#202 5 Shifts To Build Confidence, Lead Authentically and Handle Conflict with Heather Elkington

Lucy Gernon (00:00)

On this week’s episode of the show, I am joined by Heather Ilkington. Heather is founder of Fresh Start Leadership and what a journey she has had. She started as an assistant manager on the iconic Harrods shop floor, cannot wait to get into that. And she went on to play a key role building and selling a successful tech company, eventually becoming an ops director of a FTSE 100 subsidiary.

 

leaving five diverse teams across an organization of over 11,000 employees. These experiences showed Heather the transformative power of leadership in driving business success. And she was so inspired that she wanted to share these principles. She founded Fresh Leadership World, a platform dedicated to empowering new managers and creating a world where people genuinely love the work they do.

 

So Heather, you are so welcome to the show today.

 

Heather Elkington (00:46)

Yeah, it’s an honour to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

Lucy Gernon (00:47)

my God, so excited.

 

let’s just, know a lot of my ladies, they love their designer bits. So let’s just start at Harrods. Let’s just start with like, okay, how did you get from working on the shop floor of Harrods to having the company that you have today?

 

Heather Elkington (01:00)

Yeah, so I guess we’ll start a little bit before Harrods because who I am and we won’t get too much of an opportunity to kind of learn about like my background and history today, but who I am is very much not Harrods. So like I am just quite brash. I swear a lot. I’m very Northern. even now with money, I’m not someone who really loves or cares about luxury goods anyway. And so

 

to be working on the Harrods shop floor, it always felt like a bit of a, like a personality mismatch. It always felt like I was wearing someone else’s shoes, but I was trying so hard to fit in. And that was both in the fact that, I don’t know, just Harrods, never felt like it really fitted with me or my personality. But the main reason it didn’t feel like it fit was because I was a brand new manager. So I’d worked leading up to Harrods.

 

I was 21 when I started working on the heritage shop floor as an assistant manager and it was a very small team. It was on the chocolate hall and had about eight people. And before then I had had lots of like supervisor roles, supervisor in Holland and Barrett, supervisor in a bar when I was at uni in Newcastle. And so all of these kinds of like small jobs meant that when I went to apply for a role, I did a business management degree and I could kind of make them look

 

you know, I’ve got this management experience. did, I had it in small doses, but I’d never had a full-time role. It had always been like small bits here and there throughout uni and stuff like that. So I landed this job on the Harrods shop floor and was literally the definition of fake it till you make it, imposter syndrome, constantly thinking someone was going to catch me out and that, you know, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea how I’d got this job.

 

And I think there’s a lot of talk around imposter syndrome nowadays as to whether it’s real or whether it’s kind of just this made up thing to hold women back. And I really struggle when people say that because I remember truly, truly being stood on the Harrods shop floor and having this deep feeling inside me that was someone is going to catch me out. Someone is going to look at me and go, you don’t talk in a certain way. Your accent’s very not posh.

 

you don’t know how to have a difficult conversation with someone. ⁓ and when you work on a shop floor as well, as in a lot of industries, you’re managing shifts, which is difficult because it really matters if someone turns up late, if someone has to call in sick, it has like a massive ripple effect across the rest of the team and just managing those things. I was like, I was a crappy manager. always say on the Howard shop floor, you know, I was just

 

probably not ready for it and really trying to figure it out as best as I possibly could. That being said, that was mixed in with Harrods as a place to work. You know, it’s been in the news a lot recently, so I have lots of backup for this now. And you know, the leadership was really difficult. It was very, it the opposite of psychological safety. You know, we had to literally physically go through an airport scanner every morning before work. You had to take everything in a clear plastic bag. You couldn’t enter through the front door with…

 

the shoppers, you had to go through a different entrance and come up a tunnel underneath. Like, the way that the physical environment was set up didn’t make you feel safe anyway. It made you feel very much like you’re on this strict

 

Lucy Gernon (04:17)

Yeah.

 

Heather Elkington (04:20)

So I didn’t stay there for too long. I found another job very quickly and the next job that I found I think was one of the most

 

transformational in just me learning who I was and what I love to do and it was a PA job so I had no management responsibility. I went and took a PA job for a very busy tech music industry founder and just this is a job I always when people either come out of university or education of any sort and say you know I want to follow in a similar career path to you what would you suggest I do? I’m always like go and get a PA job.

