#29 How to be an Authentic Leader in a Corporate Setting w Lucy Rowell

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[00:00:20] Natalie: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of From a Full Cup. I am so excited to have a special guest with us today by the name of Lucy Rowell. Lucy, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself.

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[00:00:39] Lucy: As Natalie said, my name is Lucy and I've worked in corporate for about 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, more specifically, and I've done lots and lots of different senior leadership roles, both in the kind of functional sort of management space, but also in the matrix leadership space. And I've had a really enjoyable and successful career in that area.

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[00:01:55] Natalie: You know, I love that you said this word authentic and authentic is just one of my inner buzzwords that keeps me going. It's one of my core values. And um, you know, I just, I just love everything about it. So I, this whole conversation is really gonna be digging into this word, authentic and how it relates to leadership, because I think it's so important for everyone, but especially leaders, to lead from an authentic place because then you inspire your team, you inspire employees to do the same, and then we can all be authentic in our different ways together.

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[00:02:50] Lucy: Yeah, so, so I guess what I would firstly say is I think, you know, each of us are completely unique and different. So I think how we will show up authentically and how we exhibit that is gonna look a little bit different.

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[00:03:28] Lucy: who I was and it and it, I hadn't really recognized this at the start, and it wasn't until I kind of took some time out and really became super aware of like what I was doing, who I was, what is it I actually wanted to do, who did I want to show up being, what were the things I found really enjoyable?

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[00:04:13] Lucy: And there wasn't that many other sort of female role models around me that I could sort of look to. Or if I, there were, they were often, you know, almost carbon cutouts of some of some of their sort of male counterparts and you know, showing casing kind of very sort of masculine as you may define it, kind of quality.

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[00:05:02] Lucy: feeling in me that I could actually just be who I wanted to be and not sort of worry about this expectation. But that kind of feeds into the second point. So the first one is kind of more about the awareness side. The second part is actually around confidence. And I think this is a really tricky part because you know, it's easy to think, okay.

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[00:05:46] Lucy: And you know, not necessarily you have to do anything about that, but just be willing to kind of accept that, you know, does take some courage and some bravery no matter who you are. But the more you can kind of experiment and play with that and, and gain that confidence, then I think that's where you can start to sort of then slowly build into kind of who authentically you are within a corporate world.

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[00:06:36] Natalie: And that idea about confidence as well, because authenticity and confidence go together. And the more confident you are in your own self and in your unique personality, your skillset sets your strengths, even your weaknesses and your flaws. If you get to a place where you can really just own those things, you can show up more authentically.

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[00:07:14] Natalie: It's, it's okay. And I'm not actually trying to change those things. I can always improve on those things, of course, but I realize that they actually are core to who I am and they serve me more than hurt me. They actually are a good thing because that being able to push people a little bit helps me in leadership.

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[00:07:57] Lucy: Yeah, this is a, this is a really great question and um, I, I definitely find that for me there's kind of cycles. So usually as I kind of either start in a new role or something like that, I class it as my kind of wobbly time. It's the time I'm kind of a little bit like less sure about kind of being a hundred percent kind of authentic to who I am.

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[00:08:44] Lucy: And the weakness has been a really important one as well, because I think often in leadership roles we, we tend to think, oh, every leadership role is the same, and if a leadership role comes up within your company or somewhere else, I think sometimes we forget about the context and the space that those roles might be in.

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[00:09:24] Lucy: And, and this I, I'll kind of share a couple of things in this setting, and one of them actually is an example from probably about seven or eight years ago. I was moving into a team where pretty much everybody was a workaholic. I am not a workaholic. I love my jobs. Um, but at the same time, I love my family.

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[00:10:11] Lucy: I think a lot of the thing with authenticity is once you're comfortable in that, if they'd have said to me, oh, no, actually we need you to kind of be there Saturday and Sunday, then it would've been clear that wasn't the job for me. Like that wouldn't have worked.

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[00:10:44] Lucy: I'm not gonna turn up in a gray or black suit. If there's an, if there's an expectation, I've gotta be there in a gray or black suit, that's not gonna work. I, I'm full of color and that shows my personality and that shows me. I don't wanna be surrounded by gray and black suits. I want to, you know, be able to at least sparks some joy within. I think the other part that I would kind of also share is, is just finding also kind of where, where, My personality and my sort of work life balance impact each other.

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[00:11:56] Lucy: I will feel like where is the space that I feel comfortable up to what point in sharing, because it will impact my colleagues, it will impact the work I'm doing and other things. So I'm not gonna try and pretend like, oh, everything's absolutely fine. But at the same time, I don't want to create a space that makes others feel overly uncomfortable.

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[00:12:25] Natalie: Yeah. And I think that's really helpful. Especially like setting boundaries I think is really important at work.

