Women in Leadership

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Featured Content

Women in Leadership Features Purposeful Teams: Conquering the Pacific Ocean The Coxless Crew team of women, rowed 8,446 miles across the Pacific Ocean. Laura Penhaul, the team-leader, shares the key lessons of the journey.

Impact and Influence: 3 steps to powerful personal development Joanna Just shares a 3-step framework that can help to improve management and leadership skills. Career: An entrepreneur’s business journey Ronke Lawal, Public Relations and marketing specialist shares her inspirational story in our interview – describing how she achieved success. Perspectives: Where does the courage come in? Reetu Kansal on why courage is necessary to leave your mark in your field.


Articles Leadership: Championing women leaders Lady Kitty Chisholm and Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj discuss the importance of championing talented women and propose the CHAMP framework for organisations to realise the benefits of inclusivity. 5 of the most…Impactful female executives From airlines through law firms to technology. Here is a list of 5 impactful leaders who just happen to be female. Words to Lead By: David Mellor Executive mentor and business author shares the best piece of advice that he has received: about saying no. Purposeful People: A global woman We talked to Mirela Sula about her story, achievements and the challenges for women in leadership positions.

Recommended Reads: How Non-conformists Change the World A book on how leaders can support originality in organisations, recommended by Professor Kim Cameron. Review: From eBay to own brand A business book from Sophia Amoruso who turned her hobby into a successful business. #Girlboss review by Agi Galgoczi. Your feedback would make us happy. Tweet us your opinion at @People_Purpose If you’re interested in contributing don’t hesitate to contact us: support@peopleandpurposejournal.com


Editor’s Note Welcome to the Summer 2016 issue of People & Purpose - the Positive Leadership Journal. While women are still paid significantly less than men, they take fewer and fewer management roles the higher we look on the corporate ladder, there are some shining examples of women at the helm of corporations, their own companies and communities. In fact, the UK now has a female Prime Minister and there is the first female candidate for the post of US President. As an increasing number of female leaders find their way to the top of organisations and find their voice one thing is clear: enabling women in leadership is not a binary or a win-lose issue. Women leaders do not succeed against their male counterparts, they succeed alongside men and with them. Women’s progression benefits all, including male employees, as gender balanced organisations are more inclusive, better places to work as well as more successful. I also strongly feel that the way forward for women is not to be more like men, but to add a different, complementary voice to the conversation. Where everyone is emboldened to be his or her authentic best self, the organisation truly benefits from the culmination of all talents within. We would enjoy hearing about your experiences you via e-mail, or tweet us @People_Purpose. We would welcome suggestions for future contributors. Is there a leader you would like to hear more from, a manager we should interview, or a consultant, specialist or speaker who has worthwhile views to share? If so, please tell us at support@peopleandpurposejournal.com. Eszter Molnar Mills, Editor-in-Chief


Purposeful Teams Conquering the Pacific Ocean Interview with Laura Penhaul

Laura Penhaul, team leader for the Coxless Crew, the first all-female team to row across the Pacific Ocean shares the key lessons from the 8500-mile challenge. Laura highlights that preparation was key to their success and to deal with unexpected issues well. Getting to the start line was one journey, being at seas another, both presenting different challenges. “The combination of the sleep deprivation, the stress of getting to the start line and the big seas, that was a bit of a rough ride for the first couple of weeks.” Penhaul recounts that they had to make some tough decisions, including considering turning back just 500miles off San Francisco and having to make decisions which were not unanimous. “I think it tested us in teamwork and decision making, but at the same time it brought us a lot of strength to see that we had systems in place and that we trusted each other in how we were moving forwards as a team. This brought us closer together.” Laura reflects.


She shares key lessons from the challenge that benefit all leaders: • Communication is key to bring people on board with your vision and plans. Allow team members to have autonomy while also working towards the same direction and make sure that their needs are met. •

Establish values that everybody feels ownership over. For the Coxless Crew, the word ‘Spirit’ reflected the core values of the team: strength, perseverance, integrity, resilience, inspiration and trust.

As people move in and out of the team, that transition needs to be well supported. The team requires space and opportunity to say good-bye, learn from each other and welcome a new member. The Crew held very open reflections at handover points.

Embrace the differences within the team: “everybody brought something different at different phases and different times throughout the row.”

