Foreign.

Hello, welcome to the Promoted podcast.

I'm your host, Felicity Furey, CEO and co founder of We Aspire, engineer and speaker, and I'm joined with the incredible Renee Wootton Tomlin.

I'm glad you put Renee Wootton then Tomlin because then it's easy for me to remember.

There's an extra at the end.

Thank you.

Good to be back.

And of course, Renee is an incredible speaker, aerospace engineer and working for the incredible LanzaJet in sustainable aviation fuel.

And I love, Renee, that you have been telling me a lot recently about how you want to change the industry.

The, I guess, you know, beacon of hope I think that you are for the industry, particularly in aviation and what could be possible.

So I'm loving hearing everything that you are up to at LanzaJet.

We're not talking about that today though.

We are going to be talking about leadership because this is the podcast which helps you get promoted and be great when you get there.

Let's just check in first.

Renee, how are you?

Well, I have had a great weekend.

Alex and I had a restful Saturday, which is always helpful.

And then we're planning for a week ahead.

I've got travel conferences coming up, speeches, I've got weddings.

It's all happening.

How are you, Felicity?

I'm good at a very relaxing weekend.

I have been practicing yin yoga on Sunday nights and it's just the most beautiful end to the week where I can just be chilled.

They say things like, you have no responsibilities for the next hour and that is just so delightful.

And then I come home to a quiet house and my wonderful husband has put the kids to bed.

So I'm feeling very relaxed in this very, you know, Monday morning, which is, I guess, not usually how I start my Monday, but it's nice having that end of the week to begin this new day so feeling fresh.

How do you like continuously start a Monday relaxed and like ready?

Because, you know, I feel like that's hard to achieve consistently.

It is very challenging.

Yeah.

I mean, I haven't looked at my to do list or figured out what the heck I'm doing today because I'm here on this podcast first thing.

I've just done school drop off, so I maybe that's why I'm blissed out because I haven't actually looked at my to do list yet.

I feel like that stresses me out more than anything, not knowing what the wave of like to do is.

But you're in denial.

Your Monday morning with me, Felicity, and with our listeners.

Well, the topic for today Is how am I going to.

I'll start from the beginning.

So a few weeks ago I was asked this question.

I was doing a speech and one of the senior leaders in the room asked me this and I gave an answer.

But I really wanted to deep dive into it today because I think it's a really important topic.

And Renee, I'd love to get your thoughts on this, on how you've managed this.

So sharing about one of my biggest leadership mistakes, and for me that was when I was running Power of Engineering.

And we've been in the organization a couple of years.

We'd done maybe 30 events, starting to expand across Australia.

I was living in Sydney at the time, was that time that I met you, Renee.

And all of the volunteers quit in our executive team.

And it was just me and my co founder, Gillian.

And at the time I thought, oh my gosh, is this even worthwhile?

Should we keep this organization going?

Should we just like pack it in at the same time as our volunteers?

And they were all valid reasons why they were leaving.

And I figured out why, and I'll tell you about that in a moment.

But at the same time we also had our funding finish.

So we had a few small grants from companies like Boeing, who had been incredible supporters the whole time.

But we had a three year funding program and for that third year they said we're not going ahead.

So we were starting the year with no, you know, not a huge amount of funding and our volunteers having quit.

And what I realized was that how I'd been leading was I hate being told what to do.

So I was like, cool, just go for it.

Like, I don't know what I'm doing.

I've never led anything before.

You just go for it and you figure it out and you do your thing.

And I gave them so much freedom.

And I realized that there's, I mean, you're laughing now, Renee, you're laughing now.

But I gave them lots of freedom because that's how I thought I wanted to be managed.

But the feedback I was getting from people in my executive team were, I'm really burnt out.

And they didn't really know how much effort to put in.

There were no real boundaries.

And so I realized that in that one of the jobs of a leader is to create a vision, set those clear boundaries.

And I sort of talk about like, it's kind of like putting bumper lanes on when you're doing ten pin bowling.

You want to just guide them in that general direction.

