Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
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. Today’s episode is a really special one because I’m joined by two brilliant women who are not only my friends and colleagues, but also my co founders of the Empower Her Collective, Claire Radford and Harry Demetrius. Between us, we have more than 50 years of combined experience in leadership, psychology and executive coaching.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:08]:
And we’ve spent our careers helping leaders reach their potential. But time and time again, we’ve seen the same patterns. Incredible women with talent, drive and capability still battling systems that weren’t built with them in mind. So we’ve decided to do something about it. We came together to launch the Empower her collective, and right now we’re running our first piece of research looking at the real challenges senior women face in leadership today and what kind of development actually works. So in this conversation, we’re going to share why we started this collaboration, why we feel this work’s more urgent than ever, and what we hope to learn from the incredible women who take part in our research. So welcome. Welcome, Harry, because this is your first time to the podcast.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:56]:
And welcome back, Claire.

Clare Radford [00:01:58]:
Thank you.

Harri Demetrios [00:02:00]:
It is my first time. You two are seasoned professionals at podcasting.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:05]:
No? And I know that you’re like, oh, my God, this is my first time. But I’m really glad to be doing your first podcast with you, so hopefully you’ll just enjoy it. It’ll be fun. And I wanted to get you both on to really share what we’re working on because this has been going on for a little while now. These are conversations that we’ve been having for a little while, and I thought it might be useful to kind of let people know how we’ve come together and why we’ve created the Empower her collective. So from your perspective, because I can share mine, but I always think it’s, like, interesting to see our different perspectives. So, Harry, let’s start with you. From your perspective, how did this all.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:46]:
Kick off it actually kicked off in over lunch with you lovely ladies. We, we’ve all been working to some degree in leadership and coaching in lots of different ways for loads of number of years. I think we’ve got something like 50 years between us. Nikki, you were saying? And we, we’ve just constantly bumping into the same sort of frustrations, having the same conversations with, with our, with our coaches or with individuals that we’re working closely with. And essentially it’s incredible. Women, all the talent, all the drive in the world but actually there is still something that is making them stuck. And we were having some conversation, we thought why, why we’re not doing something together to join, just. Yeah, make something, make some changes.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:39]:
I couldn’t have said it better. And I think Claire, we actually connected through Harry, didn’t we? So we all work for the same consultancy company and over the years of kind of our paths have crossed. So Harry, you and I worked together on a program and got to know each other that way. And then you were like, you need to meet Claire. And so we’ve got you to thank Harry for bringing us all together.

Clare Radford [00:04:03]:
Well done, Harry. Well done. And I actually met Harry. So we did work at the same consultancy. But then I like to say to people, Harry saved my life. So over overstatement, I was in house working in a different organization and I was having a really tough time with a senior female leader and I reached out to Harry to be my coach. So it was a professional relationship at that point. I was Harry’s client and she coached me through extremely difficult period of my career and helped me to realize that what I was experiencing was bullying, was gaslighting and that I needed to get out and make a change.

Clare Radford [00:04:46]:
So I genuinely credit Harry with, you know, helping me get out of a really dark place. And likewise she said, you’ve got to meet Nikki. So it was like a coming together of minds when we finally had that lunch.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:58]:
Yeah. And I think there was a real alignment, wasn’t there, in terms of our values, in terms of kind of our, our approaches, our backgrounds, in terms of expertise, but also this shared passion for actually being a female in leadership. There are some unique kind of nuances to that that can be really tricky to navigate as you’ve alluded to Claire, you know, being on the receiving end of some of some of that stuff, being mums that have got career ambitions. I think we have many conversations about that and there’s many a WhatsApp message that goes back and forwards between us.

Harri Demetrios [00:05:38]:
Around those voice notes.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:40]:
Yeah. And what we’re seeing with our clients as well, about, actually, these are women that are absolutely working really hard, they’re really competent, and it doesn’t matter how kind of much effort they put in, they feel like sometimes they’re doing it with one hand tied behind their back. And we often get to hear in the coaching rooms, don’t we, the impact of that in terms of their emotional well being or even their physical wellbeing. And I think those shared conversations over time we started going, we’re talking about this, what are we actually going to do about it? And I think that’s kind of where it came from. And I wonder, is there a particular moment that stands out for you in our conversations about when we went, okay, this, this is the moment, because I was trying to reflect on that and I can’t think of one moment, but my memory is terrible.

