Nicola: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. Um, I’m gonna start to not use that name anymore because we are now officially rename as women at the top of telecoms and tech. So that is a new name of the podcast. If you don’t know about that, go back and have a listen when I’ve introduced a new name, but that’s really just signifying my move back to the industry that I spent most of my 16 year corporate career in and where I think I can make the most different and most impact, because actually there are some real gender par inequality struggles within those industries.

And it’s not unusual. In the telecoms or the tech industry to be the only woman in the room, especially within engineering, especially within maybe more, um, mechanical or technical areas of the business or sales, it can tend to be very male [00:01:00] dominated. So that’s our focus as a podcast, and I’m so delighted to made that change and made that shift.

And those are the organizations that I tend to end up working with and where I can make the most impact and where I think there’s a real need to help women at this top. First of all help women get to the top, stay at the top and keep that energy, keep that excitement, keep that purpose and passion for what they do, but also to help them have that energy so that they can do yes, their job.

But also more than that, they can be the ones driving change. They can be the one questioning policies. They can be the ones, role modeling to others. How it is to be a woman at the top and who you can be when you’re at the top, that you don’t need to be a certain type person. You don’t need to lose elements of who you are.

You don’t need to be just like everyone else. You don’t need to adopt male characteristics. You can be yourself. So that’s a shift. So I’m really excited to say, cause I’m just gonna be sharing. I get to speak to incredible women. Every day. I get to speak to women at the top of organizations every [00:02:00] day in my day job.

And I am so blessed and there’s so many conversations that I want to share with you. Um, and real realizations myself, as well as for them, from our conversations. They’re very powerful conversation, very honest and very open. So today as part of our podcast anniversary, I wanted to share the five top lessons from speaking to those brilliant women over the last year.

So whether that’s from interviews, whether that’s from clients, whether that’s from, um, the research that I’m doing with my white paper, and there’s some themes that certainly come out. So that’s what I wanted to share with you today. So I would suggest. Listen to this podcast once, and then listen a game with a notepad so you can get everything that you want and you need from today’s episode.

And I’m really, really excited because there’s some really, really strong themes that are coming out. So gonna dive straight in. So lesson number one is all about you first. So as a woman at the top, [00:03:00] And you want to be successful. You want to make that real impact and have them real influence. We can spend a lot of time thinking about other people.

We can spend a lot of time giving energy to our family at home or our team at work. And we can get quite distracted with looking at everything external to us. So what are our peer groups doing? What is my boss expecting of me? Whereas actually, to be that really most impactful and influential leader, it starts with you.

This is something that I talk about a lot in the programs that I run and at the heart of my find your fire program is our first module is all about feel good foundations, which is about you first and really what do I mean by you first? I mean that you need to know what you need and give yourself what you need when you need it to be that most impactful and influential woman at the top.

So for example, you might need to think about. If you are feeling very tired and you’ll run down, you might need to think [00:04:00] about where you are giving away your energy and you might need to set in place some boundaries. Just so that you can show up having that high energy, being able to drive change, knowing your purpose, that keeps you going.

And even on the days it’s difficult. So the first step to being that most influential impact leader, the biggest lesson that I’ve learned from all of these women is really around. It needs to be you first and there’s the energy and how you spend your time. But in addition to that, there’s also become the world leading expert in yourself.

Get to know yourself on the deepest possible level. Look at the light and the dark and the gray and everything in between. So for example, to be that most impactful influential leader, you really need to know your values and really own them. And show up with them every day and also to really understand what chapter of your life you’re in.

So, you know, where you want to prioritize your time, your energy and your expertise, and all of this deep diving into you [00:05:00] first is gonna help you to be that most impactful influential leader. So when I talk new clients, we talk about their feel good foundations and with their feel good foundations of things that gonna help the help, their resilience.

Help them manage their energy, help them show up, even when it’s really, really difficult, help them to put on their own leadership oxygen mask and look after themselves first and be that role model of rather than Martin. Of just giving everything away to everyone and putting everyone else first. Um, and almost self-sacrificing.

So moving away from that, Mar I’m gonna mark myself, I’m gonna run myself into the ground. I’m gonna give everything I’m gonna go all in, rather than all of that. When you are focused on you first. You actually are gonna be able to show up with more passion and more purpose and more energy and keep it, keep the excitement about what you are doing.

And it’s the biggest change that a lot of my clients make is coming back home [00:06:00] to who they are coming back home to what they’re excited about coming back home to their passions, coming back home to. Actually my focus on my family. So a couple of things to think about with you first is have a think about your feel good foundations.

