Why I wrote ‘Next Level Leadership’

I could give you all the ‘worky’ reasons why I wrote this book but the reality is that I started the Conscious Leaders Podcast (and then wrote Next Level Leadership) because I worked under a terrible, unsupportive leader and I wanted as few people to go through that experience as possible. I know many of you have already.

I’m not saying I was blameless in the situation but I was crushed by it.

It went like this…

I worked at an organisation where I admired another female leader from afar and I wanted to work for her. Eventually, my wish was granted and I was really excited about what we could achieve together. I would be her number two, right by her side. I bounced into work with a new sense of vigour and excitement. However, slowly and insidiously, I started to feel less and less confident. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this was happening. I felt nervous in my own skin, like I couldn’t step up or perform as I had in the past.

In many ways, this person said a lot of the right things. However, I realised it wasn’t what she was saying but it was the way she looked at me. She was looking at me like I couldn’t do it, like I wasn’t good enough. This carried on for months to the point that I was so low and anxious, I could barely sleep.

I felt a shell of my former self.

The overall work environment at this organisation was toxic and I had seen how bullying had intensified during someone else's notice period. I had a quick chat with our (lovely but ultimately powerless) HR Manager, then wrote my leaving letter and walked out the door, never to return.

It sounds like an empowering move, right? Like in the movies…

And in many ways, it was–except for the crippling anxiety that followed. I tried sleeping and anti-anxiety tablets but took myself off them because they made me feel so terrible. I still couldn’t sleep. Lots of people were worried about me and this made me more fearful of my own emotions.

Six weeks later, I went to see Rachel, a career coach. Rachel looked at me differently. She looked at me like I had all the capacity in the world and that I could lift myself out of this. At that moment, something shifted and I started to feel differently. I’m not saying I was instantly better but the seeds of confidence had been sown again and I was starting to see possibilities once more.

Years later, I started to digest this contrasting experience more fully. Why is it around some people we feel amazing, like we could conquer the world and around others, we leave the conversation feeling low or disempowered? If only we could hack into this, we could tap into a leadership superpower!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a Gallup study in 2017 of more than 1 million people in the US reported that 75% of people left their job because of their manager and not the position itself. It points to the phrase ‘employees join companies but leave managers’. Poor, or even just unwitting, behaviour from managers is costing businesses huge amounts of money and damaging people’s health along the way. I’m not saying employees are blameless but more often than not, I find a significant issue is that their leader hasn’t been present – they haven’t really listened to them, understood them and supported them to change.

I know there are time pressures that can make this difficult. I needed to make this easier for leaders.

Meanwhile in Autumn 2019, I did research with seventy-nine business leaders. I wanted to find out how much leaders understand and value the development of their emotional intelligence – how they manage themselves and how they interrelate.

The clearest conclusion is that leaders like informal ways to learn from their peers. They want to undertake learning in their own time as well as in peer groups. They want to be able to share ideas and views and come to their own understanding about ‘what works’.

This really affirmed my facilitatory style of group training. People like to learn a few transformational leadership models but they need enough space to digest it individually and as a group. After that, the Conscious Leaders Podcast was born. I sought out great people-leaders who really stepped up for their employees. On the podcast, I hack into their brains about their leadership philosophy and exactly how this plays out day to day. Listeners enjoy the big picture but also want practical, actionable ways to move forward and to hear what went wrong as well as what’s working.

Quite often, I find leaders think their workplace is a rather pleasant place to work. They don’t see the rumours, the gossip and the toxicity. They don’t realise that it is actually a rather political and difficult place for many to work in. Other leaders are tuned in and see the cracks caused by gossip and the personality clashes revealing nasty traits in colleagues. They see how this gets in the way of productive work and strong relationships and as leaders they want to change it.

I wrote Next Level Leadership as a book for the latter group–that group who realises that how we show up for employees can be transformative. The digest of nine lessons in the book highlight the philosophies and practices of proven people-leaders running highly successful businesses. These leaders have been willing to share these amazing philosophies and practical nuggets with the wider leadership community.

I hope I can share this work as widely as possible and help leaders do their best work.

If you have a route that would help with that, I’d love to hear it and how we could collaborate together.

‘Next Level Leadership: nine lessons from conscious leaders’ is written by Ruth Farenga and will be published by Rethink Press at the end of September 2022. Information and pre-order will be available on the Conscious Leaders website soon. To be the first to hear, join the monthly Conscious Conversation mailing list.