Harri Demetrios [00:06:35]:
It may well have been. I, I remember raising it and I don’t know which one of us, and it’s kind of irrelevant. But at the lunch we were talking about, I think, the programs that we were working with and some of the things that are coming out of those conversations around the leadership tables. And we were talking quite passionately because I think we’re equally all passionate about the work that we do and love it. And we were talking about, actually, even though these frustrations exist and we feel like we might be able to have a great coaching conversation with an individual woman in that moment or support somebody in an organization to navigate some challenges. Actually, there are three of us who have got amazing experience that can come together and collectively make some significant impact on a more kind of mass basis. And by mass, I mean how do you get an amazing group of women together and do something quite powerful and impactful? And I suppose it was born out of that really, that we said, we don’t know what it looks like and we might still not. It is an evolve, you know, it’s evolving daily, but it’s actually why we’re not putting all that passion and clubbing it together into something that might come, might be quite impactful out there.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:59]:
I know from your side, Clay, you’ve been passionate about going, this isn’t about fixing women.

Clare Radford [00:08:05]:
Yes, absolutely. And I was just thinking, I remember at that lunch having a conversation with you about a piece of work I was doing at a large bank for their female leaders. And I was running a session that I call not another imposter syndrome session. And we were laughing, weren’t we? Because we were saying, oh, you know, every female development program has a session on imposter syndrome and fixing the women. And we were kind of saying what if we could turn that on its head, you know, what if we could talk to these organizations about this systems and the processes and the unconscious bias and at the same time equip these fantastic female leaders with the tools to navigate through it as well.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:45]:
Yeah. And it’s interesting, literally over the last week I’ve just done a courageous conversations career workshop for a financial services company for their, for their women’s network. And we did a piece on how do you manage your end of year performance reviews around unconscious bias. And it was so interesting because in that we were talking about actually how does it show up and what might be some of the language patterns you might hear from your, your manager and actually what can some of your responses be and that practical stuff around because often it’s, you know, the feedback might be oh, you’re not strategic enough yet.

Harri Demetrios [00:09:20]:
Or.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:23]:
We need to see more kind of leadership presence from you. And on the surface they might actually be really genuine feedback, but actually that’s loaded and it’s not clean feedback. And actually how do you manage that in the moment? Because as we know, we’re seeing in the statistics, aren’t we, that still not enough women are getting to that top C suite level. Or if they are, it’s more in non exec director positions where they might be making up the numbers but they’re not necessarily making the strategic impact in the way that we know that they can and are hugely capable to do. And that kind of feedback can really be kind of breaking that rung on the ladder to get there.

Clare Radford [00:10:06]:
It does. And you know, I promise that we didn’t plan this in advance, but I was just reading some research that has come out this, this company looked at 25,000 performance reviews and what was really interesting is that 3/4 of the women received a negative feedback in their performance reviews and just 2% of the male counterparts did. And what was driving that? It was comments about their personality, their social impact, their soft skills, whereas the men were just rated on how they did their job. And as we know things, you know, comments about your personality are totally inactionable. What am I meant to do about my tone, about my brummy accent, about whether people like me or not? We’re not helping women to do well. And we can see unconscious bias coming through on mass. So I think you’re right. How do we help women recognize that first of all that that’s not okay and that’s not usual and then how do you deal with it and challenge it in the right way?

Harri Demetrios [00:11:07]:
Yeah. And I think there’s something about how do you. How do you raise those conversations in organisations where that is no longer the norm, that why is it okay for those behaviors? And therefore the conversation shouldn’t be about somebody justifying that kind of feedback to somebody. But actually let’s be a bit more thought, thoughtful and useful in the feedback that we’re giving to people because it’s just become okay and it’s not okay.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:36]:
And knowing that there are many managers out there that, I mean, we’ve all got unconscious bias, haven’t we? So it’s like it’s not some people, we’ve all got it, but it’s just to what degree and in what areas. And a lot of those managers are very well intended. They have no intention of actually kind of that showing up and having that impact. So part of it’s just an education process as well, from. From a system perspective, isn’t from an organizational perspective, but also empowering those individual women that might be on the receiving end of that in the moment about what’s the tool that I can pull out right at this moment that helps me navigate this in a really productive and constructive way. And I suppose those were the kind of conversations that we were having. And then earlier this year we hosted a brunch, didn’t we? I wonder if you can kind of speak to that experience.

