Embracing your Leadership Journey with Aurélie Marais

Hi everybody and a very warm welcome to Cultural Communication Confidence with me, Victoria Rennoldson. And I’m really excited to be doing a new series all about leadership and leaders in business today. And I’m really excited to be welcoming to the show Aurelie Marais, So hello Aurelie. Hi Victoria. Nice to be with you. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to be here today to have this conversation, which I think will be genuinely very interesting and very inspiring to our listeners as well. So we’re talking about leadership and understanding your journey towards leadership. So I think it’s really worthwhile to taking a step back and asking you, what does being a leader mean to you? What is leadership about for you personally?

Good question, wide question. I think the first thing for me is that being a leader is not about your hierarchical status. And people sometimes can mix the fact that you have the senior leadership team, but you can really have leadership in of course in your job, but also in your life, in your personal life. and everyone, I really believe everyone can be a leader. For me leadership is not about what you are, but what you do. And it starts with your ability to envision something in, the future that sometimes others don’t see and to articulate it in a way that you will engage other people with you, to take them in your journey, and to make this future, this desired future, happening collectively. So of course, I think we can have some personal predisposition for leadership. And it’s more about having open minded mindset, being inclusive, being driven, and probably also being clear on what we care about, and what we wish for the world or for our organisation, whatever it is. But for me again it’s really about, it’s almost like a muscle that you will develop and you will grow. And it’s a lifetime journey.

Wow, there’s so much in that answer, I love it. And I think, you know something that really struck me is what you said is ‘it’s not who you are, it’s what you do’. So it’s not a status, but it’s actually your behaviours and how and your actions that show that you are a leader. And I find that really interesting, because for some people they see it as a status that they’re aiming for, a goal that they’re trying to get to, to be. But I love that way that you think about it in this way, because it also sounds like from what you’re saying, it’s a mindset as well, right? Completely. And when we say it’s what you do, for me it’s easy just to talk the talk as we say. But a real leader will lead by example and will talk the talk, walk the walk. Sorry, it’s the other way around. And I don’t remember exactly who said that, but I heard sometimes, there is only three way to be a good leader. By example, by example and by example. And I think it’s, you have to be quite a complete individual, to be a real leader. Because you have again to have this vision. Because it all starts in your ability to project yourself or project an organisation in the future. But then you have also to have the ability to engage others. And then you have the ability to deliver. And it’s, so it’s a very far, it’s a wide set of behaviours. And back to the leading by example. It’s nothing if you just declare the vision but do not empower others to make it happen together. So maybe when I speak about that, it’s more about leadership in an organisation, because it’s also a personal journey, has everyone developing its leadership. But I really, yes, see that as a journey, either individual or collective.

Yeah. I like the idea that it’s a personal journey, that we all have our own path to leadership. So could you tell us a bit about your own path? About how you kind of moved through that to become the leader that you are today? How did you kind of achieve that? Okay, if I try to remember, just in my childhood, I think I was already very driven, and I was lucky to have very supportive and positive parents encouraging me to always you know, challenge myself to go further. And I think it was a yes, a critical driver for me. But then of course It really accelerated during my career. Over my career. It’s also about probably the first leaders I met when I was a young employee, and I really found. I remember rhere is one specific manager, who was a great leader, who really shaped I think, the professional I’ve become since then. I think what he really taught me is to always focus on what has the most value to the organisation I work for, and to strategically position our function, and therefore position strategically myself. He also pushed me, every time to go out of my comfort zone, offering me opportunities for new challenges. Even before, I was, you know, looking for these opportunities. And he taught me also, it was very inclusive and collaborative and bringing some techniques and tools to facilitate effective conversation. And so I embraced that, and I took it for myself and I continue to develop it. And this guy was also, as you can see, he played an important role and we are still friends and he’s still kind of a mentor for me. We meet maybe once or twice, a year. And I think he was also, at some point, he saw my potential more than I was able to do it myself at that time, and he had even almost more confidence in myself than I did. And he did everything to put me in the spotlight. And then when he moved up, he said, I think she should, take over. So it was the beginning of the acceleration of my career. And of course, I’ve been lucky. And frankly I’ve worked with great leaders all over my career and still today. And what I try to keep from, every of them, because every, each of them have contributed in their own way to my growth. Because as I picked, as a leader. I mean, as I picked up what resonated the most, in their own leadership style, to build my own. Because there is no one type of leadership. You have to, again, it starts with what you care about, what matters to you, what resonates personally to you. So it’s a blend of things but then you can pick up things from others, practice and see if it’s relevant for you or not.

