Hello everybody, and thank you so much for joining us for another episode of that chat. Today we are thrilled to be joined by Christina Yul. Christina runs People and Performance, a people development consultancy based in Cambridge.

She's an executive coach, a senior practitioner member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and a chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Professional Development. She has a 30 year career to date and has held a number of board level HR director positions. Christina is a passionate person and she's extremely passionate about helping individuals, teams and organisations achieve their full potential.

Christina is a diversity and champion and runs a women's leadership programme to support women in achieving leadership positions, as well as a reciprocal EDI mentoring scheme in national organisations. So welcome, Christina, thank you so much for joining me. Oh it's a real pleasure to, to join you.

Thank you for inviting me. Oh, no problem at all. So today we are gonna talk about women and leadership, which is an area that as a team, the webinar that are extremely passionate about, so really looking forward to to hearing from you today.

Could you tell us a little bit about your career to date and what made you so passionate about people and performance, please? Yes, of course. So my, my career, I started working as an HR person, a long time ago, and did 15 years in a a large public sector organisation, starting as a sort of graduate, trainee, I'm working my way up to HR director.

And benefited from a women's leadership programme, which I was almost dragged kicking and screaming onto. And I did that role alongside, and my husband having an executive career and two young children. So, I was HR director of an organisation with about 20,000 staff.

And I, it was full on, to, young children. And it, everything worked perfectly, but was very finely balanced until my, childminder decided she didn't want to be a childminder. And then it got a bit tricky.

So, after that, I made the decision to step off the career, the corporate career world, and to do things on my terms. Set up my own business, as a sort of interim, let's just see what happens. And 15 years later, I'm still doing fabulous work, working with the executive teams, and, senior people in organisations helping them, really lead and, and manage their, their teams and their organisations and also progress their own careers.

So, that's what I spend a lot of my time doing there. Wow, fantastic. So how, to start with, would you describe leadership?

Oh, it's such a big question, isn't it? So for me, leadership is about enabling, facilitating. So it's, it's about, setting a sense of direction and then facilitating, cajoling, supporting, encouraging.

People to, achieve that, that, direction, to achieve that goal. So it's, it's quite, it's a doing thing. It's, so often we think of it as a, a leadership role, as a job title.

It's, it's, it's a doing being thing. And, being a leader, often, you know, it's the most important thing a leader can do is just get out of the way, and trust their team to get on with it. So it's setting.

The, the outcomes, setting the goals, and then, supporting and encouraging the achievement of those goals. And sometimes those goals are huge stretch goals that nobody else quite believes in. So the leaders need to be able to inspire people to, to believe in those, that those goals are achievable, that are doable.

So. I don't know if that helps. That's my sort of sense of, of, of leadership.

No, that's brilliant. So definitely giving the direction to your team to follow, to enable them to be the best that they can be. Yeah, and I think there's a the second part, that I, I didn't say clearly enough, it's about believing in your people.

You know, if you, it's often you can set ambition for people that they wouldn't necessarily believe they could do themselves, but as a leader, you believe in them, that they can get there. And then you support them to get there, which is fabulous. That's where the, that's where the excitement comes from for me.

That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the juicy bit. No, that's brilliant. So what what do you think makes a good leader rather than say a bad leader and you know, how important is is learning to become a good leader?

You know, Learning to be a good leader is about learning who you are, you know, who are you as a leader? And I think bad leaders are, you know, people who are, are, are not able to, stand in other people's shoes, not able to see the big picture, get very defensive about, issues and problems, look for blame and culprits for stuff. So.

You know, that's, that's not great. And it's, it doesn't feel nice to be in organisations where that's the leadership style. Leaders that are more able to trust their people, to engage, to have an ongoing conversation, keep the channels of communication open, give feedback, take feedback, acknowledge that they don't know the answer to everything.

Help their people to coach their people to find solutions, and, you know, recognise what their strengths are and what they're not so good at, understand what it's like to be. What they're brilliant at and what they're pretty ropey at, you know, that sort of self-awareness, I think is fundamental to effective leadership. Absolutely.

Do you think anybody can learn to become a good leader? Oh yes, I, I believe you, I'm a learning and development professional, so I believe you can. Yeah, it's the old nature nurture thing, isn't it?

Are you born a leader? I think some people might be. Although, you know, most people can learn leadership skills.

And sometimes it's really about leadership beliefs. What is it that they think leadership is about? You know, if they think it's about controlling people and, .

You know, containing people and constraining people, then, you know, that's not the brand of leadership that I buy into, that I'm, I'm keen to support people to develop. I'm more about releasing and encouraging and enabling and developing. So, you start to get the measure of my approach.

Absolutely. So I read recently somewhere that women who negotiate or, you know, are in leadership roles in particular, are 30% more likely to be told that they're too aggressive or bossy. Intimidating.

I wondered what do you think the main characteristics of female leadership are? Yeah, I think the so, so for me, the the the collaborative and relational, you know, can they relate to their people, can they stand in their shoes, can they find win-win? Outcomes.

Can they set a strategic direction and then, navigate their way to the achievement of that with a team? Are they open to suggestions and, and, possibilities? So, that's my sense an inclusive, outcome-focused, holistic approach.

