S3 Ep16 Leadership Lessons That Change Everything with Mary Gregory

This season wasn't simply a collection of conversations about women in leadership.

Looking back across thirteen remarkable guests, Mary reflects that something much bigger has emerged. Together, Mary and her guests have explored what leadership now needs to become, discussing the five biggest lessons from Season 3, including:

• Why confidence isn't always the problem — sometimes the system is.
 • Why sponsorship matters more than advice.
 • What money really tells us about opportunity and influence.
 • Why people can never leave their lives at the office door.
 • Why kindness, courage and encouragement are among the strongest leadership skills we have.

Along the way, Mary revisits some of the most powerful moments from conversations with Lauren Neal, Steph Douglas, David B. Horne, Sue Rizzello, Helen Gibson and more.

Rather than summarising each episode, this is an exploration of the ideas connecting them all—and what they mean for leaders who want to create workplaces where more people can thrive.

If you've listened throughout Season 3, thank you.

If this is your first episode, it's also a great place to start.

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 ✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to She Leads Collective Podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies, and bold truth tellers who are changing the game not by playing tougher but by leading smarter, softer, and stronger. Well, hello and welcome to this final episode of season three of the She Leads Collective podcast. And can you believe it? We are heading into the summer holiday season already. Schools have broken up, suddenly the roads seem less busy, and many of us will be heading off for some well-earned rest and relaxation. So before I close season three with this final episode, I thought it would be valuable to reflect on the past three months and think about the learning that has emerged from yet another incredible array of guests who I always feel so privileged to speak to. When I began recording this season, I thought I was creating a new collection of conversations about women in leadership and the workplace. But as I look back across the season, I realised something else was happening. Together, my guests have been helping us build a picture of what leadership now needs to become. We've talked about work, money, health, confidence, bias, courage, kindness, visibility, and influence. We've explored the realities women experience not only inside organisations, but also in everyday life that impact the opportunities that come women's way in terms of our health, our well-being, the way our voices are heard or not, and we've also looked beyond the problems to what leaders can do differently. And perhaps most importantly, we have heard what becomes possible when people challenge assumptions, use their influence, and create environments where others can thrive. This season has also shown me that the greatest barriers to leadership are often invisible. And perhaps the greatest responsibility of leaders is to learn to see what has previously gone unnoticed. As I've listened back to these conversations, I've realized that every guest has helped me notice something that I haven't fully seen before. Individually, those insights are powerful. Together, they've changed the way I think about leadership. I'm not going to attempt to summarise every conversation because each one deserves to be heard in full. Instead, I'm drawing together five lessons that I believe have emerged across season three. But before I begin, I want to thank every single guest who has joined me and shared their experiences so openly. And I want to thank you, the listeners, too. This podcast is now reaching across the world, and over the last three months in particular, we've seen a wonderful upsurge in listeners from the United States. So a big hello to our American friends. And wherever you are listening from, whether this is your first episode or you've been with me from the beginning, thank you for being part of the She Leads Collective podcast. Lesson number one. One of the clearest messages from this season is that too many workplaces are still presented as problems for individual women to solve. Women are told to be more confident, to speak more loudly, to negotiate more assertively, to build their network and to improve their visibility. Of course, there can be great value in developing all of these skills, and in fact, these are many of the things that we cover in my leadership programs for women. But they cannot compensate for systems that continue to judge women differently, restrict their opportunities, or overlook their contribution. Lauren Neal captured this powerfully in her episode, It's Not a Confidence Problem. Her experiences in engineering demonstrated how easily organizational cultures can continue to reward a narrow idea of who belongs and what credible leadership looks like. Let's hear what she had to say.