Nia Thomas [00:00:03]:
Hello, and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest. A very big welcome to today's episode, and I'm thrilled to introduce our guest Melanie Willoughby. Melanie is the Deputy Director of Commissioning of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and she brings a wealth of expertise in healthcare and leadership. She has a background in innovation and commissioning, partnership working, emergency planning, and project management, and Melanie is a true leader in her field. She excels in change management, business process development, and reengineering, making her a a really invaluable resource for anyone looking to to navigate the complexities of the health care sector. Melanie also has a research interest in imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon, which is something that I learned from Melanie.

Nia Thomas [00:00:55]:
So join us as we explore her insights and experiences and really looking at that critical element of effective leadership and strategic health care management. Melanie, it's wonderful to have you here.

Melanie Wilkey [00:01:07]:
It's lovely to be here, and thank you for the very impressive intro. It makes you sound so so interesting, doesn't it, when someone reads out your accomplishments?

Nia Thomas [00:01:15]:
Well, you are interesting, and and you're so interesting that we're actually coming back to do this twice. So listeners and watchers, what you won't know is that Melanie and I have recorded this already about 18 months nearly maybe nearly 2 years

Melanie Wilkey [00:01:27]:
ago. Yeah.

Nia Thomas [00:01:28]:
And we discovered that the sound quality was really poor. Think bottom of a well, tin shed. It was really poor, and nothing we could do was able to fix it. And it's taken us this long to get back together. But it was such a brilliant conversation. I really wanted to come back together with Mel so that you could hear what she had to say. So Mel, tell us, how do you define self awareness and what are your thoughts on it's relevant to, leadership in in the health care sector particularly?

Melanie Wilkey [00:01:57]:
I think it's it's a really interesting lens to look at leadership through in that being self aware. As a leader within an organisation, you need to be aware of the organisational context that you're working in, but also how are you in that within that context? So how do your peers see you? How do how does your line manager see you? I work in a partnership arena. How are you coming across to partners? And all of these things are really important if you're leading a team of people. What do they need from you? What do they think of you? And how do you support them and develop them in the right way? Healthcare becomes increasingly more complex by the year as there's new innovations, how we deliver healthcare, what we expect from individuals in terms of looking after their own health and how then that transforms into what we deliver on the ground, what people are entitled to expect and also there's raising expectations of what people can can receive from the NHS and when they can have it and how they can access it. You know we live in a 20 fourseven world that in some ways was probably increased during the pandemic. So much easier now at a touch of a button to get what you want, when you want. You can work where you want in a lot of organisations. And so as a I'm getting on in in years now in in the in the later half of my career probably, but how I operate has changed significantly in the 30 years since I first became a manager and being able to lead and manage in new and changing environments all the time means that you have to maintain a level of self awareness.

Melanie Wilkey [00:03:38]:
So who are you within that system? What's this system to you? And how do you take meaning from the work that you do? I think it's really important to bring some of yourself to work. And I think previously when I was young, maybe we'll come onto this a little bit in some of the later questions, leaders were very often men and quite autocratic in style. And as a woman if you wanted to succeed in that environment you had to mimic some of those behaviors. And as work work has changed and younger people have come into the workplace, all of those sorts of expectations about what a leader is and how a leader can support individuals and an organisation to achieve its goals have changed seismically really. And so without a level of self awareness as to how you fit in that within that system, you would very quickly become yesterday's news and somebody who doesn't fit into a modern world. So real that real sense of self awareness helps you to maintain a presence, I think, within both your team and and within the wider organization.

Nia Thomas [00:04:51]:
It's interesting that you're talking about that change, and it's something that I really have noticed in the world of work is that when I first started in the world of work, you didn't really go and talk to senior people. They were they were unobtainable. They were inaccessible, and and really, you shouldn't go and approach a senior person. But now that really has changed and people are far more approachable and they're transparent and they're open and they welcome that kind of communication. But absolutely, unless you are wise to that change, you are gonna miss out on that opportunity and and probably you're gonna be shipped out into into a different role or a different organization even before you blink. So yeah that that changes really as you say it's like the seismic shift.

Melanie Wilkey [00:05:35]:
We always used to call it special projects in the previous organization. If someone was going on a special project it was like, alright okay. Yeah. So if anyone ever comes to me and says we've got a special project for you, I'm like that, oh no.