 

working for someone, not in a huge company, because you won’t see as much, in a small business, working for a busy CEO, you get to see their inbox, you get to understand how they work, how they’ve built things. Like I remember very quickly, I was involved in building out investor pitch decks and selling our product to customers because, you know, I was in the inbox, like trying to navigate that whole accountancy. got put on a lot of the bookkeeping management and

 

all of that was a world that I didn’t really have any experience in, you know, I’d done a little bit of it at uni, but all of a sudden I was the internal bookkeeper as well and I just learnt so much, but I also figured out the things that I love to do, which was kind of be second in command at that time. I was like, you know, I love being the implementer. I loved being someone who I would have a founder or a CEO who had a big lofty vision and I could implement it for them. And that was kind of me. It was the doing and the…

 

taking charge and like putting projects together and making sure we got to see it through. Then I moved back up to Manchester, so this was all down in London. I moved back up to Manchester with my partner at the time and got a job in a very tiny startup tech business called GoProposal. I was the second member of staff. We were absolutely tiny. It was a bit of a risk. And over the next, Three, four-ish years, we built that business.

 

from me being the second member of staff up to multi-millions in revenue, thousands of customers paying for our subscription. And we took the team from two to I think back in 2021, we were like 30 people. And it was just this incredible journey. And everyone who was in the business at the time also went on this huge growth journey. So, you know, we had social media executives going into marketing manager roles.

 

⁓ support executives going into head of client success roles. And all of us kind of grew with the business. We were all really scrappy, really cared about what we were doing. And this is why I always say to people, go and find a job in a small company, because I just think, especially early on in your career, you are exposed to so much more. You learn so much more. And there is a place for corporate because that’s where I go to next. think corporate is an incredible, like, especially in terms of

 

the salaries that they can pay you and in terms of stability and benefits. and you know, I met some of my closest friends today in corporate, but when you’re just starting out, if you are a highly ambitious person, don’t go and get a job in a huge corporate business because you will just get lost inside of it. Go and find one of the smaller ones. So 2021 rolls round end of 2020 and we sold the business into Sage Group. So Sage, FTSE 100 company and my role.

 

overnight went from being an ops director in a very small contained startup to an ops director in a FTSE 100 and the team, know, as they do when you go through these huge acquisitions, they started investing lots more in us.

 

ramped the team up. We had all of a sudden people all over the globe, different support teams. had more products coming under our belt. And so my job overnight just switched and I had to learn incredibly fast though. It was almost like

 

There’s no excuses anymore, Heather. You know, I’d been setting myself up for it for years. I’d been learning, watching everything, understanding everything about great leadership that possibly could, but it was almost overnight. I was like, there’s no room for imposter syndrome anymore. Like there’s no, you have to step up. You have to start taking ownership. You have to start making these decisions on your own. Oh God, 26, 27. Yeah, super young and you know, there’s…

 

Lucy Gernon (08:25)

and how long it takes.

 

this.

 

Heather Elkington (08:32)

my career journey is not normal. There’s a lot of luck involved. There’s a lot of just being in right places at the right time. And I don’t think it’s sometimes why I feel a little bit guilty talking about my career journey. Cause I look back and I’m like, not all of it is effort. Like I think there was just lots of instances of like joining a tiny business when we were just about to go boom, that business then being sold into a FTSE 100. And so it’s not a usual career path. And I think

 

when I was in corporate, I was like, there was always like something more, you know, I was really giving 110 %

 

was having all these big wins in management in corporate, you know, I was like learning lots of systems, because I was so almost obsessed and insecure about not being a good enough manager. I was learning so much, was,

 

I would do my nine to five and then go home and just watch every YouTube video, read every book, listen to every podcast on leadership, managing teams, like just trying to take it all in, probably still fueled by a bit of imposter syndrome of like, I can’t show them that I don’t know what I’m doing because I can’t anymore. And eventually we, in corporate and anyone who’s been in a corporate role,

 

Lucy Gernon (09:34)

Yeah.

 

Heather Elkington (09:42)

or know this, they do these like six monthly surveys where they survey every single member of those. think it’s about 13,000 people across age to understand how they feel about their manager, how connected they feel to the vision and the values of the business. And you know, if they’d recommend the business to a friend, all that stuff. And twice the results for those surveys came back and my results as a manager were some of the best across the entire global business. And so

 

Quite quickly, the learning and development team reached out to me and said, can you run some workshops for our aspiring management groups? So they had these kind of like leadership development groups, people who weren’t in management roles yet, but were looking to, and they said, can you pull together some workshops? So I’m like, wow, I didn’t even realize I could do this. Nevermind, teach it. So all of a sudden again, just had to learn and deliver these workshops, really digging into.

 

like the principles that I was using around delegation and difficult conversations and accountability and how to set KPIs, all of the fun stuff that comes with management. And I started teaching them and alongside teaching them internally, I thought, why not post some videos on TikTok of the same teaching that I’m doing anyway inside Sage and Sage are brilliant. As far as corporate companies go, especially, I’ll always shout the name from the rooftops because

 

Lucy Gernon (10:51)

Mmm.