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I was speaking to a lady who was maybe, let's call her, maybe three or four years older than me. And we'd again never met in person. And she was asking me about my experiences, and I think I was just having one of those times where I wasn't really feeling that positive about work. And I said, you know, I'm thinking about maybe I need to do some um public speaking training, um, find a way to speak more assertively, and you know, maybe use the right words, because I use a lot of slang when I speak. And she just laughed it off and said, You sound like me like five years ago. And I it it landed, but it didn't really take root, I'll say that comment, because I thought, oh, okay. And then we talked. And then I'm not kidding, it was only a few days later I spoke to a friend of mine, a very good friend, and she was in her 20s, worked for the same organization, and I was venting, and I said, I just feel like it makes no difference if I'm at work or not, because if I wasn't here and the work that I'm doing wasn't happening, nobody would care. And she said to me, Lawrence, I feel exactly the same way, and I went, No, because this this young lady was about 25-26, and she's saying that. And I just thought, wait, when you're in your 20s, you need to get exposure to everything. Because you don't know what you like, you don't know what you want to do in your career. You might have an idea, but you need exposure to people and things and different, different experiences so that you can decide actually, I like that, I don't like this, and I want to carve this way in my career. For her to tell me that she felt like they're the same as me, that there was no point in her coming to work or not. I was floored by it. And it just opened my eyes, and then then I remembered my earlier conversation with the other lady, and I went, hang on a second. So someone older than me is feeling like this, and someone younger than me is feeling like this, and we're all saying the same thing that we think it's us, but that doesn't make sense. And I that really lit a fire under me, and I started sharing my stories, and I you know, I did it internally, first of all, speaking to other women in in the company, and it was the same, it was the same stories, the same having an idea, saying it at a meeting, and everybody just is silent. You know, they don't argue or disagree with you, they just ignore you. And then 10 minutes later, a man goes and says the same thing, and it's the best idea since sliced bread. So when I started calling these out, and it actually works with some men as well, men who are a little more quiet, more introverted, especially that example of raising a point in a meeting only to be met with silence. And you know, virtual, you're like, Did you hear me? Am I on mute? And it's none of that. People are just not engaging with you, which to be honest is rude. But also that I mean, maybe it's going back to the earlier point. That's another way bias is showing up. So people think they're being correct by not saying anything, but actually they're exacerbating the issue.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Lauren's story was situated in STEM, but the lessons travel much further. In my work as a coach and delivering women's leadership development programs, her story is repeated by many, and I might add, one of the greatest gifts such programs offer is for women to realize that they are not alone. Lauren's episode also completely reframed something for me. We often tell women they need more confidence, but Lauren's story suggested something very different. Sometimes confidence isn't the problem at all. Sometimes the system keeps giving capable people evidence that they don't belong. Which left me wondering: how do we help women succeed within the current system? Or perhaps a better question is, what is it about the existing system that makes success harder than it needs to be? Akiwa A Pong extended that conversation by challenging traditional ideas about presence and leadership. Her discussion of neurodivergence and quiet leadership reminded us that organizations can lose enormous value when they reward only the most visible, the most loud and vocal, or conventional contributors. And Sue Rosello brought us back to the question of whose knowledge is recognized and whose isn't. Women may possess deep expertise, but expertise alone does not guarantee that they will be heard, sponsored, or positioned as influential voices. Let's hear what Sue had to say about this.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Very few people are supporting and promoting women, and this is particularly a problem in corporate organizations. There's a lot of mentoring that happens. So women are mentored, even over-mentored, but they are under-sponsored. So they get lots of advice, but they don't always get the advocacy that they should have internally to actually say, look, this person, this woman should become our leading voice on something. She is our leading subject matter expert. Um and so if we're not put forward as the experts as often as men, of course, this is not exclusive. Some organizations are great at it, but a lot are not. If we're not put forward as the leading voice on something, if we're not put forward as the subject matter expert, um, it's quite hard because you've got to build it brick by brick yourself.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

