It takes a village...

Oxfordshire, December 2025

Have a plan

Five years ago (although it feels like a lifetime ago), Edo Tealdi and I wrote a Leadership Manifesto for the new VPs in our team. We set out to be provocative and may have strayed into the territory of ranting quite a bit. I remember Pam Chase – our HR Director at the time – telling me that I had to get Edo to tone the swearing down. I can confirm that was actually me!

I’ve been reflecting on that document recently as I’ve been working with a number of senior leaders and Boards on matters of strategy and leadership for growth. One of the things that we included in our manifesto was ownership of the outcome. 

Leadership can be a lonely place. The buck stops with you at every level of leadership, and at senior levels that buck can literally be the future of the company and the livelihoods of the people who work for it. For you!

Leadership is not about tasks or outputs. And while they are important – and you need to be deliberate with them – it’s not just about intentions either. The Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg, wrote “you were judged by your actions, not by your intentions” and while I do believe that this is true in life, I don’t think it is entirely true in leadership. 

Leadership is about outcomes. At a senior level, that is all that matters. 

Of course, outcomes can take many different forms including customer and staff satisfaction, good governance and stewardship. But most of the time they are financial and business performance; sales, revenue, EBITDA, growth. 

Knowing what you need to achieve and having a plan for what you are going to do to get there should be table stakes. Testing the plan, acting on it and then adapting it when it inevitably doesn’t work out how you expected it to marks you out as a competent leader.  

But understanding the context, balancing the differing priorities of your stakeholders (customers, PE backers, employees, shareholders, Board, colleagues, society, the environment) and being intentional about how you achieve the outcomes that are important to each of them, that is what sets you apart as a great leader. 

Get a mentor 

I mentioned loneliness. 

I think that one of the things that marks out really strong leaders, ones that I’ve enjoyed working for and learned from, is an ability to surround themselves with people who will challenge them, support them, and be honest with them. Let’s be real though, if those people work for you or are your peers, they may not always be in a position to challenge in the way that you need. Equally, the decisions that you need to make may be about them! And when there isn’t anyone around you or above you that you can turn to just to bounce an idea off, it can feel very lonely. 

For me, this is where coaching and mentoring come in. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some fabulous coaches and mentors over the years, and they have helped me in different ways. I am forever indebted to my coach, now friend, Catherine Stagg-Macey, who has helped me to understand much about my leadership style. The formal and informal mentoring that I have received from some awesome leaders, managers, colleagues and team members through reverse mentoring, has helped shape me and my leadership philosophy. 

As well as the paid work that I do in my Anvower Advisory practice working with leaders in predominantly scale-up businesses, I am a mentor for the Chartered Management Institute and have previously done the same for the 30% Club. I love being able to give something back to people who are at a different point on their journey to me. And honestly, I get a huge amount out of it too through the different perspectives that it gives me and often an insight into an entirely different industry. 

The African expression “it takes a village to raise a child” is absolutely true in this context. We need a village around us if we are to grow and perform as leaders. 

Being humble enough to recognise that doesn’t always come easy when you’ve just landed the role you’ve always wanted. 

But look at it like a sporting challenge. I’ve been a runner all my life and I’m now in my late 50s. For the first time since being a teenager I’ve got a proper coach and guess what; I’m running marathons faster than I was in my early 30s. If something makes you better at the thing that you care passionately about, and – unlike my running – puts food on the table, why wouldn’t you take the advantage that it gives you?

Gareth Lewis-Jones and I have been collaborating on the practical applications of this thinking. Particularly in the context of transitioning to a new, senior role. With lots of research and hard-won experience behind us, we are delivering an approach to give executives and business owners more confidence and assurance in delivering those all-important outcomes. 

Talk to either of us if you would like to learn more.