Harri Demetrios [00:12:21]:
I can tell. Yeah, I can start. I mean, it was an incredible day. We decided to, I suppose just bring some incredible women in our network in to have a, what we like to call a kitchen table discussion, which I suppose is what we’re having now. And we refer to that a lot. Nikki, you introduced us to this notion of it from I think Michelle Obama book that really inspired you. And it stuck with us, I think throughout. And you know, giving, we.

Harri Demetrios [00:12:50]:
We hosted at the Ivy in Birmingham. So it was a beautiful brunch. It was a stunning event. And we got some really incredible women to have some. Just some brilliant conversations to share of the barriers that they’re experiencing, some of the experiences that has shaped their mindset, their beliefs, how it sometimes jars with some of the realities of working in an organization. And it ranged from kind of legal firms to HR roles to operations. So it wasn’t kind of, you know, specific to a particular industry. And that’s really the tone that we want to set.

Harri Demetrios [00:13:28]:
And not just having the. The conversation, which I think is important. But what’s the next step? What do you do as a consequence of having that brilliant chat, that aware, raising the awareness and what are the skills that we need to be able to kind of navigate that challenge. So that, that was my view. I know, Claire, it was, yeah. Your experience, I’m guessing, was, yeah, similar.

Clare Radford [00:13:53]:
I mean, it was. It was a beautiful event and we were testing the waters, I suppose, a little bit. And I think what surprised me most about the brunch was we wanted to bring women together, we wanted to hear about their experiences. And there were women as part of that group who are CEOs, chief people officers, really, you know, highly regarded women who are very well networked. And yet at the end of that brunch, they told us they’d never experienced what they felt in that room. And as you know, we had tears, we had laughter, we had hugs, shared experiences. But the difference was they felt safe and they felt safe to be really vulnerable. Because I think we helped to set the tone with that a little bit.

Clare Radford [00:14:36]:
And I think that is so important. So often with things like networking and leadership development, it’s about pumping people full of skills, but also we need to give them space and safe space at that.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:49]:
And I think that kind of blew my mind as well, because I suppose my. And what we probably take for granted is we’ve spent decades honing the skills of creating environments where people feel safe to show up, have the conversations they need to have, and do that internal work. So they kind of walk away with a shift. And I think what we saw in that room is very quickly that, you know, the utopia of psychological safety starting to be established. None of us, I don’t think we’re expecting it that quickly, but I think there was something about the quality of the environment that was created and it was all co creative. We can’t take the credit for that because each of those women kind of showed up and contributed to it. But I think what I saw was the mask dropping of like, I’ve got to hold it all together. I’ve got to look like I am strong, capable, I’m spinning all the plates and none of them are dropping.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:43]:
And just to be able to drop the mask and go poof. This stuff, it’s, you know, I’m absolutely capable, but it’s a heavy weight to carry. And sometimes that weight I want to put down, just talk about it and without judgment and without fear that I’m going to be negatively appraised for kind of going, this stuff’s not easy. And I think those were the quality of conversations that we saw and how valuable as you say people went, we’ve, we’ve not experienced that. And I think it was the speed at which it happened as well and the depth that we went to very quickly but I think surprised us, but was like reassuring us that actually this, this is what’s needed. This is if we can create more of this. And I suppose from there we started going, well, okay then let’s start to put together a female leadership development program. And we’ve got some great ideas based on kind of experience working with world class organizations and in world class kind of consultancy.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:43]:
But I think what we were very keen to do was make sure that we’re creating something that’s absolutely going to hit the mark for people. And so we decided to create this piece of research. So I wonder, kind of Harry, would you mind kind of sharing your thoughts on how this came about? And I think you’re both business psychologists by background, aren’t you that data, that data driven decisions and data driven design is, is kind of fundamental to kind of the work that you do. Obviously I haven’t got the psychologist background, so I’ve really appreciated seeing that kind of robustness that you bring to everything that you do and then that kind of design mindset. And I think that when we were having these conversations about so why don’t we do this, we know that there is a need for something different. We’ve got some guesses on what that different could be. We’ve got lots of experience about what absolutely can land but creating and crafting something that meets the needs of women about where they’re at in terms of their time availability, you know, that they’re already overwhelmed. So how do we create it in a way that can be absorbed and it doesn’t feel like another thing on the to do list to kind of beat ourselves up with.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:49]:
So the research is about actually what are the issues that you’re kind of facing and what might be the ways in which, if we could offer you some support around that, what are the ways in which would feel good? Because as we said, the stuff we put out there, we want it to feel good. It might not feel easy, but it feels like you’re being supported, you’re being challenged, but you’re also, you’ve got that kind of tribe of people around you that are like minded. And I think that was really keen in what we’re doing. So what, what are you hoping, Claire, from your perspective that the, the resignation my search might uncover?

