20 years at Leightons: “You learn a lot when things don’t go according to plan”

To celebrate August/September’s Women in optometry edition, she tells OT what she has learnt after two decades with the optical group.

Could you describe your two decades at Leightons in one sentence?

It doesn’t feel like that amount of time at all. It has really rushed by, and I think that's what sums it up.

It has been a time of continual progression, change, and improvement, whilst maintaining that people-centric focus through everything that we have done – people being both our customers and our staff.

People get hung up on the time, especially when you talk about it in decades. But honestly, it has gone by in a flash.

Did you always have management ambitions? Was a role like this something you consciously planned for?

I’ve always enjoyed the coaching and development part of any role that I’ve had, and that moved me into people management positions early in my career. My goal was to enjoy what I did, and experience as many different roles and functions as I could. I thought that would lead me to find that one thing that I really wanted to do, and that I’d move on from there.

However, when you ask whether I consciously planned for it, I think few people have got that mapped out. I worked in banking for more than 15 years before I joined Leightons, and I thrived on the ability to move into new positions regularly. I did a lot of parallel moves, into something new or different, or things that were complementary to the previous roles that I’d had.

That wider exposure not only led to a whole load of new skill sets and stronger networking, it also gave me the confidence to work on projects and in areas that were out of my comfort zone. I could look forward and think, ‘that’s a role that I would like,’ but the reality was that when I got closer to it, through technological improvements or restructures, those roles often weren’t there anymore.

I took the opportunity to be flexible and adaptable and gained expertise in a number of key areas, which led me into this management route. That was everything including operations, human resources, learning and development, and leadership and management. It gave me more choices, and it certainly equipped me for life at Leightons.

People say, ‘that is the job that I want.’ But honestly, particularly in today’s climate, it probably won’t be there in the guise that you think it is. It's about really finding something that you love.

Have you benefited from mentorship in your career?

Yes, I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve had four formal mentors in my working life, two with a previous employer, and two during my time with Leightons. I’ve also had people around me who have been informal mentors – people who I trust and know well. The balance of both formal and informal mentoring is invaluable.

You can have a really big network of people around you, but it really is about finding those few who keep you grounded and honest. Those are the people who can really help you in terms of your development and mentoring you forward.

The balance of both formal and informal mentoring is invaluable

What is the best advice you have been given about balancing career and other interests or responsibilities, and who gave you that advice?

It was one of my very early managers, Mr Rice. He wanted me to call him by his first name, and I could never do it. He was always Mr Rice to me. Much as he was a really gentle individual, I had that thing that he was a manager, and I had to call him that – how times have changed!

He said, ‘few people retire and wish they had spent more time at work,’ which I’m sure is true. I’m not there yet, but I think that’s a sound piece of advice. He told me, ‘your friends and family may be the constant in your life, but they won’t always be there, so make sure you make time for them.’

He also said, ‘We're very lucky. We live in a world where we have choices. You can say no to things, and you can make a different choice, even though that can sometimes be difficult.’

It isn’t until time goes on that you realise that actually, your friends and family won’t always be there – so you need to make sure that you grab every opportunity that you can along the way.

And what is your own advice on achieving that balance?

I think this is a really tricky topic. There’s so much emphasis on needing to be able to do it all; we need to have this balance and get it right. But the reality is, there are only so many hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in a month, and months in a year.

Sometimes you need to think, ‘what do I need to be balancing right now?’ That division of your time changes throughout your career. There are times when work will be the priority and will take up more of your time, particularly when you’re building your career.

Then, life events might come in and make you change that balance. That change could be something relatively simple – for example, it could be your travel time. You may have been doing hours of travel, which I was when I worked in London. It could be about working closer to home, which means you’re getting a different balance, and buying some time back.

The other aspect is the emphasis on the ‘me time’ within that. Personally, that is one of the areas where I find it hardest to get the balance right. You need to make sure you have the understanding and support of those your choices impact, and ensure that you can reciprocate and support them too.

During that time when you need to be more focused or giving more of yourself to work, somebody has to be there to say, ‘Come on, what are you going to now take back?’ That might be taking your holiday, or making sure you are there for sports days, or plays and nativities. That is something that I really try to make sure that my team do – make sure they are around for those really important life events.