What are the things that help you to feel good every single week? Every time you look at your week, you have one or two things in your diary that help you to feel good. Another things to think about. It’s just energy and diary management. So where are you expanding more energy than you need to? Where are you giving away your time to freely?

Um, and what boundaries you need to set to really reclaim. And then the third part of this is probably around that deep, deep understanding of yourself to then show up as a leader who you truly are. So think about what are the values you wanna be known for? What are the values that are most important to you in your life?

Um, and also what chapter of your life are you in? Are you actually at the point where your career is? You’ve got one more big job left in you. Like some of my [00:07:00] clients are, and they want to go all in, but they want to balance that with actually having time at home or at you at earlier stage in your career.

And you just wanna give all your time and energy to your work. So that’s what I mean by you first. So start with you first. So that’s the biggest lesson that I’ve learned from all of my clients in the conversations over last year. The second lesson is really around thinking about your support. Thinking about what do you have around and who do you have around you that are really gonna support you in this career?

So the tech and telecoms industry can be really challenging for women. Women are 50% of people in the UK, yet only 10% of employees within the tech and telecoms world. So this big disparity. So to get to really thrive in that more male dominated environment to really thrive in a place where there might be just assumptions made about your, or things said, or behaviors that are make you uncomfortable, you need to have that support around you.

So what sort of [00:08:00] support to think about? So first of all, think about what allies. Do you have, who are your allies, who is someone that you could call on if you’ve had a really bad day and you could just offload who is someone that you’ve seen a job that you really love, that you can sit down CV and more doing that job and go for.

Who do you have that can coach you, do you have an external support and external coach to have time and space to really think about why you might not be where you wanna be? Or actually, if you are already at the top, how are you gonna influence even more in this bigger role that you have? So who is your support network?

And I was really urge you to think about a couple of things. So it’s really worth spending some time sitting down and thinking about who’s in your network. So who’s really close to you. Who’s then in that kind of middle that if you know, and your acquaintance with who is then people that you want to get to know that actually could help you to get to your next step.

It sounds really boring. And the world network and I think has [00:09:00] quite negative connotations of gonna go and have a drink with people and not really know what to say, and it’s gonna be awkward, but actually that support and that network, and can be as, as much as someone that you really connect with, go and grab a coffee with them.

If it’s someone in your team that has aspirations to be in your role at some point, spending time, just helping them map out how, what they need to do to get there. So it is thinking about who your allies are. Who’s in your network. And also when I talk about support, I also mean at home. So I spoke to an incredible lady last week and she has, has a very senior role within a huge organization.

And she also has four children. So support for her at home has made all the difference for her to be able to get to that position. So she had a, her dad who does some help helps with the children and then her husband does pick up and drop off around his work. He does shift work. So between them, they can give her complete freedom to be where she wants to [00:10:00] be and needs to be when she needs it.

And actually what happens then is that she does school or drop pick ups or drop off. It’s an amazing, uh, bonus. But it’s actually taking care of day to day. So it’s not something she’s thinking about. It’s not something that she has to have a hard line and stop time for. And that’s not available to everyone.

It’s not possible to everyone, but is this as support you can, some support you can create at home. So is that having small help with the children? Is that an afterschool club, for example, is that having someone in to help clean the house? We have a housekeeper once a week and it’s been absolutely revolutionary.

That I don’t need to spend the time and energy thinking about sorting out the house or cleaning it or changing the beds. It just gets done by someone who’s much better at it than me. And I know can go home by the end of the week on a Friday and our house will be clean so I can just enjoy it. And I can just be in the moment and the same for my partner going out to work, knowing that he doesn’t need to think about it [00:11:00] when he comes.

Either. So take that pressure off yourself. So support can also be things at home. It could be even getting a meal service once or twice a week. So, um, and also we have a, we have two dogs, we have a dog Walker who just takes our dogs twice, uh, two or three times a week. So our dogs can have that social, um, environment so they can be out with other dogs in a different person.

So they just have that, that social time. But also, so we don’t need to then think about when we’re getting home. We’re probably already tired to take them out again. So they get walked three times a day. And we know that one of them is already taken care of. So that has helped us a huge amount as well. So really think, be super honest.

What support do you need? How can you get that support at home and at work? And then setting up that network for yourself. So I would really invite you to think about a couple of things. Start off with drawing out that sport network at home and at work who’s there to support you. Who’s there as a cheerleader, [00:12:00] who’s there to give you real practical support at home.

Who’s there that can mentor you. Do you have an external coach and brilliant thing about an external coach is someone that’s just there for you. It’s time for you just to think. Feeling see what’s going on for you. And it’s absolutely it’s transformational for so many of my clients and that investment of time and effort, money, and effort into themselves.