Nia Thomas [00:05:50]:
Yes. And the in the NHS we used to joke and say that people were promoted out of harm's way, you know, so that they couldn't line manage anybody and they can be an adviser that would just out of the way and you could make the decision as to whether you wanted to take their advice or not. So, yeah, those those days are are definitely changing. But what experience have you had of of working with people where where they didn't have high self awareness or maybe maybe they had low self awareness and they they had that light bulb moment. What what's your experience of different kind of people with it and without it?

Melanie Wilkey [00:06:23]:
I think it's it's one of those difficult things because if people aren't self aware they don't know it And so, you know, quite often those are people who maybe rise to a certain level because they're very good at talking the talk. They're very good at sort of what I was just describing, that kind of mimicry of what they see above them without really developing their own style and their own way of of really taking that leadership forward. And I've worked in organisations where people just haven't really been aware that people don't like them and don't like working for them. And it makes it a very difficult place to be then because you always get a bit of siege mentality, don't you, within a team. So if you've got a manager who's exhibiting behaviors that are not in line with an organisation's values and not chiming with your own personal values, it's really difficult to kind of settle into that sort of role. And so everybody sort of bands together and it's everybody against the leader, but then they sort of double down on those behaviors. So it's like, actually, I told you what to do and you didn't do it, so I'm gonna tell you again. And I'm gonna do it in a more and more punitive way until you do what I want, how I want you to do it.

Melanie Wilkey [00:07:44]:
And it's a really old fashioned way of working, I think, that. And I've seen it have terrible effects on on teams. And good people leave because because they can, because they're really competent, they're really capable. They'll look for their next opportunity. They might go sooner than they were than they were gonna go, but they'll be looking for that foot out of the door, and people will always have that foot out of the door. And that's not good for the team because you you you sense that people are on the edge all the time. And then as people leave and new people come in, you never have any sort of stability, and you're not building that real sense of team and and, you know, how can we work together? How can we really make a change together? Because for me, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. And with some of those individuals who aren't self aware, we like to recruit in our own image, don't we? Because a traditional interview style is very much conversational.

Melanie Wilkey [00:08:43]:
So you're recruiting people then that you build a rapport with. You know, if people are fairly even on qualifications, when you're coming down to those decisions between people who may be equally able to do the job, you're picking people who are like you. Because as human beings, we like that, don't we? We like that sense of sort of being. Yeah. But what that does then is it creates you an echo chamber because people with the same values as you. So you don't get any, feedback from a different perspective. People say, actually, that might be how we've always done it, but could we do it a different way? We've got different technologies, take a different lens at it, didn't really work. We've got a slog to get this done.

Melanie Wilkey [00:09:22]:
There might be a better way of doing this that's driving efficiencies for us, both as individuals or as a wider team. And I think that there's definitely something for me in recruitment and retention and how we think about that in a different way because we're quite wedded to these models of panel interviews and you might get a stakeholder panel whereas a slightly different group of people might ask you some slightly different questions. It's the same thing. It's the can you perform on the day? And it's the same people who did well at exams. It's can you can you turn it on when you need to turn it on? And not everybody can. And actually some of the best people I've ever worked with have been people that are terrible at interviews because they like to sit back and they like to reflect. And the nature of of being questions being fired at you is you don't have that time to reflect. And it makes it really difficult.

Melanie Wilkey [00:10:18]:
And those potentially then are the more self aware people because they're thinking about how do I put myself across in the context of this question that you've asked me? I wanna show myself in the best light. How do I do that? Rather than, actually, I'm quite good at interviews. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you this shiny version of myself and here's the sell. Here's the big sell. And I think it's been a bit of a revelation for me really because going back to what I was saying before about when I first came into managerial roles, the female leaders that I saw tended to be, you know, suited and booted, quite autocratic in style, you know, very put together in in every sense of the word, both, like, physically in terms of their appearance, but also in terms of really specific and driven. And in seeing that and thinking, well, actually, I would like to be a leader in an organisation like this, you start to well, when I was young, quite consciously model those sorts of behaviours. But as you get older, perhaps slightly less consciously model those sorts of behaviors in order to fit or in order to be seen to be the type of person that might be able to be a leader within this organization At one, point, you know, you do these kind of Belbin or MBTI type assessments of what's the team and who fits where. And we've done one of one of these sorts of not either of those, but something of of that sort of ilk for the whole team.

Melanie Wilkey [00:11:51]:
And you get your these are your strengths and this these are the things that how people need to interact with you and these sorts of things. And one of the kind of you know, let's focus on the negative things, don't you? But one of the things that these are the these are the potential negatives about how you filled in this questionnaire Is it was something like, you know, somebody needs to issue Melanie's team with flak jackets. And I was like, well, that's not the person that I want to be. And I was like, have I answered this this kind of questionnaire? Have I do it? Have I answered it as myself, or have I answered it as the person that I want other people to see because I think that's how I should behave if I want to be a leader? And it it was an awakening for me because I was like, actually, I don't wanna be seen like that. So I'm gonna bring a bit more of me to it. I'm gonna be try to try and be a bit less manager and a bit more Mel.

