine. And you cannot be seen to flat because as soon as you falter, people start losing confidence in you. Yeah, totally agree. I think consistency is really important.
Consistency in Leadership Styles
00:36:41
Speaker
I think inconsistent leadership is really, really difficult for people. I think it in general doesn't lead to high levels of respect or success. And I am not saying that leaders can't bring themselves to work, but I am saying that I think it gets harder
00:36:57
Speaker
to bring your full self to work because you have more leadership responsibilities because you do just have to like get your game face on and be very consistent for the people that you lead. You have to bring your regulated face. You can't bring all of the faces. Okay, next question. The reality of C-suite leadership. What are the pains and pleasures?
C-suite Focus: People and Financials
00:37:23
Speaker
Annie, I'm going to ask you this because you're
00:37:26
Speaker
favourite position as CEO. Not favourite. And I am a mid-level senior corporate lady, so this one's for you. Okay. Well, I think if I were just to summarise when once you get to
00:37:43
Speaker
C-suite, I just think it's all about people and money and that's, that's it. And you know, within money is obviously like the strategy, the company, you know, vision, how you take it forward, how you maybe raise more money, but really and obviously make more money. But, you know, you spend a lot of time just thinking about the bottom line.
00:38:07
Speaker
And then the other thing which is often the main driver of the bottom line that you spend your time thinking about is people. Are the people doing the right thing? Are they doing it in a way that reflects the organisation that you want to have created and what fires are burning in people town of which there are usually
00:38:29
Speaker
many and so many fires so many fires so many fires in people town and yeah you know that sounds a bit simplistic but i'm just not sure what else i would say is those those are what you spend your time doing and you have to want to do those things full time to be in i think any c-suite role to be honest you're no longer usually kind of
00:38:58
Speaker
Well, in small companies, you definitely are contributing, but in larger companies, you are trusting your teams to do a lot of the output and then you are doing the synthesis and there's so what's from that and the decisions off of that. And that is both exciting in many ways because it's cognitively stimulating and difficult and the stakes of the decisions are very high. It's also stressful and it's not gonna be for everyone. And if you don't enjoy either making money
00:39:28
Speaker
or thinking about people issues at all, then you're probably not going to enjoy the C-suite and that is okay. Not everyone has to be a CEO. I would just echo this, the more senior that I've got, the less I have sort of productively done in terms of outputs and the more my time has just been spent doing people stuff and that
00:39:54
Speaker
massively scales, not even in a way that necessarily has economies of scale when your team grows.
People Management in Leadership
00:40:00
Speaker
Every single person will have like something going on in their personal life or like, you know, someone's getting pregnant or maybe there's a discrimination case against them or they're lodging one or you know, people are really complicated and it's not to be underestimated how much of a lift
00:40:19
Speaker
those kind of personnel situations are and then you know there's interviewing, there's like onboarding, there's off-boarding, all those sorts of things. I've spent so much of the last five years like looking at a staff list which I don't think I had really realised earlier in my career would be what would be involved in getting more senior. But also I really like people so
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I love them. I want the best for all of them. So that's just, you know, the, that's the work that comes with the privilege of leaving the team. Yeah, I agree with that. And you definitely have to enjoy, you definitely have to enjoy parts of that. Not all of it, but parts of that. I enjoy the staff list, but I don't know what a staff list is.
00:41:08
Speaker
piece of the thing, I just have a staff list.
Joy of Team Growth and Success
00:41:10
Speaker
But you also have to, I think one of the pleasures, and perhaps we haven't spoken about this enough, one of the pleasures of leadership is watching someone like blossom. Yeah, the best. The best. Oh my god, the best. Like so good when like you give feedback, they action the feedback, they get better and then they're like
00:41:29
Speaker
I'm ready for a promotion and I'm like, I think you are ready for a promotion and then they get a promotion and then it's honestly, my heart hurts like just talking about it. It makes me so happy. Yeah, I get all tingly when I think about that. That feels like a lovely note to end on. Yeah, fine. Let's do it. Thank you for listening. Please like and subscribe if you did like it, wherever you've been listening.