Welcome and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend, the podcast that helps you to grow confidence, care and courage in your leadership.

I created this series of candid conversations for leaders to share their inspirational personal leadership stories, weaving together the threads of their life - the people, places and experiences that have shaped them and made them the leader that they are today. 

Together we delve into what they really care about, their values and beliefs, their passion and purpose and how they live and weave these through their leadership every day, in all that they do. 

They offer valuable insights and rich experience to help and inspire you on your own unique leadership journey. If you are not already please do subscribe to the podcast, review and share it. Thank you!

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Emma Harris, Finance Director, M&S Food, Property and Retail. Together we delve into: 

• How to bring alignment in corporate world
• The importance of amplifying your strengths
• Staying authentic in more challenging environments

Emma's three key encouragements to leaders:

1. Stay true to yourself and your values
2. Find an environment where you can thrive…doesn’t have to be easy, but you can bring value through your leadership
3. Amplify your strengths, that’s where you’ll get the highest ROI

About Emma Harris

Emma is a senior finance leader, balancing living in Yorkshire with her partner and 2 boys, and working her London-based finance director role. Spending over 20 years in retail, leading finance teams, Emma is passionate about driving shareholder value for the organisation through commercial curiosity, leading great teams and her own self development. 

To connect, follow and find out more about Emma:

LinkedIn: Emma Harris

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend:

www.annitownend.com/podcast

To contact me Anni Townend:

Email me on [email protected]
Visit my website www.annitownend.com
Subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  

I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

Welcome and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend, the podcast that helps you to grow confidence, care and courage in your leadership.

I created this series of candid conversations for leaders to share their inspirational personal leadership stories, weaving together the threads of their life - the people, places and experiences that have shaped them and made them the leader that they are today.

Together we delve into what they really care about, their values and beliefs, their passion and purpose and how they live and weave these through their leadership every day, in all that they do.

They offer valuable insights and rich experience to help and inspire you on your own unique leadership journey. If you are not already please subscribe to the podcast, review and share it. Thank you!

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Chris Harte, Chief Executive and Commercial Real Estate Partner at Morton Fraser MacRoberts LLP - a leading Scottish law firm committed to providing straightforward advice, clarity on cost and to building strong trusting relationships with clients ensuring that their evolving needs are met with focus and care. Together we delve into:

• What it means to "Serve to Lead" and that leadership is not about you.
• The importance of Being Curious  and to remember firstly that "the issue is never the issue", and secondly ‘not knowing’ all of the answers is a feature not a bug!
• How focusing our energy - not dispersing it - is key to strategy and that limitations can be useful, and helpful rather than a hindrance.

Chris’s three key encouragements to leaders

1. Help others to succeed - be a leader - focus more on asking questions than providing answers;

2. Identify priorities - use limitations to help focus minds on conscious choices;

3. Retain a sense of perspective - keep a sense of humour close at hand and don't take yourself too seriously - a wee bit of humility goes a long way.

To contact Chris:

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/chris-harte

To find out more about Morton Fraser MacRoberts LLP follow them on linkedin and do go to their website.

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com

A big thank you to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group for helping me with all the marketing of the podcast, to Coco O’Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design, and for the excellent editing and sound production.

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with my two guests, Susie Ballentyne an Independent Psychologist and Bob Judson, a fellow podcaster, facilitator, leadership coach, and keynote speaker.

We delve together into: 

1. The importance of continually developing your skills as a leader, both individually and as part of a team.
2. The value of both mentors and coaches to leaders.
3. The challenges of building, leading and inspiring teams in today’s complex and convoluted working environment.
4. The really key requirements of a good leader.

Susie and Bob’s Three key encouragements for leaders looking to grow and develop their leadership:

1. Always remember that others have been there before you.  Very few, if any, challenges are genuinely new and unique and people will always be prepared to help you be your best self if you seek the right support.
2. One of the key challenges for developing leaders is learning to let go of tasks that can be done by the team and freeing up time to focus on the larger issues.  The great thing is that by delegating well and empowering your team members you build trust and capability in them that they will really appreciate as they develop themselves.
3. Pay attention to your relationships and your personal brand as absolute priorities.  They are fundamental to your future success and deserve to be given very special treatment. 

Connect with Susie and Bob:

LinkedIn: Bob Judson and Susie Ballentyne

Website: Leading4Life

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com

A big thank you to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group for helping me with all the marketing of the podcast, to Coco O’Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design, and for the excellent editing and sound production.

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Carolyn Youdell, Group eCommerce & Customer Engagement Director, Group Marketing Specsavers. 

I have known Carolyn for many years and am a huge fan, she is a regular speaker on the Marketing Leaders Programme, and herself a huge fan of developing marketing leadership.

