Leadership & Kindness

Lessons from Sarah Mortiboys

February 2023

I don’t know about you, but this year has started with a real bang. The short break over Christmas was well needed, but feels like a long time ago now! This year has started with recruiting two new developers, a flurry of new business activity at the agency, launching a new event, plus shifting coworking space.?

I would love to hear how your year has started in the comments.?

One of my highlights in January was talking with Sarah Mortiboys. Aside from being allowed to talk rugby on the pod, it was a genuine pleasure to talk with someone so warm and with a desire to make an impact in their career. Here just two of my key takeaways from this episode.

Leading through values?

Leadership is a widely discussed topic and can be defined in so many ways. One of the best definitions of leadership (in my opinion) is John Maxwell’s definition that ‘leadership is influence’. There are many ways to influence people (positively and negatively) but one of the best ways is to influence authentically, by living out your personal values. The things you really stand for and believe in.

Sarah shared how her childhood experiences shaped her personal values as well as her early career. There’s a clear thread running through Sarah’s career and this has been shaped by her vision and values throughout. In our industry, people switch roles every 14-18 months (crazy right!) and changing roles brings all sorts of challenges as well as opportunities. Having employed many people over the years, I’m always looking for something outside of the CV, the things that make people tick. What do they stand for? What are they passionate about? What don’t they put up with? I’ve asked some ‘different’ types of questions in interviews over the years to try and find these things out, and in my experience the best team members, clients or suppliers are those with a clear set of values. If you’re reading this and earlier on in your career, I would encourage you to take a look at your personal and professional values, and develop them as part of your career. I think it will pay off in the long run.?

The power of kindness

I’m sure we can all agree that kindness is a good thing. We have probably all benefited from the positive effects of kindness, and most likely the negative impact of not being treated with kindness. It’s a life principle, and so important for our human condition. Kindness in the workplace can have a different set of characteristics.Running an agency can be stressful with so many moving parts, from working with different teams, managing projects and client relationships to dealing with finances. How to develop and build kindness into agency life is a question I’ve often asked myself. It’s a personal responsibility for sure, but how do we build it into business life? One of the reasons we have applied to become B Corp Certified is so we have a framework and clear set of metrics for how we treat our staff, clients and suppliers. Things like having a mental health trained ambassador, and asking for regular feedback are other ways we are trying to build kindness into working life.?

One thing I’ve realised over the last few years is that in order to consistently be kind to others, you have to be kind to yourself. When I’m stressed, or anxious it becomes incredibly hard to be kind to others. When I look after myself, it's so much easier to look out for others, and to reflect kindness.?

Dr Sandstrom, Director of the University of Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness, says of the results of the Kindness Test

“Some of the findings from this rich data set on kindness, such as that kind acts are very common and that 73% of respondents agreed that kindness is valued in their place of work, were very heartening. But it’s also incredibly useful to understand the barriers to kindness, such as concerns about kindness being misinterpreted or being seen as a weakness”.

For those that might be interested in diving a little deeper into this topic, you can find out some results of one of the UK’s largest survey on kindness here - https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/57570?

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode and reading these musings, as always please subscribe, share and leave a review.?

Website for all links: https://www.bewonderful.co.uk/podcast/sarah-mortiboys?

Apple:? https://apple.co/3JpEke6?

Spotify: https://bit.ly/3kYuHJa?

Take care?

Dan x