That distinction between mentoring and sponsorship is critical. Advice may help someone develop, but sponsorship changes who gets seen, trusted, and chosen. And I know of more than one large organization where if you don't get sponsorship from a senior leader, then you just remain invisible, making it almost impossible to build your reputation and profile. The responsibility to navigate the organizational dynamics and make themselves visible cannot rest entirely with women to prove themselves repeatedly. Leaders need to be alert to whose ideas they support, whose name they put forward, and whose potential they actively champion. And not just who they support themselves, but who do they see being given the opportunities, the stretch projects, the presentations, the promotions across the business. If it's the same faces or type of faces, then there really is an opportunity to consider how can things be done differently around here. Because at the end of the day, there is a huge cost in the underutilisation of people's potential and the loss as women head for the door, which is another trend being observed across many organisations. Which leads me on to consider lesson number two. Fairness is all about access to money and opportunity. The second lesson is that gender equity cannot be separated from economic power. Three episodes this season explored money from different perspectives but closely connected angles. Yasmin El Mahari spoke about women's relationships with money and the experiences that shape financial confidence. Jane Brewer argued that these conversations need to begin early, giving children the language, knowledge, and confidence to make informed financial choices. One conversation that genuinely surprised me this season was with David B. Horn. We often hear that women receive only around 2% of venture capital funding, but I hadn't really stopped to ask why. David shared research that completely changed how I thought about this issue. What stayed with me from David's episode was that this is not a niche problem affecting a small number of entrepreneurs. Funding isn't just about money, it's about whose ideas become reality, which businesses grow, which problems receive attention, and who gets to shape the future. Let's hear what David had to share.

SPEAKER_06 13:41

I think there are three primary reasons for this. Number one is just inherent gender bias. It's a lot better than it was when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, but it's still there. Number two is that there are not enough women in senior decision-making roles inside the venture capital and investment firms. And two pieces of data to just bring that to life. One of them, just before we ran our first funding focus event, which is my my social enterprise that is addressing this or trying to address this, just before we ran our first event, um, Morningstar came out with a study of all of the listed open-ended investment companies in the UK. And there were just under 1,500 of them. And they've discovered that there were more funds run by men named David, which I thought was kind of cool, but more funds run by men named David than funds run by women. Intriguingly, the most popul the most common name of a woman running a fund was Katie, which is my wife's name.

SPEAKER_05 14:54

Oh, right. Yeah, you're obviously the perfect pair there, but but it is absolutely shocking. It is.

SPEAKER_06 15:00

And the the other piece of evidence around this, this was a study done by a woman who's now a professor at London Business School, and she did her PhD at Columbia University in New York, and she studied the um TechCrunch New York City startup battle pitching competitions from 2010 until 2017. She downloaded all of the videos and into some analytical software that analyzed all of the presentations in the QA sessions. She found no material difference between the way men and women pitched, but she found a significant bias in the type of questions that they were asked. Where 67% of the questions asked of male entrepreneurs were what's called a promotion question. How are you going to double your market share? Where are you going to hire your next hundred employees? And 66% of the questions asked of female entrepreneurs were what's called prevention questions. How are you going to stop the competition from stealing your business? What happens if some of your key people leave? And what was really interesting was that same level of bias was demonstrated by both male and female investors.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

What struck me about the research that David shared wasn't simply the existence of bias. It was how ordinary it looked. The questions investors asked weren't obviously discriminatory, yet over time they've shaped different expectations, different conversations, and ultimately different outcomes. It reminded me that systems don't always need explicit rules to create inequality. Sometimes they simply repeat patterns that nobody has stopped to question. David's contribution also represented something central and very important to me and this podcast, and that is allyship. Gender equity cannot become a responsibility carried by women alone. Particularly when it is a systemic issue, all genders have got to pull together to solve the challenges the systems we work within have created. People with access, influence, and decision-making power have to be willing to question what they see, challenge accepted patterns, and open doors for others. Taken together, David, Yasmin and Jane showed that financial confidence is never purely personal. It is shaped by education, by exposure, by encouragement, and by access. And by the systems that decide who is considered investable. Lesson three. Another recurring theme this season was the artificial divide we create between the person at work and the person outside of it. Steph Douglas spoke openly about the mental load at home and the unequal responsibilities that many women continue to carry. Tina Backhouse showed why women's health is a workplace and leadership issue, not merely a private concern, and that there can't be true equity unless we even up the attention given to both men and women's health. Tamara Glanville explored the impact of divorce, an experience that can affect confidence, identity, financial security, and performance, yet is rarely discussed honestly at work. These episodes addressed different experiences, but together they posed a profound challenge. People do not leave their health, their relationships, their worries or their responsibilities at the office door. I asked Steph Douglas, what impact does carrying so much of the mental load and responsibility for home and children or extended family have on women's careers, energy and confidence?