 

Heather Elkington (11:04)

I had a manager, name was Karen, this is why managers can really change your life and why I think the work that we do is so important and I feel so strongly about it is that I’ve had managers who hold me back before. I’ve had a few of them throughout my career who will hold you down, will not put you forward for things, won’t credit you for things. And a lot of those things that they do are very underhanded. Like you won’t see it. You won’t necessarily see or notice it. You’ll almost just think,

 

Am I crazy? Do they hate me? Whereas Karen, this manager I had at Sage, was almost the direct opposite to that. So she would just, every single opportunity, put me forward for it, talk well about me in every room that I wasn’t in. And I just got to see the difference that that makes to like a young woman who’s really excited about a career and the way that you feel when you come into work, the way you feel on a Sunday, knowing that your manager has your back. Just knowing that, that’s it. Just knowing that if you made a mistake.

 

Lucy Gernon (11:56)

Mm.

 

I’m really curious on that one because you’re making

 

me think about like, obviously the managers who do that tend to be fueled by imposter syndrome themselves. The only reason, because I hear that a lot as well around, you know, women feeling sometimes threatened by somebody on their team who is, you know, maybe an aspiring somebody who’s who they’re feeling threatened by that might actually take their role. So I just want to I’d love to hear just from your perspective, like, what is your take on that? Like if you have somebody who

 

is on your team, they’re a high performer. Like, by the way, I was that person. I was the one that was pushed down. I was told I was too ambitious and I didn’t get the opportunities that I know I could have excelled in because I didn’t have a Karen. I’m thinking of my daughter now. She always calls me a Karen. She’s like, don’t be a Karen. You know, that whole thing. But anyway, side note, what would you say to to that person?

 

Heather Elkington (12:48)

Do a bit of an assessment because…

 

There’s a stat that I love and I talk about this all the time which is 69 % of employees say their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctor or their partner ever could, right? And it’s

 

the impact, if our managers have a negative impact on us, a lot of the time you won’t even realise how bad it is. And if you think about all the times that you…

 

feel anxious, a lot of us think about Sunday scary but it’s not always just Sunday, sometimes it’s every single day of every single

 

anxious to send an email, worried that we might have a wrong word in it. If that really starts to impact your life, I would always say there are so many brilliant managers out there, just go and find one. If you think it’s kind of like a 50-50 situation where you just don’t really know if they’ve got your back but they’re kind of okay, something I always love to do is find other seniors

 

in your organization that will back you that are essentially just allies. Find other people, network internally. Networking internally is huge and the biggest lever to do that is just use LinkedIn, just post on LinkedIn. It’s a really quick way to get any CEO to know your name is to tell stories about what all the great work that you’re doing day to day. And that was something that I used to do long before I posted on TikTok or Instagram. I was just sharing our wins or LinkedIn team wins, bigging up my team. ⁓

 

Lucy Gernon (14:08)

And it got you notice, got

 

you notice. So I’d love to let you know you’ve mentioned LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, let’s go there. So obviously, like you’ve just had an incredibly impressive career. And I think you’ve mentioned earlier, Heather, that you a lot of it was luck. think none of it was luck. I think, you know, this was what you were destined for. And it’s very obvious if anyone, if you haven’t checked out any of Heather’s content, absolutely go check her out. And we’ll talk about that in a second. But you post some really useful, practical, actionable.

 

Heather Elkington (14:10)

So yeah, just.

 

Lucy Gernon (14:36)

tips that are like no fluff. And that’s what I love. That’s what this show was all about. So share a little bit about your, your rise to social media stardom, if you will.

 

Heather Elkington (14:45)

⁓ Yeah, so I started posting on social media. guess the main leadership header, which is my handles across socials, began in February of 2023 and I was just posting on TikTok and I had no idea why or what for. I had no intention of ever going self-employed or leaving corporate. I loved my job at the time. I was just simply doing it because I’d finally found this jam, something that made me f***.

 

excited to go to work in the morning and I remember going to bed thinking my god I can’t wait to wake up and do this thing and learn this thing and it took a long time for me to get there like the first you know probably five years of my career I just thought my god have I got to do this for 40 years before I can retire and then all of a sudden you you find this thing and it’s like you leapt onto it and so I was posting videos every morning I’d get up at five o’clock in the morning I know we don’t like to hear that

 

cause it feels very like personal development, preachery, but I just had no choice. was like, get up at 5 a.m., go for quick walk, have a coffee and just make videos, make videos, make videos. I was making three to five a day. I was posting on TikTok at the time. And for a good few months, absolutely nothing was working. Like nothing was going anywhere. It was just, and I think I was doing it. I was just fueled by.

