[00:00:00] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: The Northern Power Women Podcast. For your career and your life, no matter what business you're in.
[00:00:26] Simone Roche MBE: Hello and welcome to the Northern Power Women Podcast. This is our Path To Power season where I will be speaking every week to fantastic change makers and trailblazers who are making a difference in their communities, challenging the norm, and creating more inclusive cultures.
[00:00:41] And every week, I always love the fact that there's so much learning and inspiration to be gained from every one of the conversations that we create. And this week is no different. I am especially delighted to introduce you to Professor Laura Serrant OBE, who is global multi award-winning leadership development and inclusive practice specialist, professional speaking and experience coach and Laura's also a director of her own consultancy coaching business Laura Sarah Limited and new Nanny to Bonnie as well, congratulations and welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:12] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: Thank you. Thank you for having me today, I was gonna say a sunny day, but it seems to have decided it's not quite as sunny as it was a few hours ago.
[00:01:19] Simone Roche MBE: When this comes out, we'll be like, do you remember that? Do you remember the sunshine? Do you remember the summer? Do you remember those days? And it didn't rain.
[00:01:26] We talk a lot on this podcast around about imposter syndrome. And we had a lady called Georgia on a few weeks ago was talking about the phrase about ditching imposter syndrome. Many of us suffer from it and it is more likely to affect women than men.
[00:01:39] Talk to us about your theory around imposter syndrome.
[00:01:43] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: I think you're right, Simone. I think imposter syndrome is one of those things that everybody's heard about. Everybody thinks that they have had at different points, and they probably have, because it kind of comes along with us being human.
[00:01:57] Being human is about not being perfect. I often talk about being perfectly imperfect. However imposter syndrome, particularly with some of the clients I work with, it's strange because people think about imposter syndrome as being, lack of confidence, as actually being not feeling that you are worthy.
[00:02:13] And they often relate it to people who are not successful as something that holds you back from being successful. But a lot of the women that I work with actually are already successful. They've already got the dream job. Anybody looking from the outside would think, oh, they've got it all sorted. They've got the nice outfits, they've got the matching handbags. They're working where they want, they're driving their own businesses. They may be Directors, CEOs, they may be managers, or entrepreneurs. So they would seem to have it all together.
[00:02:45] However, they kind of blazer trail to get where they're going. And then what happens is, one they actually get there when you get the big job. You start kind of second guessing yourself, you start questioning it. And that's the kind of imposter syndrome that many women display when they are powerhouses. They kind of think, well, I'm doing it, but I'm gonna get found out I dunno how I've got here. Do I deserve to be here? So it's like I don't deserve to be exactly where I've worked to be. It's that kind of imposter syndrome.
[00:03:15] Simone Roche MBE: I think as you say, we often think, gosh, how can they have it?
[00:03:18] They're all over it. But it doesn't seem to be connected any way to that ability. Does it? It's something that is something that kind of swoops in.
[00:03:26] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: It does kind of swoop in. I think what happens is that often and I speak as an expert by experiencing this myself. People kind of see where you've got to and think, oh, it's all right for them.
[00:03:36] They've never had this, but as somebody once said to me, you see the glory, but you don't know the story. And actually it's been hard work to get there. People have worked hard. You've often overcome both personal and external, kind of precious to be and to prove and to show what you can do and learning to play the game. But then what happens is that when you get there, it's all right climbing to the top of a mountain, but then you're afraid of falling. So the imposter syndrome comes from a fear of failure or a fear of not being as fabulous as everybody thinks you are.
[00:04:09] It's certainly that we often have really good support from friends, from family, et cetera. So it's not that we're isolated, we have really good support, but we feel the responsibility of being put on that pedestal or being held into kind of as a really good role model and you're kind of afraid of getting it wrong.
[00:04:28] And then what happens then? Is that rather than continuing to blazer trail or actually enjoying what you've done, you start to shrink to fit because you're afraid of like doing too much. You're afraid of like it all falling down. So you start double checking. You start trying to control the variations a bit too much.
