Please note : This transcript is automatically generated and provided for your convenience.

[00:00:00] Wendy: brave leadership is about setting aside your personal discomfort in order to do what's right or for the greater good. if you don't have the right people on the bus, you're going to create bigger issues longer term.

if you go through life expecting everyone to like you, you won't get anywhere.

[00:00:14] Rob: Welcome to Superpowered, the unique stories of modern leaders. I'm your host, Rob D. Willis, a storytelling consultant and speaker, and I am obsessed with understanding people's zone of genius. So each week I sit down with leaders from inside and outside the business world to hear their unexpected stories and insights, which can transform the way that you approach work and life

Today I am talking to Wendy Harris. She is an author executive and tech influencer with 23 years of experience starting at Goldman back in the noughties, where she worked as an equities trader in London and Chicago before making the move into tech, where she's held leadership roles, ad role.

CarGurus, Dropbox and Gong, Uh, Fortune Magazine named her one of the most powerful women in business and Demandbase, one of the hundred most powerful women in sales.

But what I find super interesting about her writing is her advocacy and passion for business. Don't worry if you don't know what that means. We're going to give you the full lowdown today. And I think it's going to be really valuable to a lot of listeners of this show.

If you haven't done so yet, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts because we have some awesome guests coming up over the next few weeks. You will not want to miss them. Right. Let's go with it.

Shall we? Wendy, welcome to the show.

[00:01:38] Wendy: Thanks Rob, delighted to be here. I was like 23 years makes me sound very old.

[00:01:43] Rob: Experience. That's what we want

on this show. that's it. Wisdom, wisdom.

you became passionate about this brave leadership. Now, when we hear the term brave, They're all immediately images that come out of it.

Could you tell me about maybe a brave leader that you've had or a famous one, just so we begin to get an image of it?

[00:02:03] Wendy: Sure, yes. So for me, brave leadership is about setting aside your personal discomfort in order to do what's right or for the greater good. And so I think there's been a couple of examples recently with, with senior women on the, on the public stage. I'd say Simone Biles, obviously we've just come out of the Olympics and you know, her story is fascinating.

And I think she is the ultimate brave leader. You know, she had the courage to walk away. At a pivotal moment in time to prioritize her mental health, to prioritize to, and to talk about it, importantly, to talk about it and inspire other, you know, young athletes and make it normalize it, that it's okay when you're not okay.

And she's brave enough to say she struggled. She's also brave enough to come back and dare to win again while knowing that she might fail. And so it is I think, you know, telling people the truth of what's going on with you, even if it's incredibly hard to do that is ultimately to me, the real test.

And I think a second example of a woman I also love and admire is Susie Wolf. She had allegations brought against her which were unfounded against her and her husband, Toto. And she brought the FIA to court. She's saying, okay, this governing body of motorsport, this isn't okay. And again, setting aside her personal discomfort to do what's right because, you know, the way the whole case was handled was completely inappropriate.

And it's very uncomfortable for her. That could have repercussions for the rest of her career, but she's brave enough to take a stand. Because it is the right thing to do. And I just think that is the sort of leaders we need to see. And there are two exceptional

women

[00:03:38] Rob: , great examples. And what comes out for me are really two concepts from that. Simone Biles, it's very much about vulnerability. It's about being honest enough to say when you're struggling, but then also excellence as well to come back and still push. to achieve. But then Susie Wolf, that was very much about risk. You know, you're taking on the FIA who are not the most flexible of institutions. Is there a person or someone closer to home maybe, who has exhibited these same qualities and inspired you along your journey in these 23 years?

[00:04:22] Wendy: lucky that my mentor is Yamini Rangan. She's the CEO of HubSpot. I was lucky enough to work with her at Dropbox. And to get, I think we had monthly calls at that time. She's mentored me ever since then. And I've just always looked up to her. to her and admired her and she has shown me that you can be exactly who you are.

You don't have to compromise what you stand for who you are to be a leader at the upper echelon. You can admit when you need help, you can be brave enough. To say when you don't know, and that's okay, cause you don't need to be the smartest person in the room. You that's the true leaders know that when they surround themselves with great people.

And really importantly, she was always brave enough to hire great people. I think some leaders, you know, are threatened by hiring people who could potentially take their job. And I'd say, that's one thing Goldman Sachs taught me. You should always hire people who are better than you. And she has pulled up women left, right, and center around her HubSpot as a very good balanced exec team.

So I think in terms of strong female, brave leadership and carving a path all the way to CEO, you know, she's the, she's the dream for me.

[00:05:22] Rob: How long have you been working with, with her as a mentor?