You know, you want them to experience mistakes.

But Fail in that safe environment.

And so I talked about putting the bumper lanes on.

And the question that I got asked after just discussing that in my speech was, was how do you actually do that?

How do you.

I feel like it's like safely hold your team as a leader with giving them that amount of autonomy that they need, but also setting those boundaries.

I've got some ideas of how to do this, but Renee, I'm putting you on the spot here, which diving straight into this conversation today, firstly.

Well, you know, I feel like I love the laughs of my leadership mistakes.

I'm sure you've had some in your time as well.

It's not just me, hopefully, but how have you navigated that with a team of holding.

Holding them but also giving them that freedom and autonomy?

Yeah, so I do this kind of practically a few different ways.

I think the first step for me is trying to understand what skills do my team have today?

What tasks or projects do we have to execute, where do they want to play and where do they need to grow into?

So those are sort of the initial questions that I will ask to try and set the expectation and the plan.

I'm a big proponent of quarterly planning.

So what's happening for the next three months?

Let's build the boundaries around what are our clear priorities?

You know, what do you think you need help at?

What are you trying to either develop into or grow into throughout your career?

Do you have a sense of that at all?

If you don't, let's check in more regularly and figure this out as we go.

So that's sort of the early conversations and then I think as we start working through projects and delivering.

One thing that I like to do is check in regularly on my team to ask, you know, how are you going with the project, what are you struggling with or what do you need support on and what are you finding easy?

And then rather than giving them the answers, I asked them to figure out where should they go for support, how should they seek that support?

I encourage them to set more meetings with me if they need more support directly from me to be able to answer those questions and to be able to do that work.

I think the biggest thing for me is to set the guardrails.

It's honestly just constant communication.

At least 1, 2, even 3 check ins a week depending on are you managing okay within the guardrails we've initially set?

Do you need extra support, how is your delivery, or you know, how can I support that individual to build relationships so that they can actually execute what they need to do.

I would suggest that the biggest thing that I've always relied on is never giving them the answers first and leading almost the horse to water.

So if you can answer, what do you think you need and let them think that through and then I'll tell them what I think they need and then ask them again, so what do you think is the best way forward?

So what that does, I think is it helps them build initiative, build critical thinking, build confidence in their own decision making.

And then it gives me the opportunity to just support those guardrails and make sure that, you know, we're finding alignment in what that path looks like.

Awesome, I love that.

Have you found that there are people sometimes, not everybody, but occasionally come up and sort of, they totally have missed the mark.

Like how do you, I guess coach and guide them because they might be like, oh, I've got fantastic skills in this area and you're sitting there going, no, you're rubbish.

I'm.

So how do I, you know, oh, what do I, what do we have?

What conversation do we have here?

Have you found that's come up where people have underestimated or overestimated their capabilities in sunning?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that that's very normal, particularly early on when you first start working with someone or when new projects come up.

So that's where I would actually say that you need more intensity in how often you catch up and communicate very early on in the project.

And then as you're both building confidence not only as a team but then also as individuals and in your skills that you're developing, once you kind of have some momentum around that, some confidence and trust between each other, then you can start spreading out how much time you have between your catch ups.

And I would say that that's probably a good check in to do when you're first coming into a new team.

You need to have a high level of intensity and getting to know your team, building awareness around how they like to operate, understanding who they are and how they turn up to work.

And then, you know, over time that's where you start to see the skills more so versus the character traits initially and then really hopping in on like how do you develop those skills with them.

But I've had many a time where you ask somebody to go off and do a work piece of work and they completely miss the mark.

But I don't think that that's their fault.

I think that that's also my fault too because I either haven't set the guardrails well enough or I haven't spent enough time with them helping understand what the expectations are.

So.

And sometimes even if you do that, people still miss the mark.

And then you realize, right, I need even more time with this individual so that we can do those regular check ins and make sure that the pathway gets more finessed or very clear.

Yeah, yeah.

I think some key things that you've touched on there is around accountability and responsibility and a great way to be accountable is having that plan.

