Personal development doesn’t stop once you reach the C-suite.
I decided to found Social Element (and then co-found Polpeo) because I was passionate about helping brands connect with people – and I wanted to be my own boss.
But I always had my eye on personal growth.
Asking how you can be a better leader is the first step, but part of growing as a leader is discovering how you can support your team with their development so you all improve together.
Invest in your personal development
I’m an ambivert – I may seem like an extrovert, but I can also be quite shy sometimes and I need time on my own to recover from a business period of socialising or networking. When I started Social Element I was mostly focused on setting up the business, bringing in clients and eventually getting team members on board. As the company grew, so did my profile as CEO and founder.
CEOs are, of course, the public face of the business. We’re the ones who have to put ourselves out there to network, speak at events and do media interviews. That didn’t always sit comfortably for me. Some situations – particularly speaking opportunities – made me a bit uncomfortable. I wasn’t a confident speaker when I started out, and it could feel quite overwhelming being in front of an audience. So I knew I needed to grow and develop in that area, and also give myself the time to recover and wind down afterwards.
I started to invest in my own development which really helped me overcome that fear. Now, I love talking as part of an event, being on a panel, running workshops,talking on podcasts and even hosting two of them as well.
Invest in developing the team around you
I also realised early on that growing in my leadership role wasn’t something I could do in isolation. My team needed to develop alongside me. Of course they all had their own development goals, but it was also important we grew as a team, together. I also knew that the best way to achieve this growth was by working with people outside the agency who got to know and understand us and how we operated.
Some of the things that worked for me included:
- Exposure therapy helps. I knew I wanted to develop my speaking skills, so I did keynotes and media interviews where I could, and I even did a TEDx talk! It really helped me refine my public speaking skills and grew my confidence.
- I found my groove. As time went on, I realised that, while I was getting more at ease putting myself out there, there were some opportunities where I thrived and did better than others. So, I started to focus on those – like panel discussions, podcasts and running Polpeo crisis training workshops.
- Constant investment in training as a team. Over the years, I invested in training and consultants for areas like negotiation, account management and client relations. I also invested in DISC training, which was a great way to help us all understand each other’s communication and behaviour styles. It helped us grow and function as a team.
- Investing in long-term relationships with partners. The businesses and individuals we partner with can massively shape and refine our development. By working with a partner over the long-term (we worked with one for ten years) they get a chance to really get to know the business and work with us to build an agency that outperforms the competition and hits KPIs.
We never stop growing and learning, but development is something we should be prioritising as leaders. There are times when it might feel like you don’t have the time or resources to prioritise personal growth for you and your team, but the pay-off makes the investment an opportunity that can’t be missed.