[00:05:26] Wendy: Since, well, I joined Dropbox in 2015. I think she might've joined just after that. So I think probably 2016, it's about eight years.

[00:05:33] Rob: By this point you will. Quite a way along the journey, but it's interesting then that you still decided to find the sort of mentor figure to, to bring you forward. And I'm wondering then, at this sort of time, what made you look for that help, what were the challenges that you were having that she might have helped you through?

[00:05:57] Wendy: So I can remember one in particular, I was managing a sales team and I You know, I was sort of struggling. I think many leaders struggle with this. I actually have quite a low need to be liked, which I think is a bit of a superpower, but at the same time, you have to be able to influence and, you know, and you, you ultimately, you need to bring out the best in people and not everyone on your team will necessarily love you.

And I was struggling with a particular situation. And she said to me something that was so wise. She was like, look, if there's 10 people on your team or 10 people on a bus at any one time, Two of them would take a bullet for you. six of them could kind of go one way or the other depending on the circumstances and two of them will almost certainly, you know, not be your advocate.

And that's just that, depending on the scale, you know, it just grows bigger and bigger. Like, it's not realistic to think that everyone is going to like you, but you have to know what you stand for. And, you know, I stand for demanding excellence, work ethic. I do so in an environment I believe where I create fun and I'm willing to be vulnerable and open and say, well, I don't know, So if you go through life expecting everyone to like you, you won't get anywhere.

If that's, if that is your North star that you want to be liked, it's very hard to be successful and also to bring out excellence in teams and to drive to high performance. So setting aside the need to be like is brave.

[00:07:08] Rob: I like that ratio. It reminds me of a clip I saw of an athlete, an Olympic athlete, I forget the name unfortunately, and she was mentioning that your training should be a third fun, a third okay, and a third absolutely horrible. Removing the need to be liked, but removing for it the need for it to always be okay for it to be a pleasurable process. There's always going to be that difficulty. I'm wondering what led to this. This challenge though that you brought to her, like, was the team lagging in any way?

[00:07:41] Wendy: So I think, you know, I was, I was hard to take over a sales team that hadn't been performing, hadn't been hitting targets. Half the people on the team thought sales was a dirty word. It was quite a, you know it was kind of, it was a change management situation. And with change management comes the need for people to be open and embrace you.

And so the first thing you need to do is help to try and connect with them personally and to make sure that they understand that you are there to, you know, bring out the best in them. A winning sales team is so much more fun than losing sales team. But also with that, you need buy in for all of the different ideas you have.

And so I said, you know, I have ideas about how we can turn this around, but I'm going to need you to give me a chance and take some chances here. And let's try some things if they work great. And if they don't, well, we'll deal with that. But I need you to be open to changing. So change is always difficult for people.

Some people embrace it, but there are a small minority and people are scared. And I think addressing the elephant in the room, but then there will always be those who resist. And it's like, well, what do you do with those who resist? And other people in teams watch to see how you deal with the people who aren't on board.

And the reality is, you know what, it's okay. There's, if somebody really doesn't want to be there and doesn't believe in it, that's okay. There's nobody has a gun against their head to stay. But you have to know what you stand for. And it was my job to drive a high performing sales team. And so I needed people to embrace this change and to try new things with the right attitude.

If you have someone on your team with a toxic attitude. You have to deal with it because it, even if it's uncomfortable, you have to have uncomfortable conversations.

[00:09:07] Rob: Absolutely. One of the big challenges, I think, with these moments of big change is sometimes even beyond the control of the leader, because, of course, there is a context to within which you came into the team. And it may not have been a very comfortable one because they weren't performing well. And that's why you came in.

So I'm wondering when you came in on your first day, I think this was back in the time when you Everyone came in for their first day. Yeah, I think so.

[00:09:35] Wendy: Yes, once upon a time, yes, we did actually go into an office,

yeah.

[00:09:39] Rob: What was the mood like what were the first conversations that you had? And how did you prepare yourself for the fact that maybe? A third of the people are not going to take a bullet for you

[00:09:53] Wendy: and every person on the team, first of all, and I have some go to questions, which I always ask, which are very basic, but they tell you a lot. It's like, what's working, what's not working. If you could wave a magic wand, what's the one thing we think needs to change or you do differently?

And I wanted to understood who they were as a person. Like I was interested in learning about their life and like what motivates them. Right? So, and I said to them, you know, so first of all, try and make a personal connection. Second of all, get their opinion about this is what's great. This is what's not great.

