Accidental Manager To Beautiful Leader
- Andy Goram
- May 7
- 35 min read
Most leaders didn’t choose leadership. They performed well. Delivered results. Built credibility. And then, almost inevitably, they were promoted. Given a team. Handed responsibility. Expected to lead.
And just like that, they became an accidental manager.
In the latest episode of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, your host Andy Goram, speaks with Dawn Stallwood, author of Beautiful Leadership about the issues associated with accidental managers, and how we can support them in becoming beautiful leaders.
Leadership isn’t always planned. It’s often inherited
One of the most striking realities explored in this conversation is just how common accidental leadership really is. For most people, leadership isn’t a deliberate step. It’s something they fall into. A natural progression based on competence in a previous role, not necessarily capability in a new one.
And that creates a gap.
A gap between expectation and readiness. As Dawn explains, many leaders step into these roles full of good intention, but without the tools, space, or support to succeed.
The moment it hits you
There’s a moment many leaders recognise. The pressure builds. The expectations rise. And suddenly, there’s a realisation: You’re not equipped for this.
That moment is deeply human. It’s where confidence dips, self-doubt creeps in, and the weight of responsibility becomes very real. And yet, most leaders don’t talk about it. They carry on. They firefight. They do their best.
But the strain doesn’t stay contained to work. It shows up in decision-making, relationships, health, and home life.
The system keeps repeating itself
One of the powerful ideas in this episode is that leadership struggles aren’t isolated—they’re systemic.
Accidental managers don’t just exist as a lone, rare entity. They create more of themselves.
Leaders who were never trained often pass that same experience on:
“You’ll be fine. I figured it out.”
And so the cycle continues.
Organisations move fast. Promotions happen. And if someone looks capable enough, that’s often enough. But capability in one role doesn’t automatically translate to another, and certainly doesn't mean you suddenly have the skills or confidence to lead people effectively.
Leadership isn’t about having the answers
One of the fundamental misconceptions at the heart of many accidental leadership struggles, is the idea that a leader should know everything. Should have all the answers. Make all the decisions. Carry all the weight.
But as Dawn points out, that’s not leadership. Leadership is about bringing together the right people, strengths, and perspectives. It’s about creating the conditions for others to succeed.
Not being the sole solution, but being the catalyst, the enabler of solutions through others.
The shift: From accidental to intentional
This is where Dawn offers up some food for thought. Because while becoming an accidental manager might be unavoidable, staying one isn’t. That shift begins with awareness.
Recognising where you are. Acknowledging what you don’t know. And deciding that it’s not enough to just “get by”. From there, it becomes about intention. Understanding what the role actually requires. Separating your identity from the role itself. And choosing to develop into the leader the role demands.
What makes leadership “beautiful”?
In the book there are two fantastic mnemonics, led by Dawn’s belief that Leadership should be:
Attractive
Transformative
Galvanising
Unifying
To achieve that, she introduces the Beautiful Leadership framework.
At its core are the BEAUTIFUL qualities. The skills required of leaders today:
Brave
Empathy
Authenticity
Unpretentious
Transparency
Imperfection
Faithful to role
Unifying
Lead to serve
These form the foundation.
Then come the LEADERSHIP practices:
Listen to learn
Execute to earn respect
Adaptation
Difficulty - lean in when it gets hard
Empowerment (starting with yourself)
Resilience
Space and boundaries
Hold (on, off, out)
Improvement
Practise with purpose
Together, they create a practical, human approach to leadership. One that recognises imperfection, embraces growth, and builds sustainable impact.
🎧 You can listen to the full episode here
Or if you prefer to read instead, the full episode transcript is available below.
Full Transcript
[Andy Goram] (0:11 - 3:56)
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the podcast that explores how to build stickier, competition smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help you turn the lights on behind the eyes of your people, light the fires within them, and help more of us lead successful, fulfilling work lives. This podcast is for anyone who believes that's worth going after and is curious about what really drives people, culture and performance.
Each episode we dive into the ideas and conversations that help create what I call stickier businesses, places where people thrive and love to work, and where customers stay, recommend you and love what you do and why you do it. So, if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
Why most of us become accidental managers
Okay then, let's have a chat about leadership, but more maybe specifically how most of us end up doing it or taking on that role, because I don't think many of us stepped into leadership roles because we'd been specifically trained for it.
Now, that might have happened, but not all of us experienced that. Most of us stepped into it because we were probably initially good at something else or we had some sort of presence about us. And in fact, around 82% of managers have had absolutely no formal training.
According to some reports, only 26% of senior leaders have had any formal leadership training either. So maybe that backs that up. Linked to that, 80% of managers confess to not feeling very confident in their role.
And as a result, only 27% of employees in their care would describe their manager as highly effective. So what does that tell us? Well, for me, it suggests that for many people, leadership isn't a planned step.
It's something we fall into. We become what is commonly referred to today as accidental managers. But what happens next is where I think this topic gets really, really interesting, because some people do stay stuck there, fighting, relying on instinct, firefighting, doing their very best, but never quite feeling in total control.
