We’re ready to Lead the Room… are you?
So here we are, finally!
After what feels like a lifetime of juggling, planning, and perseverance, we’re thrilled to welcome you to Lead the Room! We’re Briony and Lyndsey, and our mission here is clear: to help amazing minds like you become amazing leaders and build teams full of impact and joy where burnout is low and you all know your value.
What are you going to find here?
Well actually we want to start with what you’re NOT going to find here. And that is dry, serious, dense leadership theory. You won’t find buzzwords. You won’t find us telling or selling you the same old corporate stuff that doesn’t work. You won’t find us glamourising how easy leadership is.
Because our experience is that of course leadership is SO rewarding, but it’s also often quite tough. Especially when you know leading in your own unique way is counter cultural to the environment you’re in.
Instead, we’re bringing you the real stories behind our leadership - the good, the bad, the ugly - and the real practical advice and tips that we use each week in our leadership practice and a not-so-serious approach to putting it all into practice. We want you to consider our podcast your weekly leadership coaching session!
Our leadership journeys
When we first stepped into leadership, we thought we were ready. We’d read the theory, been on a course, watched some TED talks, had other leaders who were successful around us. But when we arrived in our teams, we quickly realised that the leadership model around us wasn’t going to work for the complex and tricky team environments and situations we found ourselves in.
Luckily, we found each other and together we created complete new and different approaches to leadership that transformed our teams and gave us a new playbook for how to lead high impact, high connection, joyful teams where we were all clear on our priorities, values and potential.
Come and listen to the full story here.
Why Lead the Room matters (and why you’re going to love it!)
So why Lead the Room? Because we want to empower leaders like you to bring that same transformational, people-centered approach to your teams. You’ll find stories, advice, and practical tools to help you turn those leadership dreams into reality. Each week, we’ll share the actions and strategies we’ve tested and trusted, so you can skip the trial-and-error stage and unlock transformation in your team.
This isn’t about just making work “fun” (though we think it should be enjoyable, too!). It’s about becoming the kind of leader whose team consistently achieves the best results across the organization, all while building a culture people are excited to be part of.
Our promise: high impact, real connection
Here’s our invitation: join us, bring your curiosity, and let’s break down what it really takes to lead well. No one goes into work hoping to be a “meh” leader, and we’re here to make sure you’re equipped with everything you need to thrive.
So welcome to Lead the Room—we’re thrilled you’re here! Whether you’re new to leading or just ready for a fresh approach, we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and dive in with you. Let’s build the playbook that really works!
We've got some amazing resources to help you start transforming your leadership and team today. Check them out here.
Rate and review the podcast and send a screenshot to hello@leadtheroom.co.uk to get your FREE 90 day leadership refresh as a thank you.
Want to learn more with us and keep building your leadership skills to build your amazing team that does amazing things? Check out our leadership challenges here.
Follow us on instagram for daily tips and to send us your feedback on today’s episode
https://www.instagram.com/leadtheroomcoaching/
We love hearing how you’re putting the podcast into practice as you build your own leadership playbook. Send us an email to hello@leadtheroom.co.uk - we read every one.
Full transcript
LeadTheRoom (00:07.628)
Welcome to the Lead the Room podcast, where we help those with great ideas and brilliant minds to become amazing leaders and build teams full of purpose, connection, creativity and courage, transforming people's experience of workplaces and leadership. In 2018, we decided that the leadership playbook we saw around us wasn't working for the needs of our teams and our organizations or frankly for us. So we ripped it up, built a new one and watched the incredible impact that came from leading in a completely counter-cultural way.
This journey transformed our experience of work, team culture, delivery and felt so so good to us. And our approach has served us and our teams in the good times and the tough times alike. So now we're here to share our stories and experiences with you all so you can become the leader you want to be. Build teams that deliver amazing things in amazing environments and inspire those around you to do the same. You and your leadership are what our workplace and people desperately need.
We'll be laughing, crying and learning together, so let's get started.
Okay, so let's just take a moment because this is Big Brownie. This is so exciting. We are finally here after, gosh, what feels like years of kind of thinking and planning and just life getting in the way, right? So babies, family, house moves, jobs, but we're finally where we want to be. That is launching Lead the Room. So Bea, how are you feeling?