 

loving it, like not necessarily any sort of big vision or big plan and then one day one video went viral and it was it was like a trending sound it wasn’t anything exciting or important and all of a sudden I had like 7 000 followers within a couple of weeks and I was like oh my god this is it’s begun and then after that things just it was almost exponential and I eventually got the courage to start posting on Instagram I found that a lot harder than TikTok for some reason I don’t know why

 

But about four or five months after the TikTok, I started posting on Instagram and a similar thing happened and I just kept going, kept posting. And in July of 2023 is when I quit working for Sage and took the leap. I had some cash from the sale of the business that had just vested, some shares that had just vested. And I was like, this is, you know, I’d done this whole spreadsheet. How long I can survive if it goes wrong? How long before?

 

Lucy Gernon (17:04)

I’ve been there too.

 

Heather Elkington (17:06)

I need to get a new

 

job. Yeah, and I’d done this whole spreadsheet and it was still terrifying. You know, I had the cash to keep me going for a little while, but I was like, I’m still, I’m leaving behind not a job that paid me incredibly well. So, so, so well. I loved it. I wasn’t overworked. I loved my manager. Everything was perfect, but it was just this feeling of I’m meant to do something else. I’m meant to work for myself. I couldn’t, I couldn’t explain it.

 

And I thought I’ll just be annoyed at myself if I don’t try. So here we are today. So yeah, I left July, 2023. I did a little bit of traveling. I didn’t quite jump straight into full-time self-employment. I did a little bit of traveling with my partner and went to see some of the world and carried on posting on social media and then got back earlier last year and officially set up Fresh Leadership World as a proper entity business, branded website, the lot in August of 2024.

 

Lucy Gernon (18:04)

Amazing.

 

Heather Elkington (18:05)

So

 

just over a year

 

feel like our service offering is just changing every single day with feedback and the things people get excited about. But our main core service offering is a six week bootcamp for new managers. It’s called Fresh Start. We have a new cohort going live next week. And we have hundreds of managers go through it. It’s very practical. As I mentioned very quickly, I did a business management degree.

 

And it was useless. learned Kaizen, we learned Ford production line. You know, you’d think going to business school and learning all those things would really perfectly line up with what I do today. I don’t use any of it. I can’t even remember any of it. But everything that I teach inside Fresh Start is very much practical. It’s built for the modern world. Like that’s very important because, you know, in 2020 we went through this huge workplace experiment essentially where the workplace was flipped on its head overnight.

 

None of us knew what to do with remote working, hybrid working. Do we come back to the office? Do we not come back to the office? And I think businesses are still feeling the fallout of that now. And so everything inside Fresh Start is built for today, today’s managers.

 

Lucy Gernon (19:05)

Amazing. Amazing. And I’m just, it’s so,

 

I just love what you’re doing. Like I said, guys, I, anyone who’s obviously listening to my show today, who’s new here, my show is highly, I’m all about practical action. I hate fluff and all of that. So Heather is totally aligned with that. So any of my current podcast listeners, please go check Heather out because you’re absolutely love her tips if you love this show. And I’d love to know that Heather, like obviously you’ve built a successful business now. You are, you know,

 

paving the way for new leaders and we’re even talking before that in this bootcamp, you you’ve got other people who are further along in their careers who want to upscale as well. But what is one of the biggest leadership lessons that you learned the hard way and how do you think it has shaped how you lead today?

 

Heather Elkington (19:47)

I… Avoiding difficult conversations was something that I did like it was my job. Avoiding conflict, managing other people’s emotions. So if someone was pissed off with someone else, I would be like, let’s pander to them and make sure that it doesn’t cause more conflict. And I did it in my personal life. I also did it in my work life.

 

and avoiding difficult conversations kept me in a relationship for far longer than it should have. Like I stayed with someone for years and years who it was never working, it was never gonna work, but I just wanted to avoid the conversation and the conflict. And so I learnt the lesson in many, many, many ways of if you don’t have those conversations upfront, they do not go away. Honesty just saves everyone’s time. And…

 

it’s hard, like it’s really uncomfortable, whatever that conversation may be. If you’re listening now, it might be something personal, it could be something at work, avoiding those things, just the problem never goes away. You might be able to squash it and hide it, but it always exists and it will likely get a lot bigger. I think…

 

Lucy Gernon (20:47)

And so what would you say then is like

 

one strategy that you use to, what do you teach around that in terms of conflict management?