Wow. Well, there is a lot in there and I love the way, if I just unpack it, it sounds like. So mentoring was very key to you for your journey. And I really like that idea that you said there, which was, you know, he saw something in you sometimes even before you saw it in yourself. So having that person to hold the mirror, to be able to reflect it to you and show you that actually you are capable, that you know, even if it wasn’t comfortable, stretching you and giving you those opportunities to move forward. So that, I find very interesting, and I’m sure our listeners will do, that idea of how important and critical mentorship is to you. You know, I really like that. But I also kind of hear as well, the other very interesting concept you pulled out there, which is there’s no one way of doing leadership. Actually it’s about finding your way. Yes, learning from others and trying things out but not copying somebody else, but finding your own way. Is that how I interpret what you said?

Completely. Completely. And back to the mentorship and seeing potential in others, this role model also I was very fortunate to cross this, this manager at the very beginning of my career. And I always tried since then to payback and to do the same thing for other people, and it’s funny because this morning I was speaking with one of my colleague, deputy team member, speaking about someone I recruited a long time ago. And when I recruited her, I saw her potential, but she was in a kind of a down period. She was not, you know, very self-confident at that time. And I offered her the opportunity. The interview didn’t go well the first time, but I could see that it was just because she was not you know, at her best at that right time. So I offered her to take two weeks and to come back and to have another interview, and it went far better. And then so she joined my team and she has progressed fantastically since then, and I have a lot of other examples like that. So I, I really think that mentorship and also yes, kindness at some point and being a leader, it’s also seeing in others what they don’t see. It’s projecting yourself in the future, projecting an organisation in the future, projecting others in the future and all of them growing. Yeah. It’s a better version of the future.

That’s very inspiring. And I can see that how you, you live by this very clearly. That idea of the mentorship that you’ve received, but also the mentoring that you pass on to others and the idea of you know, when you’re, you’re rising, you know you’re helping others to rise too, which I think is a very powerful thought. And, something that I’ve also heard you touch on a few times in this conversation, is this idea of collaboration and conversation. And so you know, clearly communication is a very core part of what I do and I’m interested in, but I’m really interested as a leader how you see communication skills and how you, you know, how you think about this as the leader, your communication skills at the moment.

Yes, it’s at the heart of everything. In the current organisation I’m in, I work in a very large and complex mega project to build a nuclear plant in the UK. So these projects, they are very complex and with a lot of interfaces. And our leader, which is a great leader, who is a great leader is really you know, giving me a new learning curve in leadership. And he says that these kind of mega projects, very complex projects, they are happening because of a network of conversation. So we need to have high quality conversation each time, because this is what will produce the outcome we need to manage successfully, this program. And so I fully agree with you. It’s very important. I think basically the key things for me, first is to articulate the most clearly what you need, your request, but also listen the most effectively to other people.

And it’s not, articulating clearly what you need – that’s not always easy and sometimes we jump too quickly into the conclusion that we’ve been clear. But it’s – I would say reachable as an objective. Listening to other perspective, other backgrounds, it’s even more difficult and you have to almost force yourself to push back your own perception, your own interpretation of things as long as you can, to really capture what the other has to bring. And you have, again it’s a muscle, and you have to practice and to practice, and I’m very glad because in our organisation we see that as being so instrumental in our success that we are currently developing a leadership program to equip all of our people with some techniques, some models. Because, you have to make it also practical. It can be just fluffy and big words about the importance of collaborating. You have to really put some common models that people can fit in and practice again. And again, it will be a long journey. But I really see that as a powerful engine to our success.

Yeah. And I think it sounds so interesting, isn’t it? Because in theory this should be fairly simple. Articulate what you want, your request and listen. But I think it’s so interesting how you know one of the things that I observe sometimes is that people assume because they said it, it’s been heard, and that isn’t always the case. Most of the time it’s not the case. Right, exactly. And particularly if you’re working in very virtual or sort of network sort of environment, particularly with people you’re not meeting day to day. But also, you know, fascinatingly, the effort it takes to listen. The effort it takes to really intentionally put aside the mental baggage that’s going on. Or the emotional, sometimes, baggage that’s going on. So I’m kind of really interested. Like, how do you do this personally? How do you make time to listen? Well, because it’s challenging, right? You have a very demanding job. Very challenging, lots to think about. So how do you do this?

