Ep64: Leading Under Pressure Without Losing Your Humanity with Kate Adams
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What happens when leaders are expected to deliver commercial results while navigating increasing scrutiny, complexity, and competing expectations? In this episode of Human Wise, Helen Wada is joined by leadership advisor, coach, and author Kate Adams to explore how leaders can remain human when the pressure is relentless.
Drawing on two decades of experience across business, technology, innovation, and the social sector, Kate shares insights from her book Accountability Under Fire. Together, Helen and Kate discuss why leadership today is no longer about having all the answers. Instead, it requires curiosity, courage, and the ability to hold space for different perspectives while making difficult decisions.
This is a thoughtful conversation for leaders seeking to balance performance, accountability, and humanity in an increasingly complex world.
Topics Discussed:
What it means to be human at work under pressure
Why leadership complexity is increasing
The relationship between accountability and scrutiny
How curiosity and listening improve decision-making
Leading yourself before leading others
Understanding stakeholders and systems thinking
Balancing commercial performance with societal impact
Why awareness creates better leadership
The importance of holding different perspectives
Creating space between stimulus and response
Timestamps:
00:00 – 02:00 | Introduction to Kate Adams and Accountability Under Fire
02:01 – 05:15 | People, purpose, and why business impacts society
05:16 – 08:40 | What being human means under pressure
08:41 – 12:45 | Why modern leadership is becoming more complex
12:46 – 16:30 | The Accountability Ladder and different approaches to leadership
16:31 – 20:50 | Purpose, values, and why there is no one-size-fits-all approach
20:51 – 24:40 | The personal cost of leadership and rising expectations
24:41 – 31:10 | Lessons from writing the book and learning from scrutiny
31:11 – 34:30 | Human skills, listening, and understanding other perspectives
34:31 – 38:10 | Systems thinking, stakeholder awareness, and courageous decisions
38:11 – 40:50 | Awareness, embodiment, and noticing what matters
40:51 – 42:20 | Creating space and reflective questions for leaders
Read the episode blog here
About Kate Adams:
Kate Adams is a leadership advisor, executive coach, and board-level social impact leader, helping organisations navigate the increasing demands of modern leadership while maintaining high performance. Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, strategy, culture, and societal impact, shaped by more than two decades of experience across business, technology, media innovation, and the non-profit sector.
Her career has included senior roles with Comic Relief, Nesta, Tech Nation, Ford Foundation, and Conscious Capitalism in the US. She also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Social Impact Chair for Paralympics GB.
Kate is the author of Accountability Under Fire, which explores how leaders can navigate increasing scrutiny while balancing commercial performance with broader societal responsibilities. Through her work, she helps leaders develop the courage, curiosity, and judgement needed to lead responsibly in an increasingly complex world.
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Helen Wada: Welcome to another episode of Human Wise. I'm absolutely delighted to have Kate Adams with me this afternoon. Kate joining us all the way from Washington, DC.
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Helen Wada: Certainly at the moment. Another fellow author, but actually brilliant human being that I could not wait to have a conversation with on this podcast, because I know it's going to be enriching and very topical in the world today.
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Helen Wada: Kate Adams is a leadership advisor, coach, and board-level social impact leader, helping organisations navigate the increasing demands of modern leadership while maintaining high performance.
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Helen Wada: Her work at the intersection of leadership, strategy, and culture, shaped by two decades of experience across business technology, media innovation, and the non-profit sector, including senior roles at Comic Relief, Nesta, Tech Nation, Ford Institute in the UK, and Conscious Capitalism in the US.
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Helen Wada: She's also a non-executive director and social impact chair at Poa Olympics GB, and author of Accountability Under Fire, which we're going to talk about shortly. Her work focuses on how leaders can deliver strong performance whilst acting as responsible stewards of their organisations and wider impact.
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Helen Wada: She currently lives in Washington, DC, but soon returning to the UK after a three-year American adventure with her diplomat husband and children. Welcome to the show, Kate.
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Kate Adams: Hi, thanks for having me, Helen!
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Helen Wada: I've kind of got goosebumps, like, going through your bio. I feel that I've got to know you as a human being so much over the last, you know, however many months it is, but… but, you know, reading your bio there, the experience that you've brought to accountability under fire. We're talking about being human.
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Helen Wada: Who is Kate Adams, the person? You talk a bit about your diplomat husband and your children. Tell us a little bit more about you before we dive into the detail of the book.
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Kate Adams: Gosh, how long have you got, Helen? The, it's really interesting, actually. For me, always since I… I guess since I left school and thought, what am I going to do in the big, wide world? For me, it is not money that makes the world go round, it's people that make the world go round.
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Kate Adams: So, when I started in… in my working career, I wanted to work in the people side of business, and not necessarily the money side. So, I actually started in, terrible phrase now, but at the time, I think it's still… oh, it does still get called this, human capital.
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Helen Wada: Yeah, yeah.