Nia Thomas [00:12:45]:
Oh, that's a lovely way of describing it. And as you were talking, I'm reminded that I worked with, a fairly senior colleague, in an organization, and he had to work with colleagues in in another organization. And he would often say there is something very peculiar about the senior leadership in that organisation. Each one of them that he was coming across were were very devoid of emotion, it was all about getting the job done, they were not interested in feedback. They were not interested in any kind of nuances or implementation challenges. And and he would he would regularly say that there is something peculiar about these people. And and I do wonder whether the more senior people in that organization, were they recruiting in their likeness? Did they have any idea that people really didn't like working with them? And it's something we often talk about on this podcast is about recruitment has got a lot to answer for, but I've yet to find anybody who has got a revolutionary way to recruit. I mean, how else can we do it? Some people talk about more of an interview.

Nia Thomas [00:13:51]:
The chief exec of Oleo, she talked about interviewing people to talk about mission obsession. But, again, it's that it's that same you come to a panel, you have a conversation, you do a presentation, or you do an audition. I've yet to come across anybody who's doing it wildly different to that. So but if there are listeners and watchers and you are doing something really different, please let us know because I think it's about time all of us try to really think about our recruitment

Melanie Wilkey [00:14:20]:
processes. Yeah. And, you know, this is something that's coming a little bit out of the these kind of early emerging themes out of my research which is that how can we do things differently and trying to get people to say well what could we do differently?' And we're not very good anymore at taking references, are we? Because of the because of the subjective nature of giving an opinion on somebody. Certainly within our organisation references is very much yes. They worked here from this date to that date. They did these roles rather than really being able to express an opinion on whether you think they're suitable for for the role that they've that they've given you as a reference for. And so is there something about almost turning it on its head in that you do take a reference early on, an application form, if we can check that that the assertions made it correct? Arguably, you could say that from an application form, you can generally tell if somebody could do the job. Have they got the right qualifications? Have they got the right experience? Have they got the right sort of skills? And people can spend some time doing that.

Melanie Wilkey [00:15:27]:
But obviously, when you're writing things down, there's an element of, well, you can embellish the truth a little bit. So half the point of the interviewees is to tease some of that out. But then some of my participants are saying, well, actually, if you think that they could do the job for the application, why don't you invite them and come and spend a day with the team? And actually, what we'll do is the business of the team. But then that means that that recruitment process then is protracted because you have to give those shortlisted candidates then equal opportunity to have time with the team and experience those different sorts of things. Because certainly in the partnership space where people and relationships are actually more important sometimes than the content, who it is and how they work within the team can be more important than what they know and what they've done in the past. And so there's possibly something in there around how can we do some more context heavy elements to to a recruitment sort of process. But, yeah, it does does make it expensive if you're recruiting entry level jobs. You can't bring everybody in and spend a day with the team.

Melanie Wilkey [00:16:36]:
But certainly, for senior jobs where there are fewer individuals in the candidate pool, that fit is much more important and the impact that they have on the team, on the organisation is higher because they have more control. They have a bigger span of control. They have a bigger span of influence. So the cost to the organisation, both both kind of financially if if they don't stay, but also in terms of productivity and well-being and all of those sorts of things can be really high for an organisation if you recruit the wrong person at a senior level.

Nia Thomas [00:17:12]:
Yes. I was talking to, Tourab on on my podcast a a couple of episodes ago, and he was talking about giving people opportunities to shine. So it might be a particular exercise or, it might be a part of a test as part of an interview. But his feedback was that people were saying, well, if you want me to work for you, you need to pay for my time'. So again it's that I I'd love somebody to come and spend a day with the team to see whether they fit us, we fit them. But, again, how do you reconcile that with, are you asking them to come and work for free for the day? How would you then shortlist somebody if you if you've got 24 people and you wanna bring them down to a a short list of 5, how do you do that where that doesn't become a long and protracted process? So, yeah, I think there are some interesting things that we need to talk about in terms of recruitment. If anybody's got some wonderful ideas, please do share them with us. When we last met, we we talked about leadership at all levels, and this is something that I'm quite interested in.

