One of my biggest struggles as a first time VP People 🫥

Hello beautiful human

One of the biggest things I struggled with as a first time VP People, was having the confidence to share my ideas in every forum.

Tell me if you’ve ever felt like this too.

It's like you are stuck.

You are watching the action around you in the room, you know what you want to say, but it’s like you are paralysed, looking for excuses not to say something. Eventually, perhaps even someone else in the room says what you were about to say.

As a first-time Head of or VP of People, it's natural to feel like you're treading water in uncharted territory.

But here's the truth: You are not alone, and you are more capable than you realise.

It's okay to feel like you don't have all the answers, like you're still finding your footing. In fact, it's a sign of growth and humility.

One day a colleague called me out on it. She said; 'I notice you don’t say very much in meetings'. I said; 'Yes, it’s like I am having the conversation in my head.'.

I decided to do three things:

1. Prepare ahead of meetings to make sure I always had updates on my team to contribute - if you are in a People role, there is always people involved in whatever they are talking about.

2. Try to speak as early as I could in a meeting, once you get started it is so much easier to keep going!

3. And I asked her to work with me on speaking up more, and to invite me into a conversation if it looked like I was holding back.

It worked: the more I did it, the more confident I felt doing it. Soon, I was being invited not just into more executive meetings, but also to speak on stages as you see here in this picture. My world just started to open up.

If you want any chance to build your career on your terms, you have to discover the reason you’ve been muting your intuition and find a new strategy to communicate in a way that feels safe and aligned. That’s what we do in Bloom, giving you tools and frameworks that make it feel easy to communicate your value.

There isn’t a quick fix for this, but here are some great places to start, two are from my podcast guests in season one.

1. Read "Dare to Lead" by Brené Brown, the queen of vulnerability herself. She covers building the courage to speak up authentically.

2. Listen to Jo Dalton as she advises us to try to say something as quickly as possible in the meeting, because it is much easier to keep sharing once you have already said something.

3. Listen to Elaine Lin Hering, author of "Unlearning Silence" who talks about starting in lower stakes situations, where you can practice speaking up in safer settings, and start building the muscle from there.

4. Lean on your HR community - attend networking events, and seek mentorship opportunities - we are hosting our first Bloom community meetup in London next month, I can't wait!

Side note: Are you listening to season two of the Bloom podcast yet…?

I love getting messages like this. It makes it all worthwhile!

Find Women Who Lead podcast on all podcast platforms.

In summary, no one is you, and that is your superpower, and the world needs your voice.

The journey to leadership is not about having all the answers; it's about being willing to learn, to ask questions, to adapt, and to lead with authenticity and empathy.

So, if you find yourself holding back in meetings, questioning your worth, or feeling like you don't belong, I want you to know that you are enough.

Your unique perspective, your insights, and your willingness to grow and learn is exactly what the world needs.

Big love