Together we delve into:

• Embracing challenge 
• Becoming compelling
• Driving simplicity…  

Carolyn’s Three Key Encouragements to Leaders 

1. Be a Skilled Sailor - Change your mindset about problems – see them as unique and amazing opportunities to make you better than you were yesterday. 
2. Be Compelling - What will make people follow you?  Jeff Bezos famously said ‘Your brand is what people say about you when no one is listening’ - Do you know what that is for YOU? For your brand of leadership? 
3. Simplify - don’t buy into the complexity. My Chief Marketing Officer talks about focusing on the OUTCOME and the simpler you make this for your team the better. Do the work to make it simple, NOT complex.  

To contact Carolyn:

LinkedIn – Carolyn Youdell (she is the only one!)
Email: [email protected]

About Carolyn:

At work. I am a Marketer. I've spent over 20 years working agency and brand side. 
With and on world-famous brands.
Across all Marketing, Communications & Digital disciplines. 
As Group Marketing Director for Specsavers I am working collaboratively across regions and teams to drive the synergies and value that can be derived from centrally led activity. I am passionate about well-run teams, well-rounded teams. 

At Life: I am a Mum. Partner. Sister. Daughter. Friend. Dog lover. Pilates poser. 5Ker. Book reader. Stuff Hoarder. Traveller. Chef. Wine drinker. Shoe fancier.


To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com.

A big thank you to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group for helping me with all the marketing of the podcast, to Coco O’Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design, and for the excellent editing and sound production.

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Co-Founders Anni Townend and Lucy Kidd in conversation with Natalie Shering for a special episode of Leaders in Conversation with Anni Townend podcast. Here they explore why Curiosity, Care and Courage are the mindset and behaviours that underpin their Collaboration Equation™ to:

• Build Psychological Safety
• Practise Inclusive Dialogue
• Invite Diversity of Thought & Feeling and
• Drive Collaborative Edge

Psychological Safety
Together they share how they met some 18 years ago and realised very early on in their working relationship that starting with and building psychological safety underpins creating cultures of care and connection in which people enjoy connecting, contributing and collaborating.

Curiosity, Care and Courage
They discuss how they partner with senior leaders and their teams helping them to bring the mindset and behaviours of Curiosity, Care and Courage to develop people and drive performance and how these underpin each of the building blocks of their Collaboration  Equation™.

Meeting People where they are at, and moving from ‘me to we’
They specialise in meeting people where they are at, on having people well met, and supporting them in leading and driving Collaborative Edge through Inclusive Dialogue, Diversity of Thought and Feeling. And why for them inclusivity comes before diversity, the importance of Inclusive Dialogue, and how language can have a huge impact on how people think, feel and behave.

Open Conversations to get to Collaborative Edge
Their approach is one of helping leaders do their best thinking together, to think differently, to have open conversations in which people feel confident and safe, enjoy Inclusive Dialogue, and can bring Diversity of Thought and Feeling in order to get to Collaborative Edge. The conversations are always in service of enabling performance and driving results through people working together.

CONNECT WITH US
Collaboration Workshops, We are all Culture Creators:
How to Find Your Collaborative Edge workshops.

Fortnightly Coaching Conversations Series:
A series of questions to prompt conversations that will help you to lead with Curiosity, Care and Courage. Subscribe here.

WHO WE ARE
Lucy Kidd is a leadership team and culture coach, and describes how culture is the wrapping that feeds change and, or stifles it. Lucy’s passion is to help people find meaning and connection in their lives and work.

Anni Townend is a leadership partner to senior leaders and their teams. Anni’s passion is to help leaders create a culture in which people feel safe and able to have open conversations and do their best work. Anni is the author of Assertiveness and Diversity, published in 2007.

Natalie Shering is a leadership coach specialising in creative leadership and using nature in leadership. She is a collaborator with Collaboration Equation™.

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Akin Thomas, CEO and Founder of AKD Solutions - an international learning and development consultancy - built upon an ethos of stimulating brilliance through providing the space for people to engage in transformative and disruptive, and impactful fun learning experiences.

Together we delve into:

1. How do we create a learning environment that stimulates brilliance and the right to be your very best person, the very best version of yourself.
2. How the quality of conversations that we have today has a direct correlation to who you will be in the next 5 - 10 years and beyond.
3.  The importance of disruption, and asking What happens if we do something differently, what is possible?
4. Being intentional about our impact, and conscious of how the decisions we make now have a massive impact beyond what we are conscious of now.

Akin’s encouragements to leaders looking to create a learning environment which stimulates brilliance:

• We each have a key role to play in expressing our humanity and raising our organisational and social consciousness.
• Believe in yourself, you are brilliant, practise looking in the mirror and saying ‘I am brilliant’ and share your gift that will bring warmth and light.