And then you form a view by talking to enough people and be like, okay, there's a pattern here. And so then I'd bring them all together at the end of that and have a meeting with them. And say, okay, this is what I've heard, this is what you've said to me, this is what I think might be some of the issues, this is what I think might be a plan going forward.

And I understand some of you feel like sales is a dirty word and you don't want to be sales people. So I'm giving you an opportunity now. If you think that this really isn't the path for you, come and talk to me afterwards and we'll see what else we can do there. Because people have to really be bought in and if they're not bought in, if you don't have the right people on the bus, you're going to create bigger issues longer term.

And so honestly, a handful of people put their hands up, said they didn't want to do this job of sales and they didn't want to be on the bus for, you know, trying all these new things. And so they found other roles at that time. And that is something that, you know, I don't generally say, okay, it's a good idea to move people around companies if they're underperforming.

But I think this was a rather unique situation was still in the very much forming phase. And some of them went on to very successful careers in a different role. And the other ones we move forward, we've made trial and error. And the other thing I did was like, I identified. a person I thought was a leader within the group, so one of the employees on the team, and I asked for him to drive, sort of, help me drive this initiative, bottoms up, and to be sort of my sounding board a little bit.

I also had another leader who was working with me who was amazing and between us, you know, we had very different styles. You know, she's she, I would say she's a much nicer style than me in many ways, but but you know, we, we kind of between us, we just were, we were just honest. We're like, look, we don't know all the answers.

We have ideas, but we're going to need you to be on board with trying and let's, you know, try and succeed together. And if we fail, we fail, but we'll try again. And that team went on to become the top performing team globally. So I'm very

proud of that.

[00:11:59] Rob: Yeah, it's, it's turn a team around like that. It takes, takes a lot and you went in, you didn't do like Hollywood movies where people say she's shaking things up and thinking some new concept on a whiteboard and making everyone listen. That's not, that doesn't work actually. But that's what a lot of leaders actually do.

And is that the method that you took? Which I feel is the correct one. Is that something which has always been within you? Or how did you come to take that approach of listen first, then get generate buy in?

[00:12:37] Wendy: So no, I think that's been a journey for me because I have a, you know, I'm a very big personality. I'm very opinionated. I have strong ideas. So I think it realized, I realized over time that actually people need to feel heard. And as a leader, if you talk first, you take up the air in the room and then people are going to be swayed by your opinion.

So if you really want to know what people think. You kind of need to talk last now. I'm not perfect at this just to be very clear on this This is still a journey for me So but I think I very in I I went into that that position with that team with great intent to listen and understand because you know, you have to build trust as well And I know if I was them someone coming in it's scary when you have a new leader they're already feeling beaten down because they're not in their targets.

They're not earning money, you know, and it's like, well, show a little bit of empathy, you know, it's like, maybe it's, it's if I was trying to put myself in their shoes and again, as I said, I'm not perfect at this, but I really genuinely also cared for them. I wanted them to succeed. I wanted them to go and be able to build their houses.

And you know, by the engagement ring and go on holidays and do all of the things that they wanted to achieve. And it was my job to help put structure and process around it to help bring out the best in them. And, you know, I'm still really good friends with some of them to this day. So, which is lovely.

So cause I genuinely did care for them. And I think when people know that you care for them and this concept of radical candor, I think is one of the best books on this, which is where you care personally, but challenge directly. It's not one or the other. I can really care for you, but also hold you to a very high standard.

And I don't think it has to be this trade off. You know, I really believe in excellence, but also I care for my people.

[00:14:09] Rob: concept you're drawing from that. And many of these concepts, I think, are kind of universal. So in negotiation, you have this principle of separate the issue from the person. It's not really about them. It is about the thing that we are trying to resolve. And just because they're not performing doesn't make them a bad person or anything.

It just means that we need to change some things. I'd like to tie this back to this idea of brave leadership, the personal discomfort for the good of the company. What were the personal moments of discomfort that you had to kind of get through in order to get this work done?

[00:14:46] Wendy: Yeah, I remember a pivotal moment and, which just imprinted on my brain early on as a leader, where I was sat in a room with a peer who was about to make someone redundant. And I realized that person was going to walk out of the room, not realizing they had been fired. And I was, because they use so much vague language and they use so much padding.

And so it was kind of a horrifying and pivotal moment for me where I realised that, oh gosh, wow, this is, this is, you know, Brene Brown has a phrase, clear as kind, unclear as unkind. And so for me going forward then, I really, first of all, tried to lead from the front always on conversations like this.