Clare Radford [00:20:26]:
Well, it’s no secret that I’m a massive Geek. So the, the data bit gets me so excited. I just love having a real look at what are the issues people are dealing with and how can we then form a solution to some of that. And I think to be a little bit vulnerable perhaps here we, after our brunch, we were so elated, weren’t we? And we were like, right, we’ve got something. We know how to help women now. And then we lost our way a little bit and we thought, oh, we’re not quite clear 100 on where to go. So I think having this data and hearing from as many people as we can is going to help us cut through some of our assumptions, perhaps some of the stuff that’s been done before, and figure out if women are going to spend their precious time doing three things. What do those three things need to be? Let’s get right to the heart of it.

Clare Radford [00:21:18]:
And I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve had since we’ve launched the survey. Loads of messages of support, but also people saying, oh my God, I’m so glad you are doing this because I want to know what’s going on as well. I, I have this feeling that, you know, female development isn’t really working in our business. Can you share a copy of the results when you’ve got them? And obviously the answer is, hell yes. We’re going to share it far and.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:42]:
Wide and in terms of the kind of things that we’re hoping to support people on. So if there’s people listening going, okay, I’m, I’m a female leader. I, yeah, support. I think that I can’t imagine there’s anybody listening to this that’s going, I’ve got it all nailed. There’s no support need because as we know, we each have our own coaches. You know, I’ve got a coach, I’ve got a supervisor, I’ve got a therapist. I’m a massive believer in let’s resource ourselves. Like, it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to raise a mother and a leader.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:11]:
And who’s the village that we want around us? So what are the kind of things that somebody might be listening to that somebody listening might be able to relate to? What do we think might be some of the themes that are going to come out of this research?

Clare Radford [00:22:24]:
I think there’s something for me around learning the skills of self advocacy. And that is just one real micro skill that I think we, we skip over in our education. And that goes for men and women. But from my experience, I found that women are not as confident or feel as able to really clearly articulate what it is they need and why. So I think what I’m hoping we’ll find is what are some of those micro skills that we were never taught that we might be able to just arm people with to put in their toolkit that are going to unloc their performance, their ambitions, whatever it is they’re.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:04]:
Looking for that’s such a powerful one. And for somebody listening that goes, oh, what do we mean by self advocacy? What might that look or sound like?

Clare Radford [00:23:14]:
So I like to think of self advocacy as a bit of a process that you go through. So if you’re feeling that something isn’t quite aligned to your values or how you want to work or how you’re going to be at your best, it’s first of all noticing that to do that, you’ve got to be really clear on your. On what success looks like for you. Maybe it’s that you’re working in line with your values. Maybe it’s that you’re clocking off on time to see your family. Maybe it’s that you want that promotion. Whatever it is, first of all, it’s noticing, then clearly articulating what is the problem with somebody that can help you unlock it. And the way to do this is to frame it in a way that benefits you both.

Clare Radford [00:23:55]:
You know, I want to be amazing at my job, and XYZ is currently stopping me from doing that. So here’s a suggestion. And then I always say to the female leaders I work with, try the foot in the door technique, which is an influencing technique that sales people have used for hundreds of years. Start with a really small request, and if they say yes to that, it increases the likelihood they’ll say yes to something else. So these are just some of the, you know, the tips and tricks from our background in psychology that we know can work to influence the way things are around you.