Hold regular meetings that encourage openness, honesty and taking pause. Do not be scared of confrontation. With good communication, it can break down the barriers and encourages open to different viewpoints and different opinions.

“Fundamentally, the process has taught me to challenge my own thoughts. People don't see it in the same way as you do, so just keep yourself open minded” - she adds. While the project team consisted of both men and women, Laura argues that it's nice to start getting equality and women receiving the recognition that's deserved. Reflecting on the two charities for which the project raises funds, Laura says “they support people and show them what they can achieve. I really believe in supporting people towards their abilities.” We all have our own challenges – she concludes - rowing the Pacific allowed the team to collectively support the charities, and also to “show people that we all have our own Pacifics to cross, however big or small.”


All about the Coxless Crew Coxless Crew is a team of women, who rowed 8,446 miles across from the South Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Perth. This route has only ever been completed by solo and pairs teams, never has it been done by a team of four or as a continuous three stage row.

Directed and Produced by: Sarah Moshman

They did it to support and raise awareness of women who face extreme adversity and to raise funds to support their journey towards long-term health and wellbeing. The team, made up of three women who rowed the whole journey - Laura Penhaul, Emma Mitchell and Natalia Cohen, and three women who rowed one leg each - Isabel Burnham, Lizanne Van Vuuren and Meg Dyos, completed the great challenge after 9 months at sea at the end of January 2016.


These inspirational women rowed continuously as pairs in two-hour shifts in Doris, the £90,000 pink boat. Those who weren’t rowing grabbed 45 to 90 minutes of sleep at a time.

World records Although it took 3 months longer than originally planned, the project set two world records: the women becoming the first all-female team and the first team of four to row the Pacific Ocean.

Charities The Coxless Crew supports and raise awareness and funds for two charities: Walking with the Wounded – the organisation helps fund the re-training and re-education of women and men who were injured in the military; they help with their transition after active duty. Breast Cancer Care – the only UK-wide charity providing specialist support and tailored information for anyone affected by breast cancer.



Impact and Influence 3 steps to powerful personal improvement You dream of getting better at providing frequent feedback to your team, or paying attention to your body language, or implementing that time management system you’ve heard so much good about. You know what you need to do – you’ve read about it, been to trainings, got feedback from your mentors and coaches. You’re working hard to implement the theory into practice, but somehow your efforts aren’t producing the results. You forget to send that reminder email, you slip back into the bad habit of not looking at the person you’re talking to, or abandon the fight with your bursting in-box tray. It’s sooo frustrating! Implementing personal change is hard. There are so many competing priorities, we are already flat-out busy these days. Isn’t there a smart shortcut to achieve it though? Yep, there is. Psychologists and social scientists have been exploring secrets of successful behavioural change and have come up with a recipe. Yes, really! And it’s easier than you think. It all boils down to a three-step framework. (This framework is described in Chip and Dan Heath’s book: Switch, and is based on years of research and case studies. The approach works for individuals, organisations, or even whole societies.)


1. Have a crystal-clear goal in mind and map your journey Make sure you know where you want to get. Having a SMART goal is not enough though. Start where you are at now. Map out your journey, marking your critical moves. Ask yourself: what’s my next step? Do I have what’s necessary to get there? Do I need to upskill, learn, get help from others? You will have to achieve certain steps before you can achieve other ones– be aware of the sequence. Script your critical steps. If the biggest challenge to a better time management is saying ‘no’ to requests, plan how you’re going to learn to do it. Break it down into manageable chunks you can squeeze into your busy schedule. 2. Shape up your emotional motivation Knowing intellectually what’s good for us, doesn’t mean we’re going to do it. Human beings need to feel the change is necessary and matters to them. This is a variation on good ‘ol what’s-in-it-for-me. The more the new behaviour matters to you, the more powerful the longing for your final destination, the better. Do you want to manage your workload more efficiently so you can get home earlier and spend quality time with your family? Or to have time for things that matter to your team and organisational goals? Do you want to feel that sense of achievement and pride of driving your team, your organisation, yourself to success?