You know, I had to make a lot of people redundant during one, at one point during COVID. And I wanted to be the person to have the conversations with them directly because I felt like I'd sold them the dream, I'd hired them. And I wanted to be the one to deliver the message, no matter how painful it was for me.

And it was very painful. And there was one day we had to have it done by a certain hour. Because, you know, it was a public company and I actually, there were so many people, I couldn't physically do them all myself by this hour. So I had to enlist, you know, one of the other leaders of my team. And I felt so bad that I was exposing him to this, but we just had to, it was, it was practical.

And all you can do is like, I was, you know, we were all had our mental health issues during COVID. We all, you know, I was living at home by myself. And I'd go in and literally lie down beside my dog and hug him in between, in between meetings where I was telling people they were redundant. Because I knew, you know, there were some of them had their kids playing in the background, and it was just, it's all you can do in these situations.

As a leader you will always face. Hard situations like that. It is, it is so much harder to make people redundant when they have done nothing wrong. So for example, we shut down some markets. It was nothing to do with personal performance and obviously COVID, so many people all over the world had issues because of COVID.

And I understood why the company had to do it, but I had to set aside any, like, of course I didn't want to be having those conversations, but I had to do it in the most fair and just and kind way, but deliver the message. And obviously everyone had different reactions. Some got angry. Some were crying, some were whatever.

And all I could do was, you know, try and do it in as empathetic way as possible. But to be honest, it's a was this day that really scarred me. It was very upsetting and you, you have to put your, your, you have to set aside my discomfort and do deliver the message in the best possible way. And that's what it means to be a leader.

And it doesn't. And all you can do is be human. But like, and recognize that they're human, but it's, you will, if you want to be a leader, you will face moments like that. And so, yeah, that was one of the sort

of hardest points

of my

[00:17:22] Rob: this sounds like a, an awful moment. And as you say, these redundancies are, are seldom the, or never the, the fault of the employees. The hard thing about hard things, I don't know if you've read Ben Horowitz his book talks about the redundancies that he had to, to go through as well. And the responsibility that a leader has to take in those moments, because this is the fault of the, the company. And I'm wondering for any leader going through, hopefully no one's having to go through this in me right now, but there will be some leaders out there who are having to have these conversations and it is taxing on the mental health to get through this to almost process people like a machine because it's a public company by a certain time.

They're feeling awful about what they're doing to other people's lives. How do they get through those days? What have you been able to do to keep yourself able to do the job, but also preserve that empathy for the people you're talking to?

[00:18:24] Wendy: Before I answer that question, I'll just go back to one point you made there, you know, that it's never the fault of the employee. I don't agree with that. I think with restructuring, then it's not, and it is a business decision. But I think there are times you have to make people we're done.

That's performance management, right? There's performance management. And sometimes people are in the wrong job or in the wrong environment. I have known people who've underperformed in certain sales teams and gone on to be wildly successful in others. And so in those moments. I, again, set aside my need to be like, as long as you've been fair and given the person enough resources, enough time, enough energy, and to help them be successful, you know, sometimes things just don't work out.

And it's like, I truly believe that person will go on and be more successful somewhere else. And so that's how I deal with it because I say, okay, I have responsibility to uphold the standards of this company, to drive excellence, to drive high performance. If somebody is not performing and we've given them all the time and energy that we can afford to.

Then I have to do the right thing and let them go and they will find their place somewhere else. And so that is a moment that I rationalize myself but I do it in the kindest possible way and with empathy. Then I think when it comes to broader the point I was making about broader redundancies, the one thing you can do about that is you know, it is, people rail against this but it is just.

What the contract we sign with the company like companies don't ever want to do that There's no part of you the company I worked for was a wonderful business and I loved the leaders at the top They don't want to be in that position either But they have people to answer for shareholders and boards and this is the nature of the world And so all I could do in those circumstances what I did do is I went to back for as much, you know as much Pay for them as possible exit pay as much, you know to extend their health care as long as possible to offer the mental health support I did that for them and that's felt that, okay, this is the best I could do in a bad situation and leave with empathy.

And then, you know what, we all need our own personal. Reservoirs to, to, to call from when we're in these moments. And so, you know, I do a lot of work on myself. I have a therapist, I read, I listen to podcasts. I take action. I call it the well, I heard this phrase. I did not make this phrase up, the spiritual gym, which sounds a bit weird, but it's basically like do something every day.

And I take, you know, at least three actions every day that I know helps my mental health long term. But you know what, that day was bleak and I, as I said, I went in and I lay down beside my dog and I hugged him and I got up again and I got back on another call and made someone else redundant and I just tried to stop.