And I do remember we had a teammate who was looking after partnerships at the time and I noted we actually, we sat down, that was one of the first things we did was we came up with this plan together of partnerships and what that was going to look like over the next 12 months.

And then, um.

And it's very tricky when you're managing volunteers because there's not as, you know, not that it's easier when you have paid staff, but there's different motivations I suppose.

And so it, you know, obviously they're not going to lose that, like lose their job or lose their income over not doing things and not delivering.

And so I was really grateful that I'd set up that plan from the beginning because when we sat down to look at it, we said, okay, well we haven't, you know, this hasn't been met.

You know, what do you want to do about that?

Okay, well maybe let's adjust the plan.

And I, and it's very similar actually to what you were saying, but I hadn't realized it was getting them to work through what was on that plan and how they want to do it going forward.

And then we set up some more regular check ins to make sure that we were on top of meeting those deadlines.

And actually in the end they weren't able to meet those deadlines, which I, you know, I think that was it.

It is what it is.

I wasn't going to actually work with them as well in the same organization.

They're in my exact same team as well.

And I was also friends with this person so it was quite tricky to navigate those relationship too.

And I remember, I'll never forget I was in the airport in Melbourne and that, you know, like where the jetstar area is and there's all the tables and stuff.

I was like, I've got to make this call before I get on a plane.

And so I called them and I said, hey, look, you know, what's the best thing?

What do you think is the best thing for the organization?

And they actually said, look, I Think it's time that I step aside after multiple conversations.

But I think what really helped in that discussion was that we had a plan, we had that accountability.

We were both taking responsibility along the way.

And so then when it came to that really difficult conversation, it was something that almost seemed obvious because of that kind of track record that we'd had.

So I think those elements are really important in these conversations as well.

Yeah.

And, you know, you're just making me think about.

So Alex and I, my husband, are trying to build a business together.

And it's so interesting the way that it's going to.

You know, Alex is an outstanding human in his own right.

He's a leader.

He's achieving incredible things in his career, but he comes with a very different set of skills to what I have and what I've built in my career.

And so even just navigating, like, how do you speak to your loved one, your partner in life, and do business with them?

And I think that you have to treat things quite differently.

I think that you kind of, you know, you kind of have to put your.

Your swords down, your egos down, and have really transparent conversations, which makes me think that.

I think that that's another critical component of leading successful teams and being a great leader is being able to be honest and open.

A great example is when I led my.

In my first executive role.

I had two direct reports, and they.

Because they were my first in an executive role, I was navigating not only the expectations of an exec role at the same time as then leading a team to support me to deliver on that executive role.

And I remember saying to one of my teammates, this is the first time that I've entered an executive role and the first time that I have direct reports formally.

In the past, yes, I'd led lots of interns.

I'd led engineering teams who didn't directly report to me, though.

So not only was I managing their performance now, I was also managing their workload and the relationship that comes with that.

So I sat down with one of them, and we weren't vibing.

We weren't, you know, things weren't aligning really well.

We were speaking different languages.

We had different expectations.

We had very different skill sets.

And it was probably one of the most important experiences that I had in my leadership journey was stop expecting people to just roll into a job and be able to perform to a standard.

You think because the job description read this, that they can actually do that.

And, yeah, one of the most transparent things I said at the time when we were trying to build our relationship and understand our differences was, hey, I'm doing this the first time.

I don't really know what I'm doing either.

I'm trying to figure it out and I'm trying to learn how to lead you the best that I can.

And for her, that was really impactful to hear that because all of a sudden, sudden it provided context and a bit more, I suppose, space.

And it was a.

She was able to kind of reduce her expectations of me or communicate in a more softened or understanding way because she understood where I was coming from and then I understood where she was coming from.

So, yeah, honesty, transparency, like what your experience is both ways, is really important.

You can't and don't need to just understand your direct reports or the people leading into you.

You need to be able to.

Where I'm at, these are my skills in return.

How do we work together?

Yeah, because helping them understand you, because if you're not sharing that, how are they going to figure that out?