For even more powerful motivation, feel the change is within your reach. Find areas where you’re already performing similar behaviours or using similar skills. The extend can be as small as being able to sometimes say no to requests from some people, or keeping your meeting notes well organised. It can be as big as ‘I’ve actually used to have a well organised filing system’. The point is to uncover that you have it done already to some extent; to have a proof of your abilities. It shrinks the journey, and makes it easier. 3. Make the new behaviour automatic This is probably the most powerful of all techniques. Why? Because it doesn’t require strong willpower, or motivation, or inspiration. You’ll have to do some hard work upfront, but once you’ve set it up well, it will run on autopilot. Make your new behaviour a habit (– something you do because you always (ever day, on Mondays, on odd days, etc.) do it. So if you want to keep your office well organised, have a routine of filing your emails at the time you're reading them, make the tidying up of your desk an end-of-day ritual, add a weekly review of your in-box tray and monthly checks on your filing system. And the last but not least – the often-underestimated trick that can make or break it all: your environment. Keeping your files organised is hard if you don't have a filing cabinet and a stack of ready-make labels. You can’t provide frequent feedback for your team, if you don't interact with the regularly. Think of what in your environment gets in the way of you performing the new behaviour and change it to make the new behaviour the default option. Get a filing cabinet, made labels and have it handy at all times. Let your environment force you to always chose your new behaviour. Personal change and self-improvement are hard to implement, but they don't have to be all blood, sweat and tears. You can make that journey easier and faster. Isn't it worth investing a little time upfront?


This framework is great not only because it works – it’s also flexible. Of course, it’s best to have the all elements in place, but implementing just some of them can make a difference, too. Start with whichever step you like. Tweak a thing or two. Do something. Do it for yourself.

You will thank yourself later.

Joanna Jast is a blogger, author of Laser-Sharp Focus book and a smart shortcuts seeker. She helps people who need to adapt quickly to new environment accelerate their learning and personal change with science-backed strategies without fluff. Grab her latest tips on speeding up success at: http://www.theshapeshiftersclub.com/blog/

All about Coxless Crew – Natalia Cohen, 3 steps to powerful personal improvement – Aaron Amat via shutterstock, An entrepreneur’s business journey – Stephen Cotterell, Alexandre Perotto via Pixabay, Where does courage come in – Agi Galgoczi, 5 of the most Impactful Women Executives – Ryan McGuire via Pixabay, Words to lead by – geralt via Pixabay, A global woman – Agi Galgoczi, From eBay to own brand – Agi Galgoczi


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Career An entrepreneur's business journey Interview with Ronke Lawal

Ronke Lawal is the founder and director of Ariatu PR, where she works with start-ups and entrepreneurs on opportunities to publicise and promote their businesses through marketing campaigns and press and media engagement. Ronke specialises in digital projects strategy, working with social media and content marketing.

After graduating with a degree in International Business and Economics, Lawal’s first role was at the Department of Trade and Industry and the Insolvency Service. She talks about having aligned herself with the managers and getting to know how they led people as she eventually wanted to be in a position of leadership or management. “I knew I'd have to take control of my network if I were to get to where I really wanted to get to” - she adds. A personnel and finance management role in a health and fitness company followed, but Ronke eventually realised that she wasn’t quite fulfilling her purpose: “I thought there was a greater calling, there was more to it.”


Ronke then started her own business, a precursor to what is now Ariatu PR: a capacity building company, where she works with small business owners on their communication and their business development. When the opportunity to be the Chief Executive of Islington Chamber of Commerce in London arose, she took it as she has always seen herself in a position of influence, using her knowledge to guide others. The role appealed as it focused on engaging with the business community, communications, marketing and leadership. After three years she returned to self-employment: “I had to use the skills I'd learnt as a CEO to test myself again. I gave everything the time it needed to develop and grow”. Amongst her lessons learned, Ronke highlights the importance of being willing to push yourself and push your boundaries. Fear quite often stops us, particularly as women, from going for those big jobs, those big contracts, or even being self-employed. Negative self-talk can get in our own way. “It's really important to me to have myself as a self-coach. No matter what others told me, I had to believe in myself: everything I did had to come down to my own courage and sense of purpose.” She advises working on yourself and your self-belief to truly believe that you can do it. Then have the outside circle who can support you and encourage you, to get you where you need to go.

Fear quite often stops us, particularly as women from going for those big jobs, those big contracts, or even being selfemployed. Negative self-talk can get in our own way. “I'm relatively young, I'm a black British publicist, I'm a woman in business, which is quite unusual and it can be tough at times, especially unpacking the media narrative. I'm just all about pitching for the story and building relationships and found that using social media and communicating in a certain manner has allowed me to break certain barriers and boundaries and change certain perceptions.” – Ronke reflects. She is thriving in business helping clients realise the value and impact of communications and PR. Her clients, particularly women in business, go through phenomenal changes during their campaigns.