Well, I'm feeling completely excited, delighted to be here with you doing this, Lindsay. Finally, like you say, it's been a long time in the making. And I think I'm feeling like a mix of like that nervous excitement when you're at the start of creative process and you're looking forward to getting something done. And at any given moment on a scale of minor to sheer terror, because this is so out of the comfort zone to be doing this.
LeadTheRoom (02:09.685)
Yeah, so somewhere on that terror spectrum. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And actually I feel there's already a couple of tears because it just feels, it's almost slightly unreal, but I'm just so proud that we are here today to launch this. to be honest, like you're never, tears are never far away, are they? They're not.
I wouldn't be surprised if you were crying right now. I was just like that. It's absolutely fine. But we are thrilled to welcome you today to Lead the Room. We are Bryony and Lindsay and we are co-founders and your host of this podcast, Lead the Room. So welcome wherever you are tuning in from today. Yeah, really welcome. So delighted to have you with us. And we really hope that you're going to enjoy the journey that we go on together here at this podcast.
So before we dive in, Lindsay, tell our listeners a little bit about Lead the Room. Can you sum it up in three words? And this is a challenge for you because you're a bit of a waffler. Not just me, not just me.
Okay. So come on, give me your three words. Okay. So transformational, joyful and bold. I love all of them. I agree. Really like them. So mine, yeah, mine are fun, like yours. Yeah. Experimental and practical. Yeah. They're so good.
because that really is the essence of what we're trying to do here, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. We're trying to build like this super practical advice for all of you great minds to become these amazing leaders, have these amazing teams that can deliver fantastic impact. Fab. So let's rewind, Briony, and all those years ago when we met and shared our why with our listeners. So why are we here today? What's brought us here today in our messy rooms? There's absolutely no filters going on.
LeadTheRoom (04:20.482)
We haven't spent hours contouring despite how great we look. We haven't, but this is our story and it's our passion that we are here to share with everyone today and in the future. So Bryony, do you want to kind of, yeah, kick us off with where it all started for us? So for me, this journey started when I got what was at the time for me, my dream job. It was leading this like high profile team, you know,
It'd like quite a big competition to get the job. And the team was like, you know, they're a cutting edge, transformational team, delivering impact, working across boundaries, you're doing awesome stuff. And I was like, I cannot wait to get started. So I turn up on day one, you know, and in the first week and I'm, you know, having one-to-ones with everybody, as you quite often do when you join a team, just to get to know them. And all of them told me.
I want to leave this team. I hate it. I am so scared of failing. I feel like we're on a pedestal and I can't cope with it. We've got no sense of purpose as a team. We're stepping on each other's toes all the time. I just don't enjoy this environment. I want to get out." In that moment, I just didn't know what to do because the difference between what I was expecting this experience to be and then what I'm finding out it is going to be.
is so huge. I just felt like nothing in the leadership playbook that I'd been given, nothing in the leaders that I'd seen like all that role modeling around me had prepared me for this moment. I just knew that I was going to have to create a completely different playbook for myself. That's where it all started for me, right? Is that then as a team, as a leader myself,
We went on this journey to rebuild this team, to build in purpose, to really get to know each other. Not in like a TMI, like I know every little thing about what's going on in your life, but to really understand like what our values were, what our experience was, how we could bring it to bear against these challenges that we had and the projects that we were delivering. To have that courage to show up more vulnerably and not...
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be worried about failing all the time in the pursuit of creativity and innovation. And so that's where it started for me. And since then, I've been so glad to have been on this journey with you in particular, Lindsay, because it's the kind of the playbook that I've honed in every new leadership job I've taken on. I've like taken what I've learned from that role, built on it, experimented more.
and built in new tools and techniques, which really excited to share with all of our listeners. Yeah. And Bryony, just in terms of that, how you felt at that moment when you joined that team, it was your dream job, like you say, and the expectations versus reality was so different, right? And you had to adapt quickly. How did that feel as a leader? Because we often hype ourselves up, we? Of like, yeah, can't wait to start this job. And then you were met with a quite different reality. exactly.