I have another – had another manager who was also a great leader. And it was really, all about these listening skills, developing your listening skills. And I remember he told me one day, you just don’t listen with your ears. You listen with your eyes. We listen with all of your, you know, senses. And I, think that’s the first thing for me. For example, when you say we assume that people heard what we said. Most, of the time, if you pay attention to their body language, you will see if they have really – Maybe they have heard but they don’t really agree or they don’t commit or – so you need to be very sensitive about this kind of things. The second thing is about putting aside your own view is very difficult. The first thing is to realise what is your baggage. And it’s not always the same before each conversation. So in my current company, we are also applying a model called Worldview. Because it’s quite complex. I know that, we already discussed about cultural, intelligence. Different countries, operating together. But of course you have a difference between different country cultures. But it’s not just that, because we are all individual. You also have your personal background, your education, your experience. Your experience as a whole, but your experience with these individuals. So it’s far more complex than just, you know, a caricatural, different cultures. And the first thing for me is really to be aware of that, and using what we call the ‘worldview model’. It’s getting aware of the glasses you are wearing before every important conversation of course, to acknowledge that and to try to get unstuck of the limit you are setting yourself with your own, worldview. And it’s a quite powerful model. I have to admit that, I’m quite a beginner in this model. So I will practice and maybe, It could be, another conversation in a few months time. Yeah. I must read a bit more.

But I love, I mean it’s a model which is really powerful. It’s one I’m also familiar with and that idea that sometimes we think we’re being so neutral and yet we’re not. We’re always coming with a perspective on that conversation. Assumptions, biases even, about what’s going on or what this person, what’s driving or motivating somebody’s approach, communication, behaviours, But I think, you know, I love how you thought about this. And I think that idea of something I very much, you know, think of as well, not just listening with your ears, but really sensing what’s going on and what’s not being said. I think that’s very wise words obviously from a previous manager, but the global side of this also really interests me, because you are in a very large organisation that is quite global and clearly you’re working in the UK, also with very diverse teams as well, very, very international. So you know, I am very interested in the cultural elements of this, because of the work that I do. But you know, how do you navigate that, those cultural differences. There’s different ways of doing things, whether there’s national cultures, regional cultures, about you know, departmental cultures even. Because I know you’ve crossed really the organisation in different departments as well.

First I think, I love that. And since I can’t remember a time where I was interested with working with people thinking exactly the same thing as me, I’ve always been very interested in diversity, in the diverse meaning of diversity. I mean really the diversity with a big D. Diversity of thoughts, diversity of cultures. And I’ve done all my career in global organisation, and again, yeah, this is what drives me to be enriched by other backgrounds, other experiences, other countries, culture, everything. And I think this is important when you work in a global organisation because otherwise, I think you could struggle. Having said that, so getting the diverse team, for example, having different backgrounds, different profiles in your team. For me, it’s at the heart of the way I manage a team, because again, it’s almost about being complete. You can’t be complete as an individual, especially today, you can’t know it all. And so you have to have these all perspectives, to be more efficient and perform better, so you have to get this first, diversity in your team, in your organisation. But then the second point, and it’s probably the hardest point is to be inclusive, to get this diversity, get the most out of this diverse team. So how do you do that? Again? Listening, being open minded, and making sure that the profiles that are in the minority can express ourselves. And there are a lot of techniques. I’ve done a lot of work and research in collaborative techniques, in collaborative facilitation, collective intelligence. So there are some techniques that allow everyone to get a voice, but at the same time at the end to you know, to conclude and to align progressively. So yeah, it’s a very – for me you have to activate a lot of different things. but it all starts again with the right mindset.

Absolutely. And I love the way that you’re also differentiating there between diversity in itself is not going to again bring the actual answers. You have to then have the right mindset to then activate to make sure that people are heard, there’s a share of voice and people are included. And I think yes, I can imagine how important – Yes, organization wide in a global organisation, complex organisation, you must have an intentional infrastructure and plan to make it happen. It won’t happen magically itself. Yeah, absolutely. Completely agree with you there. I want to now sort of slightly change the direction of the conversation towards the future. And obviously everything feels like it’s rapidly evolving, particularly in the world of work today. There are many – different changes are happening – socially, technologically. So I’m really kind of interested in what you see, whether you see leadership changing in the future, what leaders will need to be doing, what they need to be thinking about and maybe what’s on your mind right now. Yeah, again it’s at the very – it’s my bread and butter because I’m leading a transformation. But I think, so they have a lot of things that have already been said about leadership. So for me, maybe a new set of skills and capability, that we have to equip our leaders with, is really the ability to support their people through change, really, at scale. Because as you said, it’s not about one change. It’s about multiple interconnected at fast pace, changes, that we have to manage in every year organisation today. So again, it won’t happen by itself. And we have to equip our leaders, managers, because they all play a key role in this change management. So there are some techniques at enterprise level. But we also need to develop the right behaviours and the right skills in our Leadership. I think I’m repeating myself here.

