Leadership retreats and finding professional freedom

Earlier this year, my leadership coaching company, Transcend.Space, held its first retreat in the stunning hills of Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) National Park in Wales. In gathering colleagues, partners and peers, the aim was to collectively explore some of the challenges we’ve come across in our industries and, on a personal level, reflect on our own abilities and directions as leaders.

This newsletter is the third in a mini-series of three exploring some of the insights which emerged from it. For this edition, Alex Hayes-Griffin and Helen Croydon, leaders who attended the retreat, spoke to me about the importance of getting away from the noise of their day-to-day professional lives… and the impact this had on his own career journey.

“By going to a different place, meeting different people and disconnecting from daily distractions - emails, WhatsApp, meetings, Slack messages - leaders can begin to explore a purposeful vision for the future.”

This is what I wrote back in August when discussing the “why” of a leadership retreat. Finding that “purposeful vision” is often in the context of where a leader wants to take their organisation in the future. But it can also be about where a leader wants to take themselves.

Alex Hayes-Griffin is a great example of the latter. I wanted to use his insights for this edition of the newsletter because 10 weeks after attending the retreat in Wales, he resigned from his role in the investment banking sector - having spent his entire 23-year career in the industry - to explore alternative paths.

As he told me: “I was at a career crossroads when I went to the retreat. A few months prior I had decided not to apply for what I previously thought would be my dream job. I was conflicted about it and it wasn’t an easy decision, but it didn’t feel right to apply. And funnily enough, on the second morning of the retreat, I looked at Bloomberg and saw an article announcing the person who had been appointed for that job.

“I switched my phone off, went for a walk along the river and worked something out: if that had been my name on the news article, I would not have been jumping for joy. It was a role that, according to my historic ego-centric thinking, should have been my dream job - the kind my parents would get really excited about - but wasn’t. It gave me the confidence to know that taking the road less travelled was right for me.

“Being at the retreat and away from the noise, there was much greater fluency with my inner purpose - and clarity on my future path. Ten weeks later, I resigned from my role. Going to the retreat certainly had an influential role in my decision to pursue something different. There was already an ‘opening’ but it influenced me to continue towards it."

Alex is now experimenting with a portfolio career which includes consulting work but also training as a business coach and embarking on a Sa?d Business School postgraduate course on the use of AI in business. Partly as a result of the retreat, he’s found what he calls “professional freedom”.

Helen Croydon, founder and director of Thought Leadership PR, attended alongside Alex and said the “free rein” to hone in on a choice of abstract but poignant questions immediately shone a spotlight on lurking issues that needed to surface. It was this time which ultimately led to her realigning her company.

She said: “The question which really sang to me was: ‘What’s the gift you’re called to give?’ Something clicked. I’d already been trying to define the purpose of my PR agency for a while, but I’d drawn a blank: everything I came up with sounded like a mission statement.

“But this question reframed things. I realised I couldn’t find the purpose of my business because I couldn’t articulate my purpose as the founder. While I didn’t get the answer on that retreat, it set some chains in action and over the coming weeks I contemplated that question. My gift, writing and articulation, can be put to use to help people tell worthwhile stories that they don’t have the ability to tell. That’s what I’m good at, and that’s what my team is good at because I’d recruited for the same skills that I have.

"Fundamentally it made me change the direction of my business away from PR towards storytelling and writing, and it has been amazing how many things have slotted into place since contemplating that question at the retreat.”

Alex and Helen’s experiences are examples of the clarity leaders can gain by taking time away from the “do, do, do” of their work and using the time to think about the future.

By temporarily moving into a place where they could just “be”, I would argue they were less attached to the current way of doing things and could see themselves - and their purpose - more clearly. I have always said the day-to-day running of an organisation is only half of the job for a leader. It’s also their responsibility to see what is coming on the horizon and what needs to change so their organisation can remain relevant.

Retreating, even if only for three days, can provide the direction needed to move forward.

Previous newsletters in this series

• Leadership retreats and the importance of consciously detaching from the status quo
• Leadership retreats and the ongoing challenges of transformation

A message from the author

Thank you for reading the 54th edition of the Leadership 2050 newsletter. You may be interested to know why I am writing it. As a senior fellow of management practice at the University of Oxford’s Sa?d Business School, my research and teaching focuses on how leaders transcend 21st century challenges such as disruptive technology change, the climate crisis and creating diverse and inclusive environments… alongside the ongoing challenge of delivering profitable growth. At Sa?d, I direct the Oxford Advanced Management & Leadership Programme and, in this capacity, work with leaders from many geographies, industries and governments. All this has given me a deep understanding of how good leaders create value - and bad leaders destroy it. One could argue that never before has this topic been so important on a global stage, hence why I am undertaking this work.