Nia Thomas [00:18:14]:
You've worked in a number of organizations and in different areas. What's your experience of people at different levels of organizational hierarchy demonstrating those leadership qualities? And maybe this is something that's come out as part of your imposter phenomenon research. What are you seeing in terms of those different levels?

Melanie Wilkey [00:18:33]:
It's interesting, isn't it? Because people see a job title as being indicative of whether they're a leader, and for me, that's that's not the case. Just because you're manager, director, deputy director, what whatever your job title is, it doesn't make you a leader. And giving people the opportunity to lead in their area of expertise is really important. The area of work that I kind of look after is quite small within our organisations. Within the team, there's 11, 12 of us in the team. Everybody's got their own particular specialty, so we don't all do the same thing. So I haven't got the the bandwidth to know the detail of everybody's job. And so I look to the other people in the team to to offer leadership within their functions, and I would always look to them for expertise and advice.

Melanie Wilkey [00:19:29]:
And they're definitely the subject matter experts. But in doing that and looking to that, then you're opening up for innovation, aren't you? Because I don't know how to innovate in every area that's part of my responsibility. You know, I know I know things that work. I've I've known things that worked in the past. I've got an eye on the horizon. I'm looking at what works elsewhere. But, actually, true innovation usually doesn't come from the top because the breadth of what that individual is looking at means that the level of accountability is actually the the innovations coming from somebody saying, we could just do that differently. How can we start to turn the curve? You know, how can we solve a problem in a different way? So from a commissioning perspective, and it's been a bit of a challenge for me, we've started trying to commission for outcomes.

Melanie Wilkey [00:20:26]:
So rather than kind of write in a service specification and say putting it out to tender and saying, this is how we want the service to run, these are the key performance indicators, this is how we're gonna measure your performance. We're starting to look at well, actually, it doesn't matter how what you deliver, how you deliver it. What matters is whether you can make the change for the population that we're seeking. Then you're kind of handing that opportunity to innovate out to the 3rd sector. They're closer probably to some of our residents and our service users, so they know much better than I do about what's gonna work, what's not gonna work at a community level. And so allowing that innovation allows that leadership to come up from the different areas and the different aspects of of the work. And the things that I potentially would never have considered, different approaches, different ways of looking at things, different ways of delivery. All of these things, you get stuck in a rut, don't you? This is this is how we deliver services.

Melanie Wilkey [00:21:31]:
We write services here on top of the door. We either open the door and let you come in whenever you want or we send you a letter telling you when to come through the door. But that's not necessarily the best way. How do we get out? How do we get into communities? How are we making sure that by putting the sign above the door, we're not creating stigma because actually you've got to walk through that door. So if you're walking through that door, then you must be that sort of person. And we've got to take away from that. How how are we as individuals able to access health care or wider services and those sorts of things? And I think in the pandemic, leadership emerged from lots of different places, and I think this has been seen kind of across the piece because immediately we were well, how do we deliver things?' So, obviously, within health, we didn't put people on furlough. We had to think about ways of doing things differently.

Melanie Wilkey [00:22:23]:
And while I wasn't particularly involved in things like setting up the Nightingale Hospitals and those sorts of things. You hear the reports of how people led from all levels and actually streamlined the decision making. And you didn't have to jump through any hoops to get things decided upon, to be able to spend very large sums of money to get things done in a very short period of time. Now the flip side of that is that's not always the way we could go about it because at the end of the day, we're spending public money, aren't we? So we need to be accountable for that. And so during that time, there was a lighter touch in terms of governance and those sorts of things. So you weren't having to make sure that everybody was on board with the decisions and there was an agreement, and this is how we're gonna use our resources in the most effective way to deliver the best outcomes for our residents. And so there are there's there's a kind of running back from that a little bit, I think, because you it's not been able to continue that. But I think that there's definitely some pockets of learning on how people can be left to lead things that they don't actually have to be reporting back every 5 minutes to say, the project's on track.

Melanie Wilkey [00:23:40]:
The project's on track. The project's on track. Actually, I'm coming and telling you, I need this. I need that. It's gonna fail if we don't. To me, how do we get into these kind of exceptions and let people kinda lead the pieces of work that they are that you've recruited them to do. I think we get it where you've got quite a lot of layers of governance. We get into this space where people have to act down all the time.

Melanie Wilkey [00:24:06]:
It's like you sort of you checking the homework of everybody that reports to you. And so you're not operating up here. You're checking the detail down here. But actually, if you devolve that leadership, if you give people permission to act within their delegated authority, then you're starting to see this innovation. You're starting to see new leaders emerging and you can see new leadership styles coming forward and it kind of devolves that leadership. So it doesn't just sit with single individuals or your board and those sorts of things. So so you you start to see how the organisation can move and change.

