Advanced Executive Leadership
Jacqueline Conway
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What’s required from Executive Leaders has changed. Find out how executive leaders and executive teams can survive and thrive in our disrupted world. Interviews with CEOs and insights from Waldencroft’s Dr Jacqueline Conway. Waldencroft is a consulting practice dedicated to helping executive leaders anticipate, navigate and lead. Find us at https://waldencroft.com/
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6 days ago
#39 Leading high-growth in Renewables
Imagine being a CEO or senior leader and having the opportunity to step out of the business for 4 months to travel and recuperate.
That's exactly what Matthieu Hue, CEO of EDF Renewables is currently doing. But just before he left, Matthieu took the time to sit down with me to talk to me for the latest edition of the podcast.
In it, Matthieu explains what it's been like creating an exceptional executive team that are up for the challenge of rapidly growing the business in a world that has finally realised that renewable energy is the way forward.
If you are in a high growth industry, this episode is not to be missed!
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Nov 16, 2023
# 38 Mark Allan CEO of Landsec plc on navigating a radically disrupted industry (replay)
There's disruption and turbulence facing many companies and industries. But that disruption is probably most acute in the real estate sector. The dual challenge of the impact of online shopping on our high streets alongside what hybrid working means for office space in town and cities means that as an industry, it’s grappling with deep uncertainty.
So I’m thrilled to be able to welcome Mark Allan onto the podcast. Mark is the CEO of Landsec plc a FTSE 100 real estate business that’s getting ahead of the curve on the disruption.
Tune in to find out what it means for Mark and his Executive Team as they lead in an age of disruption.
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Nov 2, 2023
#37 Becoming Fluent in the Future (replay)
There are two habits of mind that stops us from fully embracing the future and seeing what might be around the corner.
What are they? The Tyranny of Short-Termism and a Poverty of Imagination.
They prevent us in developing our anticipatory skills and engaging in strategic foresight.
Being Futures Fluent isn't just about being agile and responsive to a future that hasn't yet emerged. It's also about shaping that future - in whatever way we can - so we help to bring the world we want to see into being.
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Oct 19, 2023
#36 Going Deeper in Perspective Taking (replay)
Perspective-taking breaks a golden rule: _to treat others as we’d like to be treated_ and turns it on its head… _to treat others as _*they’d*_ like to be treated_. I wonder the impact on leadership if we were to do this more?
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Oct 5, 2023
#35 Unlocking your leadership through multiple perspectives (replay)
The capacity to be able to take multiple perspectives is the very definition of adult development. This episode explores what it means to take multiple perspectives, and why it might be useful for executive leaders.
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Sep 21, 2023
#34 The tone at the top (replay)
We've had quite the run on stories that relate to the ethics of leadership and the tone that leaders set.
Take Bernard Looney, who resigned as CEO of BP after failing to disclose to the Board the extent of his pervious relationships with colleagues.
Or the hedge fund owner, Crispin Odey, who is being investigated by the Financial Conduct Authority to determine if he is a ‘fit and proper person’ after allegations that he sexually assaulted a junior member of staff.
But it's not just these obvious and extreme breaches that we need to consider.
In today’s podcast, two Chief People Officers explain the importance of leaders setting the right tone.
Kate Bishop, the CPO of IFS says: “It’s the tone at the top that sets the tone around the entire organisation. It’s what makes people want to join and people want to stay”.
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Sep 7, 2023
#33 Can the C-suite enable DEI?
What is it about some organisations that can be going strong after literally hundreds of years?
What is it about these companies that they can maintain what it is that gives them such staying power, yet they can balance this with the renewal that it takes to keep them relevant in a world that keeps changing?
My guest on today’s edition of the podcast is Siobhan Martin, the Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity for Aegon, a multinational financial services institution that's been in existence for 175 years.
In addition to drawing on her corporate experience Siobhan reflects on her role as a board member of All Hollows, one of the oldest churches in the City of London that's been around since the year 675!
We explore this stability / renewal issue as it relates to the subject of improving diversity, equity and inclusion. And the role that executive leaders have in making it happen.
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May 4, 2023
#32 Executive Pay: What Executives Think
Executive Pay attracts a lot of attention and CEOs are vilified in the media for the pay awards to them.
In this episode, I explore the subject of executive pay, the role of the RemCo and most importantly what executives themselves think of astronomical pay awards.
You can download Alexander Pepper's book, "If you're so ethical, why are you so highly paid?" free directly from the LSE here: https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.31389/lsepress/eth/
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Apr 6, 2023
#31 Collective Leadership
Do people learn better alone or in a team?