Yeah, that's, you're almost describing it, right? It's that you psych yourself up, like, you you've got everything ready, you've talked to everybody, like, you've got a plan in your head of what it's going to be. And in that moment, you've just got to like adapt, almost like flicking a switch and do something completely different to what you were expecting to do. And so I think when I think back, like the emotion, if I'm going to label it, that comes to mind.
It's like scared because I just, it felt so uncertain and it felt so exposing that I didn't really know how, like I knew I couldn't use the tools I'd inherited from the people around me, but I didn't know what tools I was going to use. So exposing and scared I think is what it felt like. Yeah. And I think that exposing emotion is such...
a strong and a real emotion for leaders, which we feel quite, can feel quite regularly. But like you say, once we kind of met each other and had that moment, yeah, you feel less exposed when you have even just one person to share that with. Yeah. But tell us, what's your like, you know, the moment that you realized Lindsay, that the leadership playbook that you'd been given wasn't going to work for you. Tell us about that.
LeadTheRoom (08:58.936)
So I'd say mine was a little bit earlier on in my career. And in stark contrast to your kind of landing that dream job, it was a leadership position that I had been approached to take on. And I didn't really have a choice whether I took this role on or not. And it was fine. I was up for the challenge, but I didn't go in with excitement because the kind of the pitch to me was this team is in a mess. There has been some incidents.
legal policy incidents and you need to go and clean up the mess basically. So I knew that it was going to be a challenge from day one, but again, leadership training, everything that I'd kind of learned up to that point, I thought, okay, yeah, I can handle this. And I guess in stark contrast to yours as well, Bryony, the team had a very clear purpose. They knew exactly what they were doing. It was the how, how that they were doing it had been ripped to shreds by
the most senior leaders in a couple of organizations that we worked with, leaving some pretty junior staff in exceptionally vulnerable, petrified positions, right? So scared doing their job that it was like they were paralyzed. So when we speak about teams, like really great teams with purpose, so yeah, they've got to have purpose to be creative, be innovative.
They were paralyzed and just doing the bare minimum of their job, Riney, let alone thinking outside the box and doing different things. So I knew that my job wasn't to like you were like, find the purpose of that team, but it was to build up a broken team to allow them to understand their value, to see what their purpose was, that they had to be doing this and they could do it and still do it with fun. And I think...
That kind of what you explained in terms of that exposure, I definitely also felt that because there was almost this, here comes Lindsay to save the day. She's going to save this team. And I didn't know if I was going to, but everything that I knew before about kind of how to build a team just didn't really seem to work because it was all around the practical kind of, use this framework, use this approach. Here's this theory of leadership, but that wasn't going to work because what it needed was human connection.
LeadTheRoom (11:21.816)
So I needed to really lean on my values and I knew quite early on, think, what my leadership values were and really lean into my skills of emotional intelligence because they were going to be the ones that were really going to build this team to success. And I think people were quite skeptical of my approach to begin with because it was viewed as a, there's quite softy soft approach for people that looked a bit pink and fluffy.
But deep down I knew, there's nothing pink and fluffy about this. There's nothing soft about this approach. This is the hard, correct approach to get results. And lo and behold, it was. And I think it shocked people. It took time, it took patience, it took persistence, but it worked. And we got the team out of a place of paralysis, into a place of creating, of excitement. They wanted to come to work every day. And ultimately that's you want from your team, right?
Two things really jump out to me when you're sharing this is that I think what you described is how you were brought into this team and what you found when you got there. know, things were in a bit of a mess. The team's really quite broken. You know, they've had some bad interactions with senior leadership that have really like set them back and knocked them. I think that is such a common thing, isn't it? That's such a common leadership challenge.
that you're coming into these teams and you've got to rebuild them. Like so many leaders who joined teams after COVID and the pandemic, like we'll have had that experience where teams have just like been in survival mode and your job is to get them out of survival mode. And if you can get them into thriving as you did, but just getting them out of survival mode where their brain is in like fight and flight every moment that they're in the office.
