Can us Women really have it all? Yes.....but its not bloody easy!

As I write this article, I'm sitting in my new build house surrounded by concrete and dust, I have just come out of my first year trading and employ a few other people, I have a 4 year old son shouting for his mummy and a huge baby bump which is due to make an appearance in a few weeks.  

I feel lucky and proud to have all of this and have worked my ass off to get what I want from life. There is so much focus on gender equality and if I am honest, until I had a child myself, I thought it was all a load of rubbish. However, since becoming mummy, being side lined from another business after maternity leave, realising how difficult it is to juggle being mum, building a business and building a brand as a specialist in what is a male dominated industry, I felt it important to share my experience with others.  

I started in my recruitment career at the age of 26. I was pretty naive having only worked in a tiny business with a few people and felt daunted and excited at joining what I felt was a big company in town ( the company only had 35 people but it seemed big to me at the time) I took quite a big drop in salary and started as a trainee as I was worried that I may not be good enough and didn’t want to over promise and under deliver (still a motto I live by today) so I started at the bottom.

I genuinely had no plan, no strategy at all other than to listen, work hard and try to be the best I can be.

It paid off! I fought to build a desk in a brand new and unknown territory for the company I worked for and all during a big recession. I wasn’t given much training or support but somehow just knew what needed to be done and I kept my head down and focussed on hitting my targets. The company I worked for recognised I was a grafter and passionate about making things successful and started to take notice. In year 2 I was the highest biller in the company, at the time I was proud but didn’t realise what an amazing achievement it was to have brought on all the new business on my own, fill the jobs and build some great relationships so early in my career.

I didn’t ever get the chance to enjoy my success as I was quickly thrown into management. I was flattered at the time but looking back, it would have been nice to be able to focus on myself for a little longer before having to support others in their career development. It would have been good to build on my success and understand more about management techniques and all the tools needed to understand others.

I was young, I was naive and had almost no training but I started to build a team. By god, it was tough! I learned from my mistakes and quickly realised that managing people was way harder than I ever imagined. On top of that, I still had to sell and was always under pressure to be top of the table on the sales floor.

I would see colleagues come and go to have babies and I am ashamed to say, I judged them for taking the time out the business as did some of my leaders. By this point I had been promoted again and again, I had built a strong team with a hard working ethos, I was recognised as being a strong people manager and someone who could grow and develop new business and running a profitable business area. My company had also started to invest in me and I had management training, sales training and a business coach.

As I sat in the boardroom at one senior management meeting, we were discussing promotions and our MD put forward a plan that unless you could work in the business on a full time basis then you could not be promoted beyond a certain level. This would mean my peer group and I would all bypass our colleague who had to work part time to focus on their young family. I am ashamed to say I voted in favour.

I should have seen the signs but was still very trusting of my “leader”  

Soon it was my turn, I had finally decided to start a family. I fell pregnant quickly and found out soon after. As I was so committed to the business, I decided to tell the management team right away. Again, hindsight is a great thing and I now know I should have kept it to myself. The pressure was on big time now!

I was continually told that I was their best manager and I needed to get junior members of the management team before I went off on maternity leave, I had to spend huge chunks of my time coaching them in how to deliver effective meetings and how to get their teams understanding KPIs etc. I mentored graduates and spent time helping them in sales calls, I supported members of my team through tough personal issues and still had to make lots of money for the business. I did it, I didn’t realise how stressful it was for me as I was used to being pushed but again when I look back, I feel sad that I was treated like this. By now I was on a high salary and made great bonuses from myself and from the successful team I had built. I can also see that I had started to become disillusioned with the business and with my “leader” I had seen them make so many bad decisions that I started to question their decision making and now I can see that this was the reason for my demise.  

I finished up to have my baby, was given gifts and a lovely send off. I had all my meeting notes saying I was their best manager of people, the person who could drive the business forward and a big personality that would be missed on the sales floor.

During maternity leave, members of my team came to visit me, I took them for lunch, I had catch ups with my leader and naively thought I would return to my role and continue to build on my success.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  

When I returned I was told I had a new role but no one could tell me what that was. I was told I was in charge of my area but not allowed to manage my team (someone else had been promoted into this role) I still believed that the company cared about me so I tried to go with the flow. Things got stranger until finally, it hit me like a tonne of bricks.....the business didn’t want me anymore.