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Kate Adams: logged in, which is basically understanding how, if people are your biggest asset, and also your biggest liability on the balance sheet, what does that mean?
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Kate Adams: But it's really interesting how… I think I've always felt, it's…
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Kate Adams: we all turn up to work to kind of, yes, we need to put food on the table, shirts on our backs, but life is much more than just that work, and I'm being so curious about, you know, businesses were trying to work out how they… it's a bit of a cruel word, but also an interesting word, manipulate their workforce.
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Helen Wada: Yeah.
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Kate Adams: really well. And I was super curious about just the society side of how things work. So not just how business works with people, but how, how,
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Kate Adams: people work to make a high-functioning society. So, I was then lucky enough to switch my career into very different spaces, like comic relief, which was all about creating a just world free from poverty, and then I was fascinated by the interplay between technology and,
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Kate Adams: people, so I went over to Nesta, where we started thinking about, well, my phrase is always, just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
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Kate Adams: So when you think about technology, why would we design something that means people
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Kate Adams: suffer, or struggle, or struggle to get a job, people have jobs. Why don't we design things that help people have a four-day week and go and live some more? Why don't we design… Absolutely.
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Helen Wada: today.
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Kate Adams: assistive technology for those with disabilities, and all things like that. So there's always been this theme of people, and then I got a bit obsessed with, well, I think
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Kate Adams: it's leaders that guide and steer this direction. So, it's leaders that I want to work with. So, I really… that sense of people has threaded all the way through, I think, that… that for me, and understanding, so curious about people, what makes them tick, and
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Kate Adams: Yeah, so definitely, I was always gonna go more the people side than the accounting side, put it that way.
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Helen Wada: That's probably what brought us together, is that…
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Kate Adams: Please stop.
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Helen Wada: focus on people, the focus on human, because when… when I set up this podcast, you know, before I… I put my book out there, it was really that how can we blend commerciality with humanity?
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Helen Wada: Because I think, like you, I recognise that the world needs to go around, you know, money is part of that, and whether it's for-profit, whether it's not-for-profit.
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Helen Wada: But fundamentally, the question has to become, who are we doing it for?
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Helen Wada: What are the implications on society?
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Helen Wada: And where is this all leading us? And I think…
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Helen Wada: In the time that we've known each other, AI has accelerated.
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Helen Wada: the conversation.
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Helen Wada: And some of these bigger questions are… are really, really important, and even more so important at board level, with those leaders that are steering the ships, because for me, it's a question of
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Helen Wada: But why are we doing all this? What are we doing? Are we racing to robots?
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Helen Wada: Or are we actually looking to create businesses and organisations?
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Helen Wada: That are looking after society and people as a whole.
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Helen Wada: And so, I think this is such a timely conversation, and actually a timely book for you to put into the world, Accountability Under Fire. We're going to get to that in a moment, but I do like to start the podcast with a question about being human. What does being human at work mean to you?
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Kate Adams: I think, it's a good question. It means so many things, but I think to pull out a headline, or… I think the main… the main area I've been thinking about recently is what it means when you're really under pressure. Yeah.
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Kate Adams: Because that's when we sometimes show our worst side or trickiest side, and it actually…
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Kate Adams: the workplace for very senior leaders has become such a complex and challenging place to be. So, I think, what does it mean, to be human at work when you're under pressure? We get that, fight, flight, fright mode, don't we? And I know that when I'm under pressure, I…
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Kate Adams: sometimes I perform really well, because I'm super clear, I'm just like… it's like, okay, it's really clear that this is, you know, let's focus on… on sort of speed, and just… I don't know, an adrenaline kicks in, and it goes really well. Other times, when I'm under pressure.
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Kate Adams: the worst sides of me dial up. And actually, I think we see that increasingly as…
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Kate Adams: under more scrutiny, leaders become… they sort of… how do you… when you want clarity, you say, what's the answer? Someone give me the answer, give me the answer. I'm trying to find the data point to make a good judgment. And actually, you have to stay curious.
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Kate Adams: When… when there is no clarity, because you're not quite sure where it's coming from, but can you stay in that state a little bit longer until maybe something presents itself to you? I think, do we listen so well when we're in that pressured moment?
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Kate Adams: I suspect… I suspect we don't always, and sometimes we can't, because it's a quick decision, and you haven't got time for consultation, but actually, even when we want to be defending ourselves, it's can we just hold that space a little bit more to…
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Kate Adams: to listen. I think that's the more human response, is don't go into defense, go into, you know, curiosity listening mode, just… even if it's just for an hour. Like, can you buy that time? And I think the other thing for me is around courage. Increasingly, when under pressure.
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Kate Adams: Oh, it's so difficult to say, well, do I… do I make the decision that I think is gonna have the least,
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Kate Adams: I don't know, friction? What am I going to do with this decision? It's having the courage when there are no answers to say, I'm gonna speak up on that.
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Kate Adams: And I'm going to be prepared to try and answer the scrutiny and questions that follow. Because I don't think leadership is about eliminating complexity anymore. That ship's sailed. I think it's much more about how you help people navigate it together.