 

Heather Elkington (20:55)

Yeah, so the first thing is like the reason people avoid difficult conversations isn’t necessarily because they don’t have a framework or they don’t have the tools it’s usually because they think the confidence is holding them back and I always get managers to swap the word confidence for courage because you don’t get the confidence to do something before you have the courage to do it when you’re scared and that was what the journey I really had to go on which was like

 

I’m going to be scared. I’m going to be nervous. My hands are going to be shaking. I’m probably going to say something wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway. And so first we go through that courage piece, which is have the courage to do it. And eventually after doing it 10 times, that’s when you’ll have the confidence. That’s when you get the gift of confidence. And then I would always move into talking about framework. So I have a framework called the four P’s, which we can run through, but it’s essentially making sure that

 

You can use any framework for a difficult conversation. There’s a great one, another great one called the FBI method. It’s just making sure that if you are struggling to have a conversation, you have something to fall back on so that when you get into that conversation, let’s say you’re giving someone feedback on their performance or their attitude or anything, often we get into it and you will sugarcoat what you’re trying to say because all of a sudden you stare in this person in eye, you can feel the emotion, it feels a bit hotter.

 

you’re getting a bit scared and a bit insecure and you will sugarcoat it and you will say some the opposite, not the opposite but you’ll say the thing you won’t properly say what you supposed to say and I’ve done that so many times so just having a framework will make sure that you stick to delivering what needs to be heard and just saying it really clearly like don’t use the shit sandwich it’s the worst thing we’ve ever learned and you know

 

just being really clear and direct is the kindest thing to do.

 

Lucy Gernon (22:46)

Yeah. my God. totally agree.

 

I, one thing about me is that I absolutely love, I know it sounds really weird, but I actually love conflict now. I used to absolutely run a mile like you, but I think a lot of it for me was like, I had a huge reframe, was conflict is just communication. When we think about conflict, I did a training actually recently in a company and I asked the women in the room and they were all senior leaders to give me one word that describes how they

 

feel about conflict. So as you can imagine, there was words like anxious, terrified, fear, all these things. And there was not one of the participants in the room. was about 25 women, not one of the words were positive. So our natural connotation to conflict is always negative. So now I’m like, hang on a minute. It’s actually not negative. It doesn’t have to be negative. It’s just communication. So now, like, personally, when I go into conflict communication, our situations, even the difficult ones, which are usually more personal, right? I think

 

It’s easier sometimes at work. I just tell myself, this is just communication. It’s just words. I’m not going to, nobody’s going to like bite me. And yeah, I find that really, really helps.

 

Heather Elkington (23:51)

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And just open up the box, you know, like I always think of it as if something’s really awkward, a bit sticky, and I think especially this in your home life as well, like you’re unsure how to approach it or how, you know, just open it up, see it as not a one-sided, I’m going to tell you what you’re doing wrong and I want you to change it. Sometimes those conversations have to be had.

 

But if you’re really unsure, likely it’s not one of those conversations and it’s more of a, we need to discuss this, we need to talk it through, we need to find a solution together. Just open it up, like I always think of it like a box and I’m like, it’s hidden, this conflict thing, it’s hidden away in here. All you wanna do is get the person in the room and say, can we talk about this thing? And all of a sudden, you’ve opened it up and both of you can just kind of tap away at it then.

 

I’m just saying, I try to think of it as this conversation is not going to be necessarily fun, but what’s on the other side of it is far better than what’s happening right now.

 

Lucy Gernon (24:49)

Yeah, absolutely. I

 

think as well, a lot of people think that the conflict is only felt by you. But I remember my mind was blown when I did my my professional coach training and I was learning about all of this stuff. And I remember she said to me, my trainer, she said, if you’re feeling it, the other person is feeling it. And I went, whoa, like that is so true. We often think that we’re the only ones feeling it. We have the secret.

 

but actually energy talks, right? So I think that’s a really important thing to remember for everyone is like the other person you’re in conflict with is definitely feeling the same way and they’re probably thinking the same thing. So you’re so much better off just being direct. I love that you said that. So I’d to talk now a little bit about, ⁓ I know obviously you work a lot with newer managers, but still it applies to everybody, right? Self-doubt and imposter syndrome. You mentioned it earlier on that there’s a lot of talk around, you know, does it.

 

exists and absolutely does exist because I’ve been there too for sure. What is your, like what’s your best advice for people who want to build their confidence in their leadership and their self-belief?

 

Heather Elkington (25:51)

Yeah, I really wish I could go back to me 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago on the Harrods shop floor and be like, I could look into my eye and say, the things that you feel the most insecure about are the most important parts of you. And so for example, at that time it was my age, it was my accent, the fact that I was very much like Northern, not privately educated and all the people that I was walking around with.

