Alpha Female: Rona Fairhead CBE's Tips for Aspiring Achievers - as Simple as ABC

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Last week I was invited to attend the Women of the Future Network's Annual Drinks Reception at JP Morgan's office in Canary Wharf. 

Before we mingled and nibbled delicious canapés, a few select speakers were asked to share their stories and tips for success. One of which was Rona Fairhead CBE, the first ever female Chair of the BBC Trust.

Rona is a humble and charming, yet incredibly influential lady with a background of various senior positions including; CEO and Chairman of the Financial Times Group, Group Finance Director at Pearson, Executive Vice President of Strategy at ICI, and many more.

She shared her tips for success, which she summarised as simply as ABC:

A) Aspirations.

Aim high, not necessarily always aim to achieve something impossible, but always as high as you possibly can. 

She said to take risks and recognise that you sometimes fail. A lot of women have a case of "Good Girl Syndrome" installed in them from a young age. For example, the girls at school that had to have the neatest writing and always get 20/20 in their tests, dreamed of being Head Girl or Prefects, and couldn't possibly do anything wrong.

Rona once suffered from "Good Girl Syndrome" in business, and found that she'd often notice things weren't right, but would always double and triple check everything before raising a problem. Of course, by the time she'd done her due diligence to ensure she was 100% correct, it was often too late and someone would have beaten her to it.  

You need to be curious and take risks.

 B) Be generous.

Not just financially, but with your time as well. Rona reflected on the invaluable lessons her mentors have taught her over the years, and how grateful she was that they'd been generous with their time. She, like I, has learnt a lot from her mentors - all of which have been in Senior positions and with little spare time, yet always find time to help others.

Everyone is always busy, but remember that nobody else's "busy" is any less important than yours.

C) Commit.

Not just to your colleagues, but to yourself as well.

You need to have a personal/ professional life balance. Accept that you can't have it all, and you can't give 100% of the time to your job, family, friends, studies, health and everything else. (I'm beginning to realise this now- working full time, blogging, studying and trying to have a social life!)

But you can have a lot, you are very fortunate to have choices in terms of what you do. So you need to choose, and decide what areas of your life you're going to prioritise. Rona chose to prioritise work & family.

She explained how she's always tried to prioritise her family and children just as much as her work, to the point where her very first duty at the Financial Times was to host their Executive Board Meeting, which she requested to rearrange due to prior commitments - 2 nativity plays.

Her closing comment & life motto was truly enlightening:

"I live my life in my boundaries. And in those boundaries I'm happy in my life".

So there it is, as simple as ABC...