The, the, the, the challenge that we've got is that the world of work still, unfortunately, is a world that has quite a lot of, Legacy from being designed by men and run by men in powerful positions. And I don't mean this to be sort of hugely stereotypical. And I think it's, it's challenging that people have, often the people that are describing women as aggressive, Or have a stereotype of what a woman should be.

And so if a man was to behave in that way, it would be perfectly acceptable, they're ambitious, they're a go-getting. And if a woman behaves in the same, exact same way, they're perceived as aggressive or, you know, unseemly. It's inappropriate.

And, that's a real challenge for us in shifting cultures. And understanding that, you know, that's one of the extra hurdles that women face, in my view. Yeah, absolutely agree.

And what do you think that you know, as women we can do to sort of strengthen our, you know, roles in, in leadership positions? Some of it, I think, is, is about, supporting each other. So there's, there's a great, challenge for women who are the only person, you know, the only female on the senior team.

If you, if you're on a senior team with other women, the more you can work and support each other. So, if somebody says, Oh, I think you're very, that was of an aggressive input, but somebody else, another woman, to come back, or, you know, ideally an ally male, to come back and say, Hang on a minute, it's no more aggressive than Fred was a minute ago. You know, that, that helps enormously, because it starts to gently challenge.

And, and some of it is about owning and, and, getting more confident in your approach. So some women have not developed the level of sort of sophistication in how they approach stuff. And they can soften or they can, you know, they can have, can have more flexibility, adaptability about how they approach stuff.

And get a sense, particularly in a, in a senior team, where you, you know, you, you might be in a man executive, you know, exco meeting, and somebody else is, you know, shouting the odds and happens to be male, and some, you know, the female senior leader comes in and wants to make her point, and often gets talked over, so gets then frustrated. And then it's quite strident in the way that eventually with driven by frustration, they make their point, and learning to manage your frustration in that and, and actually changing the dynamic by saying, you know, very calmly. And I'd like to make my point again, I'm not sure you heard it.

The style of that, the pace of that, the tone of that, that skill in communicating can make a big difference in a, in a, and, and actually that's leadership in action that leads the group to suddenly pay attention. So, that's a, yeah, I don't know whether that answers the question, but that's a, that's an example of how you can respond, get some allies, and think about how you manage your own frustration. Cause we, you know, I know when I'm frustrated, my pitch goes up quite a lot.

I get very cross. And I've learned to, you know, and again, there's lots of research that women who can lower the tone of their voice are taken more seriously, which is bonkers, but that's the way it works, you know. Oh, no, that's great advice.

Thank you. And sometimes for leaders, you know, it can be a challenge, you know, it can be a bit of a struggle, it can be quite lonely at times. Do you have any tips for, leaders to encourage them to sort of stay motivated in their, in their positions?

Yeah, I think, I think build your network, build your support network is, you know, have people that you can use as, you know, chat to as mentors, as your sounding boards, that you can share hints and tips with, you can share your frustrations with, you can share your successes with. That can make a huge difference, because you can feel incredibly lonely, particularly if you are one of a few senior females in an organisation. Making, so making sure you've got that support network, calling stuff out gently and finding your allies can make a big difference too.

there's some great research by a Cambridge, academic who asks a senior team to rate how the meeting has gone. And then shares with the team that the ratings that the men give the team meeting are much different to the ratings the women give the senior team. Even though they've been in the same meeting, and then facilitates a conversation between the men and the women as to why they have such different experiences of the meeting.

And that's how they start to appreciate different styles and approaches and how that the, women may unintentionally be silenced or, or reduced in a meeting. And it, it can have a phenomenal impact. So, if you're really frustrated, call up.

I can, and I can let you have the details of, of that academic study, if it's helpful. Oh, thank you. What it might be worth us doing actually is, if we blog.

Afterwards, when the, when the podcast goes live and we can put any links or any information that you've got like that with the with the post, that might be. That would be great. That's great.

So I imagine throughout your career you've seen and learned a lot. Do you have any, any tips for our listeners on how leaders can improve their communication skills and how they communicate with their team? Yeah, I think that, you know, the biggest, tip is listen first.

You know, so we're often in such a rush and so, pressurised with things that we think we've understood what somebody's saying, or we have interpreted what's been said in a way that, you know, we want to interpret it, rather than genuinely understanding. So, listening and clarifying with people first. Can avoid an awful lot of, of, of difficulty in terms of, poor communication or miscommunication.

So listening first, is, is the first point. And I think the, the, the second is knowing your people well enough so that you know, cause you, you can then tailor your your communication. You, you can be relate differently to different people, depending on what they need and what their preferences are.

You know, some people will need stuff written down. Some people will need to talk stuff through. Some people need to go away and think about things.

But your communication style, you know, the more flexibility and adaptability you've got, and the more skill you've got in deploying the appropriate approach in the appropriate way, in the appropriate moment is, is where the, the, the, the real skill comes in. I think the, the, the other thing in terms of, of communication is, is checking what's been heard. So, in the same way that you check as the leader, what you've heard, you know, what your understanding is of what's been said to you, inviting the other person to also relay or repeat what they've understood can help with, clarify and, and, and iron out any bumps or misunderstandings.