And do teams make better decisions than lone experts?
In today’s episode of the podcast, I’m joined by two dear friends and colleagues, Gordon Laird and Vajramudita Armstrong as we explore these questions drawing on the latest neuroscience.
Gordon touches on the topic of the changing psychological contract in organisations and what this means for executive leaders.
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Mar 16, 2023
#30 Leadership Conversations
It’s safe to say that there’s a lot of noise that leaderships teams are confronted with and a lot of triaging to determine what needs to be stay on the exec’s desk and what can reasonably be delegated somewhere else in the organisation.
In today’ podcast I’m joined by two dear friends and colleagues, Bryan Sampson and Pauline Holland as we riff on the challenges that leadership teams are facing and how we best offer help and support to these teams.
With more disruption, complexity and noise, we all agree that the quality of conversations that leadership teams are able to have determines how well they’re able to deal with these pressures.
But there are also challenges in executive teams being able to take the time to have more expansive, sensemaking conversations. How can this be resolved?
If you like to find out more about how Waldencroft could help your executive team, please reach out to us here: https://waldencroft.com/contact/
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Feb 23, 2023
#29 The NEW Integrative Framework of Team Effectiveness
In Waldencroft, our work with executive and senior leadership teams is based on our Integrative Framework of Team Effectiveness, or the IF-TE for short.
It's a powerful framework that provides an overall picture of the components that influence the functioning of senior teams. And it seeks to explore how the connectivity between these impacts how the team are performing.
As we engage with new research as it becomes available or as we assimilate our ongoing practical experience working with executive teams, we evolve our understanding of their developmental edge. When this happens, we put the IF-TE under scrutiny and iterate it to make it even better.
We’ve just launched IF-TE 2.0 with some significant changes!
The biggest change to the Integrative Framework of Team Effectiveness (IF-TE), is that we’ve further developed our idea of the importance of context. By this I mean the authorising environment, organisational culture, how the team reasons and actually does work and its attention to its own performance.
That's what I explore in this edition of the podcast.
If you'd like to find out more about the IF-TE, or if you would like to set up a call to explore working with Waldencroft, you can contact us on https://waldencroft.com/contact/
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Feb 9, 2023
#28 Giving it all away
Yvon Chouinard, the 84-year-old founder of the billion-dollar outdoor wear company, Patagonia, looks like an unlikely business tycoon. And in a move that sent ripples around the globe late last year, he made a move that proved he isn’t. He gave the company away. The reason: to divert all of Patagonia’s future profits saying: *_Earth is now our only shareholder._*
His move is in stark contrast to the ideology of the most influential economist of our time, Milton Friedman, who admonished those interested in corporate social responsibility that *_the social responsibility of a business, is to make a profit_*.
Who is right, and what does this say about the kinds of challenges that executives are grappling with in a world that may be finally waking up to the need to create just outcomes for _all_ stakeholders?
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Jan 5, 2023
#27 Creating Futures with Bruno Pinho
My guest on this episode of the podcast is Bruno Pinho, Managing Director at TechnipFMC. I’ve just completed a strategic foresight exercise with Bruno, his leadership team and a small group of their ‘leaders of the future’ to create a mechanism to spot emerging trends so that they have an early warning system for events and issues as they are unfolding. So that the team are able to be agile and responsive to issues before they reach the mainstream.
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Dec 15, 2022
#26 Retrospectively Resilient
When challenges arise it’s been noticed that two contrasting team types emerge, resilient teams and brittle teams.
Resilient teams have each others’ backs. They see adversity as an opportunity to improve: to learn, grow and create better preparedness for future set-backs. As teams grapple with increasing complexity and competition, resilient teams are much better placed to not just survive, but to thrive.
So how are resilient teams likely to review the year? The more resilient teams don’t just do this informally. They stake a structured approach to review how they did so that they can augment their capacity to move forward stronger and more resilient.
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Dec 1, 2022
#25 Does your Company need a Chief Future Officer?
The future doesn’t stay in the future. It meets us in the present in the form of projects that come to fruition, crises that catch us off guard, and events that upend our plans.
You have a choice. Wait and see, scrambling to react as events unfold. Or anticipate what might be ahead. Agile, responsive and ahead of the curve.
But how best to do this?
Maybe it's time for your company to consider a Chief Future Officer.
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Nov 17, 2022
#24 Enterprise leadership and the Perilous Peak
Meet Robbie, a 50-something second-time CEO. He’s values led, competent and trustworthy. And he’s well-liked and respected by his people and his team.