I was afraid I was going to be in floods of tears because my heart was broken and I was trying to be professional. Because it wasn't about me, it was about them. But by the last two, honestly, I was really struggling not to cry. So, because I'm human as well. And it's

hard.

[00:20:58] Rob: That is the key challenge that we all have. We are all human and we have these limitations physically, mentally, emotionally, yet we still have to deliver. And thinking about that, I know we've, in our previous conversations, we've spoken about these three pillars, you say, of leadership, of fun, excellence and vulnerability.

Now, excellence, we can come back to in a second, but vulnerability and, and fun which are the more, let's say, emotional aspects of being a leader, the things that make people really buy in and connect with the company. And I, in my research for this call, I found a graph. looking at values categories. So looked at lots of different companies and the values that they have comparing 1, 500 companies with the top a hundred places to work. And generally their values are pretty similar. So integrity and trust, respect all kind of the same, but the bits that were not were fun and authenticity. These were almost completely absent from the Fortune 500 companies. Now, I don't believe that those companies are no fun whatsoever to work in and everyone is inauthentic.

Yet the company kind of refuses to embed those things as a value, even though it's important. And I'm wondering, what do you think are some of the limitations that they have? And why are they not doing this in your experience?

[00:22:31] Wendy: So I think that some people think that they have to be some weird beige corporate version of themselves when they go to work, that they can't bring their personality. And I just don't believe in that. I, you know, have a little mantra of ban beige. And I think when people bring their, like, most people want to have fun and want to be able to laugh.

And especially with sales teams, it's high stress, it's high, you know, there's a lot of urgency. You can't push 100 percent of people 100 percent of the time. And it's important that you find moments of levity and fun. I personally want to roar laughing every single day I go to work. And I think, I'm hoping the world is going to change with this, that the braver leaders that step up are willing to have fun, are willing to share when they're not okay, and they're, you know, when they need help.

I'm hoping that will build this, this trust. And, and you can have the full spectrum of human emotions at work because you are human, right? And it's like pretending that we park our human at the door when we go into the office. It's just not realistic. And it's not somewhere I want to work. And so, you know, there's days we all have good days.

We all have bad days. Every leader is first and foremost, a human. Every employee is first and foremost, a human. And I do believe fun, excellence, and vulnerability is the sweet spot. And I try and always hire people who embody that. I always, I call them my flamingos. I'm like, this is my flamboyance of flamingos that I built.

People who have an edge and are brave enough to be themselves. That's who I want to hire always. And I'm really proud of the people I've hired. You know, I've heard some super high performing teams but who are great fun and great people and who care for each other. And that to me is the magical mix.

So I just think it's, it's people are trying to do some weird beige corporate version of, okay, this is what we should be when we're at work. We need to park the human. And it's, it's just rubbish in my mind. I don't, I don't buy it at all.

[00:24:10] Rob: Yeah. Bound the beige, bring the full human experience. I actually noticed a couple of posts by you recently about specifically about fun. One was Snoop at the Olympics and the other was meeting up with your colleagues from Goldman and remembering the fun that you had back then. I've looked into the data and we don't have many West Coast rappers listening to this show.

[00:24:34] Wendy: What a

shame.

[00:24:36] Rob: I, it's a market we had to break, but we'll get there. thinking back on your time at Goldman, which is probably much more relatable for people listening to the show, what made that time so fun? What made you be able to bring that side to you, to your work back then?

[00:24:54] Wendy: Well, honestly, we used to sit, like it was such a pressure cooker environment, like we were on a trading floor, we started work at 6am, we worked 12 hour days. I can count in one hand the number of times in the 11 years I was there that I actually ate lunch away from my desk, like you eat breakfast at your desk, you eat lunch at your desk, you have 9 computer screens.

, and the market's always moving, there's always news coming out, there's always people shouting and screaming and trying to buy and sell stocks. It's all very it, it's, it's very, nature is a huge pressure cooker. But the people I worked with there, honestly, we just, we roared, we did roar laughing every single day.

Honestly they were like my brothers it was mainly men I you know, first and foremost and hopefully that's changing but They were like my brothers.

They were very we just, we did, we just roared laughing every single day and we poke fun with each other. We always, we needed that stress relief, right? Because we were in this, like, I mean, we literally, we were trading the day of the two bombings in London. I was on the trading floor when September the 11th happened.

It was, you know, some awful moments in history. The trading floor is one of the first places that's like everyone goes to sell, right? Whenever there's a terrorist attack, everyone goes to sell. The phones jump off the hook and all of a sudden it's this crazy. And so you have to find those moments of fun.

