Strategy Café leadership insights with Rebecca Hilsenrath
CEO at the Equality and Human Rights Commission
I really enjoyed interviewing Rebecca for Strategy Café this morning. Sadly we had a technical hitch and the session recording failed, for the first time, so I thought I would share the key insights.
The purpose and powers of the Commission are wide ranging, and the website is accessible and very useful. Take a look here https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/.
In particular the Fairness in Britain survey we referenced in the webinar is here https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/britain-fairer.
Key insights
Be real: Remember you were hired for who you already are as a leader. Many people get the role and then try too hard, as they worry whether they are doing the right thing. This means they underperform at the start of the role. Anxiety clouds our connection with our judgement. Get back to who you are, which will be why you were hired, lead from your instinct and trust it!
It's not about skills: It's who people are that is interesting. How we behave is the way we project who we are. Behaviour is affected by context, environment, what we have learned, what we believe and perhaps our core or innate self. Leadership is partly an interest in who people are and could be.
The root of leadership is identity: If we know who we are and are comfortable with our identity it creates a solid root to see and lead others. From self-confidence and self-esteem, without ego, flexible leadership can grow, giving leaders much wider competency. Fear and the unconscious biases it feeds are parts of the origin of discrimination, unfairness, and harassment. Letting go of fear allows greater access to equality and diversity.
As a leader, you learn about yourself: Leadership is very challenging and it is useful to be open to how it is a way to learn about yourself. As a leader we are on our own journey. Our first accountability is to ourself, to commit to our leadership journey for the community we lead and apply that commitment with self-discipline and hard work.
Rebecca talked about the airline safety drill which advises "Put your own oxygen mask on first". This is about more than personal health, the metaphor gives us an easy way to see that if you are knocked out of action, you become a problem and can no longer be part of a wider solution.
Gender Pay Gap: We discussed the commissions' work on gender pay. There is high level research on the website which summarises the initial result of company published data on this. She talked about an extensive programme on this coming up next year...check back on the website for news.
Harassment: This was also discussed, among other things Rebecca spoke about influencing legislation and cases against non-disclosure agreements in harassment settlements, which was really interesting.
I hope you those of you who logged in enjoyed the Café and for those who missed it, apologies for the technical hitch meaning no recording this month. Let me know if you have questions for Rebecca or for us, and perhaps the above notes give you an insight into what we discussed.
Be real, stay true to who you are, listen to and observe others in the same way, be aware of emotions getting in the way of your judgement, and the possibility of unconscious bias. But trust your judgement, it is probably why you were appointed in the first place.