[00:04:48] And what happens is you stop being yourself. You shrink to fit, but you're only fitting an idea that you think you should have.
[00:04:56] Simone Roche MBE: And how do we ditch it once and for all?
[00:04:59] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: I think ditching it is actually about deciding where you're gonna put your efforts. Ditching it is not about pretending, it doesn't exist.
[00:05:08] Ditching it is actually about going, do you know what, this is part of me and this is part of, and speaking more about it. So that secretive nature of imposter syndrome is what gives us its power. So if we actually accept, as I said at the beginning, If we accept that we are human and we move towards being perfectly imperfect, okay?
[00:05:30] If we do that, what happens is imposter syndrome really doesn't have space. It doesn't mean that we it, that we do whatever we do despite it, but we actually work in the light of it, knowing that it's a thing, knowing that actually that's relatively useful and unusual for women in powerful situations or women who actually have their own agency.
[00:05:52] You are gonna have days when you doubt you are gonna have days where you think, didn't quite do that, right? You are gonna have, again disclosure, from my own experience, a day where you turn up in one outfit and realize everybody else is wearing something else. You know you're gonna have those days, but you know what?
[00:06:06] Those things are gonna happen. So ditching imposter syndrome is about learning to live in with it, learning to live with it without it actually having power over you and learning to recognize it as part of, in some ways it demonstrates how far you've travelled.
[00:06:24] Simone Roche MBE: It's a part of who you are. And I love how you talk about the things being perfectly imperfect. We're a big fan here. We always talk quite a lot about, it's progress, not perfection as well and I think that's really key, isn't it? Rather than it just be right, I've got this and it's hanging off me and it's never gonna go actually.
[00:06:39] It's how you learn to live with it. And one of the other things I know that you are really passionate about and sort of speak globally around is leadership and we did a piece of research with Teesside University with the late professor Jane Turner a few years ago. And we talked about even like the new traits of leadership.
[00:06:55] Because I think we saw during the pandemic a whole raft of different styles of leadership. You've got leadership leaders out there who are being very consistent, very present and very clear. And then you had others.
[00:07:10] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: That was a very polite way of putting it.
[00:07:12] Simone Roche MBE: Do you think there is a sort of an old style leadership. Do you think that there is certain traits that are now for the past or have you seen some of those others, if you like, then re-emerge?
[00:07:24] Prof Laura Serrant OBE:
[00:07:24] I think there are different styles of leadership that actually exist, but I actually think leadership links back to what we've just been talking around about being perfectly imperfect. For me, the greatest leaders are those who recognize their own humanity. They're not perfect.
[00:07:38] They're not flawless. In fact, they are flawed, but it's how they live with those flaws and how they accept them as part of what they do and recognize that actually they can make a mistake. But they hold their hands up and then they decide, well, okay, what am I going to do now in the light of that and that is what is the root for me of their integrity. And I think that's the thing about future. That's where the old style leadership, that I think is successful links with what we require moving forward. It's Integris leadership. It's leadership with integrity and integrity recognizes my own human position, as a leader, my own human position and the flaws within that, but it also recognizes that I don't hold all the answers. And it recognizes that I admire or I respect people for their own expertise, their own experience, and their own traits that I may not have.
[00:08:32] But actually as well, that I actually also not only reward, but actually if you like, give them the flowers where they deserve it. So because I am sure in my own leadership, I'm not threatened by the fact that you have a better idea than I do. But actually I recognize that what we're moving towards is clear and it's intentional.
[00:08:51] And that's for me the third part, if you like, of this leadership requirement. It needs to be intentional and consistent and intent. It's intentionality is what end it works towards. And if the end it works towards, for me personally, is around social justice and that's why the inclusivity comes in, then I'm always making a step towards contributing to that.
