Foreign.

Welcome back to Promoted, the podcast that gets you promoted and be great when you get there.

My name is Renee Wootton.

I'm an aerospace engineer, pilot, and aviation fanatic.

And I am here with my host, Felicity Fury, CEO and co founder of We Aspire Inspire.

Today we have a very exciting episode for you.

We've got a new segment we're going to play with, which is called Promotion Pickles.

That's right.

So this segment is here to dive into your tangy, tricky situations that you've shared with us.

The moments where you're trying to get ahead, but find yourself in a Bit of a Pickle.

So we've heard from one of our incredible listeners today, and we're really hoping to share a bit of wisdom with you and help this particular listener through A Bit of a Pickle.

Felicity, how are you today?

I realized in our last episode, we did not introduce ourselves, which is quite funny, and I do really hope this Promotion Pickle title sticks.

If nothing else, it gives me a laugh.

So if you hate the Promotion pickle, we will, of course, listen to the audience feedback, but we've had some good pickles in our time ourselves.

Renee, I know on the leadership journey, and this one today is from an incredible woman.

She's been a structural engineer and got promoted.

She actually did participate in some of our leadership training a couple of years ago, and it's been so exciting to see her journey.

And she sent us a message the other day which I thought was really interesting, and maybe some other people are dealing with this.

I've certainly felt like this along the way in my leadership journey.

And she said that she's questioning herself.

Have I made the right choice in a leadership role?

And let's.

I reckon we just start there, Renee, and see where this conversation leads.

Have you ever questioned yourself after taking on a leadership role?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, the.

The transition from, let's say, an analyst role or just a contributor role through to a leadership role is such a different set of skills.

It's a completely different mindset.

You need to let go of the work that you were once doing and now get the team around you to do that work, to think about their needs, their wants, your vision for the team.

You've now got a strategy you've got to build or deliver on.

Like you're thinking about things from a completely different context.

And I think there's definitely a sense, particularly in the engineering world, where you need to, you know, after a certain amount of time, you naturally kind of fall into leadership roles.

It's kind of this expectation that you take these steps and become, you know, an expert at your trade and then eventually you become the leader of that trade.

And it's always a bit of a sticking point.

I find a lot of people speak about, you know, this hesitation or this, this expectation to make that leap and it's not for everyone and not everyone' good at it.

And that's where we've seen a lot of, you know, projects fail or teams be unhappy and exit a certain business unit or leave a company as a result of the people that end up in leadership roles that weren't ready for it.

And I personally think there's not a huge amount of training, you know, people or organizations don't focus on providing substantive support and skills based training to help people get ready for that transition.

So maybe that's changed in the last few years, but certainly over the last 15 years of my career I've seen that that's a real sticking point where people really come undone and teams come undone when the wrong person is put into that position.

So I think for our listener that wrote in, thank you so much for the question.

It's so valid.

What you're feeling is so valid.

But also I'm hoping that we can offer some great supportive kind of tips for you to be able to make this transition more easy moving forward.

What are your thoughts?

Listening.

Thank you.

You're bang on there around going from that different mindset of being an individual contributor to then being a leader.

Because especially if you've come from a technical background like we have in engineering you get trained and even at school you get trained to work on your own and if you collaborate it's called cheating.

And that's how we've been brought up for 12 years of schooling plus university is, I mean there are some group assignments but it's so much on your own and we're told to think in that particular way.

So I think it's quite, quite tricky that you know that you've got to change mindsets and people also don't tell you that, they just go, oh, you're a leader now.

And that's it.

And the stats are actually quite shocking.

I think I read it was 80% of managers get no training to be a manager.

That is wild.

Yeah, wild.

It is wild.

And I was just talking to my business partner about this yesterday.

It was, he was on a coaching call and he said to the participant, we don't, you know, we wouldn't go, here's the car.

You don't have A license drive and you'll get your license along the way.

Right.

You want to be trained to drive the car before you let loose on your own.

But we don't do that with leading.

We go, here's, you know, here's the license to leadership.

Go off and go lead people.

We don't actually go off.

Yeah, that's it.

We don't actually give people that foundation of here's what it's going to be like.

Here are the different, here's how the car works.