I think a framework that really helps me, and it's something I've only discovered recently when we've been looking at what is the most effective way to train other leaders, is actually the Adair's leadership model.

And shout out to Michael, my amazing husband, who found this.

Adair was actually, I feel like one of the.

I think he wrote the first sort of leadership book for organizations and he was working for the British Army.

And his model is really simple.

So it's three circles in the middle and that, you know, overlap like a Venn diagram.

And it's achieve the task is one circle.

Another circle is build people and then the third circle is build team.

And then there's a box that sits around that called understanding the context.

And for me, this just really put into words in a really simple framework, almost like a checklist that I can go through in my head when I'm looking at managing a team or managing or leading somebody.

And it kind of reminded me of when I first learned project management, when I stepped from engineer into project manager, I learned about the pmbok, the Project Management Book of Knowledge.

And at the time it was nine.

Now it's ten different things.

But it includes things like communication, quality, cost, program, not just the engineering design part.

And as an engineer, I had lots of familiarity with the engineering design.

And then I needed to shift my context to be a project manager.

So I feel like Adair's leadership model does a very similar thing.

So if you are someone who is stepping into Leading for the first time.

We'd encourage you to have a look at this because it's just a really helpful checklist and often if I'm stuck on I don't know what to do in this situation or what, what's missing from my leadership then this model really helps me.

I'm very, I feel like most, we've trained so many people in this model and engineers in particular, or if you have come from that technical background, fantastic at achieving a task.

And I think what you were sharing earlier, Rene, was really helpful around almost like what's missing in this, you know, I'm doing the regular check ins, I've got the skills, I've got this.

So you were talking about how do I build people, how do I build the skills in this person?

And then as a team, how are we working together with all those different skills?

And then of course there's a context.

And context can be something like we need to achieve this project in one month or three months or a year.

Those different time horizons give you different context.

And the projects that we work a lot on, we've got multiple stakeholders.

So I know we've been working with some clients who are managing airlines, they're also managing government.

The internal stakeholders.

External stakeholders, there's a lot of those.

So that all goes into the context.

And we've just found that model really, really simple for people who are starting their leadership journey to take on board and, and leverage that as a bit of a check in with themselves.

What's missing?

What can I add here?

And it's been very, very powerful.

And I think one of the.

That's just another strategy or tool you can use to have those guardrails on when you're helping guide people.

Danny Bowling Lane Maybe I've taken the analogy too far.

I love it.

It makes me think as well.

Maybe I'll contextualize.

So the three boxes remind me were.

Go for it, achieve task, build people, build team and then context, sure.

So for me I would put that into play, like, all right, achieve the tasks of what do we need to deliver for the next year, for the next quarter, for instance.

And then looking at the individual building the individual versus building the team, I would understand what I need in order to achieve those deliverables.

And then I would look at the team I'm trying to build in order to execute those projects.

And then once you've kind of brought that team together, it's understanding uniquely where are they at within that context, what do they need to succeed?

Who are they?

How do you get to know them and lean into more personal conversations?

Because again, coming back to a conversation that we've had a lot, Felicity, is this work life integration.

You kind of need to know what flexibility do they need?

You need to understand when they're going to be online, when they're going to be coming into the office, you know, when they will be available to be able to execute.

And then the team generally, I would say we all need personal relationships and time all together.

Whether that's both formally through weekly calls or whether that's actually going out and having, you know, a meal together over lunch or some bonding time, playing some balls, I don't know.

But just something where you have team time to have fun, but you also have team time to collaborate, to work together.

And one of the most effective things I've found is coming down and like spending two hours, three hours together every quarter where you work through, like, what is the plan for the next quarter?

What happened in the last quarter?

How is everybody feeling about their projects?

Where do they want to develop themselves further?

And then how do we want to work together to actually deliver that as a team and individually between me and my direct reports.

So hopefully there's some creative or new ideas for you to consider in the way that you're running your teams.

I think my biggest misconception coming into leadership early was that you treat everybody the same.