But Robbie knows the challenges in his business and industry isn't a one-person job.
How does he get his Executive Team ready? Find out in this episode.
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Nov 3, 2022
#23 Attunement - and why it matters more than ever
Unless you’ve been on holiday to Mars you won’t have missed that we in the UK had a catastrophic ‘mini budget’ that effectively crashed the markets and the Bank of England had to step in to save our pension funds.
The people that you rely on to deliver your services are under an enormous amount of stress and pressure as they are squeezed financially from multiple places. With a fuel price and cost of living crisis exacerbated by inflation at over 10%, ordinary people are feeling the pain.
The organisation that you lead is nested within a society and that society is currently under strain. That puts the issue into your in-tray.
Systemic issues show up as issues. You may already be experiencing it as a pay-demand issue.
It seems to me that executive leaders will be tested this season in a subtle but very profound way.
If, as an executive leader, you are attuned to the challenges your people face, you have the chance exercise consequential leadership.
But if you respond with…
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Oct 19, 2022
#22 The tone at the top
It’s usual for me to hear from a client or a potential client that the issues and challenges faced by their executive team are unique. Are they?
My two guests, Chief People Officers in very different organisations believe there's one thing that's necessary and consistent in whatever organisation. That is, the centrality of the tone from the top.
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Oct 7, 2022
#21 Sensemaking and the big chess-cheating hullabaloo
You don’t need to be a chess GrandMaster to have heard about the hullabaloo that kicked off last week - at the Champions Chess Tour - between the world chess champion, Norwegian, Magnus Carlsen and 19-year-old Hans Niemann.
I listened to another chess GrandMaster make sense of it. And in this episode I explore what this means for the way we make sense of other issues.
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Sep 22, 2022
# 20 Mark Allan CEO of Landsec plc on navigating a radically disrupted industry
There's disruption and turbulence facing many companies and industries. But that disruption is probably most acute in the real estate sector. The dual challenge of the impact of online shopping on our high streets alongside what hybrid working means for office space in town and cities means that as an industry, it’s grappling with deep uncertainty.
So I’m thrilled to be able to welcome Mark Allan onto the podcast. Mark is the CEO of Landsec plc a FTSE 100 real estate business that’s getting ahead of the curve on the disruption.
Tune in to find out what it means for Mark and his Executive Team as they lead in an age of disruption.
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Sep 8, 2022
#19 The Leadership Growth Helix
All of the work that we do in Waldencroft is designed to help senior leaders become better resourced during disruptive and turbulent times. And really it seems like there’s little respite from the turmoil these days.
It makes sense then that, as we develop leaders in organisations, especially those in senior roles who are grappling with a VUCA world, (that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) that we help them develop the cognitive complexity and emotional maturity to deal with it well.
But there’s a problem. The problem is making it stick.
There’s great leadership development out there. But it very often doesn’t translate back in the organisational setting. In this episode, we outline the way that your leadership development can have a positive and sustained impact in your organisation.
If you've like to sign up for our webinar on this, happening at 08:30 GMT on 28th October 2022, you can sign up here: https://waldencroft.com/in-dialogue/
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Aug 11, 2022
#18 - Going deeper on perspective taking
Perspective-taking breaks a golden rule: to treat others as we’d like to be treated and turns it on its head… to treat others as they’d like to be treated.
I wonder the impact on leadership if we were to do this more?
That's what my guest, Sarah Freiesleben, and I explore in this episode.
Sarah mentions Dave Snowden and his Cynefin framework for managing complexity. You can read Dave’s original HBR article here: https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making
I mention working with polarities and the work of Barry Johnson. You can find out more about his work here: https://www.polaritypartnerships.com/applications-impact
Sarah mentions the personal work she’s been doing with Paul King. You can find Paul on LinkedIn here: linkedin.com/in/paulrking
And lastly, you can find Sarah Freiesleben on LinkedIn here: linkedin.com/in/sarah-freiesleben-40a7701a
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Jul 28, 2022
#17 Unlocking your leadership through multiple perspectives
What if we had the humility to accept that we don’t have all the answers; that the answers that we have might be wrong; and that those with insightful new perspectives might be located in the most unusual and humblest of places?
We as leaders can take our leadership to a whole new level by cultivating the ability to take on and work productively with multiple perspectives.
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Jul 14, 2022
#16 Title Inflation: taking you back to where you started
The accountancy/advisory giant EY have decided, in an effort to retain talent, to apply title inflation to all 679 Associate Partners, who from now on will all be known as Partners.
