Eve Poole- The Art of Leadership: Honing Your Skills to Lead Better

So on that point, Eve, throughout a lot of your writing and speaking, you've been anti-heroic about leadership for a long time, sort of sceptical of this lone charismatic, you know, hero-leader myth.

And we were talking before we started recording about your background in theology, mine in English literature, as far as anthropology and this idea of the hero and that narrative.

So if you had to pick apart the word leadership itself, what's wrong with that narrative and what would you replace it with?

So leadership is just such a static word, isn't it? I mean, whenever I hear that word, I just see all those statues in London.

As you're wandering around, there's these massive plinks with massive chaps on them.

And they're all, you know, in battle, massive swords on horses.

You know, it's just a terrible vibe.

And what I love about the Banksy that's been up lately is it shows where that goes wrong, which is that's covering the face.

He's walking off as plinth.

You know, it's...

It's a very difficult thing for people who aren't military, born-to-the-role types to imagine that there is any sort of leadership that they could do if all you're getting is constant reinforcement about men who are mighty in battle.

So I suppose I'd never found any leadership-y people like me.

And I couldn't figure out...

I mean, even at Deloitte, when I was there, there were three female partners, I think.

And none of them were having the lives that I wanted.

So it didn't feel like it was role model behavior to stay because all of the women, the level down, who I rated, all left.

So it was very clear that if you were that sort of person, you left.

And so in this struggle to figure out, you know, where are our pace setters? Where are the people that we can figure out how to do this? Particularly because women have been in the workforce for a comparatively short period of time compared to men, particularly in senior positions.

I just sort of thought that that leadership word takes you off on the wrong track because it just gets back into all of that leaders are born not made old fashioned stuff, which we know is just not true, even if it was convenient.

So I suppose when I coined the word leader smithing, it was an attempt to break that word out and talk much more about leadership.

the mode and the activity of leading rather than the accolade and the big hat and the medals, because it's always the victor that writes history, isn't it? And I had just worked with far too many leaders every day at Ashridge who all had imposter syndrome, who all would say in the privacy of a coaching room, I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm just hoping I don't get found out.

I'm just trying to do the best I can.

Leadership doesn't cover that.

Leadersmithing, when you're trying to be a potter with a wheel and it all goes horribly wrong and you have to start again and You have to reinvent yourself every day and just commit to the craft and try and keep being excellent.