Current Role: Chief Mental Health Advisor
Current Organisation: Elemental Coaching & Psychology
Last Role at PwC: Chief Mental Health Officer
Time at PwC: 2015 - 2023
What’s the most exciting part of your role?
I am very excited about the opportunity to agitate in the market how organisations need to re-consider and re-design the way they enable leaders to be the best leaders they can be, and therefore have the enterprise level impact that is expected. I think the range and complexity of the expectations of leaders in the modern corporate landscape has increased exponentially in recent years, yet the leadership system designs haven’t adjusted to be fit-for-purpose. That means there is untapped potential sitting within leaders. If leadership systems are designed with intention, this could be a significant positive differentiator. The idea of agitating and challenging the way organisations are approaching leadership support mechanisms is very exciting to me.
What’s been your greatest career challenge and how have you overcome it?
As a psychologist whose career and personal passion is to support and enable people to be at their best, I have found my greatest career challenge is to 'walk my talk'. I coach leaders everyday to empower and support their personal reflections andactions re self-care, effectively communicating needs, being mindful of personal triggers and unhelpful thinking patterns and navigating complex workplace situations. The greatest challenge emerged when I heard myself in conversation with leaders and knew I was not personally practicing what I preaching. Being aware of this motivated me to make changes in my life and in my career. It helped me to take action to consider how important it was to my values to honour the leaders I work with by leaning fully into this paradox, and being able to respect myself by knowing I was being truly authentic and reducing the knowing 'doing gap' in order to keep myself at my best, so I could more effectively serve my coaching clients.
What’s the most valuable lesson you learnt during your career at PwC and how has that helped you get to where you are today?
The most valuable lesson I learnt at my time at PwC is that no matter how senior a person is, how successful they appear and how 'together' they might seem to observers, all people have moments of distress, vulnerability, self-doubt and the need for affirmation, acknowledgement, appreciation and support. Leadership is a lonely privilege. And humans are not designed to be at their best if they feel isolated, disconnected and misunderstood. During my time at PwC I had the honour of supporting hundreds of partners when they were at their most vulnerable, and this showed me that despite what projection people might have to the outside world, people are people. And it’s important to never assume that just because someone is senior and successful, that they don’t have the same basic human needs as everyone else.
What’s the wisest piece of life advice you've received and how have you applied it?
'Our strengths overplayed are our weaknesses.' I reflect on this piece of advice often – not only while I am coaching leaders, but also when I reflect on myself. When I become stressed, frustrated, or disappointed – I will often consider how my strengths, overplayed, might be contributing to the situation and leverage those reflections in my problem solving and meaning making. It's such a simple statement, but an incredibly powerful and useful framework to support self-reflection, or in coaching or supporting others.
In your capacity coaching business leaders, what do you view as the top three most critical skills or trends that will drive future success?
My coaching practice is focussed on supporting leaders to be at their best, so they can most effectively deliver for their teams, their organisations and their communities. With that in mind, I consider the following to be most critical:
- Self-awareness – 'know thyself' is the starting point to high performing leadership. Understanding when you’re at your best – and why. Understanding when you’re at your worst – and why. And understanding your limitations – so you can authentically and meaningfully build your team and be in service to them as you serve others.
- Congruency – I use this word a lot in coaching, as when things are 'incongruent', in side ourselves, or in the environment we are working in, it undermines our self-esteem, our trust and our sense of safety. Say what you mean, and mean what you say, and 'walk the talk'.
- Listening and empathy – these are two simple words that have extraordinary impact and power when we master them in practice. And there are too few examples in our world today when mastery of these practices is truly evident.
What do you mean when you refer to ‘leadership system design’ and how does it impact leadership and organisational wellbeing?
This is a new concept that I am keen to bring front and centre in organisational thinking. I am still refining the concept and definition, but for the moment I am defining it as:
'The policies, processes and practices within an organisation that establish, empower, develop, reward, reinforce and maintain the effectiveness and sustainability of leaders within an organisation.'
The concept emerged in my thinking as I was noticing how often leaders are criticised for not doing or being enough in their organisations. Leaders are the easy target for anything that isn’t going well in an organisation, and are frequently called out as the organisational cause of rising employee dissatisfaction, disengagement and decreasing levels of employee and organisational wellbeing.
I want a system view of this problem to be the starting point, rather than the current approach of criticism of 'leaders'. Leaders operate within the leadership system that exists in the organisation they are leading in. If there are incongruencies - eg 'We expect you to look after your team’s wellbeing!'….yet bonus are paid for highest revenue figures and team wellbeing is irrelevant when performance is assessed and bonuses paid – then the leadersip system is not fit for purpose. It is not designed to be 'congruent' with what the organisation says it wants its leaders to focus on.
Other leadership system design elements would be: the design of a leaders role enables then to have time to allocate to 'leadership'; there are positive leadership role models in the organisation; leaders have wellbeing supports that are tailored and designed to meet their needs; leaders have a team structure around them that enables them to 'lift up and out' and lead; leaders have access to effective capability development. Imagine if leadership systems were designed to be 'fit-for-purpose' – the ripple effect on individual and organisational wellbeing and organisational performance would be enormous.
Imposter syndrome seems to be a recurring theme for high performers. How common is it and what advice do you have to navigate the associated anxiety and not feeling good enough?
Imposer syndrome is incredibly common in professional services environments in particular and is best characterised as feeling like you’re a 'fraud' or you don’t deserve or 'fit in” in a high performing environment. Imposter syndrome is often conceptualised as an “individual problem', but I think it is helpful to also take a systems view.
At the individual level, reflect on how pervasively you are doubting yourself, telling yourself 'you’re not enough' and adopting an unhealthy perfectionistic inner stance. Acknowledging and noticing those internal patterns is an important step. The next step is to find someone you trust and admire and ask them for honest feedback. The important part here is that you must admire and trust the people you seek feedback from – because if you ask people who are known to 'sugar coat' or not be fully truthful, then there will be a part of yourself who 'won’t believe' their insights and feedback. The next step is to then believe what they tell you – all the good, as well as any 'not so good.' It can sometimes be difficult to undo lifelong learnt thinking patterns, and if that’s the case, seeking professional support can be of value.
From a systems perspective, having open conversations in teams where people share their vulnerabilities and it is safe to say 'I think I didn’t do this as well as I could have –I’m keen to learn more' or 'I’m worried what I did wasn’t quite up to scratch'. If vulnerability becomes part of a team culture, then imposter syndrome will be less likely to flourish.
If you could have an hour lunch with anyone - dead or alive - who would it be and why?
That’s such a hard question!! And as some of these questions have been quite emotionally heavy content, I think I will end with a lighter tone! I would have loved to have had the opportunity to break bread with George Michael! His music and lyrics mean so much to me – and he had incredible creativity diversity!! From 'Too Funky” and “I’m Your Man' to 'Waiting for That Day', 'Praying For Time' and 'You have been Loved.' The man was a genius! And it would have been an honour to share with him how much joy he has brought into my life…. I think he was 'Amazing'!!
