My Story
Born the youngest of 37 first cousins on my Irish-mother’s family alone, it was unsurprising that I would develop a deep fascination with people. I grew up in the cosmopolitan East End of London to immigrant parents, surrounded by people who had immigrated from all parts of the world and were single-minded to make better lives for themselves. The imagination and creativity that surrounded me continued to spark my passion for culture and people.
In a career launched first as a successful journalist interviewing famous people from singers like Amy Winehouse to politicians like the Primeminister of Ireland, I followed a social desire to teach in one of England’s most struggling schools through developing as a leader myself in the graduate the Teach First leadership programme. Developing an ongoing interest in people, leadership and systems, I then trained as an International consultant and worked with hundreds of potential and existing leaders across projects for two different leading charities.
On this international journey (from Ireland to Buenos Aires to Abu Dhabi to London) , I noticed that in most workplaces, organisations and systems wellbeing was suffering, resilience was dwindling and there was a strong correlation between the levels of wellbeing, resilience and the quality of leadership.
I wanted to unpick the magic behaviours that the best leaders drew on to bring the best out of themselves and the leaders and teams around them; the behaviours that fostered wellbeing, resilience and a safety in a culture that allowed strategy, innovation, creativity and results to excel. What WERE those magic ingredients? They weren’t the technical skills – many could figure those out and they were tangible and clear – these skills were deeper. In spite of a leadership MA from UCL, I knew that if I needed to understand this at the most fundamental level I needed to look further into our behaviour and our brain, and so then began my journey to develop as a leadership psychologist back in 2016.
Since then I have been digging further as a researcher, writer, speaker and consultant to understand the ingredients that help leaders, their team and their communities to ALIGHT – drawing on all that we know from leadership and psychological theory and practice – and testing this out with thousands of stakeholders through my innovative clients who have been brave enough to invest in the development of their people (in the education, finance, energy, charity sector and beyond). The results speak for themselves. Positive leadership is the way forward – if we want a world that is sustainable, equitable and inspiring for all. Positive leadership is everything in what we know brings the best out of leaders, teams and their communities. And I get the joy in seeing the impact that these positive leadership approaches can have in our workplaces, day in and day out. You can read more in my book due out in 2022 or get in touch and we can have a chat.