 

just that it felt like I was on a whole different planet. And this was my first introduction to London. I’d been to London like twice before this. And then all of a sudden just started living there amongst all these people that worked at Harrods. And, you know, I just felt so insecure. I felt like my teeth were crooked and I had spots everywhere. And I just thought, like, I felt so out of place. And I just look around and see all these beautiful women and just think I could never belong here.

 

And I just really wish I could go back to that version of me and go, everything that you feel small for and insecure about and vulnerable about right now is the most important parts of you. The parts that as you go through your 20s and eventually hit 30, you’re gonna love more than anything else. You’re gonna love being the only Northern River in the room one day. Like you’re gonna love being the youngest person in the room one day. And I’m not the youngest person in most rooms anymore, but it’s like…

 

I, when I moved into that Ops Director role, we want people in leadership of all ages, you want different perspectives in all different ways, you want it to be as diverse as physically possible. And I just brought one side of that. And you know, I’d have someone who was 30 years my senior in the room as well, and they brought a different side of it. And we just, it’s like, it’s all as important as each other. and yeah, if you feel an imposter syndrome or insecurity or self doubt in any way.

 

Lucy Gernon (27:22)

Absolutely.

 

Heather Elkington (27:43)

name those things, like what is it? Because I really wish I could go back and say to myself, it’s those exact things, Heather, that’s the whole point. Like, that’s why you’re needed here. You know, that’s

 

Lucy Gernon (27:52)

Yeah, that’s like what makes you you. It’s what

 

makes you so endearing. It is the fact that you are you. And like, I know it’s so cliche, but it’s the same for every single person. So, oh, my God, I really love that. I actually got bit emotional. I cry a lot on this podcast. So that was really, really lovely. I really I love that. So the other thing I want to ask you then is obviously we’ve spoken a lot about, you know, your journey. We’ve spoken about imposter syndrome, confidence.

 

In terms of leadership, we’ve talked about conflict management, obviously, as well. what do you think is the most important thing that leaders need to focus on right now in the economy where we’re at right now? Like if there was one thing, what would you say it is?

 

I mean, the global climate right now, there’s a lot of change, there’s a lot of redundancies, there’s a lot of do less, but more. I think it’s always the same, but it seems like there’s a lot of a crunch at the moment. Where do you think in terms of leadership, what do you think is needed most in the world right now?

 

Heather Elkington (28:30)

When you say the economy, you mean like monetary wise.

 

Yeah, I think courage and ownership is two things that I would say. Courage being, you know, in the question before, this kind of really nicely links. You asked about confidence and whenever people ask me about confidence all the time, because I stand on stages in front of lots of people and now I am completely myself. Like there’s no show that’s being put on. I am what you get. And people will quite often say to me, you know, where’d you get the confidence? And I’m like, it’s not confidence is…

 

not something that you just find like confidence is built again by having the courage to do it so if you want to be someone who stands in stages in front of thousands of people and is very confident to be comfortable to be yourself go and stand on the stage first in front of 10 people and then in front of 20 and then make a mistake like you’re gonna make a mistake but you’ll laugh at yourself one day about it and then eventually you get to the point where it just the confidence is just there because you’ve done the reps

 

you’ve put in the time, you’ve voted for yourself over and over again, you’ve made the mistakes and now you stand there and go, yeah, we’ve got this, this is great.

 

There is a lot of blame that I think gets thrown around and don’t get me wrong, I am the person, I am gonna stand up for wrongdoings in the world, like I am gonna fight for other people, I’m gonna get angry and put that anger in the right place. But when it comes to the work, generally the working world, you have to often think…

 

what could I have done that’s contributed to this and what am I going to do to change it? It’s quite stoic. I don’t know if you have ever like learned about stoicism, the philosophy of stoicism and I’ve read lots of stoic books like The Obstacle is the Way, The Daily Stoic Every Single Morning and it very much helps me to centre back into this when the world feels really grim and you know whether it’s

 

political climate, the economy, your companies making changes that are completely out of your hands. Whilst yes, I’m going to fight and stand up for the people, internally, I’m very much going to say, I can’t let this get me down. Like I have to keep figuring out what I can take ownership for, how I could have caused this in the first place. You know, is there something that I’ve done that’s led us here instead of just blaming everyone that’s not me? And this is a huge part of what I teach in…

 

It’s in my book, it’s in Fresh Start, in our course, it’s in almost every blog post, every teaching I ever do, leadership upgrade days. We talk about accountability and ownership because so many managers come to me and say, my team just don’t care, like they don’t care about hitting targets. How do I get them to be accountable? How do I get them to take ownership? How do I get them to be engaged? And I’m like, I need you to ask yourself that question first. Do you care? Like, are you coming in every day?