Nia Thomas [00:24:50]:
I like that, the way that you've described that. And and I often talk about cognitive diversity and leadership at all levels, but I don't suppose I've really thought about them, that actually if you accept that you have leadership at all levels, you do create those opportunities for people where there is cognitive diversity to rise up, and it does generate that innovation. So I I don't know. I I I feel a model coming on there. I say I'm I feel like I need to draw some circles and some lines. Absolutely. There is that connection.

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Nia Thomas [00:26:14]:
Tell us what imposter syndrome is or imposter phenomenon and there are academic definitions and socially understood definitions, but from your research perspective, tell us what imposter phenomenon is.

Melanie Wilkey [00:26:28]:
Yeah. So in the lay literature, you will see it written down as imposter syndrome. You put imposter syndrome into Google and you'll get, I don't know, 10,000,000 results or something like that. And you'll see rafts of self help books that are overcoming impostor syndrome, you know, these sorts of titles. But in the academic literature, it's called the impostor phenomenon. And it's called the impostor phenomenon because the psychologists that first kind of coined the term Clance and Iams in the late 19 seventies, they felt that by calling it a syndrome, they implied that it was pathological in origin, that it is something in you, but calling it a phenomenon. It's that combination of your nature, it's nurture, it's sociology, it's how we bring up children. The original research in the seventies specifically looked at women and how women are in the workplace.

Melanie Wilkey [00:27:25]:
They are high achieving women in the seventies. People who have very objectively achieved success in their field, feeling like they don't deserve it, and that they're gonna be found out. And it and it's it's these sorts of words that kind of pervade through the academic literature. It's this fear of being found out. It's the not being good enough. It's the I'm here by luck, or because of the forbearance of others. Somebody else has helped me along the way. It's not me.

Melanie Wilkey [00:27:59]:
And while early research was centred around women, later research has shown that it's actually quite equally experienced by men and women, and that at some point in our lives, 70% of us will experience what has been described as imposter phenomenon or imposter syndrome. And so we don't really talk about it at a leadership level because and it goes back to some of these kind of quite old fashioned things. You come into a new role and how do you say, oh, I'm not really sure I know how to do it. Thanks for giving me this job, but and, am I the right person? And that all kind of sets in. So people are much more likely to experience imposter phenomenon at times of change. So from a leadership perspective, that getting a new job is a key part of that, whether that's an internal promotion, whether it's sideways into a new project, whether it's being recruited into a new organisation. It's that feeling that actually you don't know what you're doing and somebody's gonna find out. And it can have all sorts of impacts on you as an individual then because people will respond to those feelings, those imposter feelings in a lot of different ways.

Melanie Wilkey [00:29:10]:
So people might look to be a perfectionist. So actually, what do they say? Perfection is the enemy of done. Rather than saying, actually, this is the time I've got to give to this task. I've done the best I can do. Actually, it's putting in extra work, making sure that it's perfect. So going over and above, which can then contribute to this sense of out that people get. And that's not good for an organisation because if people are burnt out, then they're having time off sick. They're potentially not working in a team as effectively as they as they could.

Melanie Wilkey [00:29:40]:
They're not being as open in that team. But other people then go to the opposite extreme. They procrastinate. So procrastination is a kind of, you know, recognized response to it. So, actually, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it well enough, so I'm just not gonna start.

Nia Thomas [00:29:56]:
Okay. Tell us about your research then. So it's all about impostor phenomenon. Yep. What is your research specifically looking at, and what what are you already starting to see? Because you've mentioned one element already. What else are you starting to see?

Melanie Wilkey [00:30:11]:
Yeah. So I'm really interested in it in a workplace situation. So and in that leadership and management space because it's always been really important to me to be seen as being credible in the job that I do, and that means bringing knowledge and expertise, but then also that listening and that self awareness and being able to develop within whatever role that it is. But when you start in that job, on day 1, you feel like you're not credible. So as leaders, how then do we start to think about imposter phenomenon in a different sort of way? Because the higher up an organisation you get, the more senior you get, the fewer peers that you have. And so we talked earlier about having a toxic manager. You kind of you get the siege mentality, all of you together. But If you're the leader, then certainly it's a very lonely place to be and they're paying you the big bucks.