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Helen Wada: And I think that's fascinating, because there's so many themes that are similar to where I come at things from a coaching perspective, because when you talk about curiosity, when you talk about holding space, when you talk about listening.
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Helen Wada: When you talk about having the courage to hold.
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Helen Wada: who you are in front of others. Actually, you know, those are all, effectively, coaching skills that are not easy to master. I mean, I've been a coach for 10, 12 years, and I'm still working on it. If you ask my teenage kids, Mum, you're not listening to me, shit, you teach!
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Kate Adams: Oh, I didn't say… he didn't work, he didn't say at home. I mean, a totally different set of rules.
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Helen Wada: I thought, that's what your book says, you're not listening to me. But joking aside, I think it's one of the most underrated and undervalued
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Helen Wada: leadership skills there is, and we're going to come on to talk about what you talk about in the book, about leading others, leading yourself. But before we go there, I just want us to go back to, sort of, the origin story of Accountability Under Fire, and what got you to the book, to the title.
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Helen Wada: And, you know, what's fascinating about what you talk about is that levels of accountability
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Helen Wada: And actually, you know, there's not one size fits all in this crazy world that we're operating in, so just… just love to learn a little bit more about that.
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Kate Adams: Yeah, yeah. Sure, so I mean.
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Kate Adams: I wanted to write the book because
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Kate Adams: having straddled… my career straddled the commercial world, and then the very, sort of, societal lens world, and I bridge the… I believe it's really important to be high performing when it comes to numbers, and it's also really important to be high-performing when it comes to people. And I kind of bridge those, because I've been in both those worlds at different times.
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Kate Adams: And I wanted to write the book because increasingly, the gap between those two things is collapsing in the workplace.
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Kate Adams: And leadership is becoming so challenging because leaders are navigating a very different environment, where they're under intense scrutiny, the workforce, the customer base, are all scrutinizing and looking at leaders all the time now, thinking they have a legitimate stake in
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Kate Adams: The way that the organization almost serves them or impacts them.
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Kate Adams: And I've observed that from being in my own roles, and also through my network talking to me about the challenges they're facing. And I thought, I don't see anything that's helping the very senior leaders
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Kate Adams: My fear being, by the way, if they're not helped, we will lose really good senior leaders and CEOs, and then what are we left with? And I think a lot of people say to me, oh, is that where politics has gone? It's like, well, what are we going to be left with? So, in the business world, which is so influential on society, how do we support these CEOs that are feeling there's a gap? And I was curious, because when you look at it.
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Kate Adams: Exec education tends to cover a lot on how you run a business for its economic force, that it is, and…
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Kate Adams: We don't have much, I think, in exec education on how to run business as a societal force.
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Kate Adams: And it's increasingly recognized as one. And leaders, whether they like it or not, or even recognise it or not, are now…
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Kate Adams: judged as such, as societal leaders, too. So I saw all of that, and I thought, you know, I really want to arrange my thoughts and put it down into a book.
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Kate Adams: I wanted to, first of all, help, call out the situation and where I think we now are. I've had a lot of CEOs say to me, oh, thank you for just calling out this thing. I totally feel this, and it's not a big discussion that's being had, but it's a huge pressure, I feel.
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Kate Adams: I think the other thing I really wanted to do was try and, one of my mentors when I was writing, actually, is a great piece of advice, and he said to me, be curious about this topic. Don't be, don't think you've got the answers to it, be curious and unpack it. And so, I built this accountability ladder, which basically
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Kate Adams: It's a framework for five different types of ways organizations approach accountability, and it's not meant to be a who's right and who's wrong, it's meant to be an objective categorization to help people make sense of
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Kate Adams: of this, and what's easy and hard about it, when organisations might come to it or not. So, this accountability ladder has,
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Kate Adams: At the bottom, it's those organizations that are just very reactive, and maybe they're small organizations, maybe they're not very public-facing, they don't have a big team, or can't afford a big team to be thinking about, you know, corporate affairs, government affairs, all these different types of roles. They might not even be able to afford a compliance team, and so…
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Kate Adams: Normally, those organizations… or they've just come to the table late, by the way, but those organisations…
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Kate Adams: you will see being really reactive, and there's case studies in the book, organisations like Boohoo, who, had factories in their supply chain.
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Kate Adams: that had people, working for under the minimum wage and in terrible conditions around COVID, and I think Boohoo at the time felt, oh, that's not, that's not us, that's one of our suppliers, and that is not how the world saw it, and it cost Boohoo a lot of money, cost them a lot of, their reputation, and it… they were sort of never the same since. So, you've got these very reactive…
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Kate Adams: Then you've got organisations that are compliance-focused. They think the accountability flaw is being set for them by regulation on compliance.
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Kate Adams: And so they think, well, if we… surely if we comply with everything that's required of us, that's us being accountability, because that's the kind of rulemaking set. I've covered it. I would argue that's not necessarily accountability, that's just compliance.