 

you know, if something goes wrong in the business, are you going to your team and being like, oh, can’t believe they’ve done this again. Because if you are, you’re getting rid of all ownership, you’re passing over blame. So why would they not do the same thing? So just, I would love if there was kind of like one thing I could just inject into everyone who is in a leadership position. It would be a sense of personal ownership. It’s almost like an internal locus of control, more of an internal locus of control and saying,

 

Of course don’t stop fighting, don’t stop getting angry at the world, don’t stop pushing, we have to hold leaders accountable 100 % but never forget this sense of personal ownership because there’s always something that you can do.

 

Lucy Gernon (32:08)

Love that. That’s

 

really powerful. That is really, really, really powerful. Yeah. That’s like landing with me because I’m just thinking like, what would you say if there, you know, a lot of leaders will, like you said, the blame piece, but they, a lot of leaders find it difficult to actually be vulnerable and go, Hey, I messed up. It’s my fault. And that’s something that I’m really passionate about too, is like authentic leadership. I know it’s such a buzzword, but just being yourself and going, Hey,

 

I messed up, was actually my fault. And then it gives your team permission to fail. And that’s like growth mindset. And then you’ve got that whole culture of people, like you mentioned, going back to your Howard story, the psychological safety, once you’re able to be vulnerable and real as a leader, the psychological safety you create is immense and you will have people hiding problems and all of those things. But vulnerability and leadership can be tough. what would you like, because you’ve just mentioned you’ve come on your own journey through, you know, being afraid to be you and now you’re

 

very authentically you and it’s working out super for you because you are you. What would you, what advice would you give to our listeners today?

 

Heather Elkington (33:09)

I always think surround yourself with people who are willing to be vulnerable as well. I am, and this is definitely, look, I grew up with parents who are very supportive, like loving of, you know, if you do something wrong, it’s, let’s talk about it. It’s not, you know, it’s not immediate vilified or, you know, anything necessarily wrong. It’s always been.

 

that’s okay, let’s talk about it, let’s talk about why that might be wrong. And I just think now in later life, like all of us when we go through our 20s and 30s is you’re not gonna be friends with the same people that you were before, you’re not gonna wanna keep the same people around in your life. And I always think look at those people and if you have people around you who are making you fearful of being vulnerable and being your true self, like it always, I’m gonna get really like female.

 

weirdnesses if anyone doesn’t like poo or period talk switch off now but I always baffles me you know like with your girlfriends or with your partner

 

Lucy Gernon (34:03)

You

 

Heather Elkington (34:09)

yeah who else are you gonna talk about like poo and periods and stuff with being so open like that’s where it starts for me just on a really basic level is there’s the things that you want to get vulnerable about personally day to day you know talking about those things because

 

they are, it’s just human, who we all are, we all have periods, all girls poo too and it’s like just being able to have spaces where you talk about you like I remember not having, I didn’t have regular periods for ages and I wouldn’t speak to anyone about it because I was just embarrassed and then one day I spoke to one of my girlfriends and she was like, that’s normal, she was like, not everyone’s cycle is exactly 28 days and I’m like, my god I thought I was ill, I thought I was…

 

you know, I thought I was like not a proper woman or I wasn’t going to be able to have kids or something was going to be wrong and you speak to people and all of a you’re like, oh, the things that I feel really weird and icky about are just normal. Like that’s just, just life. And I think look who you have around you because if you, and that’s just one example of periods and poods, obviously there’s lots of other examples of different feelings and you know, if you feel insecure about something, if you feel embarrassed about something, do you have people around you in your close immediate circle, your partner, your

 

Lucy Gernon (34:59)

Hmm.

 

Heather Elkington (35:20)

siblings, your family or your closest friends who you can ring up and talk to about it and if not, I would re-evaluate and think is the person that’s closest to me, whether it’s my closest friend, whether it’s my partner, like why do I not feel like I can be vulnerable because when you get that closed circle around you who don’t judge you, don’t vilify you, it’s just this big breath of fresh air and you can be exactly who you

 

Lucy Gernon (35:43)

And then you can open it up into the workplace as

 

well. You’re making me think as well. remember when I when I quit my job, I was now I’m asked when I say I’m asked in corporate, I’m asked for a long, time. And I remember when I quit my job, I had started this little Instagram blog. It was called Happy Life with Lucy, which is now just my name, Lucy Gernon. But at the time, it was Happy Life with Lucy. And I remember on my 40th birthday, I was like, I am done with this mask. And I remember I used to love Jennifer Lopez. And I remember seeing she had like

 

She did some photo shoot where she was in this really cool blazer and like her legs were really tanned and like she had her leg in the air. And I always remember going like, I want to do something like that. So I did this like at home photo shoot in like a hot pink blazer or something I never would have worn to work, but was really who I really was. And I put it on my Instagram grid. did. I took three photographs and I said something like, it’s my JLo moment. It’s still there somewhere. And I did it like as a line on my grid. And I was like, I don’t know what this line means, but I know that I’m never going back to what’s

 

before here and I was terrified. Like, can you imagine, you know, you’re working in Sage and you’re, you know, you’re literally putting like, have my legs out. Hello. Oh my God. Crazy. What actually ended up happening was because of that post, my confidence was exponential because I literally bared myself. It wasn’t news, but you know what I

 

Heather Elkington (36:53)

Yeah.