And then in the other side of it, some of us begin to strive to be better, to learn, to grow, maybe to become something a bit more intentional when it comes to leading. And my guest today, Dawn Stallwood, who's a corporate lawyer, advisor, and the author of Beautiful Leadership, was going to help us navigate some of that stuff. And what makes Dawn's perspective, I think, particularly interesting is that she's not really necessarily coming at it from the traditional leadership development background.
She's lived it. Working in environments where particularly the stakes are high, expectations are very real, and leadership isn't always something that you're trained for, but something you're just expected to sort of step into and get hold of. So today, we're going to explore how accidental management shows up, why it happens, what it costs when we perhaps ignore it, and what it might look like to lead in a way that's not just effective, but genuinely beautiful.
Dawn, welcome to the show.
[Dawn Stallwood] (3:57 - 4:03)
Thank you for that. And thank you for the intro. Indeed.
Beautiful Leadership. It's a nice idea, isn't it?
[Andy Goram] (4:03 - 4:05)
It's a great title for a book, isn't it, do you think?
[Dawn Stallwood] (4:05 - 4:08)
Well, I know a lady who wrote a book with just that title.
[Andy Goram] (4:09 - 4:29)
And I suspect we will get stuck right into that today. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Before we plough headlong into this thing we want to geek out about, do me a favour, Dawn.
Give yourself a better introduction to the audience than I just gave you. Tell us what you've been up to, what your background is, and particularly I'm interested in where your focus is today.
Introducing Dawn Stallwood and the idea of Beautiful Leadership
[Dawn Stallwood] (4:30 - 6:28)
So let's start with age, because actually I think it's quite a good place to start. So 51, with that a bit of a half-time sense, hence the book and moving more in towards the activities around Beautiful Leadership and the intentionality that comes with that. Where's it all come from?
So I started out in the late 90s training as a corporate lawyer, so mergers and acquisitions, advising large blue chips down all the way through to mid-sized companies, founder businesses, multi-generational family businesses, and everything in between, including investors, private equity, VCs, etc. Around deals, activities of growth into new markets, new territories, breakdowns in relationships, whether inside the organisation or with partners, and everything in between. So those, you know, that business-as-usual crisis, deal growth activity, gave me a unique perspective into leaders and their management teams because they essentially have been my client base.
And so you best figure out how to work well with them. And so if someone said to me now, what's your speciality? It's well, actually, my speciality is leaders and specifically serving leaders.
And leaders across geographies and across culture and across a number of sectors as well. And all of that's given me the huge privilege of insight and being able to ultimately put some of that down onto a page or 384 pages into a book. And the other quirky thing about me, which is a little bit weird, is I'm a notary public.
So I'm a member of the oldest branch of the legal profession as well. There's about 200,000 solicitors in the UK. There are 771 notaries.
And the only audience a notary has if they're dealing with corporates are boards of directors. So again, it's given me a window into a room or a group of people that many of us don't get to have that access to. So I'm very grateful to my clients.
[Andy Goram] (6:29 - 7:32)
Yeah. I mean, the notary thing, I think is interesting because when I lived and worked in the States, that is a job I heard a lot about. Everybody was notaries this and la la la la.
And it's not something I hear a lot of in the UK. I am interested though, in your work around accidental management and particularly your book. And I first, I think, came across your work in a post on LinkedIn.
I think you wrote a beautiful thing around the accidental manager piece. And I would recommend anybody listening to look Dawn up on LinkedIn. And within the highlighted posts on Dawn's profile is this post.
It's a great piece of insight and lovely prose as well, describing your own experiences and observations around the topic of accidental manager. But for those people who haven't read that piece, why does it matter to you, Dawn? Because some of that has inspired you writing this book, right?
So tell us, bring us up to speed. What was it that got you passionate about it?
The realisation moment: feeling ill-equipped to lead
[Dawn Stallwood] (7:33 - 10:29)
Well, I think the first thing that's pretty obvious is we are all most likely to be in that 86%. So we're most likely to be accidental managers. I know when I went through my legal career in the law firm environment and I did the whole going up the ranks and made partner, et cetera.
And like you say, you get good at something. So if you're a rainmaker or you're good at deals, et cetera, they go, oh, now it was time for you to have a team. And they go, yes, because your ego goes, oh, yes, please, I'll have some of that.
And also because sometimes it's the only way that they will justify you to take the promotion is if you've got a team, if you've got people that you're impairing or supporting, regardless of whether or not you're actually good at it or not, there you are. You find yourself as this individual. And so the pressure's on, the stakes are even higher.
You've raised your profile, you've got a higher salary, et cetera, et cetera. And now you feel like you have to earn it and own it and justify it. I certainly felt that way.
And the pressure's on and you realise actually you're ill-equipped. So it was really for me, when I started into sort of having team members and having wider responsibilities, I realised that I was lacking. And so I paid personally for private coaches.
So I had private coaches from my mid-twenties all the way through to now. And I don't think I'll ever not have some level of executive coaching or psychological support because I think it's so important to what I do. And so that for me was the realisation that, well, actually I'm an accidental manager.
And then I fell upon literally the CMI report just after it got published in 2023. And it just hit me like a juggernaut because it explained pretty much what I was seeing across the vast majority of the clients I've looked after all these years. Well-meaning individuals, incredibly passionate and purposed for what they're doing, but seemingly ill-equipped in role or lacking the space and time to be able to grow their competence other than in a way that's just firefighting.