Here are the different like levers or buttons or what they do.

You've got to be aware of other people on the road or whatever the things are around driving, don't drink and drive, blah blah, blah.

All the rules.

We don't give the people that, that advice going into it.

So I think a thing that people often miss is if you're wanting to be in a leadership role and you're not yet, then that's a really good opportunity to start learning some of those leadership skills.

You can practice on yourself, leading yourself or leading others.

But I think that's a really big part of it.

And particularly for engineers or people who are TR a technical profession or I'd say most people, we're individual contributors first and then we step into leading.

And our guest who's written in really touches on that.

And to expand on her question, she's also said that she often is so used to solving these black and white problems which have clear time frames and end outcomes as an engineer.

And now she's working on complex human behavior, strategic decision making problems which aren't black and white.

And sometimes they require you to be really self motivated with those time frames and end outcomes.

And it can be, it can feel really, really overwhelming.

And the reason that she studied engineering in the first place was not actually related to the work of a leader.

Has that been your experience too, Renee?

Yeah, that's bang on, to be honest.

So I might just lead by saying I can absolutely appreciate the feelings that you have right now.

And I have been there myself and I have to say the overwhelm that I felt meant that I had, I think insomnia for the better part of two months for some of the bigger leaps that I've made.

My first executive role was so chaotic and so stressful.

It was such a stretch for me.

And looking back in hindsight, it makes absolute sense because the expectation, the visibility, the accountability was so much higher overnight and nobody taught me how to do that.

I had a new boss that just expected that I knew how to prioritize things and how to speak to people and how to do the right thing.

So I think, first of all, take a breath.

This is a change and it's huge and it's overwhelming.

So I want to validate you to start with.

And then I want to say that right now your biggest assets will be having people in your corner.

So having a coach or having a mentor that you really trust that's in a similar position or even higher, I would try and shoot for even higher just because their advice will just be so much more expansive and applicable because they've been there themselves.

And make sure that's really somebody that you truly trust.

Because you're going to have days where you're going to want to breakdown and you want to share how you know your kids are playing up, you haven't slept all night, and then you've got huge deliverables.

And you know, it's chaotic.

I think that life is chaotic and sometimes we don't appreciate that.

And the expectation as a leader is you don't bring your baggage to work.

You have to support everybody else's baggage.

And sometimes you need somebody to go to with your baggage.

So get that person behind you.

I think you need to spend some time learning about strategic frameworks and letting go of your past habits.

So the quicker you can let go of your engineering mind, the better.

Now, because leadership is all about people.

It is about trying to preempt their needs.

It's about providing guidance.

Now, you know, some of the feedback that I heard from this listener was that, you know, they, they're not feeling comfortable sharing their or making decisions at the leadership table.

And I think that the reason that you were hired into this position is because you were the most capable person that they, that they found for the role.

So back yourself.

You need to trust the fact that you need time to upskill.

You need time to learn.

People expect that you will take that time.

Not everybody, because not everyone will know your background, not everyone will know that you're new to leadership, but the people that hired you will know that.

So, you know, lean into your leaders.

Lean into an.

Just be transparent with them around what you're struggling with, where you need assistance because they should be backing you and they should be really good leaders too.

So like, you're thinking about your direct reports, they need to be thinking about theirs and what they need as well.

So lean into that.

Don't have this expectation of yourself that you're going to have it all down pat on day one and you're going to be a sensational leader.

You know, talk to your direct reports and, and say to them, you know, I'm feeling overwhelmed or this is my first time doing this.

So that they understand that you're lear to and they're trying to adjust to your leadership style.

So just to recap and then I'm going to hand over to you, Felicity, so talked your ear off.

Give yourself space and time.

Be confident that you were picked for the right reason and just be honest and lean into the groups around you.

So be transparent with your direct reports and ask for help.

Felicity, what are your thoughts?

You reminded me when I was working at Brisbane City Council and I had something like, I think it was like 23 million projects.

And then I got given this new one which MEANT I had 20, I had 45 million dollar projects.

And I was like, oh my gosh.

And I was talking to this awesome lady, Kristen and comms, and I was like, I can't believe Mary gave me this project.

Like, what the heck?

