Nicky Lowe [00:00:00]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host and for nearly two decades now I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here. And let’s get on with today’s episode. If you’re listening to this episode and feeling like you’re working harder than ever, but somehow things still feel heavy, then this episode is for you.

Nicky Lowe [00:00:58]:
Because one of the things I’ve noticed with the women I work with, they aren’t engaged or underperforming, they’re really capable, thoughtful, value led leaders who care deeply about their work, their people and their families. And yet, so often I hear this sense of like I’m exhausted and I don’t know how to let go without things slipping or like my responsibility has grown but my capacity hasn’t. And this sense of why does everything still come back to me and why is everything still on my shoulders? And if you’re a working mum, there’s usually something else underneath all of that. And I genuinely believe that becoming a parent is one of the biggest vertical leadership transitions that we can go through. Like overnight we take on this whole new identity, a whole new level of responsibility and a completely different relationship with time and energy and care. And what often gets underestimated is this. It’s not just your logistics that change, it’s who you are. And and then you’re expected to return to work and lead from the same identity that existed before you became a parent.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:25]:
And at some point, one thing becomes really clear. What got you here won’t get you there. This season of Life asks for something different of you. Not less ambition, but a different relationship to effort, to control and to value. And that’s really what today’s conversation is about. Because when doing more stops working, it’s not a sign you’re failing, it’s actually a signal that it’s time to lead differently. And I think it’s important to set this in context. I think one of the biggest challenges I see in leadership, especially for high performing women, isn’t capability, it’s this role misalignment.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:17]:
And we don’t always stop to ask what role am I actually in right now? What role is required of me? And what role am I still playing out of habit? Because when those things are misaligned, leadership can start to feel heavy. And don’t get me wrong, being a leader is tricky, and it’s getting more and more tricky. But there’s an additional kind of heaviness to it, and it’s not because you’re doing it badly. It’s because you’re using strategies that belong to a previous season and to an identity that no longer quite fits who you are now. And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about the fable of the mule and the magician. And in my coaching work, I often I’m working with leaders to step out of being the mule, like the workhorse that carries everything, pushes through, works all the hours, and equates their value with effort. And I’m working with them to step more into their magician about where they’re rewarded, not for how much time you give, but for the value you create, the value you unlock and transform through others. And we explored this in episode 103.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:40]:
So if you’re interested or kind of didn’t hear that fable before, go Back to episode 103. And recently I was working with a new client, and in their coaching session, we were doing what we call their primary focus, like, what are their key objectives they want to cover in the coaching program? And during that conversation, what kind of emerged was this need for them to shift from the middle, the mule to the magician, to make that shift from doing it all to really stepping up, elevating their leadership and delivering through others? And as I shared the fable about the the mule and the magician, my client shared with me a framework that she’d heard called the maker, the marker, and the multiplier. And as soon as she said it, I just kind of knew it. It was. It made absolute sense to me, and it added a layer into this. And this concept of the maker, the marker, and the multiplier she’d actually heard through a guy called Sandeep Swadia, who’s also known as the MIT Monk. And I could immediately see how useful that language is from. For really helping people understand, actually, where are they? And what I love about this model is that it’s not hierarchical.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:05]:
Like, none of these roles are better than others. They’re contextual. And most of us move through maybe all of three of these through our career and lives. The challenge comes when we stay in a role that no longer fits the responsibility we hold or the season of life that we’re in. So I wanted to share with you kind of the difference between the maker, the marker and the multiplier. So let’s start with that. The first one, the mark, the maker. So the maker mode is where many of us begin in our career as a maker.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:41]:
You do the work yourself. You’re detailed, focused and you’re diligent. You value effort, quality, quality and reliability. And you take pride in doing things properly. And this is what we would know as like the individual contributor. Your individual contribution is what you’re measured on. And so the maker energy really is my value comes from what I personally deliver. Maker skills are not the problem.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:13]:
They’re often exactly what gets you promoted. But the maker mode has a ceiling because your impact is really limited by your time and energy. And when your responsibility grows but you’re still operating as a maker, something eventually has to give, and often that something is you. And particularly when you add becoming a parent into the mix because you don’t have the same time and energy to dedicate your work as you did before. And it probably was never sustainable, but particularly when you add in parenthood, it no longer becomes sustainable. And I know that was exactly the experience for me and why I experienced burnout. But for many women, maker mode isn’t just how they work, it’s who they’ve learned to be like the capable one, the reliable one, the person who gets things done. And that’s when it can be really difficult for people to transition to the next level, which is the marker level.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:18]:
And the marker mode is where leadership really begins and where it often feels most uncomfortable. Because as a marker you start to delegate, you’re reviewing, you’re editing, and you’re giving feedback to others and you’re actually building on others work and you’re learning what to delegate and where your input adds value. You’re doing and delegating often at the same time. And this is really the delivering through others transition. And so the marker energy says my value comes from improving the work of others. And that’s really a crucial development stage. And it’s also where many leaders get stuck, because while tasks have been handed over, often the mental loan hasn’t. You’re still checking, you’re still holding the risk, and you’re still being that final sign off.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:09]:
And the marker mode is often where identity tension really shows up. You’re no longer the pure doer, but you don’t yet fully trust the version of yourself who leads without being Hands on. So at this kind of transition point, people can get stuck in, still hovering. You edit, you stay close, you probably micromanage. And it’s not because you don’t necessarily trust others. It’s often because you’re still learning to trust that new version of yourself. And so it’s a massive transition. And if you stay there too long, it can turn you into the bottleneck because that next transition is to the multiplier.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:52]:
And the multiplier leadership really is required when your responsibility expands and your success depends on many people performing well. So as a multiplier, it’s about recruiting well, it’s about aligning people to purpose and priorities. It’s about orchestrating rather than executing the tasks. And you build kind of capability and not dependency. So the multiplier energy really says my value comes from amplifying others. And that’s really where the magician truly emerges. Like, you’re no longer rewarded for effort, you’re rewarded for impact. But multiplier leadership doesn’t just require new skills, it requires a redefinition of value.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:44]:
So you have to loosen that identity that says I’m valuable because I’m busy and responsive and involved, and step into the one that says I’m valuable because I create clarity, direction and capacity even when I’m not involved in the detail. And I’m intrigued because I haven’t seen any data or evidence that would necessarily back this up, but my anecdotal evidence from working with like thousands of clients over the years, both male and female, it’s women that struggle with that identity shift the most. It’s almost like we are taught this kind of self sacrifice mode of being that when it comes to leadership, unless we’re sacrificing ourselves, working all the hours and getting stuck in the detail, it’s almost like we don’t deserve the leadership. And that’s where the leadership pipeline can get blocked. So let me explain what I mean by that. A huge part of the work I’m hired to do by global organizations is helping leaders navigate the pipeline. So the pipeline is going from being like an individual contributor to being a manager, then navigating, going from being a manager to managing other managers, or then becoming a functional leader or an enterprise leader. And there’s almost like this pipeline that people progress through and I help them do it with more ease and sustainability, but the pipeline can get blocked.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:18]:
And that’s not because people aren’t talented or aren’t taught the skills of that next level. It’s because they’re promoted into bigger roles without being supported, to let go of old identities that once served them. And research published by Harvard Business Review shows that leaders often struggle with promotion. Exactly. Not because they lack the skill that I talked about, but because they don’t adapt their mindset, identity, and way of working. They kind of add responsibility, but they don’t subtract outdated ways of being. And it’s really important to say this isn’t just the practical elements, it’s the psychological. There’s a leadership researcher called Herminia Abara, and they talk about how transitions require us to experiment with new identities.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:10]:
It’s almost like that wobble when you feel that you stop doing and the urge is to jump back in and fix. And it’s that discomfort of no longer being the expert. And that’s not incompetence, that’s the identity shift. And identity shifts are uncomfortable, especially when the old identity was successful and it really felt kind of easy. And without the support, we default to what once kept us safe. And there’s a wider impact on this. Like research from Gallup shows that managers account for a significant proportion of team engagement. We kind of know that managers have a bigger impact on our mental health and most other people in our lives.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:51]:
And Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety shows that teams grow when leaders enable thinking and ownership, not when everything flows back to one person. So when leaders stay stuck in the maker or marker mode, teams don’t develop, capacity shrinks, and future leaders are quietly lost. And I often talk about the work of the multiplier, and it comes with the work of Liz Wiseman, who wrote the book Multiplying. It’s brilliant. And in her work, she talks about the concept of accidental diminishers, that most of us are trying to be multipliers, but unfortunately, we fall into these accidental diminishes, and we all have the tendency to be an accidental diminisher. It’s just understanding our version of it. So I want you to know that leadership growth isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about being honest with what no longer belongs there.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:48]:
And when you get clear on whether you’re acting as a maker, a marker, or a multiplier, you stop defaulting to effort and you start leading with intention. So if you take one thing from this, let it be this. Leadership isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what this role and this season of your life actually requires. And sometimes the most powerful move you can make is to stop working harder, even if that feels tricky and start working differently. And if you’re listening to this thinking, I know that I need to make this shift, but I’m not quite sure how that’s exactly the work I do. I support leaders, often women who are mothers, in complex, high pressure roles, to navigate these transitions with more clarity, confidence and sustainability. So if you’d like to explore what support could look like for you, you can find me over at luminate group, so www.luminate.co.uk head over to the contact page and we can have a conversation about what would be most helpful for this season of your leadership and life.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:05]:
As always, thanks for listening and until next time, take care. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to luminate co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on itunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. Thanks for listening. Until next time, take care.