About Akin Thomas

I first met Akin at the Diversity and Inclusion Global Forum in May 2023. We, my colleagues and I, were blessed to have Akin and his team as our neighbours in the exhibitors hall. An experienced exhibitor used to sharing his wisdom and knowledge he readily shared with us. We spoke in passing about his being a guest on the podcast. Since then I have followed Akin on LinkedIn, and the prompt to ask him was a post in which he shared how he had been back to see his sister in Lagos and spent time researching his own history, including rediscovering his original name, Okukenu, which means ambition, independence, strength, reliability and determination.

AKD Solutions is all about brilliance, helping people to develop their unique potential and is fuelled by these beliefs:

1. Brilliance is in every person and organisation
2. In the uniqueness of every person and organisation
3. In the power of conversation to stimulate new thinking and change
4. In developing meaningful and genuine relationships
5. That everything should be fun

AKD Solutions has a special sports division dedicated to helping people and organisations develop their full potential in physical activity.

The AKD Team challenge a lot, laugh a lot, eat a lot - they have fun and are intentional in making a lasting impact in all that they do.

Contact:

LinkedIn: Akin Thomas

Website: AKD Solutions

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Karen Wilkinson, inspiring and award winning Marketing Director. We delve together into: 

1. The power of connecting with your Values & Purpose
2. How knowing your Strengths and not sweating your weaknesses is the best way to Focus and Fly
3. Why Courage & Belief and Stepping out of your comfort zone is all part of being Brave
4. Adventure Seeking - On seizing the day and going for it!

Karen’s three key encouragements to leaders looking to Be Brave, Fly and Focus

1.  Unlock the power of maximising your strengths - Acknowledge what support you need to be at your best - people who compliment you, your support team. And be mindful of overusing your strengths! 
2. Feel the fear and do it anyway - The immense power in self belief, power of possible, managed risks, seeking growth opportunities, believing in others.  Accept not everything will go to plan...that's ok! Adapt, pivot, change if you need to…. That’s all part of a Marketing Leaders toolkit.
3. Stay curious, embrace adventure.. And smile - The world, our teams, our customers (next gen!)technology is all changing. Stay curious, we’ll never ‘know it all’, seek adventure and find enjoyment in all you do . After all, we work, love, live to find fulfilment, growth and connect with our values .. whilst having fun along the way! 

About Karen

Karen is a passionate marketing leader - with over 25 years of experience working in consumer products and financial services & banking. Most recently Marketing Director for AkzoNobel, parent of Dulux for 9 years. Adding colour to lives and creating beautiful living spaces. 

Currently with Evergreen Garden Care as Marketing Director UK&I, where she continues to connect with her passions for colour, growth and being outdoors. 

She graduated from Dublin City University with BA in international marketing and languages, and has worked, lived and studied in Ireland, Spain, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. 

Karen lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband and is a parent to two teens. Their 19yr old son is on a solo adventure in Japan, and 18yr old daughter is preparing for A levels. Together they teach Karen to have fun, be brave and practise what I preach (to them!).  

She loves being outdoors and being active… running, cycling, hiking, swimming, skiing, walking! And never says no to a challenge with friends. 

She is always seeking new learning, travel and adventures.. Ice skating, painting, and has climbed 2000m mountains, cycled through the Alps and Dolomites, enjoys kayaking and cold water swimming.

Connect with Karen

LinkedIn: Karen Wilkinson 

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Helen Stephenson, CEO of the Charity Commission for England and Wales

We delve together into: 

1. How as a leader the main tool in your leadership is yourself, which means you need to understand how you work - your strengths and weaknesses
2. Why getting the right team is crucial and making sure you recruit people who are different from you, and who have the right skills and personality to fit with the organisation and its needs.
3. Why leadership is All about relationships
4. And how there is no perfect leader, and the importance of knowing when good is good enough rather than aspiring to be everything all at once!

Helen’s Three Key Encouragements to Leaders 

• Know when you need to dive into the detail on an issue (you can’t/shouldn’t be across everything) and signal to your team that’s what you’re doing
• Being a leader is seeking to be a better version of yourself
• It can be lonely, have some support networks

To connect, follow and find out more about Helen:

LinkedIn: Helen Stephenson

Website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission

To find out more about Future Engage Deliver, www.futureengagedeliver.com

Buy the book by Steve Radcliffe ‘Leadership Plain and Simple’

https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/leadership-plain-and-simple/

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend do go to my website, www.annitownend.com

A big thank you to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group for helping me with all the marketing of the podcast, to Coco O’Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design, and for the excellent editing and sound production.