[00:09:16] And it's the intentionality, the consistency, the humanity that brings around that Integris leadership. And they are the people. If I had to reel off people of my head, when I think about what I think about leaders in the past and the present, that they are the traits that I think that count.
[00:09:33] Simone Roche MBE: Absolutely. And that's, it's good to just hope we keep moving forward and don't go back into sort of 1950s kind of style of leadership at times or even sooner. Talk to me about hearing the silence. Something that you refer to when you talk about inclusive leadership.
[00:09:47] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: I think it dates back or comes back originally from what I did in my PhD.
[00:09:51] During my PhD I devised a concept called screaming silences. And that is the best way to describe it is, it's something that once you hear it, you can't un unhear it. And it's like anything, once you see, you can't unsee it. We've all got, well I have anyway, I'll admit we've all got a drawer or cupboard in our house where we put things away when we tidy up.
[00:10:13] It might be that message or we put it away so everything looks neat and tidy in the kitchen, or everything looks great, it might be under the stairs, wherever it is, you shove things in there that you'll get to later. Okay. Which of course you never get to, but on the outside everything looks fabulous.
[00:10:27] However, no matter how fabulous, if you know that there are things in that cupboard or that drawer that need sorting out and your worst fear is that a guest will open it and go in there by mistake. That's a bit like the scream in silence. Once you've heard something, you can’t pretend you can carry on as if it didn't happen.
[00:10:44] But you do know it's a real thing. Now if we pan forward to, and the reason the silence screams is that once you've heard it, the more that you ignore it, the louder it becomes. So once you've noticed, for example you are thinking about buying a red car.
[00:10:59] You notice one red car, you notice how many people have suddenly got red cars. Now you haven't suddenly created a world where red cars multiply, but you've seen it and then you can't unsee it. And when we look at, think about that in terms of leadership, okay? It's about where we decide to put our efforts, and it's about what we notice in the world, what we notice about the world we live in, what we notice about the society, our friends, or even our families.
[00:11:26] Often when we're looking to determine action as leaders, we look at the facts, we look at the data, we look at what's said or what's not said, what's on the news, et cetera. And we listen to the words. Words are like another type of data, but if we start to listen and question to what's not being said, that's where the silence is.
[00:11:49] And what's not been said, not only sometimes tells us a different story or leads us to different questions, sometimes it really shows us what's going on in our society. So if we focus, for example, on one particular group or one particular part of our communities as being a problem. If we work on the basis as human beings, we all do the same thing, roughly.
[00:12:13] Well, we hold up the potential to do same things. We make decisions. If they're only talking about one community in one city, do we really believe that that's not happening in any other city, in any other community? So what are they not saying? If you hear a statistics says 30% of women do X, that means 70% do y.
[00:12:37] So the idea of screaming silence is what is underpins my hashtag that I use, which is Silence Speaks. That means that if you listen to what is not said, what's not in the highlights, what's not usually in the data, what's not reflected in the information, it gives us a different story. And sometimes it's in that story where our opportunities to be different, to get a different outcome, to try something else actually sits.
[00:13:06] Simone Roche MBE: I love that. Jumping onto that hashtag as well. Silence speaks. Absolutely. I'm also resonating with you about the draws, I'm not going to lie.
[00:13:13] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: It's in there. It's in that draw somewhere that I'm going to get to at some point.
[00:13:17] Simone Roche MBE: Absolutely. Always going to get around it. There's many things I could talk to you about. I know you're so experienced on boards and I know the real passion. How do we get more women from diverse backgrounds, lower socioeconomic groups on boards? And I know you're also passionate about social justice, but can we look at two top tips?
[00:13:32] And it seems very, I don't want it to be very light at the end of this great conversation, but I couldn't quell any of that conversation there, but sort of top tips for anyone out there who thinks, actually I've never been on a board, but it's something, I don't want to be silent. I want to have my voice heard. A sort of one top tip out there and another top tip. What can individuals and organizations do right now to ensure they are working towards eradicating that social justice? Two big questions to close on, but really important I wanted to sort of just ask.