So that’s lesson number two is all around support. Lesson. Number three is really around finding your purpose. And this is something that, again is a module specifically within my find fire program. But if you are that woman in tech or telecoms and you are busy in doing mode and you’re constantly proving yourself with delivery, um, and you’re probably over delivering, you’re probably giving more than your peers, your male peers, and you just lost that sense of who you are.

And within that, you could potentially lose that sense of purpose. So just to get back to that sense of purpose, it’s that it’s that fire that burns within you. It’s the light that shines to others. And it’s also [00:13:00] the thing that will get you up on the days that you are. Maybe struggling or in the times when it’s just so much pressure that it just feels really challenging and it’s just draining you.

But if you think about it like this, so purpose is to feel that creates your passion, which in turn is a fuel. That means that you have that persistence. So if someone keeps talking over in a meeting, your purpose will get you to actually raise the subject and tell them that that’s happening. So purpose.

How do you get back to. There’s a couple of ways of doing it’s really about thinking about your life chat that you are in. And it’s also thinking about what is your message to the world? What do you wanna be able to tell the world? What do you wanna be different as a result of what you’ve done, whether that’s at home or at work.

And there’s also a great, great video that I will share by a guy called Adam leap, which talks about purpose being who you are, what you do. The way that you do it and the impact it has on other people. [00:14:00] So just to really think about that, but I will pop a link in the show notes. To that video. It’s a, uh, TEDx video.

It’s about 10 minutes long, but I would really, really urge you to have a look at that to help you start to find your purpose. If you’re struggling with that’s something that I help my clients with. So just drop me a message and see can help you. So. Our four lesson. And then so four lesson is really about the impact and power of role models and mentoring.

So as soon as you become a woman at the top, as soon as you’re progressing up the ranks, you have a responsibility to yourself. And your family to really have the most impact and influence you can and your organization that you work for. So not getting past that feeling like you have to not speak up or keeping yourself small, but every time you speak out, every time you step into a bigger role, every time you apply for promotion, your role modeling to yourself and other women, what the possibilities are and to that organization, what can [00:15:00] you do?

So really, as you move up upwards and you get to the point when you are on the board, you are an absolute role model to everyone across the organization of the impact women at the top can have, and also of how to get there and who you need to be when you get there, who you can be. So really think about who, the role models you’ve had around you.

What lessons have you learned from them? And also, what do you want to role model to your team and what do you want to role model to your peers? What do you want to role model to your boss? And use that as a way that you can then really start to show up in the way that you want to. So it almost gets you past that.

Oh, I don’t know if I can do this. I dunno who I, who am I to do this? Um, I think that’s a bit beyond me. I don’t have experience in that area, but instead go back to, what do you want to role model? Do you want to role model to your team and your peers and even your children of being a brave and [00:16:00] bold woman at the top?

And what does that look like in that moment? And use it to really challenge yourself sometimes say to be the role model I want to be, this is a decision that I need to make. This is what I need to be doing, and really use it to energize yourself. So think about role models that you’ve had. Think about what have you learned from them.

And then also think about who you are as a role model. So if your team, do you want to role model setting some really clear boundaries? I’m not working at weekends. And not working into the night and setting some really clear times when you’re available to your peers. Do you want to role model being a woman who’s passionate and on purpose, but clear and articulate and to your senior leaders, what do you want to role model?

Do you want to role model that actually you can be incredible at your job, but you can also be compassionate, empathetic with your. So really challenge yourself and think, what do I want to role model? What do I want to demonstrate to others? What do I want them to see [00:17:00] from me and experience through me?

And that will help you to really think about how you show up that number four and then number five, our final one is really around sharing your ambition and being really open about it. And also. Building on that by self promotion and taking ownership. So this is a shift away from being stuck in doing the job, delivering overgiving potentially, and actually stepping away from that, by getting super clear on what you, where you want to get to.

Sharing that ambition articulating it because the more that you speak it, the more people are gonna know where you want to get to. The more that you are gonna believe it, the more that you’re gonna own it, your energy will shift and change. And that actually then getting there, you are also manifesting it.

You’re opening new opportunities. You’re signaling to the universe. This is what I want. This is where I wanna get to. So you are just creating absolute clarity for yourself, [00:18:00] for others. And if you wanna be a bit woo, also for the universe to really know and identify where you wanna get to, doesn’t make you sleazy.

It doesn’t make you aggressive. It’s just you stating clearly your ambition and where you wanna get to. And this is actually something that came up from some white paper research that I did with an incredible lady on interview on the podcast tomorrow, which I’m really excited about. And she was saying part of my success is I’ve always stated my ambition.