The hidden pressure and personal cost of leadership
And that brings with it a huge amount of pressure and strain. And when you work closely with leaders and managers, as I've done, you start to see it show. And it shows up in how they make decisions, how they are themselves as individuals.
It might show up in their home life, in their health. And I think we need to be careful about the people we put into management roles because we should care about them. And so that's at the heart of really why I think it's important is that these people, for the most part, take the role because they feel they should for all the right reasons.
And they take one for the team. And then there's a risk that we let them down in terms of how we help them to grow and develop and sustain that role. So it's really about resilience.
So we need to be careful and care about the people we put into management and leadership roles.
[Andy Goram] (10:30 - 11:16)
Yeah, I mean, there's so many good things in there to sort of unpack. I think that first part about taking somebody who generally has been good at something, recognised for something, whether it's a particular skill or it's a character piece, whether in Covey's work, I guess we'd look at either character or competence, right? It's going to be one of those two things that gets you on the radar.
But if someone is ill-prepared and put into a team, managing a team, and they're not prepared for it, all of that great work, all of that great stuff can just dissipate. Self-confidence, go, performance, go. And you lose somebody who was tremendous or had great potential and you've lost them.
And then that's a very hard road back, right?
[Dawn Stallwood] (11:16 - 13:27)
It's a very hard road back. And even if someone who shows up into a management role, in that moment that they are brought into a role, that moment they may be completely equipped. Competence matches requirement, no problem.
Why struggling leaders don’t ask for help (and choose to leave)
But it's not static. So leadership and management roles are not static. They are ever-changing.
And then what are you doing to help that individual continue to keep pace with the agility and the adaptation that they need? And I'm not convinced that a lot of that goes on. I'm really not.
And the second point around fallout from being an accidental manager, by accident, is that they are a flight risk. Because if the pressure gets too much, it's not necessarily that they're going to say, excuse me, I've got a problem. I need some assistance.
I need some support. Because they might not feel to do that. So the easier option or the option that they feel is available to them might be, well, I'm actually just going to go stage left and exit and go somewhere else, hoping that the grass is green on the other side.
Except the chances are they're also going to be moved into that role, into a management position or leadership position as well. So the problem goes with you. I remember a pastor I listened to, a guy called Rick Warren in the States, Saddleback Church.
He said when people left a church and came to his church as a new church because they wanted to change, he would be very circumspect about accepting them into the church because he would say, that's fine, you can join us, but I need you to make sure that whatever you've left behind, you've left that behind well, and that you don't bring the baggage or the disappointment or the grievance into this new setting.
And I think that's also important work for all of us is that we do that continual growth work so that if something's not working out, we don't just jump and move to the next thing and still bring that baggage with us. But we actually try to do some remedial work before we go into the something new for your own sake, let alone those of your colleagues or the project that you're on.
[Andy Goram] (13:27 - 13:36)
I mean, look, some of us, I say some of us, look at me put myself in that category of the positives. That is not the case. But some people take to it like a duck to water, right?
[Dawn Stallwood] (13:37 - 13:37)
Absolutely.
[Andy Goram] (13:37 - 14:18)
They come in, it's a natural skill for them to sort of be able to engage, connect, motivate, understand, push, stretch people, give them focus, give them autonomy, empower them. God, I hate those people who can do that naturally, because that's a real skill, right? That I'm ultimately massively jealous.
But for many people, it's as you've described, it can be all of a sudden really unsettling, quite a lot of self-doubt comes in. You've described quite simply the visible signs. And yet, organizations keep promoting people into these roles that they're not prepared for, right?
And you must see this all the time.
Why organisations keep creating accidental managers
[Dawn Stallwood] (14:18 - 14:23)
All the time. And the follow-up question to that is, and why do they do that?
[Andy Goram] (14:23 - 14:25)
Yeah, I mean, exactly that.
[Dawn Stallwood] (14:25 - 15:41)
And then, and I think a myriad of reasons why they do that. Businesses run hot and run at pace. Bringing people in externally into an organization is not always easy.
It comes with a lot of challenged times. So if there's somebody inside the organization who looks to be okay, then that's a good enough reason to do it. Some individuals may be insisting or demanding promotion themselves because they feel that they're ready or that it's their time.
Whether or not they're having an honest moment with themselves is for them to determine. So there's a myriad of reasons why I think people find themselves in an accidental manager role, or organizations make those decisions. For me, it's, I don't think you can avoid that.
I think it's the follow-up. I think it's the, yes, we would like you to have the role. No, you're not fully ready, but that's fine because we've got these things in place.
In the book, I talk about us all recognizing our own imperfections or character traits, which may work against us. And I have this whimsical moment in the book where I say, wouldn't it be amazing if someone else, someone said, Dawn, you're up for a promotion. And I would say, thanks very much, Andy, but not yet.
[Andy Goram] (15:42 - 15:43)
I'm not ready yet.
[Dawn Stallwood] (15:43 - 16:40)
I'm not ready yet. Can you just hold off for another six months? Because my ego would go, yes, please.
