Conscious Leaders with Ruth Farenga

2023 Highlights Episode

Welcome to the 2023 Conscious Leaders Podcast Highlights Episode. If you don’t know me already, I’m your host, Founder of Conscious Leaders, Ruth Farenga.

Quite apparently to us all, 2023 has been a year where all the implications have joined into a perfect storm. A year when we desperately need great leaders to look up to and help us navigate a path. And, leaders have continued to step up - and I have been there to hunt them down and hack into their brains so you can learn from their philosophy and practice.

Personally, 2023 has been the year I have been settling in Stroud near Bristol having moved here a year ago. It is not easy meeting people somewhere new but I am starting to feel a bit more at home having made a few friends, gone to some gigs and moved into a co-working space called Spacehoppers. If you’re in or near Stroud in the UK – come visit – it’s a great home from home as an office space.

Besides the usual coaching programmes for leaders, 2023 has been the year that we released the Next Level Leadership Scorecard – a free tool that accompanies the Next Level leadership book to allows you to benchmark yourself against the top nine traits and behaviours of great people leaders. The ones featured in the book. Go to our consciousleaders.org.uk and register for emails if you want to hear more.

We are also collecting data for a ‘State of Leadership in tech’ report to be released in 2024….so if you’re a senior leader in technology or you know one – help us by asking them to complete. Visit consciousleaders.org.uk for more info.

Right ok, enough of all of that - onto our podcast highlights for 2023!

Melanie Yencken | Living with balance as a leader

Melanie has always been an achiever. She rose through the ranks of young innovative companies and then to a big role at Google before arriving at LinkedIn as a Senior Product Director.

Her story is full of highs and lows. When COVID hit she went through her own burnout, realising that her own striving was a way of finding her own safety (having experienced a lack of safety for part of her childhood). Emerging from this low, she was able to get support and rebuild a robust structure for her wellbeing. She shares in detail how she protects her mental health through strong boundaries.

She has been on a journey of living her values which are; ‘live with balance’, ‘lift others up’ and ‘realise my visions’. When asked to present about herself and her strategy at interview for LinkedIn, she led with these values and how they support herself and those around her.

In terms of team support, she is keen that people she works with develop personalised plans around ‘what builds them up, drains them and their ultimate career aspirations’. All with the goal of creating meaning for what they are doing now (as opposed to always wishing you were promoted to the next level).

You will take away:

• Generating value and meaning beyond work
• Dealing with burnout
• Developing individualised plans for both performance and wellbeing with team members
• ‘Project Castle’ – her vision for a future outside of technology

Tom Hall | Leadership Presence

Tom Hall has had a host of leadership roles in publishing and education and now works as GM at Lego International Education where he is a stand out leader in corporate.

He is a huge advocate of cultivating more presence in his leadership and he explains how he consciously works on that through strong intention, meditation, and exercise.

He is also keen to open himself up to his team and did that quite explicitly through running an offsite at his home comprising downtime, business strategy and time with clients. He finds that intentional face to face time creates much more connections and upfront, constructive work conversations.

You will take away:

• Safety and directness through vulnerability
• How to build presence in leadership
• How to run an offsite at your house
• Putting your head above the parapet as a leader

Chris Phippen | Ancient wisdom for modern leadership

At 24, is wise beyond his years. He has built software development company that places students in organisations – Hatless studios. He is passionate about human psychology (our function and dysfunction), the ‘stories we tell ourselves’ and finding our purpose.

He thinks very deeply about people and how we can more connected at work. He reads widely particularly around philosophy including stoicism and seeks to apply that approach to himself and supporting young people to ‘weave and not drift’ in their lives.

Chris is keen to point out that pain and struggle is integral to being a leader and that holding this kind of difficulty, knowing that it will pass, is key.

You will take away:

• Good ‘pain tolerance’ as a leader
• His take on how Gen Z can find their way
• Power and claiming it (not shirking it)
• Shallow vs deep pleasures

Flavilla Fongang | Collaborative, diverse and capable

Flavilla was raised in the ghetto of Paris – starting in a 2-bed flat with her single parent mum and 4 other siblings, it was a difficult start.

But she evolved through education, self-teaching and commitment a vision of something better moving through careers in events, fashion and into branding and marketing. It became clear to her quite quickly that she wanted to run her own show so her agency, ‘3 colours rule’ was born.