Like I'm only a few months into the job.

Like I'm so young.

This is crazy.

And she said she wouldn't have given it to you if she didn't think you could do it.

And that was profound for me.

I thought, oh my gosh, wow.

Like, like, yes, okay, well, that must be.

It was like maybe like she like used engineering logic against me.

I was like, this is logical, makes sense, it works.

So yeah, I can totally relate to that.

And I think, yeah, you're right.

It's important to have those people in your team.

I think another element of this which our listeners touched on is the mental load of leadership.

And we often talk about the mental load of parents, but there is that mental load of leadership.

And I know I, for myself, I find that did I make the right decision or what should I do about this?

And you're thinking about it, you know, on the way to work or in the shower moments or when you're cooking dinner and you just like, maybe this is, you know, an engineering trait of overanalyzing, which I know I'm guilty of, but yeah, it can be hard to have that off switch when you're in those leadership roles.

And one of our clients, actually, she's an amazing executive, she's like, I'm just really good at compartmentalizing.

I just come home, I switch off, that's it, Hang out with my kids and then when I go back to work, I switch back on again.

And she's like, I think I'm naturally Good at that.

So I think that's a really big part of it that people don't talk about particularly early on is that mental load of leading Renee, how have you navigated that?

Or are you also great at compartmentalizing and you just switch it off?

Yeah, I think it's been an evolution today.

I would say I oversimplify things now.

So for instance, you know, I used to worry about, oh, what are people going to think and did I make the right decision and, and those sorts of things.

But now I, I think I have really good methodology or I trust myself enough now that I don't second guess things and I, I really back myself to say I made the best decision I could with the information I had or I go, oh, actually I could have done things differently.

I should have asked more people before I press the go button.

And so I, I implement that the next time around and I acknowledge it and I speak to people about it mistakes, I own that wholeheartedly.

So I, I think that there's this level of trust and expectation that I'm going to make the best decision with the information that I have and, and yeah, send it.

So, versus young Renee.

I think again, coming back to my first leadership role, it was just madness.

It was chaotic.

I couldn't sleep properly.

I had the highest expectations of myself.

But I think in one way that's like not helpful at all, but in another way it's highly motivating and it really makes you deliver to a new standard.

So, you know, in those roles where I have not been able to sleep well, I've really second guessed myself.

I've outshone and overperformed and you know, received my bonuses year on year without a fail.

So it's, you know, that peak performance piece around anxiety really comes into play.

But certainly there's been periods where I've had too much anxiety.

So I think it's just, you know, coming back to the basics.

So for me it was always, people don't think about you as much as you think they think about you.

So people have their own lives, their own chaos.

You know, whilst people might place judgment in a moment, that's going to be a fleeting moment.

And, and again, if you really care about the people that are judging you, you can go and have again another transparent conversation to ask for their feedback and let them know what you're facing.

Because life is hard and we are human, we make mistakes.

We all make mistakes.

And can I just say, the people that are at the top of the P pyramid, the people that are doing, you know, in, in the highest performing roles.

There is a level of capability there that they have over other people potentially.

But the biggest thing is they have the best support network and an incredibly healthy mindset.

So, you know, how do you build that support network and build that mindset so that you can be as high performing as the people around you?

100%.

Yeah.

I think that mindset is so powerful.

And I love what you said earlier around, you know, we expect the way good from day one.

And especially if you have gotten technically proficient at something, you're good at that.

And so you've had some time feeling, oh, wow, I am actually really good at this.

And then you're going into something completely new that you've never done before, completely different, you know, context, way of thinking, all these different things.

And yeah, I certainly have those expectations, being great of myself.

And if I look back and you reminded me this as you were talking Renee around something like public speaking, where in the beginning I was petrified.

I would do hours and hours and hours and hours of practice, where now I remember it was an event, actually, one of my mentors was speaking.

It was an education conference.

And she's like, oh.

And she knew I was in the audience.

She's like, oh, Felicity, what do you think?

And I just stood up and said something off the cuff or even at the NARWIK Awards last year, but I won an award and I wasn't expecting that.

I like, great, now you can do a speech.

And I thought, oh, my gosh, I have nothing to say to 880 people in the room.

