Conscious Leaders with Ruth Farenga

Sue McLean | A change-maker in law

Sue McLean started in a man’s world. Some of those men wanted her to have more ‘gravitas’. She wondered if they wanted her to be more like them. Furthermore, there weren’t many female role models that she could look up to as junior lawyer. Most of them worked crazy hours, just like the men and had kids in boarding school, something she didn’t want to do.

She could have accepted that and hung around the lower levels of her firms but she saw that her companies lost great women. Things needed to change.

Sue still works hard but she has broken the mould. She’s now a Partner at large, corporate law firm, Baker McKenzie working in senior roles 4 days a week while her husband took the larger parenting role of their three children. He was a stay-at-home Dad for many years.

Now, Sue is keen to give both men and women flexibility, for example, encouraging senior role job shares and more shared paternity leave. Sue says that leaders need to delegate and give younger, more junior leaders meaty opportunities so that they grow which brings team success.

Less focus on overwork, more on overall growth.

Sir John Timpson CBE | Upside down management

John Timpson is Chairman at Timpson, well-known as a high street brand for shoe repairs and key cutting which now has over 2,000 stores and makes £20million in profit.

What is it that works so well?

John sought to shake up the business when he originally became CEO, instilling a key principle of ‘Upside Down Management’. This means as much autonomy for staff as is humanly possible. He says there are only two rules to follow (which he shares) the rest is up to the individual to decide.

The faith that Timpson puts in people is most powerful when we consider that 10% of their workforce are ex-convicts. John talks about the difficulties people have coming out of prison and the high rates of reoffending when people don’t have a job. Timpson offer them a chance and it pays off for both sides.

John is very open about his own mental health challenges and struggles with depression. He shares openly about this in his writing and conversations with others. John is keen that we normalise this and that staff step up to support each other.

Indeed, he calls their area managers ‘social workers’ – it’s their job to support the people running the shops in both their personal and professional lives.

Clair Heaviside | Hacking into trust

Clair has some very clear perspectives on how she manages herself and her thriving marketing agency business, Serotonin, in Manchester. In her previous life, she founded a charity called Odd Arts, which transforms lives through applied theatre, particularly in the criminal justice system.

This work in prisons required her to build trust very quickly and she has honed this skill over time.

In this interview, we explore trust in its many forms. For Clair it’s things like being very grounded. With Clair, you won’t hear phrases like the ‘shiny side’. She is very real and brings a refreshing honesty.

As a leader, Clair is very connected to her employees and recognises that some need more emotional support than others. She’s happy to adapt to their needs.

Clair has been through a lot personally, from divorce to being held at gunpoint, and it is these moments–being on the brink physically and emotionally–that provided her the foundation to have the courage to do what she is accomplishing now.

Lee Timbrell | Being a rock for others

Lee is clearly a true progressive leader in engineering and manufacturing world. He looks after three sites of about 800 people for Specsavers where he has had a huge impact on employee satisfaction.

He took one of the sites where people were the least satisfied to getting a rating of 9.1 satisfaction. He describes the process of really listening to employees and taking on their full feedback and ‘falling on his sword’. This lack of defensiveness, he says, is the key to the process as people could see that leadership saw the issues and were prepared to act on them.

He’s someone who has always treated people equally whether it be senior leaders or those on the shop floor, he knows that people at all levels need to feel valued.

He’s had to undergo his fair share of tough conversations and for him, it’s about being direct and not fluffy and showing how the business will do its best by people.

As someone who got his girlfriend pregnant at 17, he had to grow up fast! He married her before their first child was born and they’ve now been together 34 years. He had to be a real rock from an early age and that seems to have filtered into how he supports his staff too.

Grace Francis | Radical Inclusivity

Grace is the Chief Experience Officer at Accenture Interactive. Grace is in a C-Suite job, identifies as non-binary and feels like it’s their role to help people feel included. Grace does this by implementing role-open behaviour and allowing their quirkiness to shine. They are quite comfortable being seen as different. In fact, their ‘weirdness’ factor is a good thing, it’s non-threatening and it helps others in the organisation feel like they can share something about themselves with Grace.

