Ease your way into softness in your leadership ✨

Hello beautiful human

As we slide towards the end of the year, I want to introduce you all to the idea of soft leadership season. [Side note: those of you who have been on this ride with me for a while will know I talked about it a lot at the end of last year.]

My invitation to you all is to embrace softness as you close out the year.

The idea came from folks talking about ‘soft girl season’ last year, namely a time of year where women prioritise rest and gentleness over hardness and exhaustion. I loved the idea, and it got me thinking; why can’t we embody softness all the time, especially at work?

I don’t know about you, but I grew up watching the women around me struggle and sacrifice and I made that my operating model too.

My first attempts of starting to take care of myself were often hard; hard exercise classes, hard regimes, hard living.

I’d tell myself I was healthy, and thriving, but truthfully, I was beasting myself in work and life.

The wonderful thing about the body, is that it will tell us everything we need to know about how to truly thrive, if we slow down enough to be able to listen.

After decades of ‘not enough’ and ‘you need to work the hardest to be enough’, learning softness was far from easy. Learning kindness to myself was one of the hardest things of all.

But gradually I unlearned and unravelled my hardness. Gradually I invited my feminine softness back in.

And the crazy part…? That was the moment when the world really opened up for me. When I was operating in my essence, when I was in Bloom.

That meant that I knew who I was, why I was and I knew what I wanted. I had created the space to become an amazing leader for others and started to support them to thrive in just the way that I had, because I had learnt how to lead myself from the heart, I was able to magnify that within my role and create amazing change within the companies I supported.

To my core, I believe our softness is what will shift the modern workplace into a place where we can all thrive.

Since the pandemic, a new kind of leadership was needed in the workplace to navigate fast and scary change, one that was softer, kinder and more empathetic. I saw it in my own role; suddenly the things that had made me quite different amongst my leadership peers, were then the skills that were the most needed.

One of the favourite pieces of feedback I had from a former boss but leadership peer in my last role was: ‘Thank you for setting the bar for leadership within our team and for showing us how to lead better.’

It was an extremely confirming moment for me, in that I truly felt how much the kind of leadership I brought was needed.

It is still needed. Not just from me, but from all of us. Yet still we aren’t sitting at enough leadership tables. At this time, women only occupy 24% at C-Suite level, and just 4% are women of colour.

We still aren’t being promoted or rewarded at the same level as our male counterparts. We struggle to self advocate, we take on additional work without reward and many of us are on the slippery slope to burnout.

We can be soft and strong at the same time. And that is what the world needs right now more than ever, softness and strength. Frankly, love.

Don't ever shy away from being the heart of your organisation. I honestly believe that my heart is my greatest gift to this world.

Softness at work, done well, involves boundaries and self advocating, it looks more like:

• Managing expectations, prioritising work and lovingly upholding boundaries
• Having a smart formula for dealing with stress when it comes
• Self advocacy and growth
• Self love and understanding your value
• Communicating authentically with influence and love

Bonus: here's a link for a really special session I have been working on for the past three months, one where I show you how you can stop feeling like an imposter and claim the life and career that you really want.

I can’t wait to share this with you all.

Have a beautiful, soft-seeking week my friends. 

 
Big love