You do need that moderator. That’s likely to be family and friends, who make sure you don’t stray too far. There is an enormous amount of pressure on people to achieve this mystical balance. It’s different for everybody, but I don’t think it’s always a very easy thing to do.

Also, priorities change – sometimes in a heartbeat. You have to make sure you’re making the right choices, and that you’re mindful when you take something on, particularly if it’s a big project or a big change to implement, that you understand the scope of it.

There is an enormous amount of pressure on people to achieve this mystical balance. It’s different for everybody, but I don’t think it’s always a very easy thing to do

What are the key skills that you think have helped you progress into your current role?

I like change, and that certainly helped me. I’m solutions-led: I really believe that there is always more than one way to achieve something, and it’s about finding out what that is and having a great team around you to help make that work. That has certainly helped me in terms of progression within Leightons.

You learn a lot when things don’t go according to plan. I think that presents a really great learning opportunity. Taking it not as a terrible thing, but framing it as: ‘okay, what can we take from this, and what can we make sure we don’t repeat, so we get it right in the future?’

I do my utmost to try to understand people and to be people focused. Being focused, fair and kind is something that’s really important. People should not mistake kindness for weakness. It absolutely isn’t. It’s the ability to take people with you, and treat people well. Your own success is a reflection of your team’s, so making sure you treat those people in the right way and help them to develop and progress – that has certainly helped me.

Communication is key in everything that you do. I like to talk, so that’s a great one for me. Overall, you’ve got to have a sense of humour. You’re at work a long time, so if you can’t see the joy and the light in what you do, it could be a pretty dull place to be.

People should not mistake kindness for weakness. It absolutely isn’t. It’s the ability to take people with you

What do you look for in potential future leaders?

I like to see independent thought in people. It’s not always about following blindly what is in front of you. I like to see people who have their own thoughts, but have appropriate levels of challenge – they will question things. I look for people to be finding the solution to how we can make things work, not the reasons why they won’t.

I also look to have a good balance and difference in the people that I see as future leaders – that they are not clones, and that they all bring something very different to the party. The dynamic teams are those that do not have people who all think in the same way, but those who have key strengths, skills, and differences.

I look for people who really want to be involved in something new. They want to be part of something that progresses. That forward looking desire for constant improvement is really important.

People in the early years of their careers might think they have to move companies or change roles quite often – what would you say about the decision to stick with a company and work up the ranks instead?

You have to look at the place that you are working, and what that place means. I look back over 20 years at Leightons, and it has always been about constant improvement, change, and innovation. If you are somewhere where you are part of that change, and you want to be part of that, then staying somewhere can be a really positive thing.

It comes back to gaining experience, and the sideways move approach. If you are working with an organisation that gives you the ability to expand your skillset and your experience, whether that’s parallel or upward, stick with it, because that can give you an awful lot of development in a relatively short period of time.

You can work in a big organisation and still be stuck and not be able to make those moves. That can often be down to the distance between you and the people who can help you to progress. If you are working somewhere where you have good contact and understanding from a line manager and their line manager, and you can be part of what the goal is and what the company stands for, that’s a good way to be able to progress.

Don’t be scared of that. Try something new. It’s not always about a promotion. Progression is about development, and about expanding yourself with new experiences. We probably put in people’s minds that the path looks a certain way: you start off as one thing, and then you move on to the next role, and then the next. But that’s not always the way it works.

Equally, I think that there should be celebration for people who are really committed to the career choices they make, that they want to stick at. That is absolutely fabulous. We want people to be amazing in the roles that they do, but have the opportunity to progress within that role, so that there is that constant learning, with new qualifications for them and new experiences. It isn’t always about wanting to progress into a management role.

It’s not always about a promotion. Progression is about development, and about expanding yourself with new experiences

After 20 years at Leightons, what advice would you pass on to someone starting their career now?

If you’re starting out now, unless you have a vocation to be something, always keep your options open. Don’t limit yourself. Always look at what is around you, and build a network, because you will then be exposed to things that you didn’t even know existed.

That can sometimes be the challenge for people: you start out with something, and you don’t know what else is available to you. If you build strong core skills, they can be translated into a lot of places. Keep an open mind, keep looking and exploring, and don’t be afraid to change.

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The Women in optometry edition

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