Or fear of missing out. And the other whimsical view I have is, thank you, Andy. I'd love to take promotion, but can you please confirm to me who my executive coach would be?
Or what my professional development plan would be? In other words, you have that vulnerability that says, I'm really committed and intentional about doing as good a job as I possibly can, but I fear I might fall short because 86% of us at least are going to. Therefore, I know I'm going to need support.
So upfront, this is what it is. And then if the organization says no, the individual has an interesting decision to make. If the organization says yes, then that's quite hopeful.
Obviously, there are lots of companies that do offer leadership development, et cetera, programs, but it's not mainstay. It's not for everybody. It's not something that I see across the piece.
[Andy Goram] (16:41 - 16:46)
Yeah. You get stabilizers before you ride a bike with just the two wheels, right?
[Dawn Stallwood] (16:47 - 17:20)
But you also, not only do you get stabilizers, and if you're rollerblading in the eighties as I did, it's not just that you get stabilizers. It's also that you get the space. I wouldn't be trying to get hurtled down a road with a whole bunch of cars coming up.
So that's the other part of the problem is that even if you've got a leadership development program or you are doing all the right things as an organization, the ability to make space for that person in the role to then do the professional development is really hard. So people tend to do it around the edges and in the margins and sometimes learn it the hard way.
[Andy Goram] (17:21 - 18:54)
Well, I think that's also interesting because if you think, I mean, I'm sort of, well, I am totally in your court. I mean, I deliver some of this stuff, so I'm totally in the same side of the court as you. But I think there's something quite nice about the fact of following the best practice, which would be, we think you've got something.
We'd like to put you in leadership position. Don't take this the wrong way. We're going to give you a bunch of training to enable you to do that, right?
The cycle of accidental leaders creating more accidental leaders
And then when you come through that, bosh, you're in. I think what can happen is almost this cascade of accidental managers and leaders. So if you are one yourself and you've muddled through it, I know, because I've had conversations with people, they've sort of said to their boss, they have been a bit vulnerable and a bit broad.
They say, oh, really? I'm not sure. I'm not confident I can do that yet.
And the accidental boss before them has gone, oh, that's fine. You'll be fine. I didn't have any training either.
But you pick it up and bosh, off you go. So we've got an accidental boss preparing an accidental manager because, well, I made it through. But success is relative.
You know, how those teams performed underneath you based on your accidental fall into it and bless you, you're kind of striving to kind of get on with it versus coming into that role pretty prepared for it, still realizing there's, there's actually, I've got to implement this stuff. And it's going to have to bend and flex because humans are wonderful bags of emotions and all sorts of stuff. And it's not going to be a one size fits all linear process.
But I have a toolkit that I can access that I think would do wonders for confidence. And then relative performance would be something different, wouldn't it?
[Dawn Stallwood] (18:55 - 20:36)
Absolutely. And I think the other piece to people to remember is that leadership isn't about having it all nailed down yourself. Leadership is about corralling and managing resources to best effect in line with the vision and strategy and inspiring people as you go and a lot of governance.
But it's not about you having everything yourself. It's about saying, yeah, I can run a bit hot here and I can come across a little bit uncollaborative, but this person over here, oh my goodness, relationally, they're brilliant. Empathy, absolutely off the scale.
Bring that individual alongside in the moments that your leadership requires that particular competence. So, so you can be, you can be much, you can be an accidental manager, but be intentional. I think that's the key is, is knowing where you start and stop, having that introspective moment, knowing where you start and stop, knowing what the business, the deals, the individuals need in your role, of your role, and working out how you essentially resource for that.
You're not the entirety of the solution and leaders who think that they are, wear themselves out, wear other people out, fail to empower, which means they don't enable themselves to have space and it doesn't build resilience. So if you're an, if you're actually, if you're an accidental leader, which the vast majority of us are, be intentional about the fact that you are and work out how you build the bridges to ensure your capacity and in the leadership role is achievable.
[Andy Goram] (20:36 - 21:10)
I mean, I, I, I simply think about myself, um, as the person who needs to create the conditions for other people to be able to fulfill their potential, right? That's, that's the role of a leader as I see it today comes with lots of different things, but ultimately it is about the conditions that I create that enables other people to come unleash all of that latent potential that they've got within them. I know the very, very best leaders I ever worked for did exactly that for me.
I wasn't aware they were doing it by the way, it just happened.
[Dawn Stallwood] (21:11 - 21:30)
But if you come across people in your sort of work, Andy, where people get promoted into a management or leadership role and yet elements of the activity that they had in the prior role seems to sort of carry the, this long tail appears. So they, they don't shed activity. The portfolio just, just gets bigger.
[Andy Goram] (21:31 - 21:55)
Yeah. Which then you are not able, you don't have the capacity to do the different things. But then I think a lot of this comes from the misconception of what busyness is associated with it.
It's about I I'm, I'm worthy if I'm doing a lot of stuff as opposed to actually I have huge value here if I create more value out of other people by playing the leader role.