Conscious Leaders Podcast – 2021 Highlights Episode.

Welcome to the Conscious Leaders Podcast – 2021 Highlights Episode. 

This year has been about finding more great leaders who are willing to step up for their employees, who are really willing to show the human side of what they do – the highs and lows – not a surface-layer version. As listeners, you’ve told me you want to know what their journey has really been like and how they’ve supported their employees while running commercially successful businesses.

Everyone has a superpower | Mark Cuddigan

As CEO of successful baby food brand, Ella’s Kitchen, Mark Cuddigan is committed to his employees in a profound way. His leadership principles are to allow for autonomy. Instead of making decisions, Mark aims to serve. Indeed, four years ago he committed to not making any decisions at all! From that point on, he has been a sounding board, a coach and provides his input--but he will always leave decision-making down to the expert: the employee at hand.

Leadership is a privilege to him. He believes that all employees have superpowers and recently they got everyone to share that superpower so that they could distribute them around the business. This enables people to support others with their relevant strengths.

Following the death of his Managing Director just before lockdown, Mark has learnt a lot about looking after himself. This extreme tragedy led him to put everyone else first to his own detriment. Now, he’s much more committed to his own wellbeing. This starts with things like meditation and getting a dog!

As a registered B Corp, Ella’s Kitchen has very high ethical standards. He’s invested in seeing the B Corp mark proliferate to as many organisations as possible. He says the tough process involved is the right one.

Tune in to hear him talk about autonomy, B Corp, his own wellbeing and more.

Get support with your journey to conscious leadership at www.consciousleaders.org.uk

Celebrating failure | Cheryl Luzet

Cheryl Luzet is a business leader who wants to talk about failure. She identifies it is in this space we learn the most, because, in learning what not to do, we also learn what we should be doing. So much so that at her digital marketing agency (Wagada), regularly pop the ‘failure prosecco’ to talk through these moments!In this episode, Cheryl talks about her journey to CEO and being ‘of service’ to employees (who in turn serve the clients). She shares how it felt to let go of control. She also talks about some of the challenges and opportunities of hiring young staff, working within boundaries and giving feedback.Cheryl has always wanted to create a great culture and live by organisational values. Wagada worked as a team to identify and understand their values: human, flexible, passionate and honest.She believes that these are still very much the key ways in which they work.

Ultimate Flexibility | Bejay Mulenga

Bejay, at the age of 25, is a multi-award winning serial social entrepreneur and the youngest award winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion. He is founder of Supa Network, the Business Building Club, and many more ventures.

Bejay's leadership approach is extremely flexible, from where staff are based, to their employment contract, to how long a project will run. But this flexibility is not synonymous with chaos–it is grounded in discipline. He runs data-driven organisations that are continuously improving.

Bejay seems to recognise that to help people grow they need to shadow others and collaborate. He says “you can’t be what you can’t see” and he models the behaviours he wants others to adopt. He is keen to truly engage with the people he works with to give them facetime, whether that be online or in person, so people can tune into the work culture and feel heard.

What’s clear is that Bejay prioritises his wellbeing. He has strict routines around no meetings before 10am, cycles regularly and embraces nutrition. He’s keen to share this with colleagues and staff so they can take from it what they wish.

Subtle leadership | Susan Glenholme

Susan has had a fast trajectory in law, moving from paralegal to Partner in 8 years. Despite her personal achievements, Susan shuns the limelight. She’s happy that Debenhams Ottaway’s successes are reflected in her staff and is not interested in the glory.

Susan really believes in the potential of others and is a particular advocate for women in the legal and business professions. Although her industry is male-orientated, her firm’s partnership is 50% female. She wants this to be an inspiration to her younger staff members.

Building a culture that is co-supportive is Susan’s top priority and she is keen everyone buys in. The firm itself is ‘one team’ and the plan is to build on that philosophy, putting them in a great position when it’s time to hand over to the next generation.

Ultimately, Susan wants to leave a legacy and ensure the company is on a strong footing. In doing so, she will empower those coming up through the ranks–seeing herself very much as a servant to this cause.