Leadership through learning, resilience and opportunity

I hadn’t really thought of myself as a role model for women in business, so it was a bit of a shock and a real honour to be named in British Vogue’s 2021 list of the most influential women.

When I first started out in my career, I didn’t initially understand the issues faced by women in business. I hadn’t realised that some people were looking at me and thinking, ‘She’s a woman, why and how has she got here?’. I had a bit of a rude awakening to this when a young woman at a conference I was speaking at told me of the issues she was facing in her role.

I’d had the luxury of a female role model as my mother was the main breadwinner in my family, which was very unusual in the 1960s and ’70s. Having her as a role model meant I wasn’t as aware as I could have been about the challenges that women faced. Meeting this young woman opened my eyes to what other women were experiencing. It made me a better leader.

When I got the job at the FA, a young girl wrote to me and said, ‘it’s amazing you’re doing this’. I didn’t think of it as ‘amazing’ at the time, it was a job I wanted to do. But once I appreciated the strong sense of purpose that the FA has, I realised how lucky I was to be in a role which young people aspire and relate to. It has been a very humbling experience to see the difference that the organisation can make to society.  It makes me very grounded. I also feel a very strong sense of responsibility to help as many youngsters as I can making their way in the organisation.

I’m a massive believer in nurture. As a leader, you have the responsibility to identify and nurture the next generation. Taking risks on people is the most privileged part of being a leader. Role models are massively important to the process of developing leaders.

Nobody is born a leader; someone has to take a risk to give you the first opportunity. I still remember the manager who took the risk in giving me my first leadership role. He showed leadership in taking a calculated risk to support me in that role.

I see the job of a leader as identifying talent, taking the risk in giving that talented individual an opportunity and then supporting them to the hilt. The best leaders use every opportunity to find talent.

One of the most extraordinary qualities anyone, not just leaders, can possess is resilience.  That’s the one skill I’d want to give my kids: the ability to bounce back from what life throws at you.

At the car company Lex, which I’d joined after my time at Marks and Spencer, I bought used cars at the wrong time of year and received a written warning. The formal process of a written warning felt so shameful; I’d never been in a situation like that before. But I can honestly say that I learnt so much more from that situation than many of the successes I’ve had.

I know now that when you’re new to an organisation, or to any role, you should always do an induction and always ask questions. A hard way to learn but it was a great lesson in asking when you don’t know something.

If you’re humble in failure, it can spur you on. You don’t want to make that mistake again. Wanting to do my best is what drives me in every circumstance. I don’t want to let people down – and that’s where the imposter syndrome comes from. It’s a positive motivator, it’s not about fear.

Don’t let the message be ‘I’m going to fail’, let it be ‘I’m going to do my best’.

Ambition is an interesting word; my definition of ambition is being hungry to learn. Decisions aren’t always straightforward. They can be complicated; there are politics to navigate, and you can’t please everyone. Probably one of my biggest lessons is don’t wait for everything to be perfect, it’s progress we should celebrate.