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Kate Adams: And some organizations spend a lot on that, and I know, having lived in the US now for the last few years, I think they sometimes think Europe's a bit bonkers that we put all this cost on businesses to be compliant, and all this extra regulation, supporting teams, and it's really interesting.
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Kate Adams: Then you get those organisations that are really vigilant in the sense that they're scanning all the time for what's society expecting of them, and how do they, message that. So that might be a broadcaster, like a Netflix or a Channel 4 or someone.
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Kate Adams: Then the fourth rung is where we start to see some of those poster children. So you might see in Ikea, for instance, who have said, look, we recognize that we are having a big impact on the world. So IKEA, I think, at one stage, was using 1% of all the wood.
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Kate Adams: In the world of furniture.
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Helen Wada: Yes.
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Kate Adams: You go think, gosh, if we're doing that, that's a huge amount for one company to be,
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Kate Adams: Having an impact on forest supplies.
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Kate Adams: So we are going to make sure that we're thinking about circularity and sustainability, because, yes, we are… the way we behave does impact, those people that live in the forests, or just the amount of wood circling, and all sorts.
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Kate Adams: So, IKEA would be a proactive pioneer, for instance. There's various organizations that are in that space where they've made it really clear that they can see what…
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Kate Adams: Their accountability is beyond their organization, and they want to ensure that they, recognise that, and
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Kate Adams: navigate that responsibly. And then the very top of the ladder, it's really interesting because,
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Kate Adams: the big poster child would be someone like a Patagonia, for instance. But there's many organizations there where they're…
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Kate Adams: responsibility, accountability, and those two… there are different meanings to those two words, but this sense that it's entirely baked into their business strategy that they, are accountable. So Patagonia profit model is now… well, their own… their biggest shareholder is the environment. They've put it entirely new…
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Helen Wada: It's a fascinating story. I, I read, I read the book relatively recently, actually. And if nobody's…
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Helen Wada: looked at the Patagonia story, it's fascinating in terms of what they were holding onto, in terms of the values.
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Helen Wada: For the business, and where it ultimately went to. And there was some tragedy along the way with business partners and so forth, but it brought into sharp focus
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Helen Wada: The importance of the values.
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Helen Wada: And it, and it doesn't limit it.
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Kate Adams: And I think what's really important for anyone listening, anyone aspiring, a lot of people think Patagonia-type model is out of their reach and doesn't apply to them, and I empathize with that, too. So everyday CEOs, like, how do I…
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Kate Adams: how do I get my company to that? Do I want to get my company to that? So I think what I was trying to do in the ladder is say, actually, there's a lot of companies that were up that…
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Kate Adams: rung in the ladder, who then can't scale for growth. So depending on your capital model as an organization, where your capital comes from,
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Kate Adams: it's potentially… you can't… I mean, Patagonia's an optimum size, right?
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Kate Adams: you look at someone like Etsy when they IPO'd, that whole DNA…
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Kate Adams: receded for them. 7th Generation, which is, sort of household detergents and things.
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Kate Adams: couldn't scale without going to a… I think theirs was Procter & Gamble. We look at Tom's Shoes, we look at Allbird Shoes, and you look at these organizations that maybe they're…
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Kate Adams: going to stop at an optimum size, but when the capital markets come to play, they're like, we can't scale it enough and keep that DNA in place. So that feels like there's a bit of a crossroads there. It's not to say you can't be really profitable and purposeful, it… maybe it's… maybe the data is saying.
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Kate Adams: And let's see how it pans out over time, there's an optimum.
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Kate Adams: size, or optimal size for you. So… and there's reasons why some companies can get there and some can't, and I think the other four big interplays I have, I've come across are…
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Kate Adams: the value set of the leader, so you referenced, you know, Patagonia, and clearly the values in that organization and through that leadership, and specifically the founder. Equally, your,
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Kate Adams: the model of ownership, so what capital you've got. Are you… are you a privately owned company who can make your own choices and choose your kind of targets and profitability levels? Or are you private equity backed? Or are you, you know, an investor and shareholder driven? Are you publicly listed? That will affect
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Kate Adams: what you can do and where you're able to sit on the ladder. The other thing is how public-facing you are. If your brand is…
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Kate Adams: hidden.
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Kate Adams: This accountability under fire, I think, is a much more internal piece, rather than you're not being held to account from society as much. It's quite an interesting model, I think it's the public-facing nature of the brand that brings the scrutiny within.
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Helen Wada: And that's why having, you know, these different
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Helen Wada: options, these different choices. There is no one-size-fits-all. It's about appreciating
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Helen Wada: where you are at and what you are trying to align to. It's very much like, sort of, purpose that I talk about in terms of, you know, we've had the conversations years ago about what's your purpose, how do you align your purpose to broader society and the agenda of the world, and… and actually, for some people, that's too big.