“You don't have to be famous to be an influence or a leader, you can be where you are and be courageous.” Lawal shares these communication and publicity guidelines: 1) Identify your ethos: know who you are, what your brand is about and stand by it, this will drive your message. 2) Clarify your message for yourself before starting to promote it to others. 3) "You have to package yourself in a way that you want the world to see you." Be who you want to see and stand by it with confidence. 4) Be what you want to see on all of your media channels: in traditional press, TV, radio and on-line and on social media. If you're not being a good representative of your brand, that can have a major impact. 5) Have fun. The most interesting entrepreneurs and business leaders also have fun, the President of the United States doesn't always tweet about politics, sometimes he'll tweet about music. In terms of internal communication, Ronke advises flexibility and responsiveness to external events. Find some safe spaces to discuss sensitive issues, share messages in a respectful way. In order to benefit from different perspectives, Lawal recommends that leaders set a clear social media policy and guidelines. Allow all members of the team to feel a part of the communication channels so they can share what they see as important about the brand. Finally, she adds: “Whatever you have in your heart to be, you should just go for it. I grew up on a council estate and had to do a lot of making myself believe in myself. If you are faced with discrimination, be brave: don't turn it into anger, turn it into action to become whatever it is you are trying to become. “ Ronke Lawal, Founder of Ariatu Public Relations, a public relations and marketing consultancy. Ronke started her own business in 2004 & became the CEO of the Islington Chamber of Commerce where she remained until the end of 2012 and became a non-executive director of The Hoxton Apprentice in 2011. In 2011 Ronke Lawal was honoured to receive a Precious Award for Inspirational Leadership.


Perspectives Where does the courage come in? I recently attended an event on Women’s Leadership Careers organised by the Chartered Management Institute’s (CMI) Women in Management (WiM) Network. The keynote speaker was none other than CMI’s CEO Ann Francke, an exceptionally dynamic and engaging speaker.

Ann shared her wealth of knowledge and experience about progressing in the ranks of organisations as a female member of staff. One of the things she referred to was the 3 C’s: Competence, Confidence and Connections – the essential ingredients to get noticed and to make your mark in your field. She suggests keeping a list of your competencies and your accomplishments. Have confidence in yourself – avoid the tiara syndrome, i.e. waiting for someone to notice you, and the sorry skirts, connoting apologising for yourself. And the ever important C – connections – reach out to people. Seek out colleagues and managers who can guide you, advise you and “sponsor” you.


As I was taking all this in, the words of Sir Winston Churchill rang so true: “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities . . . because it is the quality which guarantees all others." I add ‘courage’ as the fourth C to Ann’s list. Courage can be the stepping stone to acknowledging your competencies, to speak up to the person at work, who you would like to connect with. And the courage to walk away when you know something is not working – it could be a job that does not nurture your capacities, a relationship that does not support you in achieving your targets. It takes courage to reflect on a past project and to be honest with yourself about what worked and what could have been done better. It requires courage to lead a team, to disband a team and to implement change when necessary. However, courage is not about being abrasive. It is very much about being gently assertive with yourself and taking that one extra step – making your competencies list or drawing on your confidence to connect with a colleague. After all, Churchill also purported that “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Reetu Kansal is the Project Manager for Assessment Tasks at University of London, after successfully leading the University’s Institutions Assurance department through significant change. Seven years at the University of London have seen her develop strong partnerships with educational organisations, quality assurance agencies and regulatory bodies in over 40 countries. Reetu holds a Chartered Manager award from the Chartered Management Institute, UK and is the Women in Management Champion on its London & South East Board.


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Leadership Championing Women Leaders Interview with Lady Kitty Chisholm and Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj

Boardwalk Leadership was born when Lady Kitty Chisholm and Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj posed the question: “What can we do together that we can't do on our own, that is going to create a real lever for advancing women's leadership?�

In the video above Shaheena highlights that companies that are gender diverse have a 15% uplift on their financial performance partly through savings generated by keeping the talent that the organisation had worked so hard to attract. Secondly, if you are truly successful at enabling diverse teams to work, think, behave and make decisions in an inclusive way, you will see benefits in terms of innovation, taking those ideas to market and commercialising them.