I’ve always shared my ambition and where I wanna get to. And actually that’s meant that people have even given her feedback to help her get there, or they’ve championed her. Or they’ve created those opportunities because that’s where she wants to get to. So it’s almost that first step is really identifying where you wanna get to and then sharing that ambition and then building on that, the second part of that was around self-promotion.

So don’t just be brilliant at your job. Tell is your brilliant at your job. Tell as if it’s uncomfortable for you, talk about [00:19:00] yourself, talk about what your team have delivered the cost, saving something that they’ve implemented a change in process. A new project, brand new to world technology, maybe, and just self promote and through promoting your team, you’re pride to yourself as well, because obviously you, you lead that team that is your team.

So get past this feeling that it’s icky, that it’s sleazy, that you shouldn’t be doing it. That actually it’s good. You need to be more than just good at your job. To really get to where you wanna be. You need to be telling others not to be brilliant at your job, but telling others that you’re brilliant at your job, and it might feel uncomfortable.

So you can talk about your team and what they’ve delivered. You can talk about the difference of where you were versus where you are now as a team and what you’ve delivered in this quarter, in this year. So that’s less, number five is really around self motion and sharing your ambition. And I see so many women that have this unspoken ambition.

And I don’t know. How, how do you think people are gonna know where you wanna get to? If you’re not actually saying it and owning it. [00:20:00] So it’s just, you’re just gonna wait for people to guess. Or you just gonna specifically tell them that you wanna be the next chief technical officer. Are you gonna tell them that you wanna be CEO one day?

Because it’s okay to have those ambitions. It’s okay to say them out loud. It’s okay to speak them. The more you speak them and the more you’re gonna breathe life into them. Like I said, you’re either gonna get feedback on where you need to develop still, or you’re gonna have opportunities that come to you because you are super clear on the direction you want your career to go in.

But it’s that first bit. And for that clarity around where you wanna get to, it might be that you need some coaching support to really identify. And that’s where coach like me can come in. So let’s just reflect back on those five lessons from a year at the podcast and from speaking, having amazing conversations with incredible women.

So number one’s really about you first. So this is those feel good foundations. So there’s obviously looking at your, your energy. Just looking at your diary management, creating time for yourself, feel good foundations. Think it’s gonna help you feel good week, [00:21:00] week out. So what are those for you? And then the second part of that is really understanding the chapter of the life of your life, that you’re, and also your values and what your values mean for your leadership.

Number two support. So who are your allies? Who are the people around you at, at home and at work that are really gonna be your cheerleaders. So just really looking at that support network, if you don’t have what you need, how you create it, knowing it’s okay. Just to connect someone to say she would just grab a coffee, um, and just building that.

And actually women are incredibly strong together. When you have a group of women cheered each other on that’s just so powerful because there’s that energy and connection and that shared experience. So. Just really to think about your support. Number three then is purpose. So as one of my podcast, guests, Jill Johnson talked about almost like the mission that’s bigger than you.

So what is that? What’s the message you wanna leave with the world? What is the difference and the legacy that you wanna create? Number [00:22:00] four is role modeling. So just think about role models you’ve had in your life and your career. What did you learn from what the lessons, but also the role model you wanna be for others?

What does that look like? What boundaries do you need to. Just thinking about the role model, that role models you’ve seen, but also the role models of who you want to, who you want to be to your teams, your peers, your senior leaders. Um, and then number five is sharing your ambition, self emotion. So getting past that, I’m just doing my job.

That’s great, but be brilliant your job, but also tell people that you’re brilliant at your job and that your team have delivered or made a difference or created something. So those are the five biggest lessons from the podcast over the last year and the brilliant conversations that I’ve had with women at, I really hope they help you.

I would there’s anything, any other.

And please contact me all my details in the show notes to share just what you think are your lessons from being a woman at top. And if you [00:23:00] need some help with getting, getting to where you want to be in your career, becoming that most impactful influential leader, all my details and show notes. Thanks so much for listening.

Bye. Hi, it’s Nick here. I just wanna take a moment just to say thank you for listening. When I’m sat recording the podcast in the deepest steps of Kal. It’s incredible to think that is reaching women across the world in 30 different countries. And we have thousands of downloads a month. So thank you so much for being part of that and being part of the, a.

Means a world to me, but I do want to grow this audience. I would love you to help me reach more women like you so that we can really drive positive change in the corporate world. So you can do that one of three. First of all, you can subscribe to the podcast. You never miss an episode. It’s always a new episode.

It’s always delivered straight to your inbox. You can review the podcast and leave us of rating. And the more ratings we have, we also go up in the podcast charts. And finally, you can just share a favorite [00:24:00] podcast with a peer, with a colleague or on your social media. So I would love you to do that. Thank you for all your help.

Um, I can’t wait for what’s next.