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Helen Wada: For some people, that is just too much, and so when we're coaching, when we're working with leaders, it's about how to break it down, because you might not be in an organization that you can have this golden thread or line of sight through to that
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Helen Wada: making a difference. You know, yes, you may be able to, but you might not. But actually, there are other ways of doing it, so is it
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Helen Wada: spending your time with some not-for-profit sector, or is it about the type of people that you bring into your organization, the type of people that you recruit, what your policies are from that perspective, down to what you're doing on a day-to-day basis? You know, actually, you can have
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Helen Wada: different levels of purpose, and I think that…
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Helen Wada: very much links with what you talk about, having different levels of accountability, that…
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Helen Wada: Bringing you back to, you know, taking a pause, stopping and listening, and time to think.
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Helen Wada: Where are we actually going with all of this?
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Helen Wada: Because you can be caught up with, you know, the crossfire, dare I say it, you know, more ways than one.
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Kate Adams: with…
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Helen Wada: With what people are shouting or shooting at you. But ultimately, as a senior leader.
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Helen Wada: you need to be the one to hold and lead yourself. We'll come on to that in a moment, but…
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Helen Wada: Lead yourself and put your head above the power pit, like you talked about, and say, for us, where we're at right now, this is the direction of travel, and this is how we're gonna all get on board.
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Kate Adams: Yeah, and it's totally true. I think, one of the… my biggest perspectives is that I think we now expect too much from leaders.
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Kate Adams: And, some people say.
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Kate Adams: well, they get paid so much, isn't that… isn't that okay? Isn't that what we pay them for? And I don't feel comfortable with that.
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Kate Adams: you know, we do pay some leaders an extraordinary amounts of money, but this, especially living in the States, when you realize there's a much bigger economy than, like, the FTSE, so…
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Kate Adams: There's massive salaries within the FTSE. Here, there's just, you know, in North Carolina, there's organizations
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Kate Adams: 3 with $3 billion turnover, and that's just a family business owned by a father and son. You know, I mean, the scale of business over here has really helped me reflect. So writing the book, I was thinking, this isn't just about listed companies, this is… there's huge family businesses, there's lots of mid-sized to large-sized businesses that are facing this same,
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Kate Adams: scenario, so it's not this… it's not just written for, you know, the big publicly listed footsie, and not every leader, like you say, has a big sense of,
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Kate Adams: purpose, or their company doesn't have a big sense of purpose. We expect a lot from leaders, we expect all of them to kind of rinse this thinking through their business, and it's not always possible, it's not always appropriate for the business, so I also wanted to bring a perspective that… so let's just be…
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Kate Adams: I don't know, someone asked me the other day, I'm not in business, but I'm going to read your book, what… what do you think I'll get out of it? And I said, I really hope you see leadership in a slightly different way, and just how challenging it is, and also what a…
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Kate Adams: what a sort of personal sacrifice it is, and people find that really hard to hear, and they're like, but that's why they get paid, and I don't equate the two. I find it… I find it interesting, because I also used to… my… the first part of my career was working in compensation, is what I did, and I… and I.
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Helen Wada: That's a human capital, right?
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Kate Adams: actually human capital. And, I… I sort of think… I joke sometimes that… no, it's not a joke. The,
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Kate Adams: you can earn a certain amount of money which tips you into, this is compensation for the life you're not living, and this is compensation for the public… the personal risk that you're taking. And I don't know if people see it that way, but I'm… you know, you asked sort of who I am. I want my life to be an adventure, and I want to,
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Kate Adams: travel lots, that's one of the best things about living here, is just 28 states and 13 national parks, and getting under the skin and culture of people, and what makes the world go round. If you want to be a CEO with those really high salaries, you… I think there's a… the sad reality is there's a lot of your life you've said goodbye to.
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Kate Adams: Maybe temporarily. There's also some stats in the book where there's trends now that some CEOs will negotiate such huge, packages for the one job, they only intend to do this job once.
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Kate Adams: So there's a decline in the number of repeat CEOs.
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Kate Adams: For instance, because there's the acknowledgement that the job's becoming difficult. So it's fascinating what's actually happening to that CEO role, and therefore, you know, to come back to that question about what kind of human beings
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Kate Adams: Are happy to do that, willing to do that.
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Helen Wada: And one of the questions I'd love to ask is, you talked about curiosity. You talked about your mentor, you know, get curious. Yeah. I've got two questions, but I'm going to try and ask them one at a time, because I… when I was first training as a coach, I used to double… double up questions. I'm like, no, you can't do that.
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Kate Adams: I've enjoyed it.
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Helen Wada: One question at a time.
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Helen Wada: What was your biggest learning about this genre of work?
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Helen Wada: Through the conversations that you had in writing the book.
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Kate Adams: Yeah, great question. So…
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Kate Adams: I obviously interviewed a lot of CEOs and chairs in the book, to write the book.
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Kate Adams: There was a sense of… People felt almost relieved that someone was looking into this as a topic.