So that was my first thought. And then the second thing I was thinking as you were talking is you hit the nail on the head when you're like, there is nothing soft about the skills that you use to rebuild that team. Like, yes, you use your emotional intelligence and you center the human connection and building trust, like traditionally described as soft skills. Flipping hard work, flipping hard work, isn't it? To really intentionally think about as I engage with this person,
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how do I have this conversation in a way that's going to move them a step forward, that's going to build trust between us, that's going to help them rebuild their confidence, all of that. Like you say, I think again, you summed it up really nicely when you said it takes real persistence and time. so, yeah, I love that you kind of proved everyone, you you leading out of that traditional model wrong by taking this new fresh approach and centering connection.
and emotional intelligence at the heart of what you're doing because you knew that that would bring results. yeah, it's a great story. Which is why I think as well, Bryony, when we speak about that kind of traditional approaches to leadership, there wasn't a checklist that was going to get you through that work with your team. There wasn't a checklist that was going to rebuild my team. There wasn't a specific theory or anything. There's nothing you could download off the internet. It was just going to help you.
It is persistence and it's every interaction that you're having and every engagement and there is nothing soft and easy about that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, coming back to what you reflected on sort of my story, like I feel when we first met, when I was leading that team in the story that I described, I was just so grateful to have met you because I'm like, I know that nothing
that I've been given, none of the the dry theory. You you go on these courses, don't you, for like three days and they just PowerPoint at you as a leader of like, here's a load of leadership theory and here's a load of research. And then maybe if you're lucky in like two hours at the end of the three days, you get into like practical stuff. But more often than not, you just get told the theory and then it's up to you to figure out how to put it into practice.
But so when I met you, I remember thinking, thank goodness, like here is a person that I can actually be honest with about the struggles that I'm having, who's actually in the arena and trying to do the same thing, like also ripping up that leadership playbook and trying to rewrite a checklist, a framework, a way of leading and being as a leader that's actually going to get the results in the environments that we're in.
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And it was just like relief. It was such relief. And I think, you know, for a lot of leaders who are doing this, it's such a lonely place, isn't it? Because there's nothing like you around you and it feels really isolating. And so that was a real key part of us starting Lead the Room, wasn't it? Is to bringing that community. I think from that point as well, Briony, that feeling lonely and isolated, it also feels risky.
It really, think that loneliness and risk, we felt exposed, it feels lonely and it felt risky because I remember at that time when people were quite like, what are you doing? There wasn't much like, this is looking good. Like you're really on the right path to building this team back up, Lindsay. It was a bit like, what are you doing? You're having a lot of conversations. You're spending a lot of time with these people, but what is coming of this? And you kind of have to believe in your approach, which
Brian and I clearly believe in our approach launching this business because we passionately do believe in it, but it does feel risky. So we're not blind to the fact that it does feel risky. But as Brian said, we're here to build this community to reduce that risk and loneliness. think you're exactly right, Lindsay, in terms of like that risk. Like it's exactly that, isn't it? It's exposing, it's risky, it's lonely. And so
You know, so all of this was like, we were lucky that we found each other at that kind of key moment. Because honestly, if I hadn't found you in that moment when I was like, I really need something new here. I don't know if I would have had the courage to do the experiment, to be bold, to carry on, to have the bravery to keep showing up in this way. When like you say, like people are questioning you all the time. They're like, but.
These conversations you're having are this team day you're doing, but this, you know, new approach, this isn't in your KPIs. Like how is this going to help you meet the KPIs? Yeah. So talk to us a little bit then Lindsay about then what is Lead the Room and why are we here and what are we doing? Yeah, exactly. So over the years, the kind of approach that Brian and I have just described is the way that we've been leading and is the way that we will lead now and forever.
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And we have been helping hundreds of leaders who have really brilliant ideas and amazing minds, but need that kind of next push, need that help, need that support to take that risk to become leaders that they want to be. Those amazing leaders who will build the teams, do those transformational things in a fun and exciting way. But they all say that their biggest pain point is how and where to start.