However, women report that the barriers holding them back from leadership roles include lack of assertiveness or confidence and crucially not liking what they see at the top of the organisation. There is a clear need to create a workplace culture that does its absolute best to hold onto talent, including through flexible working, which benefits all employees. BoardWalk Leadership define championing as advocating talented women throughout an organisation, or even across organisations. This means being able to identify and nurture their talent, and identify the stretch opportunities from which individuals - men and women - will benefit and bring benefit to the organisation. Championing is more impactful than the more familiar sponsorship, which has a tendency to be transactional: ‘I’ll promote you, but then you've got to be loyal to me and work on my agenda.’ In contrast, champions’ motivation comes from the sheer delight in seeing somebody talented progress, a genuine belief in spotting talent and promoting it for the good of the organisation and the individual. The confidence-building nature of championing is key to its success, built through the belief of another person in the women’s capabilities and potential.

”The confidence-building nature of championing is key to its success.” According to their research, in 2011 when people talked about gender diversity in companies, the assumption was that the problem was with the women, so if you ‘fixed’ the women everything would get solved: they would step up, they would stay in their roles and all would be fine. Of course that's not the case and this approach failed to address the bigger issues. The CHAMP Framework provides guidance for companies on how to harness and maximise the benefits from creating more inclusive cultures with approaches that are uniquely designed to support women.



Kitty suggests that the power of women leaders is encapsulated in these statements by Stephanie "Steve" Shirley, founder of the allwomen IT company that later became F International (now part of the Steria Group): "Always remember that leadership is nothing unless the people led give of their best." "Leadership, like love, is more about giving than taking." She adds that if you get someone at the top of the organisation who is genuinely motivated by a bigger cause, that lifts the whole organisation. As for the steps women can take, Shaheena recommends becoming clear about why they want those leadership roles. Women can also ensure that their brand is strong, and they have - and are exposed to - a good network, so it becomes easier for the champions to spot them. “They can't assume they'll be spotted. They've also got to put quite a bit of work into this� she warns. Organisations need to create not just policies, but a culture that supports championing, through talking to line managers about the power they have to identify and advocate for talented individuals, men and women, give them training in how to have that conversation, and what works particularly well for women. Create a culture where championing is welcomed, supported and very open. Finally, Kitty reminds us of the power of unconscious bias, which is a shortcut our brain takes. “The worst thing about unconscious bias is it's not what we have about other people, the ones that aren't like us. It's the ones we assimilate from our environment about ourselves." she adds. Owning your achievements, owning the responsibility for your career is hugely important, which championing genuinely helps. Lady Kitty Chisholm brings together knowledge of the neurobiological bases of behaviour change, with expertise in talent management, leadership development and organisational and individual learning. Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj is an expert in unlocking entrepreneurial thinking, branding, business planning and strategy. Shaheena leads on the development of programmes along with the research on diversity and inclusion for clients and policy work.


5 of the Most… Impactful Women Executives Globally, at the lower levels of organisations more than half of the employees are female but if you look higher the number of women shrinks. Therefore, we’d like to share with you list of 5 impactful leaders who just happen to be female. Sheryl Sandberg - The Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and founder of the Lean In Foundation. The non-profit organisation is part of a movement to build a more equal world – as detailed in her book, Lean In – and supports women in the workplace and through empowerment groups. Ann Francke - Author of the FT Guide to Management and Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Management Institute, a non-profit organisation aiming to create better led and managed organisations, through creating more qualified manager and establishing management as a true profession. Have you seen our interview with Ann? Meg Whitman - Business executive, currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as well as the Chairwoman of HP Inc. A former Hasbro and Walt Disney manager, she is still best known for leading the online auction site, eBay. Tamara Box - The chair of the Financial Industry Group and the head of Structured Finance at Reed Smith, and globally recognised expert in strategic financial advice. Tamara has a passion for engaging millennials and women in the professional world. Also, she is one of our autumn interviewees. Carolyn McCall - The Chief Executive Officer of EasyJet is one of the business leaders who has been asked to join the UK’s Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group – the body that advises the PM and the Government on business issues.


