How is it December already? How are my kids 6 and 4? And how has my business completed its 2nd full year?
I have written a few articles about TIME this year, and how our relationship with it shapes our perceptions of it, so I think it’s interesting my overriding feeling as I sit down and write this, is “where has the year gone?”
My word of the year for You Burn Bright 2024 was IMPACT. By setting this word I think it did spur me to achieve, but an unintended consequence was the focus it put on pace & performance.
I chose the word IMPACT because it set the tone for me to:
· Have impact beyond the individual
· Think leadership effectiveness
· Expand my audience and reach
So how did I do?
I do have impact beyond the individual:
· I embed all the work I do in the business through engaging managers, peers and the wider business in people’s growth.
· I am building relationships with the research industry and its agencies, structuring programmes around their culture, development needs and growth strategy.
· I create and support communities. I have been working with WiRe, Significant Insights, The Research Club, AQR and the MRS. I am looking forward to running my first X-industry programme in January where I will bring together emerging leaders from across the agency and client-side. I am excited to see how they will connect, support and inspire one another.
I am focused on leadership effectiveness:
· I was delighted to qualify with a distinction in my 2nd coaching diploma in June 2024. As part of this I wrote an 8,000 word thesis on how coaching supports talented research professionals to become effective leaders. It was informed by 50+ hours of coaching practice, 50+ hours of formal training and reading widely on the topic.
· My ambition is bigger. Coaching is the means, not the end. I am not selling coaching, I am selling leadership effectiveness.
· I measure the impact of the leadership programmes I run.
I expanded my audience and reach:
· Launched the You Burn Bright monthly newsletter for insight professionals.
· Became a columnist for Significant Insights.
· Ran an AQR Coaching Fundamentals course.
· Spoke on a Research Club Panel about coaching and career progression alongside the amazing Rachel Fraser and James Pickles.
· Delivered a WiRe webinar.
· Chaired an MRS Roundtable at the Agency Owners & Leaders Summit on how we cultivate the next generation of leaders for our industry.
I am proud of the wide contribution I have made to the industry and the client base I am building up. It takes a lot of hard work to win the trust of clients, so thank you to all the new clients who have trusted me this year – See, Whitbread, C Space, Magenta, PRS In Vivo, John Lewis and Bricolage.
I am proud of WHAT I have achieved – my work has had real impact and I am thrilled that I now have a full diary until end of March – not a position I have been in before. But as I look forwards, I want to refine HOW I work.
In going for impact, I tried to achieve too much too quickly:
· I had to postpone the launch of my X-agency programme by 3 months.
· In a quiet patch I launched a newsletter and agreed to be a Significants Columnist – both great things – but they created deadlines for content production, which contributed to a pressure to produce.
Looking Ahead
In 2025 I want to focus on quality over quantity.
My word of the year for 2025 is CONNECTION.
Trust is built in person, not behind a screen. In 2025 I will commit to participating in more face-to-face events and running all in-house group work in person. The sense of connection I felt from being on the TRC Panel, attending days like the Agency Owners and Leaders’ Summit and running leadership workshops at C Space’s offices was unparalleled by anything I did online.
Connection is about depth, not breath. I tried to do too many things in 2024 and I am looking forward to refining and optimising the great programmes I have now pulled together to make them more engaging and more effective.
To me, connection is about bringing people together. In 2025 I will focus on group leadership development work because I believe in its power and value. When I bring people together, over a period of time, the impact is exponential. When I heard from Kokoro that the archetypes and frameworks introduced during the leadership programme have become a common language I was thrilled that the work is living on.
The ultimate ambition is to bring to life a “Future Leaders Summit” - a day of connection, guidance and inspiration for emerging leaders across our industry, with stories, speed mentoring and skills breakout sessions. The next generation are coming through in a post-pandemic, hybrid world and face a unique set of challenges. I learnt the art of leadership by osmosis and built strong connections to my peers from being in the office together, train trips to Leeds and late-night cabs back from Birmingham.
Yes I want the next generation of leaders to feel equipped to lead, but I also want them to know they don’t have to do it by heads down, siloed, hard work. I want them to look up and out, to see and hear the incredible leadership stories that are out there and receive the full force of ambition, support and energy from their community.
This is how I believe we set the next generation of leaders up for success.
-------------------------
If helping the next generation of leaders succeed is on your list for 2025, then let’s chat. zoe@youburnbright.com
I run 121 and group leadership development programmes that help talented researchers become effective managers and leaders.
Comments