And I want to encourage everybody to think differently around the individual needs of each of the people in your team, whether that's meeting more regularly with some changing the way that you format your work or really understanding who they are and what they need to develop.

Yeah, it's super dynamic and I think having some frameworks like this can be really powerful to really steady the ship.

And I think one misconception that we find a lot about that model is that people, when you imagine three circles in that kind of Venn diagram, you imagine them to all be equal.

And an exercise that we get people to do is think about where are they spending their time.

Right now most people are spending a huge amount of time on achieving the task.

And then the other two circles are teeny tiny, especially when you're starting out in leadership, because these are their don't know, you don't knows.

And then you might think about, okay, in six months time, where do I want to move that to?

So for most people, especially if you're leading teams, you want to be building the team and building people, you want to be spending a very small amount of time on achieving the task.

It can be very difficult in your first leadership role because often you have to achieve tasks as well as leading people.

And the more you get into leadership, the bigger those circles get around, building people and building team.

And you're delegating and you're moving that away.

Actually, it just reminded me, I had a call with one of my mentors and she said to me the other day, felicity, you need to think more like an executive.

Stop doing the doing.

And I realized, oh my gosh, I am, I'm so get trapped in that, achieving the task.

And I don't think first, oh, how can I delegate?

How can I build that out of my team?

So I think that's a really helpful thing to keep in mind is that where are those circles now for you?

And where do you want to get them to, as you know, in the next six months, 12 months in your leadership journey?

And how do you think about that in building, building your team and in terms of your plan and your roadmap for your leadership?

And I might even go one step further in terms of that future planning.

And an incredible leader once said to me, you are doing and fulfilling or even exceeding your job as a leader if you make yourself essentially unneeded or null and void in the team.

That is, you've developed your team so much that they can replace where you show up, how you show up team, how your team is represented.

And there's always a role for a leader.

But the ways that I like to do that was to encourage my team to take on some of the roles that I had where they were interested and willing to expand their skills into more, you know, people leadership sort of roles.

An example might be, rather than me representing my team at a speech on our strategy, I asked one of my team members to come in and present that work.

Now, there's always a time and place, place for that.

That's the workplace.

Workplace politics can come into those sorts of visual representations.

But for me, I love challenging myself to let my team come in and do some of my work or even replace my, my work just because, you know, it means that you are replaceable.

You do have a limited time in that leadership role to make an impact.

And you're trying to grow your team to be able to take over that role into the future.

And that's the way I like to approach leadership.

Yes, that's such a good point.

We've actually noticed that a lot with the people that we're coaching in our programs and one on one as well, where they are not actually doing, doing that.

And it's very difficult to do, especially if you haven't been trained.

Is that delegation?

So we've recommended to a lot of people recently to book yourself a holiday, which they love doing, and then go, okay.

For those two weeks you've got to completely delegate to your team.

They go on the holiday, they come back, they realize what worked, what didn't work.

Okay, now you're going to book a holiday that goes even longer in a few months time.

And you're your one of your jobs is to get your team ready for you to take that holiday.

And it's something that Richard Branson actually does as well.

He'll start by having holidays and then he'll say, okay, I'm only going to be in the office three days a week, two days, one day, and then hand over to somebody.

So there's some really great tests that you can do along the way to get your team ready for that handover.

So yeah, Renee, take a holiday.

Delegate permission for holidays.

Thanks so much and I have loved your insights on this.

It's been really, really powerful.

It's so great to hear on the ground how you've led as an executive with direct reports throughout your journ journey.

I feel like next time I'd love to check in on what your biggest leadership mistake has been and maybe we could workshop that.

No pressure, but just a little taster for next time.

I said she's ready to laugh at my leadership mistakes.

I have many.

I can go on for days about the I'm still making mistakes now.

Thanks so much this episode, Renee.

It's been awesome to talk to you as always and we'll see you in the next one.

Thanks, Felicity.

And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, share our podcast with other people that you think may need to learn a little bit more about leadership and what it takes to get promoted and be great when you get there.

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