SPEAKER_02 19:04

It's a massive strain, I think, for a lot of women because they're trying to juggle it's juggling, it's feeling massively overwhelmed and trying to juggle, you know, and racing your so the thing that gets neglected often is probably themselves. Um, because you can't neglect the kids, you can't not be there at pickup, you can't. I'm I mean, I have forgotten pat lunches at various points, but that's that's really difficult. And so I think a lot of women will make sacrifices and and not go for that promotion and or not go for that job because you're like, how am I possibly going to manage that? Um, so having a supportive partner, having a uh understanding of what that might require. I mean, going back to work after having a baby, I think a lot of women take that on as well. I'm going back to work, so I need to organise the childcare and sort the nursery and work out all the timings and up and book clubs for the kids and whatever needs to happen. And actually, that that's a whole load of admin and work on top of going back to work. Like it's a so why would it just be you? The reason you're putting your child in childcare is so that the two of you can work to have the life that you're wanting to have.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

One of the things I've become increasingly convinced about is that in organizations and businesses' continual pursuit of performance, they cannot neglect that human beings don't live in compartments. What is going on in someone's life outside of work is going to be carried into their work, even if they may be putting on a brave face. Health, relationships, juggling, multiple dynamics all influence how a person shows up. And there is a real need for leaders to not only be sensitive to this, but also to practice being compassionate. But compassionate leadership is not about lowering your standards, it is about understanding what enables people to meet them. Flexibility, psychological safety, and thoughtful support are not indulgences. They allow organizations to retain talent, sustain contribution, and respond to the realities of people's lives so ultimately they have the greatest chance to perform at their best. We cannot talk seriously about gender equity at work without talking about what happens beyond work. And this is one of the themes I will explore more deeply when my podcast returns in September. Lesson number four humanity is a leadership strength. One of the beliefs I've held for a long time and wrote about in my book, Ego Get Over Yourself and Lead. Is that what we often call soft skills are anything but soft. They are some of the hardest leadership skills to master. This season reinforced that conviction. Time and again, my guests showed that kindness, encouragement, compassion, curiosity, and courage are not alternatives to effective leadership. They are what makes leadership effective and effective leadership possible. Carmel Solbury spoke about kindness as a way of leading and building businesses. Helen Gibson showed the lasting impact that encouragement can have on another person's confidence and choices. And Isabel Courtney Guy joined me during an extraordinarily difficult period in her own life, speaking with courage and honesty about illness, uncertainty, and leading herself through an experience she could not control. None of these conversations presented humanity as sentimental, they revealed it as a source of strength. So let's hear what Helen Gibson has to say about encouragement.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

And I think encouragement is so for me, it's so important because it's where we get our courage from.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

And it's actually wrapped up in that word. So if you unpack encouragement within the word encouragement, there is courage.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yes. And if you think about it, when we're supporting others, when we're encouraging them, we're helping them allay their fears and act with courage. I love that way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