Letting go of past success to step into leadership
[Dawn Stallwood] (21:55 - 23:44)
And you've hit a really good point there because again, if you've grown into your role through promotions and you've been promoted because of what you did before, there's a nervousness to let that go because that's the very thing that you feel you've been valued on. So, you know, actually empowering the individual once they're promoted to let things go rather than to hold onto them because it's how they've been defined or valued before is really important. And I think that's particularly the case in, um, in business development, commercial, but also things like professional services, like, you know, law firms, et cetera, you know, lawyers by trade are, you know, are paid and, and valued based on the work that they do and the fees that they earn.
And as you get promoted, it's much more about client management, people management, team development, but for the most part, law firms still put targets on financial targets on senior, senior lawyers, not necessarily at an entirely at a team level, but that the individual themselves also still has a target to hit that can be counterproductive. You know, if you're not, if you're not careful, it takes a lot of self-control to, to not want to be the person who gets the, gets the credibility and to just give, just give all the praise away. But if you can, if you can get it into the, into, into your mindset, that your value and your success is basically showcased by what your team are achieving and that you bask in their light, in their floodlight, then that's the, that's exactly where we should all strive to be.
But that challenges our human condition.
[Andy Goram] (23:45 - 24:42)
Yeah, a hundred percent. That is, that's the ultimate win as I, as I, as I sort of see it. Um, I want to get into some of the key parts of beautiful leadership.
Okay. I I'd love you to unpack this whole, this whole thing of moving from accidental manager to the, I think the quite lovely phrase that you've used in, in, in that piece I talked about the, the apprentice leader and ultimately into beautiful leadership. And I know those two words, beautiful and leadership are very intentional and very active.
You've used them properly throughout the book in a very, very intentional manner. So let's talk about that move, that journey, that progression from accidental manager to this apprentice leader and, and how that beautiful leadership framework that you've built a book around works and what we should look out for. And maybe we can dig into a few of those bits.
Moving from accidental manager to intentional leader
[Dawn Stallwood] (24:42 - 30:41)
Yeah. So how do you move from being an accidental manager to an apprentice leader is you have to decide number one, that you're an accidental manager and the two, that's not good enough. As in, it's not going to work for you in role.
So that's the first thing you've got to have an awakening that you're that, which isn't easy. I don't think to start with, you know, to, to, I quite love the label accidental manager, because it gives me space to sort of be vulnerable and to say that I am transparent and I can share what I need to, where I need to grow. So that's the first thing is that you have the record, you have that, that sort of awareness, self-awareness.
And the second part of how do you get from A to B is to accept what your role requires and actually to be very, very intentional and inquisitorial about what is expected of me? What does a good, what does this role look like if I'm executing it? Well, I think sometimes we can get confused about individual and the role.
And, and, and, you know, we are the office as a leader, you're an office holder, you are separate from the role, but you have a duty to be the best you can in the role. So that's the second part is to, is to different differentiate between individual and the role itself and understand exactly what it requires. And beautiful leadership.
It basically says that leadership should be attractive, transformative, galvanizing, and unifying. Big, bold statements. And I think we need a world of beautiful leaders right now, particularly maybe now more than ever.
The Beautiful Leadership framework: qualities and practices explained
So beautiful leaders is, is what we should all strive to be. And then there's a play on words. So because I am menopausal, we're a similar age, aren't we?
So because I'm menopausal, I have brain fog. And a couple of years ago, I was asked to speak at an ethics, faith and leadership conference in Cambridge. And the leadership, the organizer of the conference, the retreat was brilliant, but he said, Dawn, I just want you to do your keynote with no notes, no presentation material, no single, no slides, nothing, no aid memoirs.
And I couldn't remember what my keys were. You know, the default at that time was go to the fridge and find your keys. And I have a very patient husband who would remember where I put everything even before I needed to find it.
So Kevin has been awesome with that. And so I spent the whole night, the night before the retreat in Cambridge, literally like tearing my hair out. I'm going to let everybody down, huge imposter syndrome.
How am I going to talk about beautiful leaders? I was asked to speak on beautiful leadership and good leadership be beautiful. And so I wrote the word beautiful down in vertically on a page and just looked at it.
And I realized that everything that I'd wanted to say, I could, I could make a mnemonic of it. So beautiful are basically nine qualities that help us to be attractive in our leadership approach. And then leadership helps us build out our foundation.
So beautiful are our nine qualities that serve as our foundation. Leadership gives off our scaffolding, if you like, helps us to build our impact in a sustainable way. And they are 10 practices or disciplines.
And that's essentially the framework itself. So to give you a bit of a spoiler in the qualities, and some of this will relate, I think, to accidental manager. So B is for brave, E is for empathy.
So be kind to yourself. A is for authenticity. So show up as who you are, bring your whole self to work, including the bits that are missing.
U is to be unpretentious and uplifting. So don't have ego get in the way, be humble, accept where you're at, accept help if it's given. And if you're asked to give help by someone, be uplifting, sponsor that.
U is for being uplifting and unpretentious. T is for transparency. So, you know, hey, Andy, thanks very much, but I think I've got a few gaps.
I is for imperfection. So understand your character traits and the things that are holding you back or the things that you need to hone, accepting that leadership is a persistent journey. F is being faithful to role.
So all of that stuff before makes sense if you just accept, I want to be good at the job. So if I'm faithful to role, that is perfectly acceptable to ask for help and to accept my limitations and constraints. U is to unify and L is to lead, to serve.