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

About Helen Stephenson

I was first introduced to Helen Stephenson by Steve Radcliffe, who thought we would partner well together in some Executive Team Coaching for Helen’s team.  He was right! Helen and I have worked together with her leadership team over the past few years. We have introduced them to Future Engage Deliver, a leadership approach developed by Steve Radcliffe and wonderfully written about in his book Leadership Plain and Simple. And have gone on to share with my colleague Emily Court the Future Engage Deliver approach with the wider organisation of leaders, and their teams. It has been a privilege to work with Helen, and to be trusted by her to lead this programme - her commitment to developing people, and their leadership in particular has never wavered. On many occasions she has joined a development day, and been part of the welcoming and opening of the day sharing her leadership story, her values and beliefs, her passion and purpose. So I was thrilled when we agreed she would be a guest on my podcast, enabling listeners to learn from Helen, to be inspired and motivated in their leadership.

Welcome and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend, the podcast that helps you to grow confidence, care and courage in your leadership.

I created this series of candid conversations for leaders to share their inspirational personal leadership stories, weaving together the threads of their life - the people, places and experiences that have shaped them and made them the leader that they are today. 

They offer valuable insights and rich experience to help and inspire you on your own unique leadership journey. If you are not already please do subscribe to the podcast, review and share it. Thank you!

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Julian Roberts, Executive Business Coach, Podcast Host of Helping Organisations Thrive

We delve together into: 

1. Why the need for resilience in leadership in today’s workplace is greater than ever.
2. How to create a resilient mindset to lead your team and organisation.
3. And how to create resilient teams that are better equipped to navigate challenges and thrive in an ever-changing environment.

Julian’s Three Key Encouragements to Leaders 

1. Lead by example, through developing a resilient mindset and behaviours that inspire confidence in others, helping them to adapt to change; and as part of that foster a supportive work environment, one in which people are helped to navigate challenges and uncertainties effectively.  
2. Create daily habits that build resilience as a leader all embedded within your purpose.
3. Focus on the 3 P’s of Purpose, Psychological Safety and Processes - Reduce, Regulate and Repair

Contact Julian:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julesroberts/

Website: https://www.julianrobertsconsulting.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julesroberts45/

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com

A big thank you to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group for helping me with all the marketing of the podcast, to Coco O’Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design, and for the excellent editing and sound production.

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on [email protected] visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

About Julian Roberts

Julian Roberts, an Executive Business Coach with a background in commercial and sales, is passionate about people, resiliency, and business. He has held a number of senior strategic commercial positions for multinational corporations such as Heinz, Yoplait, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as for family-owned businesses.

In 2017, he launched his coaching practice, working with individuals and teams from various industries, including food, FMCG, retail, media, engineering, financial services, legal, construction, and medical.

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with John Edwards, Director General, Regions Group, at the Department for Education, UK. 

John and I were invited to be in conversation by and for the annual Transform Applied Leadership Summit, held virtually this year on 8th March 2024. The title of our conversation Understanding Ourselves and Understanding Others - a leadership perspective is the title of the summit.

(For listeners who don’t know about Transform Applied Leadership I share their details at the end of the podcast, along with ways in which you can connect with John.)

John and I delve together into: 

1. How becoming a leader is all about finding your own leadership 
2. The alignment between who we are, how we lead and why we lead, and what it means to be an authentic leader
3. The importance of being aware of individual and collective leadership behaviour and the impact that it has on others 
4. 360 degree leadership and measuring our leadership achievements through the successes of others

John’s three key encouragements for leaders looking to grow their leadership identity, build greater confidence and understanding in their leadership behaviours.

1. We never need to create our leadership approach, or copy it from others - we just need to find it, observe it and look after it
2. We don’t need to worry about making time for DOING leadership, only for THINKING ABOUT leadership - it’s not an extra job, it’s how we do the job we have
3. Listen to others but trust your instincts - there is no right answer

How to connect with John Edwards on LinkedIn

The Transform Applied Leadership Summit happens annually and is designed to stimulate new ways of thinking and behaving in our leadership. Delegates come from education and reflect upon their own leadership, have conversations with other leaders, and to hear speakers from different backgrounds.

To find out more about the Summit, and Leadership Applied the leadership study and research; the leadership experts and about the Future Engage Deliver approach to leadership developed by Steve Radcliffe do go to the website:

https://www.transformapplied.co.uk/leadership-applied

Contact Anni Townend  
[email protected]
www.annitownend.com

About John Edwards

Having started out as a secondary school maths teacher, I’ve had the privilege to work in schools, local government and now central government - but still, when asked what I do, the word ‘teacher’ is the first word that comes to mind.  11 years in three schools was followed by 14 years working in three different local authorities, responsible for the full range of education and skills functions in largely urban settings.  I now head up the Department for Education’s Regions Group, covering improvement, intervention and capacity-building for schools, children’s social care and SEND through 9 regional teams.

I am proud to have grown up and lived all my life in the north - for more than 20 years in Sheffield where my wife and I both work and where my kids have grown up.  We have one rule in our house: there’s always time for a hug.  When neither working nor hugging, I love watching cricket, riding my bike and walking on the beach or in the hills.