And to that extent, and I think now more than ever, we we do need that courage, but we can only get the courage if we've got the right kind of encouragement. And yeah, if we if we do have the right kind of encouragement, I believe that anything is possible for us, and it's unleashing that potential not only in ourselves but in others.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Encouragement is easy to underestimate because it can look so small. Helen changed the way I think about it. We often think of it as being nice, but she reframed it as something much more significant. Encouragement gives people courage, and courage changes what people believe they're capable of. Looking back across this season, I can see that every one of my guests in different ways has done exactly that. They have encouraged us to think differently, to challenge assumptions, to have difficult conversations, and to believe that change is possible. Helen's episode made me reflect on how frequently leadership is expressed not through major speeches or strategies, but through everyday interactions that either expand or diminish another person. Carmel, on the other hand, reminded us that kindness and ambition are not opposites. She is a phenomenal leader who has successfully founded, led, scaled, and exited highly successful businesses. But her appreciation of how important it is to be kind and to care for her team and particularly those delivering on the front line is profound. Business is not just about making money, it is about building so much more. And as leaders, being willing to build meaningful relationships and community that is in service of the success for everyone. Isabel showed me that courage is not about the absence of fear or uncertainty. It is the choice to meet reality honestly and continue finding a way through it, and also being willing to be open to the surprises and delight that can come from what might look from the outside like horrifying circumstances. Perhaps leadership isn't becoming softer at all. Perhaps we're finally recognising that courage, kindness, compassion, and encouragement have never been soft skills. They've always been leadership skills. We simply haven't valued them enough. Lesson number five. Farah Betts spoke about reinvention, inclusion, and refusing to let other people's expectations define the boundaries of her life or her leadership. Sue Rosello encouraged women to recognise that their knowledge and ideas have value. David B. Horn asked investors and allies to change who receives opportunity. And Steph, Tina, and Tamara invited organisations to respond more intelligently to the realities of people's lives. Different guests with different stories, but every guest story this season has expanded what leadership might become. People occasionally ask me why I started the She Leeds Collective podcast. It was not simply to showcase successful women, although I very much wanted to offer visible and varied models of women leading. It was not simply to document inequality, although we must continue to discuss the realities women face. And it was not to suggest that there is one correct way to lead. I started the podcast because I believe change happens through conversation, and conversations change what people notice. Then, what we notice changes the questions we ask. The questions we ask influence the choices we make, and those choices gradually shape our organizations, our relationships, and our wider culture. Across three seasons, I have been privileged to speak to women and men who are questioning long-held assumptions and creating different possibilities. Some are changing policies, some are building businesses, some are challenging entire industries, some are working with government to change the whole country. Others are changing lives through quieter acts of courage, encouragement and advocacy. All of it matters. So as we close the season, I would like to leave you with three questions to reflect on. Firstly, where might you be expecting an individual to change when the system around them also needs to change? Secondly, whose contribution, expertise or potential could you do more to champion? And finally, what becomes possible for other people because of the way you lead? You don't need a senior title to influence the answer. Leadership is present in the cultures we create, the behaviour we accept, the people we encourage, and the opportunities that we make available. So I want to thank all of my season three guests Steph Douglas, Lauren Neal, Akuo Pong, Yasmin El Mahari, David B. Horn, Jane Brewer, Helen Gibson, Tina Backhouse, Tamara Glanville, Carmel Solbury, Isabel Courtney Guy, Farah Butt, and Sue Rosello. Thank you for your honesty, your generosity and your willingness to contribute to this collective conversation. And to everyone listening in the UK, the US, and across the world, thank you for giving your time and attention to these ideas. We're now going to be taking a short break over the summer holidays, but we'll be back the first week of September, and when we return for season four, I will be exploring parenting, caring, and the responsibility of organisations to support the people carrying those roles alongside their work. It feels like a natural continuation of everything that we've discussed this season. And it's also very pertinent because it's September and everyone's returning back to work, to school, to whatever responsibilities they hold. The future of leadership will not be created by asking people to leave parts of themselves behind. It will be created by workplaces that recognise the whole person, challenge outdated systems, and enable a much broader range of people to contribute and thrive. Change is already happening. It is happening through leaders who are willing to listen, to question, to challenge, to encourage, to open doors and to use their influence in service of something larger than themselves. That gives me enormous hope. Thank you for being part of season three of the She Leads Collective podcast. And if this season has reminded us of anything, I hope it's this. Better leadership isn't someone else's responsibility. It's something each of us creates in the conversations we have, the opportunities we offer, the courage we encourage, and the humanity we choose to bring every single day. I look forward to seeing you in season four. Thank you so much for listening to the She Leads Collective podcast. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show or share it with a friend and leave a quick review below. Or leave us a comment. Change happens through conversation, so let's keep this one going. Listen out for the next episode and join me as we keep lifting the lid on the stories that matter. Take care and keep leading with heart.