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[00:12:49] Natalie: Because I think a lot of times people enter environments and they just feel that they have to take on the same work culture that they've found, you know? And. You do have agency over your own personhood. You have agency over your own being, and I think it's really important to feel empowered to speak up for yourself and look at other ways that we can still do it.

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[00:13:27] Natalie: So these other things are important to me. I recognize the value of my own wellbeing and I'm not willing to compromise it. Right. And I think that is so important is realizing that we can set up our own wellbeing by just taking certain opportunities or negotiating it right from the beginning. Because what happens is so many people get into corporate environments, they

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[00:14:09] Natalie: Find ways that you can work in a role that is going to be in alignment for you. And so just briefly, I'd like to talk a little bit more about authenticity and wellness and how do those relate together for you?

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[00:14:25] Lucy: Just, I'm just gonna quickly just make one final comment on that last part, and then I'll definitely come back to this question. So I think also one thing that was really interesting about that situation where I, I kind of upfront shared that boundary about two years later. Um, my boss at the time who I'd kind of shared that.

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[00:15:34] Lucy: So about the, the wellness part, I think this bit's really, really interesting for me because I think there's a couple of different aspects and I think the first thing I'll say is, I definitely feel that, the more authentic you can be overall, it should improve, your wellness and you know, the positive impact that it can have.

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[00:16:19] Lucy: Because often the reason that, you know, we, we can kind of not be authentic is because we're trying to kind of hide certain parts of us or try to kind of block things out that we don't kind of want to deal with or recognize, or we might have some sort of deep held beliefs that are holding us back, et cetera.

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[00:17:08] Lucy: But I do want to recognize that depending where your sort of starting phase is, there could be this kind of slightly kind of scary, unsettling time to get to that sort of bright, um, spark at the end.

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[00:17:38] Natalie: And some people are at step one in their journey for a really, really long time, and some people go step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and some people go from step one to 10, right? So I think, uh, it's really important to not compare yourself to anybody else and kind of just recognize where am I at right now? where do I want get to how do I get there?

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[00:18:27] Lucy: I love this question. The first thing I would say is don't be just afraid to ask someone to be a mentor. I think often, um, we get into this space where I. We feel like, oh, I don't wanna disturb someone, or, oh, they're gonna be so busy, or they're more senior than me.

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[00:19:12] Lucy: So you might as well ask and they can be an upshot from that. So I think if you can build those mentors and, and, and, and gain the, the confidence again to ask, then I think that's fabulous. I think for people who may be haven't yet got any kind of network around them. Then again, back to that lovely comment you said earlier, Natalie, about don't compare yourself to others.

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[00:20:06] Lucy: I've personally found is like one of the most productive ways to actually sort of get those conversations kind of moving and also in the sort of both in the building networks generally and in the mentoring space is really to come at it from a space of curiosity. So I think if you can go with a couple of questions.

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[00:20:48] Lucy: These are usually really, really great ways because one a question typically kind of make somebody want to respond back because there's a natural, yeah. You know, oh, there's a natural in versus kind of just going hi and leaving it at that. And often as well, you know, people have got a lot of problems to deal with.

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[00:21:43] Lucy: And then the final thing I would just say is, Obviously the latter part of all of that is the nurturing, so nurturing both of the network and you know, if you have got a mentor or a coach or somebody. You know, making sure you're kind of being respectful and using their time wisely. And I think one thing that people often fall into a trap off from the conversations I've had is a feeling like, oh, well I now need to put in, you know, a monthly.

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[00:22:42] Lucy: Whereas a quick like, hi, how's things? You know, then they can respond to that whenever they want. It's much more, a bit more dynamic. another good little tip in that that regard is if somebody has shared something that, again, either something that they're interested in or something that they're kind of curious or, or struggling with.

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[00:23:26] Natalie: I really like what you're saying because you know, again, thinking about authenticity and thinking about how can you also give, right. Because I think a lot of times our society is set up for us to receive, and we're always like, I think people are naturally selfish.

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[00:23:56] Natalie: So if everybody else is saying, Hey, I wanna book a call to talk to you, and you're simply saying, Hey, how's your day going? Saw this article, thought of you tagged you in it. They're gonna be like, oh wow. Like that's such a different approach. And so it actually makes you stand out. So now your relationships actually are stronger and you can maybe a later point in time ask for something or ask for an opportunity to collaborate.

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[00:24:26] Natalie: Mm. Yeah.

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[00:24:38] Lucy: Oh, bless. Well, it was so lovely to speak to. I hope everyone, um, yeah, enjoyed the conversation that we had today. If you want to find out more about me, you can find me on LinkedIn, uh, at Lucy Rowell.

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[00:25:14] Lucy: Thank you so much, Natalie, for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

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