And I just love the people I worked with then. We had, we had the best of times. And and by the way, we were still really high performers and made a lot of money for the business. So it's not one or the

other.

[00:26:13] Rob: I love the idea of this is the pressure cooker. We need that way to blow off steam and we can still be professional. We can still do our work really well and have fun at work. So let's say you were going into a new business and they were beige. It was like zero bands, zero crack .

How do you begin to bring that into the environment? Without thinking of just like, I don't know, cheesy short term company away days. Or what can one do to really embed that sense of fun into a culture?

[00:26:47] Wendy: So two answers to this. The first answer is I believe everyone should be exactly who they are when they're interviewing. So when you're interviewing, you are also interviewing the company. And if I meet a crowd of beige people, I'm like, this isn't my place. Like I write, I don't want to work somewhere that that's, you know, puts beige on a pedestal.

I did actually hilariously once have a call over the last few months with a CEO and I mentioned I was writing a book and she's like, What's the, what's your premise around leadership? And I said, Oh, it's this trio of excellence, fun and vulnerability. And she, she didn't hear when I said fun. She said, what was the third one?

I said, fun. She was like, Oh, and I was like, this isn't my person. I can tell. I was like, you and I are not the same person and that's okay. But I do believe if you show up to an interview and you try and be some beige version of yourself and you're like, well then you need to find the right environment where you can be the best version of you, the biggest, brightest, shiniest version of you.

That's what I seek out. So first of all, I don't want to join a firm that is everyone's beige, but in the, if I'm unfortunate enough to have that happen to me, I would say the leader sets the tone so you can set the tone with your team. Just because you have all these beige robots around you doesn't mean that you can't show kindness empathy to your people in front of you to talk to them about their weekend, talk to them about their life, talk to them about, have fun, like make jokes with them.

Like it's. And I do recognize that depends on your level of seniority, how comfortable you may or may not feel for that. But like there's something basic, you know, everyone who joined the Firm of Gong, we did a thing when we announced that they joined, we're like, who's your celebrity doppelganger? It doesn't need to be this great, you know, whatever, but we, everyone had to bring up their celebrity doppelganger.

So so, you know, it's just, there's small, silly moments like that. Then there's other things you do. It's like, You know, team building, like what's your pet peeve? What's one thing no one knew about you? What's the one thing you wish, you know, you would have done different in your life? What would you have been?

There's all these moments that just humanize. It doesn't need to be always beige corporate work. It's like the human behind, find moments to celebrate the human behind the employee always. And people want that, I think, and they want that connection and they care. And we celebrate birthdays, and we celebrate people getting promoted.

We had dogs in the office before, you know, the dogs. And it's like, you know, it celebrate the human behind the employee always as much as possible.

[00:29:02] Rob: That was for me, one of the, a huge factor in why the move to remote work was so hard for people was I noticed that meetings became so beige. And I'd go online with people and then it would be down to work immediately, you know, like, hi, how are you? And I'm aware that I come from a certain culture, British people like to have a chat for half an hour and sort of drift into talking about work.

I get that that's probably not the best way to do things. But I do feel that there is some merit in taking a couple of minutes at the beginning of a call to actually relate to one another and build that kind of connection. Do you have any practices or let's say that, you know, you've got, you're trying to give advice to your younger self.

How do you bring that human spirit into a team?

[00:29:53] Wendy: I honestly think it's, you know, like I'm just conscious like as a leader. When I walk onto that sales floor, I set the tone. So I did realize previously, and I did make a mistake once when I slight sidebar here, but once when my horse had died, I went into work. I was not okay. I was devastated. It was a very human situation for me, but I thought in my head, Oh, well, I can't not go to work because my horse has died because nobody will understand.

So I went into the office and I changed the energy in the office because I'm normally very vocal, I'm normally laughing, I'm normally high energy and positive and I hid in the corner and I brought the whole office down. So I think the first thing and the main thing I learned was self awareness. Like understand your energy and where you are.

And if you aren't okay, it's okay to take, first of all, it's okay to prioritize your human. I wasn't okay that my horse was like my child and I should have stayed home that day. And my boss was kind enough afterwards to say that to me, you know, and that really changed my perspective of what it could mean to be a leader at work.

And secondly, and I still try and bring that forward to any of my teams and, and, and role model that. And secondly, it's there's You know, use your energy for the greater good. If you are having like, you can, I can raise a room. I know when I walk into Salesforce, I can raise a room. I'm like, you know, it's like, it's literally taking a moment to stop and talk to people, give people a hug, be like, Oh my God, that was amazing.