So that's the qualities of an attractive leader. And then how do you build out your impact? Well, you listen to learn.
You execute to earn respect. You practice adaptation, difficulty, because they are certain that they will come. And then you do something very fundamental.
You practice empowerment, but most importantly, you empower yourself first before others. And then you practice resilience, space and setting boundaries, hold, whether it's hold on, custodian, hold off, restraint and hold out, waiting well. And then you practice improvement.
So if you know what you find difficult by way, or if you've got imperfections, we all have, or you know it's difficult, you know what to improve. And then you round up the whole framework with P is for practice with purpose. And so it is literally as simple as that.
And I think that's the joy of it, is that within each of that, we can do a little bit of an audit and we can say, where am I, you know, hot, not hot? Where have I got a problem? Where am I needing some additional support?
And it gives you a very personalized framework from which you can, which you can build. And I wrote it because I wrote it as a response to caring about the people I've served all these years and just seeing the potential in them that often isn't reached and the pain that they sometimes go through in the role when most of that can be avoided with intention.
[Andy Goram] (30:43 - 33:10)
Yeah, I think this is what's, hearing the words associated with the beautiful leadership to me was quite a satisfying moment, Dawn, because there will be people listening to this or people that will read the LinkedIn posts associated with this episode and they'll see the words beautiful leadership. And I can hear people cocking snooks at particular words, beautiful this, and it's a bit much, it's a bit intentional. I'm a big fan of the word love, but people get really annoyed and fed up with me about using that word in a work sense.
But I think what's really lovely about what you've done is that when you use those mnemonics and you look at the words that you've kind of laid out there, that to me matches up. And I am biased because I think this is very much in my DNA. If I look at the challenges that lots of workforces face today, with shifting generations, very tough economic climate, lots of push for results, people opting out of management because there's nothing in it for me.
You want me to work longer, harder with people who don't want to do anything, and you're not really paying me for that. I have a home that I'd like to balance my time in. Thank you very much.
And just recently, the Gallup global workforce report for the year just dropped again. And this is some really interesting stuff about how AI has affected everything, but we still come back to two things. Engagement's gone backwards for the first time in a good few years, and relationship with manager, still the number one issue why people kind of like go away from businesses, leave organizations.
And yet when I pick apart those words behind beautiful leadership, I can't argue with any of them in terms of if I look back to the people who I would run through brick walls for, these things were a constant. And I think the constant bit for me was really, really important because I also had leaders who would show a number of these traits, the qualities, the scaffolding elements, would show a number of these things at times, but not always consistently.
[Dawn Stallwood] (33:11 - 33:22)
Yeah. And I think that's an interesting point because it's one of the reasons why I chose in leadership, I chose D to be difficulty because it was very nearly discernment.
[Andy Goram] (33:22 - 33:23)
Okay.
[Dawn Stallwood] (33:23 - 35:45)
And I chose it to be difficulty because on our best days, we can be much closer to the notion of being beautiful in our leadership. Now we know what those two words mean. On our worst days, on our days of high stress, strain, pressure, uncertainty, it's where you get the chinks, it's where you get the cracks.
And so I think it's really important to practice difficulty because if you can practice it in the same way as a simulator helps pilots practice, if you can practice it, then it means that even then your resilience in your style of leadership remains in place. Because you're right, when you've got the volatility in terms of a leader, you just don't know where you are half the time. But the chances are the leader may not be aware that they've actually changed.
They're just responding in a moment of urgency or strain or just a heavy load where something falls apart for them. I know for myself, I'm a highly empathetic person. But if I'm operating at pace, if I'm operating at pace in a deal, I can be a bit painful to be around.
And I can get very, very structured in a transaction and very literal to timelines, etc, which can frustrate people who really didn't think of a deadline as a deadline, sort of a stretch target. So I know myself where I fall down in moments of difficulty or challenge. And then there's constant work around trying to show up better, or at least knowing when it's coming so that I can sort of apologise in advance.
It's a little bit like premenstrual tension. You know you're going to have it every month and there might be a day or two where you're a little bit more difficult to be around because of everything that's going on hormonally. And yet, you still can't catch it quickly enough to be able to say, I'm about to have a problem and I'm about to not be very agreeable.
It's trying to get ahead of it, really. So knowing what you find difficult and where your resilience starts to be a bit shaky helps you with that consistency.
[Andy Goram] (35:46 - 36:06)
Yeah, I mean, I am no exemplar myself, by the way, because I can look down at all of these words and feel very, very warm and golden about them. But I absolutely know, and there are plenty of people that would bear testimony that I could be great at some of these things sometimes, and then you'd think I'd never even heard of those qualities in other cases.
[Dawn Stallwood] (36:07 - 36:50)
And you're on a continuum, aren't you? So I've worked with some CEOs who have been CEOs of businesses for 20 years. And the combination of the elements of the framework that they've needed, more or less of, has changed throughout that time as the organisation has changed, grown, contracted, responded to growth or a challenge, so too does your leadership response need to change as well.
So there's nothing static in this. And that's the whole point around the framework is it's personal to you. It's a base from which you can work up your leadership competence.
And the piece around all of it is that we remain an apprentice leader.