Melanie Wilkey [00:31:13]:
So they've recruited you. You've got the job, you've got the salary, you've got the title, all of those sorts of things. You're gonna come in and say, well, I don't know what I'm doing. And how do we start to, as workplaces and workplace culture, say, that's okay. When you start at this organization, you don't know regardless of whether you are first level health care support or whether you're the chief executive, you don't know exactly what this job needs of you on the 1st day. And how do we say, that's okay? And everybody here is here to support you, to to make you the best that you could possibly be in order to deliver that role that we think you were the best person for. And so for me, my research is about, so what does it feel as a leader, as a really senior leader, to feel imposter syndrome when people around you look at you and think, well, look at them. They've got the job.

Melanie Wilkey [00:32:16]:
They're great. They're amazing. They're confident. But how do we then say, actually, it's okay even as a leader to be able to say, I don't know, at the beginning without losing this level of credibility. Because what you can't come in and say, oh my god. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna do some terrible citation because I can't actually remember who wrote the piece. But there's an article in the Harvard Business Review and it's called something like the authenticity paradox.

Melanie Wilkey [00:32:45]:
So you want to bring a piece of yourself to to work, don't you? You want to bring yourself, you want to be authentic to yourself because if you can't work with passion, particularly in the in the industry that I work in, why are you here? Because you're here to make a difference to individuals. So you bring in that piece of yourself. But if you're saying, actually, to the extent, I don't know what I'm doing. You're gonna have to help me. And, really, I really don't know what I'm doing. Then, actually, people don't trust you as a leader. So there's a balance in there to say, I'm learning, and I know I'm learning and I know I've got a lot to learn, but I'm bringing all of these things as well. So you can trust me.

Melanie Wilkey [00:33:24]:
I am trustworthy, but being open about the fact that you don't know everything and you're not coming in as the finished article of what you will be in that role once you understand the organisation and the whole ask, which you'll never get from any recruitment process regardless of how good it is until you're actually doing it. You don't know really what it entails. So I am doing some, you know, quite soft quants really, real conversational kind of interview techniques because what I found when I was, doing some of the modules, so I'm doing a DBA rather than a PhD, so we did some some modular work before we went into our independent research phase, was if I read the literature and I write the semi structured interview questions, I've derived a theoretical framework from my literature review. I'm almost pre empting what I think the answer is going to be because I'm structuring the interviews based on my own kind of experience. So what I've started to do now is take a much more conversational approach. So go with a little bit of open open book, a little bit of introduction about a pasta phenomenon and what it is and why why I'm interested in it, but then really open it up into a conversation, talking about some of my own personal experiences of impost phenomenon and smattering it with some of the the literature and the evidence that supports it, in order to be able to really see what other people think about it, not just how I'm already interpreting it. So as a qualitative researcher, it's really important to understand your own role within the research because it's your lens that brings the research philosophy to life, isn't it? So for me then it's about really doing that reflexive piece. So how am I reflecting? So I start to reflect after I do each of these kind of conversational interviews that almost brings an autoethnography to it.

Melanie Wilkey [00:35:23]:
And I think that I'm not anywhere near writing it, but that's that's the kind of emerging kind of methodology that's starting to come to the fore for me now. And I think what I'm finding from my early participants is it is everybody. Everybody I've talked to at this sort of level. In healthcare, arguably, I probably see more self aware leaders,

Nia Thomas [00:35:48]:
than,

Melanie Wilkey [00:35:49]:
I've seen in the private sector before. So I would say that I see it more, but then it might be observational bias, isn't it? I'm looking for it now and I'm asking people about it. So perhaps it's just more obvious to me. So take that into account as well. And people are really open about their experiences if you ask them. So they won't tell you, but if you ask them, they're really open at every sort of level. And this sense of feeling isolated and feeling alone. And if 70% of us feel it, why should we feel so isolated about it? How can we make it less isolating for people? Is there something as well as the recruitment, is there something about the onboarding that says, actually, here's a mentor or here's a peer buddy who is going to just be your sounding board and and to be able to say, I don't know how to do this.

Melanie Wilkey [00:36:46]:
Who does this? Who does that? You don't know when you first start in an organization, you don't know who does what. You don't know where HR sit. You don't know where IT is. My computer doesn't work. And just some of those things that you think, oh my god. I should know how to get these basic everyday kind of managerial tasks done. I don't know how to get them done. Being able to support you through some of the nuts and bolts so that you're able to focus on, actually, this is the this is the job at hand.