Harri Demetrios [00:24:28]:
I think for me, there’s also something about recognizing that we are all so very different. And what that comes with is, you know, I. I just imagine someone going, I don’t want to be bulshy or I don’t. You know, that’s not who I am or that’s not what I feel comfortable doing. And. And it isn’t about making somebody into something else or creating a difference in character. It’s about saying what is within you that you feel comfortable with that you might not be fully leveraging right now. And how do you give that space and play with it because it’s there, but making it authentic and real for you as opposed to learning a skill of doing something that just doesn’t feel real and comfortable because that’s not, I don’t think what it’s about.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:17]:
I love that and I have many conversations I might have with clients around. You know, they might be more introverted in their style and they feel that to be a leader they, they’ve, you know, I think a lot of leadership has this perception you’ve got to be extroverted and how do they use that quiet power to actually lead effectively? And it very authentically and actually those can be some of the best leaders. But again, as you say, you feel like you’ve got to be somebody different to who you are and knowing that your uniqueness can be, you can, you can elevate that in a really profound way. And it’s making me think, actually I was as you were talking Claire, about that self advocacy and a bit of a personal share here, but I’m about to have over the next few months major surgery and to feel comfortable with this major surgery. Again, it’s about resourcing myself. I, psychologically, I can put myself into a situation that feels out of my control if I feel like I’ve controlled the controllables. So one of the things that I did today was reached out to an amazing woman and had a session with her and she’s a scar tissue expert. She’s one of the UK’s lead leading scar tissue experts and she came to me through my network.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:23]:
So I’ve done this kind of building my network, leveraging my network to go, who do I know that can help support me with my post, my pre operation preparation, but my post operation recovery. And part of it is I know that the scar tissue could create some problems. And she was amazing, incredible woman. And what she also did was reinforce that self advocacy that you talked about. Because with my surgeon, my surgeon’s making some assumptions just through, you know, probably doing hundreds of these operations a month. This is the way it’s going to be. Some of which doesn’t always sit comfortably with me. And I won’t go into the detail, I’m sure I’ll talk about this post operation but.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:04]:
And she was brilliant at kind of going, no, this is the self advocacy we’re going to have. You want to be asking this question, you want to know why they’re doing that? You want to know why for your specific, specific body they’re doing that. And she was saying it’s it, it, it breaks her Heart. The amount of women that turn up in her practice that have not self advocated for their own bodies because we just are not kind of encouraged to do that. And that was a really great example. I was like, yeah, how this plays out systemically, that actually we want to be seen to be, you know, that that whole balance of the warmth and agreeableness with our assertiveness, that, that balance in leadership is really tricky because if we’re too assertive, we are deemed to be kind of abrasive. But actually if we, if we lean too much into that agreeableness, we’re diminishing our power and helping women navigate that because there is a lot of bias around it. How do you find your center and your ground with that to move forward?

Clare Radford [00:28:10]:
Your example there with surgeries is so powerful. But I’m also thinking about the parallels in the business world as well, because one thing we’ve noticed in the survey results already are women that have reached out to us afterwards and said, it’s only through going through the process of answering your survey that I’ve realized something isn’t okay or isn’t normal things that we’ve just accepted as okay and natural. Being talked over, being sidelined, being passed over for promotion, getting very personal feedback in performance reviews until you are forced to write it down in black and white. You just normalize it. And we do. So sometimes, Nikki, you know, you need to reach out to your network. You need somebody who’s a bit more distanced from the situation to hold up a mirror and say, oh, is that okay? Should you be okay with that? Or should we be challenging some of this a bit more?

Harri Demetrios [00:29:03]:
Yeah, and, and to not validate it by just swallowing it as the norm, because I know I, I mean, I think we can all share experiences early on in our careers where we’ve had particular, you know, situations that have led us. I know that I would consider myself quite a bold person, naturally. But when I look back to my early careers, when I would just swallow it, not say anything, absorb it, assume it’s me, you know, or that’s okay, because that’s how we do things. And it isn’t until you offer perspective on your own experiences that you go, hold on a second. No, it’s not, it’s not as simple as that.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:45]:
But I also think that’s the power of having like minded people around you that are not in your, what I would call in your system. So they see it with a different pair of eyes. And as we know, that’s the power of being Coached and having coaching is somebody to go, go. Actually, let me just stop you there. Like, I’m noticing.

Harri Demetrios [00:30:08]:
Yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:09]:
This pattern or I’m noticing this is going on and almost switching off the autopilot of just us brushing it under the carpet or, or sucking it up or whatever it might be to kind of go, okay, yeah, that is true. I’ve not seen it that way. As you said, Claire, in your experience, having coaching from Harry, they realize they, oh my God, this, this is bullying. It’s not me being weak and incapable. It’s. This is a. This is happening. And I, you know, how many client conversations have we had where we’ve had to kind of hold the mirror up and kind of go, just have a look at what’s going on here and step outside.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:47]:
Almost be that bird’s eye view of. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t necessarily accept this for a friend or I wouldn’t accept it for my daughter, but actually we want to be strong and capable, so we do just suck it up.

Harri Demetrios [00:31:00]:
It. It just reminded me. Sorry to interrupt, but I, I was working. I’m working, Jason. Work currently for a bank in, in fintech, supporting kind of founders to really drive their business forward. And actually one of the guests there was a. Two female speakers who came and did a session with the group earlier in the week. They’ve got an organization who they, they run accelerator program for fintech founders, but specifically for women.