[Andy Goram] (36:51 - 37:32)
Yeah, because what I wanted to ask you was, when you wrote this book, and each chapter, I guess, covers one of the letters, right? And you walk through that. I have a couple of questions.
What was the hope behind writing the book? What were you looking for to sort of happen as a result? And it feels like a bit of a daft question, but when you look at the list of words, which are the ones that speak to you the most, as potentially, perhaps, more important?
Are there any gradations of important here, or are they all as important as each other?
[Dawn Stallwood] (37:33 - 37:44)
Let's take the second question first. That's all right. Like a typical Laura, I'm just going to do it in a different order.
I think each letter has the capacity to have equal weighting.
[Andy Goram] (37:44 - 37:45)
Yeah.
[Dawn Stallwood] (37:46 - 38:06)
But within that, I think there are some anchoring practices and qualities that really are at the heart of leadership. So, faithfulness to role is an empowering quality, because it means that you get yourself out of your own way.
[Andy Goram] (38:07 - 38:07)
Nice.
[Dawn Stallwood] (38:08 - 39:52)
You have to disassociate yourself from the role if you're going to be faithful to the role. I think that's really fundamental in leadership, particularly when you get into the upper echelons of C-suite, where it can be quite political, etc. You have to get any self-interest out of the way.
You do that by being faithful to the role. So, that one's absolutely key, I think. And the other one, I think, is empowering yourself and others as a quality.
It's absolutely essential to make sure you put the oxygen mask on first as a leader, and empowering yourself enables pretty much every other element of the framework, really, because it will empower you to accept the need to be transparent, the need to improve, the need to be brave. So, empowering yourself is really important. I think that can get missed sometimes.
So, those two, I think, are an anchoring quality and an anchoring practice. In terms of the hope for the book, I have a genuine heart for people in leadership roles. It's been the space I've lived in for the last 30 years.
I have a very strong maternal instinct towards them, care deeply. And yet, there are loads and loads and loads of people in those roles who I'm never going to meet. So, the hope was to write it down so that it could have a broader reach, and to provide an alternative to some of the very credible but quite lofty leadership theories and treaties that are out there.
I'm not an academic. As you said, I'm not in organisational development. I'm not a culture specialist.
So, I wanted to create something that was really very personal, very practical, that people could own on an individual level, and to know that I'm there cheerleading for them.
[Andy Goram] (39:55 - 41:49)
Selfless. That's a nice thing to have in there. I think it's always interesting when you listen to people's inspirations behind writing.
I'm in huge awe of anybody who has gone through the personal pain and dedication to write a book. I'm in absolute awe of it. I would love to think one day, listening to all the people I get to talk to, and being able to share their thoughts and the ones that I have on these topics that we talk about in this podcast.
But the whole idea of it scares the life out of me. So, anybody that's actually committed to it and brought something forward, and for the sort of reasons that you have, I'm in absolute awe of. And I thank you for being so generous in sharing the mnemonic and what's behind it.
We may have already answered this sort of question previously in this conversation, Dawn. But if we think you and I on the same page about recognizing accidental managers, understanding how it happens, understanding what it looks like, the challenges that it presents, and you have offered up a framework to help guide and maybe even offer a solution to where people can find their style, find their leadership character, and blend it with that competence that we're first sort of seen for.
What do we need to do? What should organizations, do you think, be focusing on to do different, to avoid the number of unprepared, accidental managers that are born in organizations and maybe burn very brightly for a short period of time, but snuff out far too quickly?
[Dawn Stallwood] (41:49 - 43:41)
So, I think it's about psychological safety. I've been thinking about this recently, I've got a retreat conference next week in Cambridge where this book actually sort of was birthed a couple of years ago. And one of the things I'm leading a keynote session on basically safeguarding and psychological safety as a leadership practice.
And if you have got an environment which is psychologically safe and encourages and fosters vulnerability, transparency and authenticity, and recognizes that all of us have got gaps and celebrates that rather than into a position of hiding it or masking it, then I think that's a very good place to start. So, I think it's culture. If you've got an organization that promotes from within or promotes externally, but then doesn't follow it up with the support that is needed to help that person really reach for the stars and get there without burning out, then they've got a problem.
If you've got someone who is doing that meaningfully, and you can only do it if there's transparency, then I think that there's huge potential for those individuals. That's the differentiator, I think, is organizations that show transparency in how they operate, that then encourages people to say, I need some help. And then that's valued and invested in.
It's way beyond just training and development and a HR function. This is actually at the heart of the profit and loss account, the value on the balance sheet, the success of a deal that you do, whether integration and transition works well. Every element of a business's activities is built on the success of the leader in how they lead others and the resources that they are stewards of.
[Andy Goram] (43:42 - 44:18)
It feels like we're getting to a point where there's a moral obligation for leaders who follow these traits to hand over the leadership baton in very, very good shape. And I think ensuring people feel supported, confident with some sort of framework, some sort of reference point, some sort of support, whether it's training reference material, whatever it is, coaching, I think that needs to become a real standard going forward. And then we will take people who are good at stuff and make them good at releasing potential of others.
And I think that's what we're all after.
[Dawn Stallwood] (44:18 - 44:24)
And one good place to look at, I think, as an exemplar is the operating theatre.