Her energy is infectious so you cannot help leaving this episode with a new spring in your step and an optimism for the future.

You will take away:

• Broadening our minds through diversity
• Working effectively with Gen Z
• Advocacy for black women in tech
• Catching difficult stuff early
• Cultivating a collaborative culture

Abb-d Taiyo | Open communication and a journey of control

Abb-d has a fascinating back-story which covers a basketball and music career before going into the design and advertising world.

He experienced a lot of bias both conscious and unconscious coming from a non-traditional background with a different sounding name – his Dad is Bengali and Mum is German. But this only spurred him on as he was so determined to work in design. Nothing was going to hold him back.

After a while, he became disillusioned by advertising and wanted to create something of his own. Along-came Driftime which he co-founded with his partner, Sara which started with a few paragraphs that become their manifesto. They were clear from the get-go who they did not want to work with. The rest fell out from there.

As a leader, Abb-d is passionate about giving people to space to make decisions. He talks practically about assessing risk and using ‘guardrails’ to protect people but also knowing when to let them go and set them free.

You will take away:

• Impact and their initial manifesto in setting up the company
• Their ‘non-committal’ phase in every project
• 4 days weeks and flexibility in practice
• His journey around letting go of control
• Managing clients and giving direct feedback during scope creep

Daniel Hulme | Digital co-pilots, Liquid and decentralised organisations

In Daniel’s revisit interview (his first is episode 3), Daniel opens up his large brain to us again! He describes his journey of being bought by a bigger company. He founded Satalia, a now 120 person AI consultancy and it was recently bought by WPP and he is still CEO. Daniel struggled initially to understand how funding or a buyout was the right route. He is a big proponent of decentralisation and did not want to fit into a predictable role that Venture Capitalists wanted. According to Daniel, WPP was unlike other potential buyers and embraces Satalia’s difference and wants to use it within their own organisation.

Adam Healey | Bi-polar at work, burnout and recovery

Adam’s career started out the way everyone expected. His father was a Partner at one of the big consulting firms and this was his path. Indeed, it was as Adam accelerated up the promotion ladder to Partner at Accenture and then onto PwC.

But brewing in the background were Adam’s mental health issues. Despite his success, he noticed issues dating back to when he was at university. Looking back, he realised the lows became lower and the highs higher. This was exacerbated by COVID. Eventually he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and admitted to the Priory for 2 ½ months. As part of that he admitted he was an alcoholic and is now sober.

Adam shares all of this with us and takes us on a journey of self-awareness– from someone who worked hard/ played hard, building strong bonds with colleagues, at times over-sharing or drinking more than he should have, to someone who has become a more stable leader. As part of his recovery, he realised he needs to balance his strong ability to connect with more awareness of those around him.

You will take away:

• His journey from burnout, being admitted into the Priory, to recovery
• The highs and lows of bi-polar disorder and alcohol addiction
• Balancing connection with equity in teams
• Maintaining mental stability through medication, support groups and therapy.

Tom Tapper | Sustainable practices as opposed to gimmicky perks

Tom Tapper is back on the podcast and this time we dive right in and talk about the forward-thinking policies they have been implementing at creative agency, Nice and Serious, where he is Co-Founder.

Tom describes being part of ‘a race to the top’ with progressive policies for employees He compares it to redecorating a house – if you start painting one wall with a fresh coat of paint then other things can feel outdates so one modern policy leads to another.

What stands out is the high degree of communication and iteration with the team to come up with strategies for people to enjoy work more fully. There is then a lot of transparency to share with the team what is working and conversely, what become a threat to the business. It feels open.

You will take away

• The details of a ‘period policy’ and what it means for women at their company
• How and why to offer extended paternity leave
• Their 4 day work week trial and why it is now 4.5 days
• Being part of a race to the top.

If you want to listen to Tom’s first episode, then check out episode 4 to learn about the Moral Compass and how their innovative ways to accept (or refuse) clients based on ethics.

Tim Williams| Intention and boundaries

Tim Williams took over Onalytica with a mandate to run it as if it was his own start-up. He had come in, disliked the original set up and resigned. However, the investors wanted him to stay so he was asked to rebuild the company as he saw fit.