MRA’s Courageously Candid Coaching Podcast with Matthew Radley
Aug 17, 2026 · 28 min · 10 segments
In this episode, host Matthew Radley is joined by Louise McLean, Global HR Director at Subsea7, to explore what it really takes to make reverse mentoring meaningful, safe and effective. Louise shares…
Matthew RadleyHostAnd I think it was that initial, if you think about the sessions that we've run, where we had the initial sessions with the mentors and the mentees together, we've talked a lot about psychological safety.
And even just having the groups, the more junior, the mentors with the more senior mentors, leaders in the business together in that environment that in itself was really powerful because it just doesn't it doesn't really happen in that way where they come together as equals often obviously if you're working with a senior leader as a less experienced individual maybe you're reporting on a project or something that you're um part of a team on and the senior leader might be the decision maker so that the coming together
is different to when they came together as mentors and mentees and even that in itself just having everybody in the same room with an equal share of voice was really powerful and started to illustrate the difference of which the kind of power dynamic is so critical in reverse mentoring.
So that was really, I think that was a really powerful.
I think for me, because you,
of your questions in there, you asked about
And I think that for me is actually what made this program most successful is the times when we came together as a group.
But that impact fully in terms of having that group of people together at the start sort of leveling this and we had some really honest leaders who were quite vocal very early on in that first meeting which was around how they were feeling, their nervousness.
This was SVPs, you know, this was regional VPs, HR directors from the regions, and then some of our most junior.
They will never have been in a meeting with probably one of the senior leaders, let alone having six of them on the same call.
But that really for me was when I reflect back on my time, because I was a mentee in the program as well.
I found the two sessions when we were together probably the most powerful because it was really honest.
And I think it was that initial, if you think about the sessions that we've run, where we had the initial sessions with the mentors and the mentees together, we've talked a lot about psychological safety.
And even just having the groups, the more junior, the mentors with the more senior mentors, leaders in the business together in that environment that in itself was really powerful because it just doesn't it doesn't really happen in that way where they come together as equals often obviously if you're working with a senior leader as a less experienced individual maybe you're reporting on a project or something that you're um part of a team on and the senior leader might be the decision maker so that the coming together
is different to when they came together as mentors and mentees and even that in itself just having everybody in the same room with an equal share of voice was really powerful and started to illustrate the difference of which the kind of power dynamic is so critical in reverse mentoring.
So that was really, I think that was a really powerful.
I think for me, because you,
of your questions in there, you asked about
And I think that for me is actually what made this program most successful is the times when we came together as a group.
But that impact fully in terms of having that group of people together at the start sort of leveling this and we had some really honest leaders who were quite vocal very early on in that first meeting which was around how they were feeling, their nervousness.
This was SVPs, you know, this was regional VPs, HR directors from the regions, and then some of our most junior.
They will never have been in a meeting with probably one of the senior leaders, let alone having six of them on the same call.
But that really for me was when I reflect back on my time, because I was a mentee in the program as well.
I found the two sessions when we were together probably the most powerful because it was really honest.
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