[Andy Goram] (44:25 - 44:26)
Yeah, talk to us.
[Dawn Stallwood] (44:26 - 46:42)
So in the book, in Peers for Practice and Purpose, I relay a conversation that I had with a fantastic client of mine who's a oncological ENT trauma surgeon. He basically saves lives, particularly of young people who have got cancer in the worst of places in their nose, et cetera, brain. Absolutely incredible guy.
And he talks about apprentice journeyman and master and how intentional they are when they are growing consultants and consultant surgeons. You know that, you know, at any moment in time, if he's in a surgery, he may get called to another operating theatre. And so it's his responsibility to make sure that there are one or two other consultants or fellows or registrars to be able to take over at a moment's notice with exactly the same level of competence as he has.
So he could be released to go and do the next thing that he needs to do that's even more critical. And when you think about it in leadership terms, in a boardroom, I wonder whether the C-suite are looking at it in the same way. You know, if you've got a CEO or a COO, et cetera, and they are in that mastery place, have they got journeymen and women?
Have they got apprentices? Is it intentional? And it was really compelling when I had that conversation.
It's in the book, in the chapter of Peers for Practice and Purpose. And if people get hold of the copy of the book, that's a really good place to read because it does two things. It says we should all have in our sights apprentices and journeymen and women for our roles that we're holding.
But we also should always accept that we never quite ever really reach true mastery and that there'll be elements of our activity because it's on a continuum where we will be an apprentice. So AI is a really good example. I feel like an absolute apprentice in relation to AI, whereas I've got mastery maybe in other areas in my sort of activity.
So it's recognizing where you are in each of your functions or activities because you cannot be a master in everything all of the time unless your role never changes and nothing around you never changes, which obviously isn't the case.
[Andy Goram] (46:43 - 46:45)
Not in this VUCA world as it's described.
[Dawn Stallwood] (46:46 - 46:47)
Oh, not in this VUCA world.
Sticky Notes: courage, growth, and getting your brave on
[Andy Goram] (46:47 - 47:20)
Not at all. Okay, Dawn, we've come to this part of the show that I like to call Sticky Notes. And what I'm looking for, my friend, is for you to leave the audience with your three biggest pearls of wisdom, summing up all the things that we've kind of talked about, and leaving them with some advice for how to lead beautifully, that we could fit on three little sticky notes that we could place around our screen.
So what would your three sticky notes be, my friend?
[Dawn Stallwood] (47:21 - 48:16)
Sticky note one would be, be kind to yourself. And that's reflecting the fact that leadership is a journey and we do not have everything we need at any given time. So you'd best realize that and just be kind.
So be kind to yourself would be number one. Number two, embrace the apprentice leader in you. Because I think it keeps us constantly reminded that we are all in need of improvement somewhere.
And number three would be, get your brave on, which is something that my friend Janet often says to me, get your brave on. And what she means by that is sometimes we just have to have the courage to take that next step, even if it's to ask for help or to move into another role or to say not yet. You have to be brave.
Yeah, so those would be the three.
[Andy Goram] (48:17 - 48:38)
Lovely. What a great way to sum up this episode. Dawn, I have loved this conversation.
It's nowhere near long enough for us to get into a lot of the things and passions I know we share. But if people would like to find out a bit more about you, get hold of the book, where can they go, mate? What's the best place to track you down?
[Dawn Stallwood] (48:38 - 49:30)
You can always track me down on LinkedIn. If you do track me down on LinkedIn and if you send me a message, make sure you tell me why you want to connect, just because I'm discerning around the connections that I make. I'm not collecting loads of people.
I'm trying to make the right sort of connections in a two-way, you know, that's mutually beneficial. So that's one thing you can do. The other two ways you can do it, of course, is to get hold of the book.
So you can get hold of the book in two ways. If you're listening or viewing and you're based here in the UK, you can do that through thebeautifulleader.com. And if you do that, all of the resources, the checklists, et cetera, that are in the book, you can sign up for it and they are available for free on the website as an extra resource.
And I can also then send you a copy of the book signed and inscribed for you personally. If you're international, then head to amazon.com and it's available in Kindle, softback and hardback.
[Andy Goram] (49:31 - 49:33)
Beautiful. Beautiful indeed.
[Dawn Stallwood] (49:34 - 49:37)
Just like integrity is going to become an overused word.
[Andy Goram] (49:38 - 49:41)
I don't know. I'm quite happy using beautiful too much.
[Dawn Stallwood] (49:41 - 49:49)
That's my hope. There you are. Beautiful becomes an overused word in leadership.
That would be great.
[Andy Goram] (49:49 - 49:54)
Let's hope for that. Let's hope for that. Dawn, thank you so much for coming on.
It's been an absolute joy.
[Dawn Stallwood] (49:54 - 49:56)
My absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you, Andy.
[Andy Goram] (49:56 - 49:57)
Okay. You take care.
[Dawn Stallwood] (49:58 - 49:58)
You too.
[Andy Goram] (49:59 - 50:38)
Okay, everyone. Well, that was Dawn Stallwood. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about her or any of the topics that we've talked about in today's show, please check out the show notes.
So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment and subscribe.
It really helps. I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.
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