 

Lucy Gernon (37:03)

The people so funny, like, you know, when you start your business as well, you’re

 

Heather Elkington (37:03)

fine, I knew what you meant

 

Lucy Gernon (37:07)

Like I was afraid of judgment. Are they going to think, you know, she qualified enough? All this imposter syndrome came up. But when I started being my true self after that, the very people in work who I thought were going to judge me were the ones coming over congratulating me. They were the ones when I wasn’t in the room, I heard back were saying really nice things like, my God, I wish I had her confidence. Like, look at what she’s doing. So I suppose the moral of the story is, guys,

 

If you can’t find the confidence to be vulnerable, just borrow it from myself or Heather’s stories, because we are proof that when you allow yourself to be you, good things happen. So on that

 

I have two questions that I always ask my guests on the show. The first one is what does success, balance and happiness mean to you?

 

Heather Elkington (37:53)

very much freedom. I’m not trying to be a billionaire. I want to live a life that I can get up whenever I want to, which a lot of time is still early and work very long days. But when I don’t want to, I have that freedom as well. It’s also, I guess, more recently, just fighting to help others. Like, I think a lot of my mission is driven by, I don’t want anyone to feel the way that I felt in certain jobs in my past where I just became a shell of myself. And so…

 

Success to me means really fighting for people who maybe haven’t gone through that realization yet So yeah, lots of just lots of freedom financial freedom being a part of that but just freedom to live a very happy free life where I can nip off to Thailand for a couple of months if I want to

 

Lucy Gernon (38:24)

Amazing.

 

my God, love it. my God, the dream. And what

 

is one of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received? It doesn’t have to be leadership related.

 

Heather Elkington (38:44)

um nerves build character that one’s from my dad. I when I was going down to London to interview for Harrods I’d like I said, I’d literally been to London I went my mum took me for the day once when I was 16 and I think other than that I’d been maybe one or two other times with friends and Then now I was all of a sudden getting a train down to London on my own to interview for a job to move there I was so nervous. I never felt nerves like it and my dad said to me

 

Heather, nerves build character and what he meant was it’s the same as the courage confidence relationship. It’s like, yeah, you’re nervous, but that’s the whole point. You’ve got to keep leaning into that. You’ve got to keep fit. You’re nervous because you care. And once you’ve done this, those nerves are just more fuel. It’s more another knock to yourself to say, no, I can get a train to London on my own. I can go and interview. And it was in this fancy hotel above. ⁓

 

can’t remember the station, Embankment, whatever big hotel’s next to Embankment. It was in this really fancy hotel and I just, felt like I was pretending but at the same time, you know, I just had to show up for myself. It just a big vote for myself. So, nerves build character.

 

Lucy Gernon (39:50)

Absolutely love that. Heather,

 

thank you so much for coming on the show today. ⁓ I know we didn’t actually talk much about your book. So guys, Heather has a new book which you released it only a couple of weeks ago. So do you want to just quickly, let’s just plug the book, bring her up on the camera if you want. Tell us a little bit about the book, where people can find it and where is the best place to connect with you as well.

 

Heather Elkington (40:09)

You can find it almost anywhere you can buy a book. So Waterstones, Amazon, Foyles, Barnes and Noble, the lot. And yeah, so the book is, it is very much a management book, but it’s told through my stories, my failures, my screw ups. There’s lots of screw ups in there. It’s split into two halves. So we’ve got the mindset and then the practical tools. And yeah, it’s everything that we need to manage in 2025, but told through the lens of…

 

Lucy Gernon (40:14)

Wee!

 

Heather Elkington (40:37)

a 20-something year old with a huge self-doubt and constant learning of mistakes and then eventually getting to feel as though they’re somewhere that feels good. ⁓

 

Lucy Gernon (40:46)

I mean, so guys, you can check that everywhere. We will put a link

 

to Heather’s website in the show notes. So, Heather, your leadership, Heather, are basically across all platforms and we will link your website in the show notes for sure. So listen, thank you so much for coming on the show. That was such a lovely chat. I loved hearing your story. I think on genuine, you think you’re so inspirational.

 

Heather Elkington (41:03)

Thank you so much.