Like they want to do it, but where on earth do you start? And all of that training they've been on before, all of those courses, none of them help them do that. Because I think that's the reality, isn't it? That, you know, nobody wants to be a rubbish leader. Nobody sets out like going into the office on their commute thinking, I am going to try and be a bad leader today. Nobody's seen that. mean, I'm not, I'm not.
Anyway, nobody that we want to work with is thinking that. But it's really hard, isn't it? Like you've got all this subject matter expertise, like you've been doing the thing, anything in your organization, or in your industry, you're ready to step up. Or you've been, like you were, you've been asked to step up and that feels exciting, but you shouldn't have to like...
have to create the leadership playbook for yourself. You should be able to challenge your expertise, your brilliance, your great mind into delivering great things. Right. And so that's what we're really here to do is to be your guide along the way and to give you the checklist and the frameworks and the practical tools that we wish we'd had when we started out.
Yeah, exactly, Bryony. So what are you going to find here as a listener of Lead the Room? So we'll have lots of advice. We'll have stories. We want to share all our experience and our stories with you, the highs and the lows, but importantly, practical actions that you can take each week is going to help you translate your ideas that you've got, all those amazing ideas, but you just don't know what to do with them, how to implement them. Well, we're here to help you do exactly that.
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to translate those ideas into great leadership and importantly, like great results for you and your teams and build that amazing culture. Briony and I should be clear that this is not just about creating fun, exciting teams that you want to be a part of. This is about teams that get the best results across your organizations. And that is exactly what Briony and I have witnessed with this approach. Yeah, I think that's a really important point to bring out because
I think so often, the criticism of people taking an emotionally intelligent, values-led, high connection, creative approach to leadership is that it's soft, it's fluffy. You're just having a good time having a cup of tea and a biscuit. No, no, I will be having a cup of tea and a biscuit because I thrive on that in the afternoon, but I will also.
at the same time be delivering amazing impact with my team. I will see you later. And thank you. We're the most high performing team in the organization. So I think it's really good to be clear about that because we're ambitious for you all. Like we want to be your team. We want you to have an amazing team and to be an amazing leader that you are proud of yourself. You're proud of what your team does, but we also want your organization to be looking at you and thinking like, this is where it is at this team.
I don't know what their formula is, but we want it because they're getting incredible results. And that's what our experience has shown us, like Lindsay says, is that the teams that we've led are some of the most high performing teams in our organizations. so isn't it strange, Briony, that it's almost like you can't have a team that looks like they're having fun and they really get on with each other.
but also they're amazing at their jobs and they're getting brilliant results. It's almost like people don't want the two to coexist. It's too counter-cultural because hard work has to look hard. Like tough things have to be tough. And I think that sort of leads us nicely onto like what you are not going to find here. You are not going to find dry, boring, serious. Like this is a serious business. This leadership thing that we're doing and the approaches we take, it is serious.
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But you don't have to take it really seriously. You don't have to take yourself so seriously. It's about being playful and creative and experimental and giving yourself a break as you try things out. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing that you're not going to find is buzzwords and jargon. Like, I don't know about you, but I am done with these, Lindsay. I'm done with them. Like half the time sometimes I'm in meetings and I'm like, what, what are you even talking about?
I don't understand. Can we please just use normal words? Like in the way that you would talk to your partner at home words. Yeah. It's just, I think it's got out of control though, hasn't it? Like in the last couple of years, I think I was definitely always someone that was like, can't genuinely see these words without the cringe going through my body or
slightly laughing when I say the word, because I'm like, what am I saying? This is just awful. So no, we absolutely promise you this is not buzzword bingo. There will be no words here that don't make sense or are totally meaningless, because if you're a leader and you're leading a team, you have to speak their language. So yeah. And if you do catch us with any buzzwords, you have to hold us accountable and call us out because we'll be disappointed in ourselves. So please do.
I think we're going to circle back on this one. Take that offline, Bridie. Enough of that. We'll take that offline. We'll take that offline. And the other thing that you're not going to find here are like stiff suits and people who look like the normal corporate types. We're both very creative people, often wearing like a fancy new hairdo or some big earrings or something creative. Like no stiff suits here. That's not how we show up in our corporate jobs.