Yeah, no, but it makes a lot of sense. I think change is the constant, but the pace of change is accelerating and the complexity of change is becoming more fragmented maybe as well. So are there any, like, if I just ask you any very specific skills or any behaviours that you think actually leaders need to lean into more in the future? Is there anything in particular that you think is evolving? The first thing, they have to play a conscious role in selecting the, and being very selective in the transformation they want to launch at some point of time. You can’t bombard people with change, everywhere. So it all comes back to the strategy and say, okay, we are going to focus on this, this, this, and we know that it will impact these populations. So, if we see that we have three major changes that will impact always the same population, it’s too much. We can decide that we launch. It’s about here again we are in the – okay, we see what we want in the future, but how do we engage people, if we saturate them with too many changes at the same time? So this is the first thing, is prioritising, and it’s not easy. And the second thing for me is, back to the leadership, is really the sponsorship. We say that we are going to focus on that – okay, but let’s lead by example, and let’s be a visible sponsor on these priorities. And the third thing is allocating some resources, money, teams to support people through the adoption of the changes we have decided. And at this point only, you deliver the vision you have defined. And at this time, only when people have adopted the way you want to work in the future, then you can really have the outcome. Before it’s just a vision, it’s beautiful slides, it’s beautiful IT systems. But if people don’t embrace and adopt them and sustain, them, and really make this ‘business as usual’, you have invested a lot of efforts and money for almost nothing. So I think there is, yes this awareness to develop at senior leadership level, to pay more attention to the people side of the transformation. Yeah. And then you have to admit that for me, the UK is, is very advanced and very open to that. I can see a difference with other countries, so it’s a pleasure for me to develop that here.

Well, that’s really powerful and I love the way that also you’re thinking about this, which is it’s not enough to just stand up and share the vision on the presentation, you’ve really, as a leader, got to think about how does this actually happen, how does this implement, and really bring people with you by the sounds of things as well on that journey. Yeah, I’m really aware that you know, we’ve learned so much from you in this conversation. But, as we’re coming to the end, I’m really interested in the fact that many of the people listening to this are people on their own journeys towards leadership, they’re aspiring leaders. They may be leaders already who want to take it further. And so I’m really just interested if you have any sort of further final thoughts, ideas, tips for them about you know, what to pay attention to or what to, you know, from this conversation, what you particularly want them to remember from this. Maybe, I know we attended to the […], to the same conference a few months ago, and there is one part that really resonated with me. So I’d like to share that. As we said, yes, you don’t have to be at the top management to be a leader. And it’s a journey, and being developing your leadership, it’s always going out of your comfort zone. And especially it’s not just women living that. But I know that there is always this you know, imposter syndrome, limiting ourselves in our leadership. And so a few months ago, I attended a conference, with a guest speaker, named Griselda Togobo. And she said something that was a kind of light bulb moment of freeing me up of this imposter syndrome. Because she said: actually if you don’t have it, it’s just that you’re not pushing yourself enough out of your comfort zone. And as many other people, I always had this imposter syndrome before, and since this very moment I said of course it makes sense. I always have this imposter syndrome because I keep pushing my own boundaries, and I don’t like to do twice the same thing. So I’m – so that’s normal. And actually I’m happy to have this imposter syndrome. It’s a good news, you don’t have to go in the panic zone, but but it’s okay to have it. So it really changed my, yeah, my life. So I like to share that with everyone and their own leadership journey.

Yeah, I think that’s, I remember being in that conference and that reframe, the way you’ve described it and how it impacted you is really powerful, actually, because it’s that idea that we don’t have to worry about it or be fearful of it. Actually, it’s almost something to celebrate, because it says we’re on the right path, we’re doing the right things, we’re pushing ourselves. That’s a really, really helpful thought, and I’m sure that’s been very helpful to many people listening. So thank you so much for that Aurelie. And, you know, deep thanks to you. I know how busy you are, but so to taking the time to come on the show and celebrate and share your insights, from a leadership point of view – I’m very, very grateful to you. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Victoria. And first, it’s an honour for me, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to share that. And also, it’s always very useful to, you know, reflect on these things, and so thank you for, again, this opportunity for myself. Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here, and I really appreciate it, and, I look forward to seeing everybody next time on the show. Okay, thank you, Victoria. Bye for now.