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Kate Adams: as if it hadn't been called out before, which I thought was really fascinating. I think…
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Kate Adams: I think there was this desire to sort of be…
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Kate Adams: be seen and held in this way, as I think, I got the impression more people were…
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Kate Adams: feeling the personal risk of leadership when there's more scrutiny. Another thing…
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Kate Adams: that really struck me, one of the biggest things that struck me, is the rise in CEOs that now don't want to do any media, or have a public-facing kind of persona. They just want to get on with the job, and
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Kate Adams: And that's fascinating, and I was just thinking, where does that take us? It doesn't mean they don't want to be accountable, by the way, because, accountability is what you do, it's not what you say.
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Kate Adams: And I think they're saying… I think there's now a shift, and maybe this is what's happening, is… it's not that there's a decline in accountability, but people, I think, used to maybe talk about it more because it was good for the brand,
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Kate Adams: But it's funny you used the phrase earlier, head above the parapet, and in fact, the book was going to be titled something about above the parapet, and I shifted it to Accountability Under Fire. But because that sense of.
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Kate Adams: When you put your head above the parapet.
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Kate Adams: and you, I guess, attract more scrutiny.
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Kate Adams: Is it the people that are trying hardest that get the most scrutiny and get shot at the most, versus those that aren't trying at all?
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Kate Adams: And is it better just to say nothing but do brilliant things?
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Helen Wada: Which… which is interesting, and it leads me on to… to the next question, because what you're talking about is not… it's not just about what you say.
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Helen Wada: But it's almost how these leaders need to be, and that's what I talk about from a coaching perspective. How do you need to be as a leader?
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Kate Adams: Yeah.
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Helen Wada: Not just what you need to do and say. And so my second question is about you, Kate. What have you learned about yourself.
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Kate Adams: Yeah.
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Helen Wada: process.
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Kate Adams: Good question. I think,
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Kate Adams: I mean, gosh, there's a lot I learned about being an author, Helen. Are I gonna try and answer the question in terms of what I learned about myself as a leader? Is that the right… is the right approach?
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Helen Wada: Yes. I'm not into Brook stuff at the moment.
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Kate Adams: So, a little about myself,
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Kate Adams: Yeah, I think I relived some of my own experiences when writing it, so…
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Kate Adams: there was one… and I suppose one thing that's good is I'm lucky enough, I wasn't the CEO when these scrutinies happened, but I was exceptionally close to the CEO, when they did. So, for instance, when I was working at Comic Relief, there was a Panorama expose, on our investment policy, and this was back, I think.
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Kate Adams: I think, I want to say 2009 or 10, it's a while ago, and just witnessing
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Kate Adams: what that felt like as a human being, when you thought you were being told you were wrong, and you didn't get the chance to defend yourself, and then should you be defending yourself? But then you're curious about why… why do other… why is this warrant being on a…
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Kate Adams: you know, a prime-time documentary about what we're doing wrong, because we're only trying to do things that are right. Why is there this scrutiny, and why do people think this is bad? We didn't…
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Kate Adams: we didn't think of it like that, and now we… now thank you for telling us we're gonna change our policy. There were so many emotions around, frustration, anger, sadness, guilt,
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Kate Adams: that would go on. So I think as I was writing, I was really learning how did I feel in that situation. And we had, sitting on the board of Paralympics GB,
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Kate Adams: We… and this never got to big public scrutiny, but we discussed topics like how do we feel about Russia competing in the Paralympic Games, given the Ukraine,
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Kate Adams: conflict, and… what is the right? I mean, long, long since then, there's no right way.
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Kate Adams: I certainly know.
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Kate Adams: what is the right approach for us to take, and who do you draw from? So that's a fascinating one, in the sense of… so what do the athletes think about
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Kate Adams: what should our voice be? So, you know, we were asked to kind of… what were our thoughts? Do we think that, the Russian athletes should be allowed to compete or not? And of course.
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Kate Adams: you can have an emotional opinion, but the other thing you learn in those situations is it's not about emotional opinions, it's about what's the… what's the fact-based, what's the… what's the legitimate… I mean, you can have emotional opinions, they're not how you're going to be able to argue very well, necessarily, in terms of impactful arguments.
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Kate Adams: So where does it break any constitution, and can you pick up on those points? But what do the athletes think?
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Kate Adams: you know, we had athletes that have, are really good friends with other Russian athletes.
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Helen Wada: Yeah.
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Kate Adams: And other, you know, other athletes that would think it was terrible. How do you navigate that? What do our corporate partners think?
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Kate Adams: what does the government think? We're the national team? What do we all think on the… around the board table? And so, you know, what did I learn? I really unpacked my own experiences.
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Kate Adams: to get into that sense of.
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Kate Adams: Diversity of perspectives. Everyone's views are legitimate.
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Helen Wada: Yeah.
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Kate Adams: But you have to find a way forward. So, how do you lead in a way that doesn't put your voice necessarily any higher order than anybody else's?
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Kate Adams: In these scenarios.
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Kate Adams: So you hold that curiosity, you hold that listening.