And just because you haven't got corporate jargon or a stiff suit doesn't mean you can't get the best results. So just remember you can have smiles, can have jazzy earrings, you can have big crazy hair and still get the best results. Amazing. Well, I think that's a great intro of who we are, Lindsay, and what we're here to do with Lead the Rim. And now I think we're going to move on to our weekly segment, which is called Walk the Week.
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Do you want to explain to our listeners what Walk the Week is? Yeah, definitely. So again, Brian and I have alluded to the fact that this can be quite lonely when you're trying things out and you want to learn new things, you want to reflect on what you've done. But doing it alone can be quite lonely. So as a community and as a promise from Brian and I, and this is something Brian and I do regularly anyway with each other, every week, throughout our week, we take time to think about three things.
We think about more than three things, but for Walk the Week, three things in particular. So each week we will promise to you that we'll share something that we're going to celebrate, something to celebrate the success, something that we're really kind of chuffed a success that we've had that week that we want to celebrate with each other. The other thing is about learning, something we've learned that week. And that can be a huge range of things. It doesn't have to necessarily be from specifically your actual role at work.
or work in per se, could be something outside of work that you've learned and something to help us grow. So it's really important for Lead the Room that we're constantly growing as leaders. Leadership is not something that you go on a course on, tick, you've completed it, great, you've got the job, you've got the badge. It's a total growth mindset and we totally embody that as leaders, Bryony and I. So three things every week, something to celebrate, something you've learned and for growing. So...
This week, the thing that I was kind of celebrating was I offered some instant feedback. Now, feedback is a topic we'll come onto in future podcasts because it's a great one. I offered some instant feedback to a team member who was actually a peer who I just thought in the moment it would be really helpful for them going forward. I kind of gauged roughly how I thought they might take it and I thought they would receive it well. And it was amazing to see.
really almost quite instantly them applying it to their role. And almost like in the next meeting we went to, they'd applied it. And it just made me think, I'm so glad that I, in the moment, took the opportunity to do that because it clearly had a huge impact on them and their presentation at the next meeting. So that felt really good. Yeah. Awesome. That's really powerful. Yeah, definitely. What are you celebrating this week, So I'm celebrating doing some
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really good comms, like not like a massive win, but I've been leading this project and I'm working with a remote team and a bit of a struggle to get their engagement and to get their buy-in. so I've been really focusing on how I can use every little bit of comms that I have with them, whether it's email or on the phone or on Teams or whatever, to build that connection. And so I just feel like.
I had a massive breakthrough this week because I sent out like a bit of an update and I'd really thought carefully about the language that I was going to use, how it was going to land with them. And I got some great feedback of like, how can I, how can I help? Like, it looks like you could do with help on this part of the project. And it was awesome because I'm like, yes, now we've built this connection. Like I really paid off. So I'm really pleased with that. Yeah. Okay. I love that. And it's again,
thinking about kind of every intentional interaction, right? As we kind of mentioned earlier, it's really important. What about learning? What have you learned this week? Well, so a bit of a bit of a black mark for me, suppose. Earlier in the week, I wasn't feeling very well. And honestly, I should have just taken the day off sick.
had a day just like resting, my team call it like a slug day, you know, where you're like just leaning on pajamas and binge watch Netflix. Not sure how I feel about the description. Anyway, should have taken the slug day, didn't, powered on through, except in low power mode. And I still find myself really in low power mode because I'm just like, you know, got that rumbling sickness. So the lesson really, the learning here is like when you're sick, Briny,
Just take the day off. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? I think there's so many of us could, more slug days needed, right? More slug days needed. Yeah. What about you, Lindsay? So this week, so I'm going to call it backseat leadership. Nobody wants a backseat leader, right? And I had a situation in work where a couple of other leaders in the area
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And they were speaking about a situation that occurred and the conversation was around what this one particular leader, the course of action that they were going to take. And they said out loud, were like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to make the call. I'm going to wait and I'll come back to that person. And in my head, I was thinking I would make the call. I would call that person now because you need to speak to them now. Don't let that person simmer.
nip it in the bud and call that person now. And perhaps it's my delivery or perhaps maybe I should have just kept my opinion to myself. But I said, I would make the call. I would call that person. Thinking it would be helpful. It wasn't, that person didn't take it as helpful. It was a bit, I got a bit of a, I'm going to say a glower. It was a bit of a, I don't need your opinion.
