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Celebrating International Women’s Day On International Women’s Day we celebrated our women executives and surgeons in positions of leadership and asked how they #breakthebias every day. Emily Wooden - Deputy CEO and COO I started early in my leadership journey, being elected sports colour house captain, much to the surprise of my family! I am not sports inclined or competitive and I don’t get a lot of joy out of winning, because if I win someone else loses. While it was a surprise to me at the time, I now see that my peers saw in me what I didn’t see myself. They saw someone who included everyone and made sure that everyone in the team felt valued—no matter their sporting ability. That was a defining moment for me and strengthened my belief later in my leadership journey—the importance of understanding the roles we must play. Great teams need more than just great sports people. At the College, we need more than just good surgeons; we need all of us to work together to make a great team. Creating great teams requires us to ensure that we access all the talent we have across the College. One way of #breakthebias is removing inclinations we have towards stereotyped attributes we value in leaders, and that is to ask: ‘How do we get the most from our talent?’ I hope my leadership is based on kindness, inclusiveness and ensuring people feel safe and empowered to do their best work.
Tamsin Garrod - Executive General Manager, Education Development and Delivery When I think about how to #breakthebias I think about how I found my voice and removed the bias and expectations people had of me. When I was 15, I interviewed at Tesco. While I was standing in the corridor nervously waiting for my interview, a current employee said to me, “You’ll be fine, all you need to do is flirt with him (the manager) to get the job.” That did not resonate with me, but it influenced my view of society. Since then I have been fortunate to have learned valuable lessons, which have helped me own my voice. I have identified role models who resonate with me and learned from them. I have compartmentalised positive experiences away from the negative experiences that have shaped my view, undermined my value, and diminished my view of society.
I refocused my energy on finding my voice. You don’t realise the societal messages you absorb until you stop and question how you perceive people and situations and start to #breakthebias. The power of finding my authentic voice was and is important to me. You will find distractions and messages that you don’t want. That won’t change, but you can break the bias in your own way. Christine Cook - Executive General Manager, Education Partnership I have learned many lessons about leadership from my mother—my greatest inspiration. She is 95 years old and survived the second World War, fleeing the eastern sector of Germany. Having got across the border by swimming a river, my mother managed to get to her father with her little sister, both only with their dripping wet clothes. She taught herself English and completed her nursing degree. She has been an inspiring example and has encouraged me in the same way over the years. When I was put in a leadership position unexpectedly, having inherited underlying issues, I leaned on my mother’s values and what she taught me about courage, integrity, commitment, and accountability. With these values in hand, I embraced a collaborative approach to leadership and sought out people who shared my values. Shared values run deep. The group of
