This week marked a year since I became the Chief Executive Officer of Energy Systems Catapult (for those of you who don’t know what ESC is — we are an innovation organisation that helps brilliant companies to flourish in the future clean energy system).
One of the things I have done at every opportunity since I knew I had got the job is to shamelessly tug at the arm of any current CEO/ex-CEO/anyone vaguely in a senior position and ask for their unvarnished leadership advice. A great privilege about working at an organisation like ESC is you get to meet a lot of CEOs — from giant multinationals to thrilling start-ups. And every leader I spoke to had a nugget of wisdom to share…
So to mark a year of CEO-ing, inspired by Jon Yates’s wonderful Twitter thread, here is the best advice I received in case it helps anyone else making their way in a leadership role.
- ‘Work hard at managing your energy, so you are ready for the big stuff’. In almost every organisation you work in, probably two or three times a year, something will happen that you need to grip. I am not talking about the daily flotsam and jetsam of business life. I am talking about things that are either a. an existential threat to the organisation if they are not fixed or b. an incredible opportunity that will only be seized if you and the team focuses fully on it. If one of these opportunities/threats is not gripped it can be catastrophic. But if they present themselves and you are exhausted, your chances of success of significantly diminished. So you need to be ready, and that means managing your energy. As someone who has strong workaholic tendencies, managing my effort across days, weeks and months is one of the biggest changes I have tried to make in the past five years since I first became a Director (after a few years of high-intensity roles in Government, where there are two or three ‘major’ crises a week). Managing your energy incudes thinking about diet, sleep, meeting fatigue, decision fatigue, exercise, knowing when to delegate, alcohol intake, holidays, not overloading your diary. Crucially it is about knowing what personally gives you energy (for me; writing, speaking to an audience, reading, long in-person debates with a team and a whiteboard, hearing stories from great innovators). And, just as importantly, what sucks the energy away (long Teams calls, writing up meeting notes, hotel rooms, contract negotiations). It also means understanding that when you have an insanely busy period, you will be depleted; you have to protect time to recuperate. It also means not beating yourself up if you have a relatively quiet period. If you go into a crisis running on empty, your judgement and performance will be impaired…
- ‘Your team want you to come to the pub, they want you to buy the first round, and then they want you to f*** off’. This was a brilliant piece of advice which I think was meant to be both taken literally and as a wider metaphor. As someone who was promoted from within, you have to accept your relationship with your team is different in your new role. I found this difficult (and not just because I like a Guinness). The ‘coming to the pub’ bit is about showing your team you are human, which is often seen as a more contemporary leadership trait, but for me is just the evolution of leading by example (to stress, this is much wider than just going to the pub, which is a helpful tool to use in team-building, but should not be the only social setting you appear in, as can be exclusionary for some). The ‘buying the round’ bit is about showing how much you value the team’s contribution and effort (which at ESC is immense). And the ‘f***ing off’ bit is about giving your team the chance to decompress, including slagging off the boss if they need to. It is also because you have to be very mindful of the heightened signals you send as a leader — something I learned the hard way as a spad — and that is harder to control after a few drinks….
- ‘It is lonely’. Cue the world’s smallest violin, of course. But this was the answer that popped up, unprompted, from the greatest number of CEOs and leaders I spoke to. There are conversations you just cannot have in the same way as you did before, and your judgement is constantly being tested, which is why ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’ is such an incredible bit of management insight (Henry IV, Pt 2). Making sure you have the support network and confidants — internally and externally — to manage this is an essential part of the role (I am very lucky with an inspiring and challenging Exec team, the opportunity of an external coach, a supportive and engaged board, and, most importantly a mad, wonderful family who still think my job is building Catapults in Birmingham).
- ‘Recognise there is one big thing you will do without any effort; identify one other big thing you want to really focus on. For everything else — hire great people’. Recognise what subject you gravitate towards in an idle moment. For me, this is, much to the low-level irritation of the Markets and Policy team at ESC, policy and politics. I cannot get enough of political podcasts, Whitehall Whatsapp gossip and wonky policy papers. Realising that I will naturally spend every marginal minute on this if I don’t manage it has been really important. I have then identified one (actually probably two, if I am honest) things to push myself to learn about and work on. And then hire great people to fill the gaps and delegate. You simply will not have the bandwidth for much more…
- ‘Work out what your job is (and what it is not)’. This is still very much a work in progress. Certainly telling the story of what we are trying to achieve, both internally and externally, over and over again. Certainly trying to create an environment and culture where brilliant people can do brilliant work. Certainly not trying to do everything and second guess your team. But how much time to spend on each and the judgement of when to step back, when to step in and when to step up and lead — that is still very much something I am working on…
There has been so much other great advice: about the importance of backing your own judgement and vision, even when you doubt yourself; spending a massive, almost disproportionate effort on hiring and retaining great people that fit your culture; and how to deal with the relentless, nagging onslaught of ‘imposter syndrome’. I am very lucky to have a network that has provided so much insight and support.
Above all, it has been a privilege to lead the 250-strong team at Energy Systems Catapult. Part of systems thinking is about harnessing diverse viewpoints to tackle the most complex of problems. Nowhere else I have worked has come close to the cacophony of different voices and ideas — all targeted on helping those innovators embarked on this most urgent and exciting journey to a net zero energy system.
