What you can't see while it's happening

We've had solar panels installed on the roof this week so there's been quite a lot of disruption and noise going on. Today there's a hammer drill on the go, the electricity's about to be turned off, the cabling has had to be re-routed to avoid a wasps' nest, and I'm on a deadline cos I'll be on a train tomorrow when this newsletter's due out. If this newsletter appears in your inbox at all, you'll know there has been a miracle.

Earlier in the week, I was prepping for a discussion about leadership for a colleague's blog and their very first question stopped me in my tracks. Who or what helped you recognise your own leadership potential? I smiled to myself when I read it, because my honest answer is nobody, not for years. I've done some jobs with big-sounding titles. Director. Chief Executive. Councillor. Cabinet Member. I don't think I ever thought of myself as the word attached to the title. It's only when I look back now that I can see I was leading. In the moment it just felt like I was doing the right things: pushing past what the role description said, building collaboration nobody had asked me to build, refusing to be hemmed in to the job I'd technically been hired to do, making change happen.

Nobody sat me down and told me that was leadership. I just did it because I couldn't leave what I saw as injustices alone. Recognising leadership in myself came later, maybe later than it should have.

Another question he posed was what was different now I work as a coach. For thirty years people looked to me for answers, and I was always worrying whether they were the right ones. Coaching has taught me something completely opposite, that asking the right questions and then having the discipline to sit in the silence while somebody else does the work of finding their own answer. It has also changed how I look back at my own career. Coaching other leaders through the exact moments I once lived, the redundancies, the unsupportive boss, the decision nobody warned you would be lonely, has given me a kind of compassion for my younger self that I didn't have at the time. Much of what felt like personal failure was actually structural. I just didn't have the language for that yet.

So it's been an interesting reflection on the fact that it's hard to feel the value of something while you're in the middle of it. Not the solar panel installation, and not, it turns out, thirty years of a career I could only see more clearly once most of it was behind me.

Thank you to everyone who's expressed interest in the private community which I'm calling Changing Room. I've been setting everything up and I'm aiming to launch it next week. Yikes!

The first 50 members will have the first three months free. I will share more in next week's newsletter but do make sure you're on the list to be the very first to know as soon as it goes live here: https://forms.gle/BQo4zDQBMoUK6mc79

What am I reading? 📚

After such a long, hot summer it's nice to look forward to autumnal things so I thought I'd line up some this-time-of-year themed books. I've got The Cider House Rules and Something Wicked This Way Comes on my list. Any other suggestions?

What am I watching? 👀

We've been on holiday. 11 days of travelling through Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. It was our second trip to Montenegro and we did something that was quite moving. You can watch a little snippet here.

What am I listening to?👂

As part of my prep for my Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust board meeting this week I've been listening to the Quaker take podcast on the subject of meaningful reparations.

Joy-giving things 😍

Here's a beautiful sunset over Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia, a wonderful place to visit.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Lucy

I've been writing regular blogs since 2020. If you want to have a look at my back catalogue, they are all here.

If you're wondering whether coaching might help you think through where you are and where you're going next, I'd love to hear from you.

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