Be sure to praise, praise, praise, praise people, the work they do, how hard they work. Sales is such a grind. I'm so proud of the people who've worked for me and how hard they've worked. And I'm so grateful to them. Say thank you. Praise them publicly, say thank you, acknowledge people. And, and we also, you know, one thing we did in my last firm, at the last couple of firms, we did value awards winners for the year.

That was something I did off my own bat. It wasn't something that was globally mandated. I asked the team to, to nominate the people in there on the floor who they thought most epitomized our values. And we gave out those awards at our Christmas party at the end of year. And that was nominated by other people.

And it's, it's to show we care about how you do things as well. And not just your results. We also care about the person who you are and how you live your values. So

yeah.

[00:31:53] Rob: Such a good idea. Values often remain kind of a bit of paper or kind of carved bit of wood that's put around the office. But actually celebrating these are the actions that people took. These are the people who epitomize what we're, we're about. I love the way you've broken this down, this idea of being, bringing the whole human experience to work.

Because previously I'd, I'd been, I could think of, I could imagine places that were fun and excellent. Now I was thinking of kind of the trading floors. They sounded like fun and excellent huge amounts of pressure, but I couldn't really imagine the vulnerability in that area. But bringing all three in this way makes me think of, I rewatched Brené Brown's TED talk recently.

She talks about people being wholehearted, bringing their whole selves to a situation. and the key to that is, I guess, overcoming The fear that people will not like us or love us, as you were saying when they see certain aspects of who that, of who we are. whilst this may not be a belief or a fear that many leaders explicitly have, we always hear about imposter syndrome. And people feeling, Oh, I don't belong here.

What if people see that actually I've not much clue what I'm talking about. And I feel that that overcoming that is the kind of key to bringing this brave leadership that you're, that you've mentioned. It's the thing that will inspire people to take risks, to inspire people, to employ people who are cleverer than them, et cetera. How have you handled Imposter syndrome, insecurity, these challenges of not feeling maybe that you're up to the job.

[00:33:34] Wendy: So I read a lot and I listened to a lot of podcasts and I remember even recently I read a book called Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima, who was the she's a billionaire founder of IT Cosmetics in the U S. And it I think, you know, I think it was in that book that I read that Oprah says that Oprah's interviewed every huge person on the planet, right?

And Oprah says at the end of every interview, every single person turns around and goes, how did I do? So it doesn't matter if you're President of the United States, it doesn't matter if you're CEO of a multi billion dollar company. Everyone wants to go, oh, did I do good? Was that okay? Did I do good? We're all, everything, we are all human.

We all, you know, want to do a good job. We all, it's like, it's the thing that connects us. So I think the way I think about it is I really believe, and there's another, another great woman, Michelle Obama, said that I've been at every great table in the land and let me tell you, they're not that smart.

That's slightly paraphrasing, but that's the gist of what she says. And so I just believe, you know what, I am good enough, I have, I generate, because of all this stuff I read and I do feel my own well, you know, as I said, I do, The journaling I, I listened to a positive podcast. I woke my dogs in nature. I want everyone to believe that they are enough and that they are worthy.

They just need to find the right environment to thrive in and it's something that but I think it's a work in progress. We all I've been on my knees broken many moments over my life, you know, I really have I've had some. really sad, terrible, tragic times and where I've have felt very unworthy and and very much broken and that I had nothing to offer.

But the only way I've gotten out of that is through the love of friends and through the and family and, and actually proactively managing my mental health for the days that I'm going to be on my knees. So I do all that practice now. And, you know, I will credit Lewis Howes who's who's podcast I listened to all the time as well.

He's the I found him at a particularly dark moment and another woman, Maryse, up here. And the two of them you know, I've, I've done a lot of the work around, you know, through his podcast and also her books, and they've really helped me. We all feel like we're not enough sometimes, but we are good enough.

You just need to find the right environment that rewards and respects you and find a leader who believes in you. Never work for leaders who don't believe in you. It's one of the biggest mistakes people make. Yamini believed in me when I didn't believe in me. I always, I'm so grateful to her for that. So we need to find people who believe in us when we don't believe in us.

[00:35:50] Rob: Lots of things I think we can take from that. Be proactive. Find people who believe in you fill out well, so you can turn up and be the leader that people need as well. I'm going to slight unrelated, but I really like this perspective. I know that you are a passionate rider. From your posts, from your little picture when I get an email from you is, is a horse as well.

And I'm wondering what have you learned from horse riding and being around horses that has fed into how you lead people?