Mm. Yeah. That takes, you have to slow down to do that.

That challenge. That's so true. It's, yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

Sometimes how you can be in a meeting and it can be interpreted to completely different ways by different people. I know, that's, that's brilliant advice. Sure.

Great. With the mentoring schemes that you, that you're part of, tell us a little bit about those, please. Yeah, they're, so they're great.

They are, reciprocal mentoring schemes. So rather than they're, they're sort of a bit counter, intuitive. So I run one scheme, which is a women's women's mentoring scheme, which is the traditional senior women, sharing their experience with more junior women in an organisation, and that works brilliantly.

I, I run a reciprocal mentoring scheme, which is where the senior team, the exec team. Are the mentees, so they're the learners, and they are paired with people who are expert in their own experience. And often, under an equality, diversity inclusion umbrella, this is people with a protective, characteristic.

So they might be an Asian woman, they might be, transgender, they might be, have a, a, a, a hidden disability. And they, the, the, the scheme is set up so that we create a learning relationship between the two individuals. And, they get to know each other and, and have permission to ask lots of curious questions about what's this like for you?

And tell me about your lived experience and how is that different? And so it's a Safe, developmental space, where senior people learn stuff that they didn't know, and didn't know they didn't know. So, and it's a, it's a great model that is useful for connecting senior people in organisations to, to the, you know, outreaches, to the different parts.

A larger organisation to the bits of the organisation, but it's a long time since the senior people were operating either at that level, or, aware of some of the frustrations and tensions and challenges, at that level. So, so it works, it works really well. And it's based on a fundamentally, on establishing a trusting rela learning relationship.

So the work I do is about establishing that with the parties. Oh, fantastic. Has it been running for quite a while?

Oh, yeah, I think we're in year 5 of that programme. So there's enough turnover in the senior team of 30 that we, we keep it running. And how was it with the, with the pandemic and obviously all, everybody taking everything online?

Did it continue then during, it did continue online, where we'd set it up originally. We actually just managed to get into the windows where we could, in the calendar, where we could actually go get back in the office. So we set one up and ran it in, summer last year, and then I just In October this year, we have a window where we weren't being dealta or Omicroned or whatever.

We managed to all get in the same space. Which I think makes a difference in terms of the, the level of trust that you're building with people. We are social creatures, and we do like to be in, in each other's presence, even though I'm a real fan of working virtually.

So I think there's a horses for courses thing here. The, the mentoring, having met in person, then it was fine for the mentees and mentors to then get online with each other. It provides a bit of a stronger foundation if they can meet in person first, is my experience.

Yeah. Brilliant. That's great.

So what, for anybody who's listening now, maybe in practise, who's kind of aspiring to go into the next role in their career, did you have any advice or any encouragement that you would give them to to take that leap? I, I guess the believing yourself is a is a key bit of advice and and and by that I mean do your own development work. You know, build your confidence that actually, you do know what you're talking about.

You do know what you're doing, you do have experience of this. We're always, we hear about this imposter syndrome phenomenon, whatever it's called, and we all, generally, as women, and again, I don't mean to be stereotypical, but often women have a, a, a very loud critical voice that is mean and beastly to them. I, if we can silence or reduce the, the, the power of that voice, and we can amp up the voice that says, actually, you're pretty good at this.

Go get him, girl. That would make a big difference to a lot of, a lot of women. So, there's a big difference, I think, between believing you're an impostor, because genuinely, you have no idea how to do something.

You know, that's not impostor, that's genuine, reasonable concern that you don't know how to do something, in which case you need to ask for support or, or find yourself some, some, development, support. Compared with, actually, I do know how to do this. I've just had a, a bit of a wobble and society.

So, for example, the female that's the senior leader that's given the feedback, you know, you're a bit strident in that exec team, can then have an imposter syndrome feeling. But that's mostly cause the societal culture is driving that, rather than the woman's ability themselves. So, believing yourself is my advice.

Brilliant. That's so true. So many people I'm sure are listening to this now, nodding along.

There's a, there's a 100, webinars that we can do around, the difference between how men and women approach their careers, the difference between imposter, phenomenon, you know, some men that I coach do experience it too. It's not a wholly female thing. It's just they don't shout about it quite as much.

And there are absolutely brilliant ways of, of, engaging with and minimising your, critical voice. So, yeah, that's great. And just one final, question, which is always quite interesting to ask.

What advice would you give yourself 20 years ago? 0, 20 years ago, listen more. I think.

Yeah, listen. So there's a, there's listening to genuinely understand, rather than listening just to then be ready to have your say. So that's the big shift, I think, for me in, in my career.

Maybe 25 years ago, that would have been the advice that I needed to hear. So. That's brilliant.

Christina, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation today. It's been great.

Thank you both. I've, I've loved it. Thank you for inviting me, and, I'm happy to contribute to, to the, to the blog and, support in whatever way I can.

That's fantastic. Thank you. Oh, that would be wonderful.

Thanks again. Take care. Thanks.

OK.