Words to Lead By David Mellor is a mentor who helps business owners to increase their profitability, fund their growth plans, and free up their time. Mellor, a Freeman of the Guild of Entrepreneurs, shares the best piece of advice he has ever received from a mentor:

“Learn how to say no and to feel okay about it; set clear criteria regarding assignments to accept and assignments to walk away from.” Mellor says he wants to help everybody, it’s his natural instinct and means that he does encounter people who take up too much time and energy. He recalls a time where he was feeling exhausted, and his energy was being sapped: “it was a combination of the people that I was involved in as kind of clients and prospects and the people I had brought into a consultancy practice that I was building at that time. " Mellor and his mentor discussed how could he get better at making sure that he gets the clients that he wants. They came up with 4 criteria: “Firstly, I only wanted to work with people that I liked, trusted, and respected. Secondly, I only wanted to do interesting work. Third one, I wanted to make money but not be greedy. The fourth one, I wanted to have fun.” Find out more about David Mellor and his work in our next issue!


Purposeful People A global woman Interview with Mirela Sula Author, international speaker, journalist, publisher, trainer and psychologist. Mirela Sula is the creator and co-founder of Migrant Woman Limited, and Publisher of Global Woman.co magazine, empowering and connecting women around the world. She grew up in Albania when the country was under the regime of communism. Democracy came when Mirela was 16 years old, and from the transition of her childhood she entered a new phase with the desire for freedom and prosperity. Mirela engaged with activities to protect women’s rights at a very early age. To find out more about the award-winning author and speaker, Mirela Sula, her work, career and thoughts on leadership, read the interview: You started to fight for equality for women at a very early age. Could you tell us about that? I have always been awake and active trying to understand what is my role in the world and I could not just be a spectator to see what will happen with my life. Being a woman in a small patriarchal country was not easy for me to follow my dreams and it has been sad seeing how women were struggling to find their deserved place and feel respected for who they are. Probably I was born with the desire to make an impact, or I may have developed this in my growing process, and trying to awake women to recognise their values and potential has been turned into a mission.


For me it’s very important to move out of my comfort zone and always seek opportunities that contribute not only to my growth but for the big social good as well. Since I was a child I knew that I’m not a conformist and always was against the flow and never accepted to be submissive only because it happened to be a woman in a country where their values are not respected. This made me continue and not give up on my dream to empower myself and contribute to empowering many other women who I met on my journey. You started a magazine called Global Woman. Then you developed a whole community around it. What inspired you to start the magazine? How did it all start? I was 38 years old when I thought it is time to change again. What are you looking for? I remember my mother asked., ‘you will regret it’. I don’t know, I answered. All I know is that there is something that is missing otherwise I wouldn’t need to leave, and if I regret it then it is better to regret for something you do rather than for something you don’t do. So, in 2012 I started my life from scratch in London. I came to study my PhD in psychology. It was a big risk for me because I was a single mother with my son, 13 years old, totally on my own but with a big faith that I can and I should find a way to succeed. The first year was just a struggle trying to find my path. Every time that I was looking in the wrong place I had to go back and start again and again and again. Until one day I found it. Very simple, each time that I was failing it was because I was not following my own, inner plan. It was the original path and I knew it was the right one because I felt safe, confident, inspired, motivated and doing a good thing not only for myself but for others as well. Global Woman magazine was part of the plan, because the journey was a flow.


Meeting new people, networking, developing the inner world extending the external one, building relationships and creating social bonds, formulating the meaning of my world and re-inventing myself, my voice and speak with it. One small success led to a bigger one, and another one, and another one. It was all part of a big vision, to contribute to the world and when you do this you just grow and extend your limits.

In this short journey I have been lucky to prove myself right without regrets. I never regretted that I rediscovered myself in a big world. Now I have friends from all over the world, I have a global vision and I have a global mission, speaking with a global audience and feeling rewarded. You are the leader of that community. What advice would you give to women in leadership positions? I think we all have the capacity to influence others, especially when we prove the positive intention on contributing for the society. When I arrived in London I was trying to find the community where I belong and it was not so easy. I started getting involved with some small projects in the Albanian community, and managed to understand the needs they have and the way they interact in the new world. After a while I felt confident enough not just to wait for what others can do for me but what I can offer for the society and contribute to making this world a better place. First you need to understand where you want to belong, where is that place that you want to go, and move, because we are not trees.