Harri Demetrios [00:31:29]:
So we engage in the conversations around. Actually, what, what are you noticing about women founders and how is that different from the room here, which is a little bit more diverse? Not so much, you know, two out of 10 men, two of, you know, 12aman, a female. Sorry, but. And they were saying. Well, because actually the facts tell us that for a female founder to go and raise capital for her business, they are not as successful as men. It’s as simple as that. And therefore how do you. With all of the other biases around in the systems and the challenges and the complexities, how do you go in and raise, you know, some serious funding for your organization when you’re having to work a lot harder to even get your foot in the door? And, and so they run this, this accelerator program for women specifically on that basis, which I thought was also interesting because it kind of play notion that facts are telling us that women founders are struggling to get their foot in the door.

Harri Demetrios [00:32:32]:
And it’s harder. It’s harder for all founders. But why for women? So I think it covers all industries or levels in different ways as well.

Nicky Lowe [00:32:41]:
Yeah. So obviously We’ve got this research that’s out there at the moment and we would love, if you’re listening and you would like to give your voice to this, we would love to get your insights because the more voices, the more kind of breadth and depth of experiences we get represented in this research, the more we’ll be able to kind of share the output and share kind of the next steps in terms of what we see as the potential solutions to this. So I’ll drop that survey link in the show Notes for People so you’ll get access to that through the podcast. But you can also go to empowerher. So E M P O W H e r empowerher collective.co.uk and on that website you can get on the wait list for the research results and you can find out a bit more about what we’re doing. But for people listening, what kind of message would you like to leave them with? Perhaps start with you first, Claire.

Clare Radford [00:33:45]:
Oh, great question. I think it is just pay more attention to what is going on around you. Don’t just accept things at face value. Question everything and form a really strong network of people that you can check in with either for support or to hold at that mirror. We’ve talked about that today and I do recognize that it is, it’s quite a privileged position to be able to have a coach, coach and for some people even to have a mentor. But everybody can have a buddy at work. Everybody can have someone that can just help them work through things and hold up that mirror. And I would really strongly advise everyone to do that.

Nicky Lowe [00:34:23]:
How about yourself, Harry?

Harri Demetrios [00:34:26]:
I think, I think mine probably comes from a space of doing so much work in the leadership space that, you know, my hope is always, you know, how, how do we create more, more human leadership, more balanced human leadership? It’s not just for women. It’s actually for the benefit of all leaders. When you create systems where women can really thrive, women can succeed. Actually, you’re making leadership better for any, everyone. And so it’s around kind of, we, we want to really simply listen to women’s lived experiences and then build that development as well structure that is going to work better for them and for everyone. So that’s the hope.

Nicky Lowe [00:35:08]:
Yeah, I love that. And I think from my perspective, leadership is getting more challenging, full stop, for everybody, whether you’re male, female. It is the complexity, the ambiguity, you know, the speed of change. It is getting harder and harder. And I think that means it’s harder for us to keep our center in all of those gravitational pulls. And we know that there are different and sometimes more challenging gravitational pulls for women. And I think what we wanted to come to do was come together to help women kind of find their center, find their kind of their unique natural power in all of that so that we’re not feeling so crushed as all leaders are. Like I, you know, we also work with a lot of male leaders and I think we could, we would.

Nicky Lowe [00:35:52]:
Before we hit record, we all said, you know, men are struggling, that’s not. But we think we’ve got a unique kind of experience perspective that can help specifically women in developing this. And so where hope is in the next the research is closing mid November, so if you’re listening to this podcast after that date you will if you head over to the website, as I said, empower her collective.co.uk you can get on the wait list. The research is going to be launched in January 20266 and then you’ll see us move forward with more kind of solutions to support you. So we would love, love, love to have your kind of voices and lived experience into the survey. But if you listen to this after that day you can get access to the, to the results and yeah, follow us for, for what we’ve got coming up. It’s just to say thank you. It’s an absolute like I am loving collaborating with you two.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:54]:
It’s just your experience, your expertise, but also just who you are as people. Like, honestly, it’s one of one of my favorite things to do and I’m really grateful to have you both kind of as friends but also as colleagues and I can’t wait to share more about what we’re going to do together.

Clare Radford [00:37:11]:
Thank you, Nikki. Thanks, Harry.

Harri Demetrios [00:37:14]:
It’s an honour. Ladies.

Nicky Lowe [00:37:17]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of what 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 their this resource so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening until next time. Take care.