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Kate Adams: You try and see the perspectives that are your blind spots.
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Kate Adams: You try and keep perspective based on all these different camps of thinking.
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Kate Adams: And then… Find a way forward, because you do have to decide and commit at some point.
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Kate Adams: So I think, I think what did I learn the most? I really scrutinized what I had learned and done
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Kate Adams: well or badly, and seen done well and badly in these scenarios, to help, yeah, just, I think just to help to bring a bit more authenticity into it.
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Helen Wada: And that… that authenticity point is very much linked to, you know, you've just been talking about those human skills again, Kate.
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Helen Wada: You know, and I know you come to it towards the end of the book, but very much part of it, how do you lead others? How do you lead yourself through these turbulent times that aren't going to change, that are only going to increase?
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Helen Wada: You know, greater instability, greater political turmoil, economic, you know, who knows where we're gonna go.
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Helen Wada: But ultimately, what you're coming back to, and it comes back to the connection that you and I started off with.
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Helen Wada: is what do we need as leaders in this future world, where we're being fired at from all angles? Are…
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Helen Wada: The human skills, to be able to read the room, to be able to…
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Helen Wada: acknowledge people's feelings and thoughts, you know? How did the athletes feel? What does it look like? Now, you're right, you're not making judgement on all of these feelings, but it's all… for me, it's all data. Yeah. And…
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Helen Wada: The skill of a leader is to be able to take data from different sources, and that includes…
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Helen Wada: Your ability to have an open and curious conversation.
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Helen Wada: To be able to sit back, to be able to look at things from the perspective of other people. How do we understand others? That's what I talk in the second chapter of my book. You know, it's not just about how you show up.
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Helen Wada: I mean, it's about how we're understanding others and getting curious about, well, where are they coming from? What's their sphere of world that they've seen that they can bring to the conversation?
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Kate Adams: Exactly, and actually, how do you hold your own views a little bit more likely for a while, to allow space for the perspective of other views?
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Kate Adams: And I think that's a huge one, because as we do need to draw on more perspectives, because ours… we have so many biases built in, right? And actually, you know, this is where, genuinely, those diverse views help you get perspective.
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Kate Adams: And help you build resilience, actually, around how you get to the answer. But, how do you hold your personal views
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Kate Adams: Likely enough that you bring space in for other views.
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Helen Wada: The challenge for me with all of these skills that we're talking about, and now going from the human advantage, is that they've historically been under-invested in.
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Helen Wada: Because it's not been seen to be a direct link to the top and bottom line.
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Helen Wada: Where do you see, when you're working with leaders, if you've got senior leaders listening to this podcast, and there's many that will go, I get it, I'm feeling that, where do I go?
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Helen Wada: How can they… Stop.
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Helen Wada: To shift their pers… their persona, their perspective, to…
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Helen Wada: as I tell it, lead from within.
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Kate Adams: Yeah.
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Helen Wada: and decide with confidence, almost. I talk about the cell with confidence, but in what we're talking about, it's how can you lead from within that inner core of who they really are.
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Kate Adams: I think, where I've seen it done well, it's people that are…
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Kate Adams: I guess, exposing themselves to more different scenarios and voices, because I think you can… you can build more strength and conviction in your own ideas when you've almost travelled through different scenarios before you've got to it.
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Kate Adams: people that have said, okay, I saw there were four options here, and I… so you are getting, like you say, data points, but they might not be the usual data points you're getting. So people that seek out
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Kate Adams: other views all the time. So it's not just when a crisis happens, or a difficult decision comes up, that you start to seek out these views.
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Kate Adams: You do it from… or you do it all the time. So that's when I would talk about the sort of stakeholder understanding.
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Kate Adams: In the book specifically, it's around how do you know which… what's signal and what's noise, what do you listen to, what don't you listen to? Well, I guess that's really understanding your business, and who the stakeholders of your organization are, those you have the most impact on, and those that actually can impact you the most, and more materially. And then, so those leaders that think.
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Kate Adams: that all of those voices are important and constantly have dialogue with them. And if they can't be doing all that dialogue themselves, others are having dialogue with them and feeding it in, so that when you come to having to take big and difficult decisions that there is no right answer to, that…
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Kate Adams: you are going to upset somebody with your answer, because that's… that's how these things go. There isn't… not everyone's going to win. You will try and find a win-win situation. I think they're rare. I think increasingly, they're rare. So, you as a leader then can think, well, actually, I already… I've already got in my head that the system that's around us, so I'll talk a lot about systems thinking.
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Kate Adams: You've understood the system your business is in, so when you make a decision, you've kind of rationalized all in your head, you've prioritized it in your head, and you've worked out, this is what we need to do, I've got some courage and conviction, this is what we need to do, I can explain
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Kate Adams: who's… who's going to maybe not like this decision, and how I've come to the decision, not meaning to upset them, and… and all those good things, but because I had to do this decision for this, you can explain the trade-offs. And I think,
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Kate Adams: that's where I've seen it done best, and even organizations like, for instance, Tony's Chocolonly, who…
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Helen Wada: S.