But I managed to find something to say.

And that's just practice, right?

That's just like building that muscle of, okay, how do I connect with an audience?

What's the story?

That's going to be powerful.

How can I have a message that resonates?

And I think leadership is the same too.

Like, when you're beginning, we don't.

We just look at kids, right?

We don't go.

We don't judge of like, oh, they can't walk yet.

You know, oh my gosh, they fall over so many times.

There's this crazy stuff.

I think it's like kids will trip 28 times a day.

Yeah.

Wow.

And we're not like, oh, you're an idiot.

It's like, oh, they're just learning to walk.

They've never done that before.

And we don't really bring that, I think, to as much deleting as we have, or like, you know, four years in engineering degree, then you're a grad for like two to three years.

Like, that's like seven years of learning to be an engineer.

We don't have that leadership.

Yep.

So I think, you know, coming into a leadership role is actually easier in ways than being a direct report.

And the reason I say that is because you now have people working for you to deliver pieces of work.

Right.

You're not actually doing the pieces of work now.

Most of the time you are asking the team to have things ready by certain deadlines.

So, you know, thinking about the overwhelm, thinking about the new skills required, thinking about the deadlines, and the fact that you are making every single decision.

I would take a step back and start asking for clarity from your leader.

So if you're not sure about when projects should be due, go and figure that out with your manager.

If you have too many projects running in parallel, think about what are truly my highest priorities.

I think back to, again, my first exec role.

I had emails coming out of the wazoo.

I could not get ahead of them.

Every morning I would wake up and there would be another 50 emails.

By the end of each week, I'd have over 400 emails.

I could not keep on top of them.

So I went and talked to my boss about it, and I was like, I just can't keep up.

Like, I'm so sorry if people are coming back to you with feedback.

Because people would literally escalate immediately to my manager and be like, renee hasn't responded for a week to this email.

Like, so I was like, okay, people, like, calm.

I'm trying my best, you know.

So again, I just went and spoke to my manager and I said, listen, I cannot keep on top of them.

There is so much information coming my way.

I need you to tell me what to prioritize.

Is it getting back to people or is it actually getting the projects delivered?

Because if it's keeping on top of emails, we'll never get anything done.

I have too many emails.

So she said, you have permission.

Just ignore the emails, get the work done.

And that was the most relieving moment.

Like, I still remember the weight off my shoulders.

I was like, thank God.

And so from then on, I did not care how many emails were in my inbox.

I just did the work and, like, you know, filtered the ones that are applicable to my highest priorities.

And that was all I focused on.

So I think if you are feeling overwhelmed, you need to get clarity.

You need to simplify things and pick each month or each quarter, three top priorities.

That you're going to deliver and everything else gets pushed back.

Simplify things and make it easier and that even comes back to your home life.

Like.

Like, if you are feeling way too overwhelmed with your family life, I don't know what you're juggling, but lean on people, ask for more support and try and simplify things.

If you're taking on too much, ask your partner to step in.

If you're both contributing equally, get a third party to step in if you can.

Like, there's always ways to simplify things.

You just have to think outside of the box and think about doing things maybe a bit differently.

So keep talking to people, keep seeking support, and I'm sure you will get there in good times.

So good.

I think final thing to add would be around, you know, what's that goal?

What's that purpose?

What's your motivation?

Why are you doing all of this in the first place?

Why are you stepping into leadership roles?

And you might have a really clear goal that you've just forgotten about.

And I know that's happened to me before where I've.

Yeah.

That clarity of, what's it?

What's the point?

Where's the purpose?

Where's it going?

And I've had roles that I have not enjoyed, but I know they're going to lead to a bigger outcome and there's a bigger purpose, and that's really motivated me to stay in those challenging times.

So it could be something like that for you around.

Oh, actually, I'm like, I'm questioning, was this the right move?

And you know what?

It actually is.

Okay.

If it's not, there is so no harm in saying, and we talked about this in the previous episode, around goals.

Hey, I thought I wanted to be a leader.

I didn't realize it was going to be like this.

I've actually changed my mind.

I actually want to go have a profession like a technical career, and that's completely fine.

Or I've had a.

You know, I actually discovered I love being a parent and I actually want to step down my responsibilities and focus on family.