Inflating titles is an example of what I call perfectly solving the wrong problem. It seems like a straightforward solution and it’s relatively easy to implement.
The implementation can go well and for a short period of time, everyone seems happy.
Until they’re not.
Until you realise that you’ve upset the coherence in the system.
This happens in other organisational forms too and I regularly see it bunch-up the closer one gets to the C-suite.
Why does it happen and what are the implications?
That's what I explore in this episode of the podcast.
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Jun 30, 2022
#15 Without trust, is your team really a team?
It’s widely accepted that in a successful executive team, the members must feel comfortable being vulnerable enough to admit mistakes, ask for help, share tasks and work together effectively.
And when this trust is absent, it leads to negative team politics, protectionism, and friction.
These issues not only make the work environment unpleasant — they can also prevent productive work from getting done.
If you’ve ever been in a team with low levels of trust - and who hasn’t - then you know it’s a pretty miserable place to be.
But developing trust is done in some counter-intuitive ways.
That’s what I explore in this week’s podcast.
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Jun 16, 2022
#14 The expanding role of the Chief People Officer
Is your role in the C-suite expanding?
In this edition of the podcast, we hear from two CPOs whose role has increased to take on additional responsibilities that have a strategic overlap with their people agenda.
We discuss with Cecilie Heuch how Telenor is adopting an approach to leading remotely across geographies using a ‘tight-loose-tight’ approach and with Dr Tracey Leghorn on the importance of positive constructive challenge in the C-suite in SUEZ UK
More brilliant insights from seasoned C-suite professionals.
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Jun 2, 2022
#13 The data you're avoiding
Leaders are usually keen to stress that they use data in their decision making.
Whether it’s hard facts, statistics, or spreadsheets; data is raised on a pedestal of rationality.
We’ve come to accept that a rational data-drive decision making style; characterised by research for, and logical evaluation of, data is the only decision-making style.
But there's a source of data and insight that leaders have in their toolkit to inform their decision making that’s oftentimes neglected.
A hunch or gut feeling holds a lot less weight than numbers. But it shouldn’t be discounted so readily.
There's great research on how experienced firefighters just knew when to get out a burning building the moment before it collapsed. It found that skilful leaders rely on their experience, the pattern-recognition they've acquired over decades, to quickly size up situations and identify the option most likely to work.
The truth is that how a decision was taken is often post-rationalised as ration…
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May 19, 2022
#12 Reactions to Advanced Executive Fluency
Today’s episode follows the long awaited publication of the Advanced Executive Fluency CEO report. To coincide with the report’s launch I hosted a webcast with a number of executives and development professionals to get their initial reactions to the research.
If you want to access the report, you can download it at: https://waldencroft.com/download/4121/
If you’d like to hear more either about our Advanced Executive Fluency development programme for executive teams or our programme that helps your executive team develop the foundations capabilities of enterprise leadership, called Zenith, you can reach out to me below to have a conversation:
https://waldencroft.com/contact/
The webcast attendees who are featured in this episode are:
Pauline Holland, Dorry McLaughlin, Sandra Blake, Heather Lee, Mark Adderley, Craig Jasienski, Andrew McMillan, Peter Allen, Sonja Blignaut
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May 5, 2022
#11 An insider's view
Join me on this weeks’ podcast to hear two brilliant Chief People Officers share their perspective of the challenges and joys of life inside an executive team.
I was joined by San Johal - CPO of EDF Renewables UK & Ireland and Jayde Tipper - CPO of Temenos.
We explore the ideal size for an executive team and the impact this has on decision making.
And we look at the role of the ExCo in role modelling your desired culture.
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Apr 21, 2022
#10 The barriers to becoming futures fluent
As we get ready to launch our CEO research, Advanced Executive Fluency: Responding to New Leadership Challenges in a Complex World, we've been exploring these fluencies on the podcast and we'll continue to until we launch on 13th May.
The second of the 4 Fluencies - that is the ways of thinking, acting and being that executive leaders must become fluent in if they are to lead well in our disrupted world - is Futures Fluency.
But there are two habits of mind and leadership practice that stops us from fully embracing the future. Preventing us in developing our anticipatory skills and engaging in strategic foresight.
Being futures fluent isn't just about being agile and responsive to a future that hasn't yet emerged. It's also about shaping that future - in whatever way we can - so we help to bring the world we want to see into being.
What are the barriers to becoming Futures Fluent? They are the Tyranny of Short-Termism and a Poverty of Imagination.
In today's podcast, I outl…
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Apr 7, 2022
#9 Dancing between the waves
We've all been leading through a pandemic.