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Kate Adams: You know, not only… Other chocolate brands are available, but there's a good one.
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Kate Adams: you know, they… they were an organization that exists, they're another sort of DNA organization in my ladder, they exist to eradicate child slavery in the chocolate supply chain, right? So good chocolate and eradicate it. And they said, we have to be in this business in order to understand this business to eradicate
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Kate Adams: child stay-free in our supply chain. Well, in all cocoa supply chains. And then they got caught with one of their suppliers, supposedly, I can't remember the, I think it's actually Weldon, supposedly.
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Kate Adams: child labour in the supply chain. And everyone was saying, oh, wow, you know, how hypocritical is that? And their answer was brilliant, because they said, no, we… thank you, now we know it's there, we can tackle it. That's why we have an entirely transparent supply chain.
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Kate Adams: Because once it becomes aware, we can tackle it, and we can show everybody else how we tackled it, so it doesn't happen again. And I just thought, you know, that's one of those really confident, bold.
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Kate Adams: ways to face the scrutiny that they were getting, and it's not like they failed. They're like, no, no, this is… this is a failure, this is a win, because our purpose is really strong, and… and actually this will help us to achieve it.
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Helen Wada: it's that… it's that confidence to… to be who you are, to lead, comes back to the values, and I think that word awareness is, again, something that I use a lot in my coaching work, because
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Helen Wada: People can get flustered or flummaged when they're aware of something, or that's difficult or challenging, but all… for me, actually, awareness. Once we're aware of something, we can then…
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Helen Wada: start to do something about it. It comes back to the leadership behaviours. If you are aware of what's going on in the room.
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Helen Wada: if you're aware of people's perspective, or if you've understood something, or even noticing what's going on for you and your body, I do a lot of embodied work with coaching, which I think is incredibly powerful for senior leaders, and again, I really… my hope is that that becomes more mainstream, because it's…
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Helen Wada: it's certainly well known in the world of coaching, but it's not yet well known in the world of business, and it's that, how do you hold yourself and notice the data points in your body? Because once we're aware.
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Helen Wada: Then we can do something about it.
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Kate Adams: One of the most powerful things someone once said to me is, some things can't be unseen.
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Kate Adams: And it's a really interesting one, like, some things can't be unfelt if you see them and you feel them, and our senses are so strong.
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Kate Adams: Once, you know, that acknowledge when you're seeing something different, or feeling something differently, and are curious about it. I think it's quite… I think various leaders I've spoken to, there's been moments like that that have really changed the way they've seen the world and their leadership.
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Helen Wada: And, we could talk all day, Kate, about this topic, but I am conscious of time, and those listening to us are probably going, this is really interesting, but I've got another meeting to go to.
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Helen Wada: So, on that note, and all the wonderful, great stuff that's in the book, I'd like to leave listeners with one top tip.
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Kate Adams: Okay.
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Helen Wada: And one question for them as they're reflecting on the conversation that you and I have just had.
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Kate Adams: I think the… The tip is how do you, create space between Stimulus and response.
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Helen Wada: That's a great question.
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Kate Adams: Oh, sorry, that's…
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Helen Wada: question.
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Kate Adams: I should say that.
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Helen Wada: Why do you want two questions?
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Kate Adams: The tip could be make sure you create it.
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Kate Adams: So I went into coaching mode, rather than the tip. So I think there's something about how you create space. We are so, everyone expects instant responses these days. How do you…
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Kate Adams: How do you create the space that says, actually, I'm not going to be the person that has an instant response? I'm going to have the courage to say.
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Kate Adams: just give me a few minutes to think about that. That kind of essence. So that'd be my tip, is create space.
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Kate Adams: I guess the question, then, you alluded to this earlier, and I think it's really stood out for me in this conversation, and in my own leadership training, I'll never forget, probably the most… I've had a couple of really powerful questions, but one was… I think it's an HBR article.
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Kate Adams: why should anybody be led by you? And then the other one is, what's it like to be on the receiving end of you? And I just…
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Kate Adams: When we are under pressure.
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Kate Adams: there's a question that people can ask, is what's happening inside of you before everybody else sees that version of you? And are you the version… sorry, it's two questions, like double-stacked coaching. So, what happens inside of you
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Kate Adams: Before it's visible to everybody else, and then…
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Kate Adams: What's the version you want everybody to see of you, and experience of you?
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Helen Wada: Wonderful. Great questions, lots to reflect on. For me, it comes back to being human, how you show up, how you understand others.
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Helen Wada: And then, you know, what do you do with that data to move the conversation around sustainability and…
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Helen Wada: organisations forward. So thank you, Kate, for joining me on the show. It's been a real pleasure, and I look forward to seeing you in the UK when you're back soon.
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Kate Adams: Not long, I think.
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Helen Wada: Not for now! Take care, and enjoy those adventures!
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Kate Adams: Thank you.
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