Melanie Wilkey [00:37:09]:
And sometimes having a peer group is really helpful and people are reflecting that. Where they've got really strong peer groups, a safe space where people feel psychologically safe, be able to say, actually, can you help me? Has any of any of you seen this before? It's really helpful for people when they're starting starting these new roles. So there's definitely something about that onboarding for me and then that kind of ongoing support, particularly then where people move and change internally within an organisation where it's not such a formal onboarding process. But yeah. So those are my initial kind of emerging thoughts, but I need to I need to structure it into something a bit more meaningful. And I'm sure there'll be a model than a diagram.

Nia Thomas [00:37:55]:
Definitely. That is fascinating and I think there's a lot about culture, absolutely psychological safety, there's humility, vulnerability, confidence, trust. All of those things fit into what you've been talking about. And and, again, recruitment and onboarding, and how do we set the culture from the word go that it's okay for you not to have to know everything the minute you step through the door. And and that'll be really interesting to see what your final findings are going to be. I've got this idea that as people become more self aware, they realize how much they don't know. And I wonder if self awareness and increased self awareness, does it exacerbate imposter syndrome? Does it create it? And what about that whole cycle? What are your thoughts? And I and I ask that on the basis that I, interestingly, I've spoken to Aoife O'Brien and Adrian Ashton who also have interest in imposter syndrome. So, listeners and watchers, if you've got an interest, we've got 3 podcast guests who can talk about imposter syndrome.

Nia Thomas [00:38:58]:
So, Mel, where do you stand on that idea of increased self awareness, increased impostor syndrome?

Melanie Wilkey [00:39:04]:
Definitely. It's it's your it's your Johari window, isn't it? You you you get into your your known unknowns, don't you? I know what I don't know, and it's it's like doing the doctorate as well, isn't it? The more you read, the more you realize you really don't have a clue about the topic at all. We went to a session quite recently. I'm on a a development program and somebody came to talk about imposter syndrome and in the break one of my peers said oh here's Mel, she's the expert and I was like I'm not an expert, I'm not an expert and I was like I've read so much about it. If if if I'm not an expert, who is? And there's a little bit of that, but I know how much I don't know in doing that. So there's definitely an element of that because I think that if you are a self aware person and you do reflect and you do kind of think about, well, if I did that again, how would I do it differently? You're always going to find a way of thinking that you could do it differently or you could do it better. And so in that, there is the space for, well, I didn't do it well enough in the 1st place, so maybe I shouldn't be doing this job or look at such and such over there. They look to have done it with ease.

Melanie Wilkey [00:40:15]:
And you don't know that they're not impostor syndrome with perfectionism and they've spent hours and hours of their own time getting it across the line to make it look easy. And it's all of these things about you don't know what goes on for other people. And so that that self awareness of I don't know these things, absolutely, it's gonna underpin that sense of feeling impostory, and I'm gonna get found out. And there's that just that just niggling fear, I think, then that it gives you a tension that that creates a a stress in you that that if it endures, if you're not supported to move past the things that are causing the imposter syndrome, that actually then that is building and it is causing that that burnout and the stress that's, you know, unnecessarily so. In complex work environments that most of us work in now, stress is inevitability because of the pace, because of the changing nature of that complex system. What worked last time won't necessarily work this time because you've got different people, different situation, different circumstances. And so it's that adaptability so that, well, I don't know how to adapt to this new environment. And that self awareness of that not knowing starts to build this sense of of being an imposter.

Melanie Wilkey [00:41:36]:
And there there are elements of personality to this. While I was saying it's experienced equally by men and women, men and women deal with it differently. And it's around some of it's around personality. Extroverts tend to be a little bit more of the feel the fear and do it anyway. You hear people say, and entrepreneurs will all, will all always say that I, I didn't fit in around the table and I felt like an imposter, so I just showed what I could do. But introverts then need that time to reflect and they can't bring themselves to do the feel the fear and do it anyway. And so it kind of embeds some of these senses of being an imposter and being that you might be found out as not being good enough and being a little bit neurotic, which is in a in a psychological sense rather than a pejorative sense, but which is more often associated with with women. So are you taking these things on board? So perhaps for all of us, things don't go as well as you hope they would every single time.

Melanie Wilkey [00:42:37]:
Nobody's that successful. And you actually learn more from failure anyway. But it's that how can you take that failure as a learning rather than as a personal, actually, I'm not good enough rather than, actually, I can learn from that and I can be better. So is that rather than taking it on on board as a as a personal criticism or shortcoming, how do you start to think, actually, I could build on this as a strength? And those are really difficult things to do if you're if you're if you're introverted, if you're a little bit neurotic, if you're already a little bit anxious. These can all start to build this sense of being an imposter.