There are many ways to reach our community and be part of it, but if you can’t then create one, create your own with like-minded people. Once you become part of it, then it is time to give back and invest in building relationships. When I say invest I mean find the gift that you have inside and start sharing it – the more you share it the more it will multiply to continue and give to more people. Women are great leaders and all they need is to accept their values, recognise the gift inside and be aware for the impact that they can create on the world. Is it more challenging to be a leader as a woman? What do you think? What are your experiences? Women have many gifts, they have values and once they discover that treasure inside them they are unstoppable. Being a leader is always a challenge, and not only for women. We have been feeding the society with the myth that women can’t be leaders. If we think they can they will, if we think they can’t they will be stopped by these limited beliefs, because we become what we think. Things happens two times in life: once in our mind and once in the reality. We manifest into the reality what we design in our mind first. Therefore it’s very important to empower our minds first. In my last book “Don’t Let Your Mind Go” I emphasise the importance of investing in the positive thoughts in our mind and how we can make things happen by empowering our mental product. I personally never tried to find an excuse because I am a woman, but my mission is to raise awareness on how strong we are as women and value ourselves more, and celebrate our small success and achievements every day. Agi Galgoczi

Mirela Sula is a coach, trainer, speaker and also studying for a PhD research in Psychology at Regent’s University. She is publisher and the editor in chief of Global Woman.co magazine and the organiser of Global Woman Summit. She is available for building confidence sessions, finding inspirations, career coaching, communication skills coaching, conference presentations to home and international audiences.


Recommended Reads How Non-conformists Change the World Originals by Adam Grant

If you have a look on Amazon, there are approximately 175,000 books on leadership which can make it hard to find something new, unique or challenging. Professor Kim Cameron, author of Practicing Positive Leadership, encourages us to read more academic and research based books. Adam Grant, a former doctoral student at the University of Michigan, recently wrote a book called Originals, on how leaders can support originality in organisations. In the book, Adam Grant shows how to improve the world by championing novel ideas and values that go against the comfort zone and traditions. “It’s a book that builds on scientific foundation rather than anecdotal stories or personal experiences”– says Cameron. Originals by Adam Grant was recommended by Professor Kim Cameron. Have you seen our interview with him on Positive Organizational Scholarship? The book is available on amazon.co.uk and on amazon.com.


9 Strengths-Based Interview Questions Making the full move to strength-based selection is a large task that involves extensive research. Here are 9 questions add to your interviews for a better understanding of what energises candidates for high performance.

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When people use their strengths, they perform better.


Review From eBay to own brand #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso Sophia Amoruso is very interesting and inspiring millennial. Why? She is the founder of one of the fastestgrowing retailers in the world, Nasty Gal and has written #Girlboss, a book about her and the brand’s story. She started her business with selling vintage clothes and accessories on eBay, nowadays she is the leader of worldwide recognised brand and business. #Girlboss is not a usual self-help personal development book; it is more like a good peptalk given by a person who turned her hobby into a successful company and shares her real life experiences through the pages. “A #GIRLBOSS is someone who’s in charge of her own life. She gets what she wants because she works for it. As a #GIRLBOSS, you take control and accept responsibility.” – says Amoruso at the beginning of a first chapter. This book is better as a story than as a business guide – which is probably why Netflix is turning it into a series. #Girlboss is a mixture of a memoir, a manifesto and a business book. It won’t tell the reader how to achieve success but it can give some ideas and it’s definitely a good reading experience. Amoruso’s book can inspire young people who are thinking of setting up a business. The book is available on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.



People & Purpose is published by Formium Development, a strengthbased leadership and organisational development consultancy in London, UK. The Journal’s Editor in Chief is Eszter Molnar Mills and its Managing Editor is Agi Galgoczi. We are privileged to have a great range of contributors – all leaders in their respective fields.

As a development consultancy Formium Development focuses on creating effective solutions, which allow clients to identify and build on their strengths and do more of their best work. Training and executive coaching is available for managers throughout their career path, including well respected internationally recognised qualifications in management and leadership from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). Formium Development's aim is to help individuals and teams improve their performance and become more engaged and fulfilled within their work. Contact us: Website: www.formium.co.uk; www.peopleandpurposejournal.com E-mail: info@formium.co.uk; support@peopleandpurposejournal.com Telephone: 020 7416 6648 (International: +44 20 7416 6648)


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