Becoming a resilient leader – 3 stories, 3 lessons
Recently I was asked to take part on a panel to share my experiences of becoming a resilient leader. In preparing for the session I realised that, whilst I wouldn’t hold myself up as a role model of resilience, I’ve learned a few things throughout my 30-year career journey that have given me a stronger backbone. And I try my best to put these into practice in my own work, when coaching others, and in my broader life.
I’ve long been fascinated by the power of stories to ignite change, so I brought some of my key leadership lessons to life through stories. I thought I’d share 3 of them here.
Read on!
Back yourself and leverage your strengths
In 2006 when I was pregnant with our first child, my leader flew over from Australia to let me know that sadly I’d need to make half of my team of 30 people redundant, and that my role would also be impacted. We had moved from Sydney back home to Auckland 18 months prior for my first leadership role as Financial Controller for Lion NZ.
The next few months were very challenging. During that time my dad underwent open heart surgery and our wee man wasn’t growing too well, but I remember having a strong sense of resolve to support my team as best as I could by showing empathy and making sure they were well looked after.
A couple of months into this change programme, during our annual development planning process, I said to my leader “you know, I really enjoy working in Finance, but what I’d love to do is work in People & Culture”. This was unusual back then, and probably still is now. To his credit he responded, “I think you’d be great at that!”
I’m thankful that there was a role for me to return to, and for the next 5 years I continued to work in commercial finance roles at Lion. During that time, I never let up on my vision. In every one-on-one conversation and every chat about my development plan (and with another three leaders) I kept talking about my goal, and in 2011 I found an opportunity to move into Lion’s HR team.
Tip #1 for resilient leadership: back yourself to achieve your goals, even if you don’t know how you’ll get there yet. Understand your strengths and know you can call on them in a range of different scenarios.
Set boundaries and manage your workload
A few months into my first leadership role I felt completely overwhelmed. Requests were coming at me from all directions, I needed to make decisions on areas I knew little about, and my days were so full of meetings I couldn’t get anything done.
At my wits end, one day I told my leader that I had so much on I didn’t know where to start. He listened to me patiently (I was a bit emotive) and when I’d finished said, “right, let’s work through it – what’s on your list?”
We went through my workload and my calendar item by item, and he challenged me to identify my top 2-3 priorities. And to think about what I could delegate to people in my team, what I could ask others for support with, and what I would stop doing. This was a revelation to me!
Over the next few months, I talked through my priorities with him every week until I got comfortable managing them on my own. I also shared them with everyone who sent other ‘important’ or ‘urgent’ pieces of work my way, asking them “where does this sit versus my other priorities” and “what should I take off my current list to get this done?”
Being a high performer shouldn’t mean working all the hours under the sun, and this is something I’ve championed with my teams in recent years. It’s critical to managing our wellbeing, which is the biggest priority of all!
Tip #2 for resilient leadership: set clear boundaries on your working hours and proactively manage your workload by prioritising, delegating and having a “stop doing” list.
Always start with your people
About five years ago towards the end of the year, our Managing Director said to me “have I got a development opportunity for you!”. I was a few years into my People & Culture Director role, and he asked me to also lead Lion NZ’s 26 retail stores around the country.
The team was in a bit of a tough spot. They hadn’t had a leader for a while, were short staffed after some recent resignations, and were in their peak Christmas selling period.
I hadn’t led a full business before and didn’t know much about selling alcohol, but first thing the next morning I bought some food from the local supermarket and walked around the retail support team in our office with it on a platter. I spoke to everyone individually, asked them how they were doing, and let them know I was there to support them. I told them that even though I didn’t have a lot of answers yet, they could chat to me any time and we’d work through things together.
This approach worked well and over the next few months, as I focused on recruiting a new Retail Director, we frequently did exactly that! I also quickly discovered that I could play a key role in removing barriers and leveraging my networks across the rest of the business, such as finding pockets of money elsewhere for short-term resource and borrowing people’s time from other Lion NZ departments!
Tip #3 for resilient leadership: when you’re in a new leadership situation, start with the people. Give them the support they need, leverage the resources you have, and go from there.
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