Nia Thomas [00:43:18]:
For something that we can leave people with, if they are feeling an in sense of imposter syndrome now, they are feeling unconfident, they're very concerned that somebody's gonna find them out tomorrow, what advice would you give them right now? What's something practical and achievable that they can do to support themselves?

Melanie Wilkey [00:43:40]:
Talk to somebody. It it it's as simple as that. And and you it can feel you feel really alone, and it doesn't have to be somebody in your team. It doesn't have to be your line manager because it could be working in a toxic environment and your line manager's not the right sort of person. But somebody you've had a connection with within the organisation, just say, you know, I'm not feeling very confident about this. I might need some help with it. If if you've had negative feedback from somebody who knows them well, who seems to be in their sphere that you can say, actually, what's the best way of approaching this person? How do they like to be worked with? And taking a bit of knowledge from somebody else, but being open and saying, I don't feel very confident about this. I haven't been successful in the past and so I want to do it better this time.

Melanie Wilkey [00:44:27]:
And take a real learning lens to it. So it's try and take it as a learning rather than a personal failing. And that's really difficult. If that's your personality, we've talked already about how you're brought up and those sorts of things impacting on how you operate in these sorts of environments. So these can be very entrenched behaviours about keeping it to yourself that are very difficult to overcome. But, yeah, if you've got somebody that you trust, have a conversation. They don't even have to be in the workplace. Just talk to somebody who knows you and likes you, and they they will be able to tell you about what's positive about you and how you can build on some of those positive characteristics in order to be able to start to build on it.

Melanie Wilkey [00:45:09]:
And there's something for us as organisations, I think, to understand that people feel like that. And it doesn't mean that they're not good at their job because they are feeling like an imposter. So how do we create that culture and create that environment? So I suppose my takeaway for leaders and managers is to check-in with your teams on one to ones. When you're giving somebody a task that's new, if you think it's within their remit and within their their their skills and their job description, just check-in and make sure that they're confident to do it and make sure they know where to find the resources if it fits something new, and provide that kind of just almost like a bit of a safety net for somebody and letting people fail and really understanding that it's okay to fail because that's where innovation is, isn't it? If you try something that doesn't work, try something else and not the same thing will work for everybody. So there's a lot of self help things about imposter syndrome. So you can find something that works for you. There are there's, you know, neuroscience to it. This is how you can rework the chains in your brain, but that's not necessarily what everybody wants to do.

Melanie Wilkey [00:46:20]:
They don't want to be working on their neuroplasticity and these sorts of things. They want practical things that can help them. And there are a lot of tools and resources that will help with some of those things. But, yeah, other people other people both supporting people that and asking other people for support. For me, that is leadership's all about people and relationships, and it's it's relying on yours.

Nia Thomas [00:46:44]:
Yeah. So find your champions, have that initial conversation. And I think your advice about it's not about whether you're capable of the role. It's more about the fact that you simply don't know right now, and you want to build those skills. And I think that's a really helpful way of framing it. So Mel, you've mentioned that you're you're in the middle of your research. What is next for your research?

Melanie Wilkey [00:47:08]:
So well, I I wanna get my thesis done is is where I wanna go next. So what what I would like to come out of it, because obviously this is a DBA, so I need some recommendations for practice. So I'm hopeful that what will come out of this will be some real practical applications for organisations and leaders and managers within organisations so that we can make it much more open conversation and some real practical suggestions, if you like, for things that we can do like mentoring or buddying or how we might change onboarding or without seismic change in recruitment, how can we make existing types of recruitment practises more comfortable for people who might be feeling a bit like an imposter? So for me then, I think it's about taking those practical things and how can we embed those within organisations and kind of socialising those and saying, what do these feel like and are these things that are practical? Because if they cost a lot of money, nobody's gonna do them. So if if we can just demonstrate that they add value by just changing how we how we do things, looking at things through a different lens, then for me, that'll be value in my research.

Nia Thomas [00:48:22]:
That's amazing. Listeners watchers, a DBA is a doctor of business administration. And and if you look at my profile and Mel's profile, we both are students of a doctor of business administration, and we both have this idea that our research has to be useful to the world of work. So whether you're looking at imposter syndrome or you're looking at self aware leadership, we both come from it from that perspective of of being pracademic, so I guess. Mel, it's been really great having the conversation with you. I I can't wait to find out what your final findings are gonna be of your research and to see your model and to see your your guidebook or your textbook or whatever it it ends up being in the end. But Mel, thank you very much for joining me. 2nd time around, I've I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Melanie Wilkey [00:49:07]:
It's been great. Thanks ever so much.

Nia Thomas [00:49:10]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.