I confronted them with this, of course it was denied. I was told that there were issues around me which had been ongoing for some time but not once had anyone had the decency to tell me. It was all very messy, very hurtful and I had allegations thrown in my face that were repulsive. The business tried to make out that I had no self-awareness. I must admit to having been in a journey towards being more self-aware in managing others and had made mistakes along the way, but by this point I had spent a lot of time working on techniques and had saw some amazing results. They brought up every mistake I had ever made (even from my rookie days) and painted a picture of me as a nasty, self-centred bully. One person even said they were worried I would physically harm them!

I resigned by email and no one picked up the phone. That’s when I knew I wasn’t wanted. I did get a very formally written letter (clearly written by a legal rep) from my leader saying they were sorry to see me go. But that was it. My years of dedication, passion and giving my all to the business, the brand and the people all scrubbed and I was now marred as a horrible person who I knew no one would keep in touch with. I was completely heartbroken.

It has taken me a long time to accept what happened but I do now understand it. My self awareness!....I had it cascading down the way but now I realise I didn’t have it with my leader. I was too open, too honest and had questioned them on too many decisions .....that’s why I was no longer wanted.

Anyway, I was a mummy now with an extra mouth to feed. My husband had to give up work due to personal issues and on top of that, a close family member was on their death bed. I now wonder how I managed through all this but I did. I dusted myself down and joined another business to set up my area from scratch for some shares.

At first I struggled with this new culture that was less structured and less kpi driven. For the first time in my recruitment career I was not “coached” into making decisions that other people wanted me to make. I was encouraged to be me and make my own decisions. It was daunting, I was worried that I was a horrible person and terrified to say the wrong thing to people. I didn’t trust anyone in the business (especially the leader)

However through time I started to build a great team who admired my leadership skills, I felt more comfortable to mentor and help people in other parts of the business and saw them thrive and appreciate my support. I started to open up to the senior management team and have input into company culture, values and bigger picture strategy and could see that it was valued. I was winning way more business than ever before and I noticed a new found respect from my network. Me being me wasn’t so bad at all and finally I started to feel confident in who I was again.

I was then offered the chance to franchise my business area and although I was a little frightened about giving up a salary and employing others, I knew I had to do it.  

I am so glad I did! Has it been easy? No but it’s all worth it. I have put blood, sweat and tears into building my business, building a great team and building a brand which has saw some amazing success in a short period of time. I’ve had to be mummy, be the main breadwinner, be the MD, be the councillor, be a coach and be an inspiration and juggling all of this is hard to do but I’m doing it and I’m enjoying it. I work a shorter week so I can be mummy and work hard and smart on my days when I’m a business leader.

I have to live with comments and judgements from others about why am I doing this when I have a young family or family members commenting that I need a cleaner or that I don’t have enough food in my cupboards. These comments are tough but the truth is, I’m doing this for my family! My kids will have a lovely home, a mummy who works part time and is always there, who can make time to get to their nursery shows and take them to lovely places.

My clients and candidates get the attention they need and I manage their expectations. My team know I’m there to support when needed. My husband and I even make time for each other but I’m sure that will get more difficult with my impending new arrival!  

Life is busy, life is hectic but I’m glad it’s like this. I am glad for all that has happened to me in life as a have learned real life lessons.  

Ladies, if you beating yourself up for struggling to juggle things then I hope reading this has helped. As long as your doing things for the right reasons then keep going!

What lessons have I learned from all of this?

1.      Be yourself and be confident in who you are. I can not say I am perfect in anyway but I know in my heart that I have always wanted to help others thrive, I support, I encourage etc.

2.      Don’t let someone try and coach your personality from you. If you have got this far being you then keep going. Be aware of your weaker areas but also be aware that you may never be able to improve on these – just get someone in your team who has those strengths

3.      You cant be great at everything!

4.      People will always judge you on your life, keep going in the direction that suits you and your family and forget about others

5.      Enjoy your life….its too short not to.

Well network, I will be working from home for the next few weeks then taking a short time off to spend with my new baby. I will then spend 2 hours each day in the office to support my team and then do the rest of my job from home. So for now that’s me almost over and out.