[00:13:58] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: In terms of the top tip on for boards maybe what I should, what I was thinking about is One thing people often ask me is, why would I need to be on a board? I'm not like those kind of people, that's not my space. And my answer is, it's because you are not like those people that you believe. That's why you should be on the board. Because what we have to remember is that if we think about politics, and I don't mean political party politics with a small p politics is fundamentally about distribution of resources. Who gets the resource, how resources are used and where they are directed to.
[00:14:39] And that's what boards do. In the simplest way, a board determines how we use the politics of using the resource in a particular setting, whether that's in an organization, in a charity. They work out the resources and the decisions are made. Because of the conversations that happens between the people in the board and what they know.
[00:15:05] And if what they know does not reflect your reality or the reality of the communities, the cultures, the groups of people that you work with, the things that you are passionate about. If you are not at the table. And it's not in their reality. How is that conversation ever going to get into the discussion about how resource should be used?
[00:15:27] So it's your uniqueness and your difference that makes it essential for you to have the voice at the table.
[00:15:35] Simone Roche MBE: Absolutely and I totally agree that you can never be too young, too you to be on a board. I think it's always about having that voice to be part of that conversation, to influence and quell silence as well.
[00:15:47] And social justice. What is that one thing that individuals or organizations can do right now to ensure that they're working towards eradicating?
[00:15:55] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: I think when we are working towards contributing to social justice being established, and social justice for me is about people having an equal chance.
[00:16:05] Because we're human beings. We can't force anybody to do anything, but we can create systems and processes where people have an equal chance, an equal chance of demonstrating who they are, of contributing into the society that we have, and the equal chance of making a difference and living the life that they want. If we think about organizations and we think about ourselves as entrepreneurs, as teachers, as whatever we're doing is, ask yourself one question in the population that surrounds me wherever I am, has everybody got an equal chance of engaging with us? And if you think, oh yeah, of course they have?
[00:16:45] Have a look around you. Who are the people who use your service? Who are the people who access your business? Going back to the point that everybody needs everything. Everybody needs your service, your business to hear what you've got to say. If when you look out at your audience and they are not reflecting the range of people in the population, then that's where the silence is.
[00:17:09] Why are they not accessing you, and what do you need to do? To link with them.
[00:17:13] Simone Roche MBE: The wisdom, Laura, I cannot thank you enough for coming on this week's podcast. I can't think of how many different topics that we have kind of gone through and covered this morning.
[00:17:23] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: We've meandered through.
[00:17:24] Simone Roche MBE:
[00:17:24] We've got lots of great sound bites as well. The fact that you, we talked about imposter in it's the glory. You just don't see the story, the perfectly imperfect and how do we learn to live with things that actually, the one that's I think that jumps out will jump out to most of you listening today, it's ensuring that silence speaks.
[00:17:39] I think that's my real takeaway from today. So, Professor Laura Serrant OBE and our Power List 2023. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Congratulations on becoming a nana to Bonnie as well. We send you old manner of hugs out there as well.
[00:17:56] Prof Laura Serrant OBE: Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Because that is the most precious gift.
[00:18:00] Simone Roche MBE: 100%. And thank you all for listening today. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our weekly podcast. Please do subscribe so you don't miss one of these amazing pieces of inspiration and wisdom that we have from so many of our guests.
[00:18:13] And this is our Pathway to Power. If you'd like to join us on this mission of professional personal development, please stay connected on our digital hub: wearepower.net. And join in the conversations on all our socials at North Power Women on Twitter and Northern Power Women on all the other ones, and we'd love you to leave a review as well.
[00:18:30] And we will put details about Professor Laura in the show notes as well, so you can catch up and keep listening to some of these amazing, amazing advice, guidance, and wisdom as well. So thank you so much. My name is Simone. You've listened to the Northern Power Women Podcast. A What Goes On Media production.