I can make up my own kind of thoughts type thing. And I just thought, I think I needed to maybe just take stock and think, okay, does this person want my advice right now? Is it helpful? Is there a different way to deliver it? It probably doesn't help that that person knows my passion for this, for leadership and understand. And I think that it was almost kind of perceived as you think you know better, which was not the case at all. I was just sharing a
this is what I would do. But I think I maybe, even my tone of voice, maybe I shared it in a, I would make the call. So yeah, it didn't go down so well. So I thought I'd just, I would be reflecting on that. It didn't make me feel good. I wish I hadn't said it, but we're learning. And I think that is the important part, isn't it? Yeah, we are all learning, aren't we? And it's so important to give yourself like grace in those moments that you were trying to help. Another time you would do things differently and that's okay. Exactly.
And so, yes, tell us a bit about then where you've been growing this week, Lindsay. So I'm really proud actually of my growth, not just this week, but kind of over the last couple of weeks. So I probably was someone who didn't have the best boundaries over the year, probably particularly in the early years of my leadership career, because I thought, I definitely thought by doing more, you...
LeadTheRoom (32:16.985)
Not just doing more, doing everything, saying yes to every opportunity, being involved in every committee, on every board, whatever it was. That was the way to get ahead. That was the way to succeed. I've quickly realised, not quickly realised, it's taken me a long time and becoming a mother, so definitely didn't quickly realise. Then actually I need boundaries in my life and I need to say no to things.
And that is okay to say no to things. And it doesn't disappoint people to say no to things. Those boundaries are healthy, not just for my family, but for me. It's a challenge. I'm still learning every day because my natural instinct is to say, yeah, of course, particularly if someone comes to you, Briony, right? And says, you'd be great at this. Like, come and join this. We've got this meeting. Like, yeah, I would enjoy it. I would be good at it, but no.
Like I don't need it in my life. I don't need it in an already busy calendar at work, an already busy team. I don't need it. So yeah, I'm definitely growing in the boundaries section and it feels good. It does feel good. I'm really proud of you, Lindsay, because I know that this has been like, well, for both of us, right? It has been quite a journey. And the question that I've started asking myself here is like, is this an opportunity for me or for you?
And I find that really helpful when people come to you, like, I've got this great thing I'd love your help with. And you feel flattered, but ask yourself like, is this an opportunity for me or is it an opportunity for you? But I think there's a load in there that we could come back to in a whole deep dive. So what about you, Bryony, because you're always learning and growing. Well, I think my learning and growing for this week is related to the sickness. Like next time I am going to just take...
the day off there. you know what? Radical. Maybe two days. Like fully better before you come back into the office. And I cannot express to you, like I am going to find this really hard to actually live up to. So here you are, you're heading on the podcast. I'm accountable to you all. When I'm sick next time, I'm going to take the time off. Briony, were you that child at school that never took a day off sick? yeah, a hundred percent.
LeadTheRoom (34:38.809)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. On my record, my corporate record, I've taken like three days off ever. And I'm so proud of this. Like, no, it's a full-time ride. There's not an award for that. There's no awards. There's no awards for that, Briony. Just take the slug day. Take the sick day. Anyway, so there we are. Lindsay, we've made it to the end of our first episode. How wonderful to be here. That's our story.
This is what Lead the Room is. And we are so excited to hear from you all about how, what has resonated in this episode with you. What have you learned? What made you think, thank goodness. It's not just me that feels like this. So come over to Instagram at Lead the Room Coaching and drop us a DM, share your walk the week with us. Send us an email to hello at leadtheroom.co.uk or leave a comment on our YouTube. We look at them all. We reply to them all. We can't wait to hear from you.
Absolutely. And if we can help any of you not feel lonely in this leadership world, this leadership journey, whatever you want to call it, then it would make us so happy to do that. So thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next week. Bye. Bye.
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