But what about leading the first-line health response in one of Scotland's busiest and most impacted NHS Trusts?
That's what Heather Knox, CEO of NHS Lanarkshire has been doing.
And she talks about it in today's podcast.
It's a thoughtful reflection on what it has taken to lead in a crisis, wave after wave. And the challenge of balancing the immediacy of the task at hand, with helping the Trust prepare for its long term future.
She touches on the need to be fluent in the ways of thinking, acting and being at the leadership level - specifically Cognitive Fluency and Futures Fluency.
These fluencies our outlined in my CEO research report that's soon to be published. You can sign up to receive it for free here.
https://waldencroft.com/sign-up-to-receive-our-ceo-report/
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Mar 24, 2022
#8 Our CEO research on what's required of Executive Leaders
We've just completed our CEO research on Advanced Executive Fluency: Responding to New Leadership Challenges in a Complex World.
It's outlines the ways of thinking, acting and being that executive leaders will be required to be fluent in as they lead in a world of hyper-disruption and complexity.
Stay tuned as over the next few weeks, until the publication date of 13th May, I've got some really interesting podcasts, articles and take-aways that I hope you'll find useful.
Today's podcast outlines the research and the thinking behind it.
Click the link if you'd like to sign up to receive the report when it's published.
https://waldencroft.com/sign-up-to-receive-our-ceo-report/
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Mar 8, 2022
#7 Why Matthew Syed is wrong about conflict
Responding to a blogpost on LinkedIn in which Matthew Syed advocated for conflict in teams as a way to coming to the best outcomes, I explore if we really do need more conflict in executive teams or whether it's something else entirely. And what that is.
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Feb 23, 2022
#6 Leading high-growth with Matthieu Hue
Imagine being a CEO or senior leader and having the opportunity to step out of the business for 4 months to travel and recuperate.
That's exactly what Matthieu Hue, CEO of EDF Renewables is currently doing. But just before he left, Matthieu took the time to sit down with me to talk to me for the latest edition of the podcast.
In it, Matthieu explains what it's been like creating an exceptional executive team that are up for the challenge of rapidly growing the business in a world that has finally realised that renewable energy is the way forward.
If you are in a high growth industry, this episode is not to be missed!
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Feb 9, 2022
#5 Developing resilience in your executive team
Spurred on by many of our executive clients feeling burnt-out and stressed, this episode of Advanced Executive Leadership explores how to cultivate resilience in an executive team. It outlines some of the ways to develop resilience before an adverse event occurs, the ways to stay well resourced during, and how to make sense of a difficult period after it happened to help you move on unburdened by it.
If you'd like to talk to us about executive team resilience, reach out to us by clicking the link here: https://waldencroft.com/contact/
If you'd like to read our blog on the build-back burn-out being experienced by executive teams, you can find it here: https://waldencroft.com/3024-2/
And if you'd like to sign up to receive Dr Jacqueline Conway's bi-weekly digest, The Perilous Peak, you can sign up here: https://waldencroft.com/newsletter/
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Jan 26, 2022
#4 Disrupt or be disrupted with Ross B Shuster
Ross Shuster, CEO of Howden, a global air and gas handling company, talks to Dr Jacqueline Conway about shifting his company's focus away from declining industries, and focusing sharply on growth areas. He and his executive team have been disrupting Howden with a vision towards enabling customers' vital processes which advance a more sustainable world.
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Jan 11, 2022
#3 Does your executive team have a purpose?
If your executive team are currently not performing as a cohesive team, it could be that the team isn't a team at all. Dr Jacqueline Conway explains how the creation of a team purpose can act as a north star for your executive team's focus and structure.
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Jan 11, 2022
#2 Data Driven Leadership with Gordon Dewar
Edinburgh Airport's CEO, Gordon Dewar is in conversation with Dr Jacqueline Conway about the impact of lockdown on the business. Gordon explains how he and his executive team have continued to use data to both understand and plan post-pandemic and the ways this will help Edinburgh Airport emerge stronger than before.
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Jan 10, 2022
#1 Introducing Advanced Executive Leadership
As a CEO or executive leader, how do you balance your functional tasks with your responsibility to help your organisation to survive and thrive in the longer term? Business disruptors are now so challenging, and so complex, that most executive leaders can no longer have day-to-day execution as their primary focus. This podcast is for any CEO, Chief People Officer, or executive team member, to help you step with confidence into your enterprise responsibilities. Find out more about Waldencroft and the services we offer: https://waldencroft.com/
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