Well, I.

Great.

Good for you.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So I think just having that moment to go, what is that overarching goal?

Is it aligned and is that, you know, part of my.

My future and my future plan and.

Maybe what will help as well?

So, first of all, I absolutely back what you just said, Felicity.

I think you need to make that decision around.

Is this right for you right now?

You could come back to leadership in a few years when you're in a better position and you're able to juggle more.

So sometimes it's okay.

And it's so brave of you to let go of a goal goal or a step that you thought you wanted and then it turns out you didn't want that pivot.

We highly, highly encourage that.

But to give clarity, the question I wanted to ask you Felicity is why do you like being in a leadership role?

And maybe that will provide a bit more clarity around is it right for you?

Like what are your strengths?

Why do you lean into leadership?

Felicity?

It's a good question.

I think for me it's around.

I feel like I've had this like natural kind of pull to leadership from an early age, which I guess is part, you could say is part of my identity, part of my personality.

There's that natural pool there, I think.

But overall is I want to make a really big difference in the world and I know that when you work with other people, when you lead teams, then you can have a really, really big impact.

So there's, you know, a certain style I have of leading.

There's all different ways to lead.

I have a personal belief that whatever your style is, you can find a place for leading in that.

Overall my why is people get to be and do things they never thought they could be or do.

And so I feel very fulfilled by helping run power of engineering.

To get more kids engaged in engineering running, we aspire helping see that they could be leaders in construction, infrastructure.

That's very important to me.

So I guess I'm really passionate about it.

Even though yeah it can be really, really hard is that I can see the difference that I get to make with it and that's really exciting to me.

Like that's kind of like, you know, highest order value amongst everything else.

That's such a good question, Renee.

Where did that come from?

I'm going to ask you that.

Why, what about for you?

Why leadership for you?

Thank you for the question.

For me, my bigger purpose is, is elevating the aerospace, aviation industry and making it the best it can be.

So for me that's having a position at the decision leading table.

It's the decision making table.

It's you know, inspiring kids to or younger generations to do the things that they never thought they could do.

And a big part of that comes from the fact that, that you know, I was this aboriginal fair skinned regional country girl that made it to the big smoke Sydney and managed to complete an aerospace engineering degree and I, I blew all of my own expectations I was the first in my family to ever be able to achieve these things.

So for me, I recognize the power in just hearing someone's story, particularly in regional areas, and being inspired by that.

And that's a big part of why I run this podcast.

Podcast with you, Felicity.

It's a big part of why I speak around the Australia circuit to inspire our future generations.

So.

And then finally, I would say that I have a natural inclination for leadership as well, similar to you.

I have really enjoyed it from a young age.

I never saw myself just being a technical contributor.

I love understanding why decisions are made and why we do the things we do.

So that means that I need to be at decision making tables to understand that why and get to understand those questions.

So, yeah, I think for all of those reasons, I love leading people, but I acknowledge it is hard work.

No day is the same people are challenging.

But if you're asking the right questions and you're supported by the right people, it is.

It's actually quite simple.

It can be quite easy.

It's just that you need a really good toolkit to carry around with you in order to unlock that value.

So keep learning, keep leaning in and trust your gut.

Most importantly, you know what's best for you.

Oh, good.

Amazing.

Such a great question.

I'm gonna, you know, really have that front of mind as I have tricky times in my leadership because I think, yeah, it's so powerful to reconnect to that.

And I do believe in the limitless potential of people and that.

And I actually love a challenge.

Like, if I'm not challenged, I'm bored.

Like, my mom knows.

Like, you ask my mom, she like, oh, ly ready to quit a job.

I like mom.

It's boring.

Challenge in common.

Yeah.

And so leadership is a really big challenge.

And that's also kind of, you know, I enjoy the challenge of it too.

Such a great conversation, Renee.

Thanks.

Such a great conversation.

I feel like often we're just having our, you know, chitchats and we people get to be a fly on the wall in these conversations.

And I'm always learning things about you, Renee, which I absolutely love.

So thanks for another great conversation and we'll see everyone else in the next episode of the Promoter podcast.

See you next week, Felicity.

Bye, girl.