[00:36:27] Wendy: So horses, when you're competing horses, you have far more bad days than good days. Like I've been knocked unconscious twice, broken four bones in my back, separated my shoulder. Like I really, you know, and my friends would joke, did you come in glorious 17th place again? I'm like, yes, I did. So it's, I think the best thing is, is run your own race.

I'm, I'm in, I'm trying to be better than I was the week before. Whenever I was competing, I'm trying to be better than my personal best always. And I'm always, so I'm, I'm not looking at what everyone else is doing. I'm focused on myself. I know who I am. I know what I'm trying to achieve. I'm trying to run my own race.

And that is. That's just, and I know on a day that on paper, I might look like I feel finished in 17th place or something. I know, my gosh, I'm so proud of my horse. I'm so proud of me today because we did X percent better in the dressage, or we went clear cross country and it was a faster time. And you know, I was a, I was an amateur competing in a professional sport as well.

So, you know, I was never, I was always very unlikely to be taking home any gold medal and that was okay. I wasn't in it for that. I loved it. I was, you had to be brave to do that sport. It's the second most dangerous sport in the world. In terms of death or serious injury. But also it was, you know, I took a leap of faith with my horse.

It was two hearts, two minds. It's the only sport where men and women compete as equals in the Olympics. Like, and the horse, you know, when you believe in them, they believe in you. There's few things more wonderful. The feeling, the exhilaration of that. It's just, yeah, it's a real, it's a real partnership, but really, I think it's running, running my own race.

[00:37:55] Rob: And maybe that's the secret to brave leadership then, because the personal comfort you endure, because that's what you've been presented with. This is your level of resources. This is your level of talent. This is your level of where you are in your journey or the training that you have. And with that, you try and deliver the best work that you can.

And you celebrate the moments where it goes well. And when it goes badly, you just keep going at it and building. over time, always running your race. Love that perspective. Last question I'd like to ask is I like to ask people to think back over their, their journey. So think back over those 23 years.

And if you were to turn it into a business book, if you tell it, tell the story to, to the world, what would you call it?

[00:38:42] Wendy: Oh, well, this is timely because I'm writing a book on leadership. I have a holding title, but I am, I think I'm associated, many people who know me at work would associate me with flamingo. Cause I love the, I call, you know, I call them my flamingos. And so I think when I try to hire people, I look for this mixture of excellence, fun and vulnerability.

And I try and lead that way. And I call it the flamingo factor. So I think would be the Flamingo Factor, which is the the special magic ingredients that I'm looking for which I think is, is the epitome of great

leadership.

[00:39:15] Rob: That's fantastic. And you'll have a really good book cover as well, I think, if it's called the Flamingo Fact Hack. And I'm just imagining it

right now. Yeah, Miami Vice style writing across the top.

[00:39:25] Wendy: Totally. I'm, yeah, there's nothing subtle about me.

So there you go.

[00:39:30] Rob: Wendy, where can people find out more about you? Now, I

[00:39:33] Wendy: Well, I'm very much hoping I'm getting a website built right now, which does also involve a lot of neon pink. So I'm hoping that will be live. So that's www.wendyharris.co.uk and also follow me on LinkedIn. So where I am posting hopefully words of wisdom occasionally. But but yeah.

Thank you.

[00:39:51] Rob: LinkedIn. I'll put links to all of that in the show notes for this show. Wendy, thank you for coming on.

[00:39:58] Wendy: Thank you very much, Rob. It was a pleasure.

[00:40:00] Rob: And that was Wendy Harris. Now, those were some really powerful stories from the redundancies to working on the trading floor on the day of 9 11. That must have been extremely intense. But what I really love about Wendy is how she balances that. Those intense moments with such genuine, fun and authenticity, and that really is her, by the way.

Just check her out on LinkedIn. You will love her content. Now, you might have noticed that we did not have our usual listener challenge this week, that part of the show where a guest gives us an exercise or a ritual to try out to get a bit of their superpower. This is because we recorded the interview in the summer before we had the new format.

But Wendy did send us something which I think perfectly captures this week's topic of brave leadership. And her challenge is have one conversation in the next week that you've been avoiding or putting off. Now, I'm pretty sure you know the one I'm talking about cause it's been a while, playing in your head on repeat right now.

That's the conversation you need to have. , Wendy's advice is in that conversation. Use clear, direct language and remember to challenge the behavior and not the person. Give it a go. I think it's going to be really, really powerful. If you found value in today's conversation,

please take a moment to leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Those reviews really help because they help others discover the conversations , I'm Rob D. Willis, and I will see you next week for another episode of Superpowered, the unique stories of modern leaders.

Bye