Nia Thomas [00:00:02]:
Hello and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join us as we discuss Self Aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. Today's guest is someone who embodies the belief that leadership isn't just about strategy and results, it's about humanity. Ruth Wells is the CEO of Headway Devon. But beyond her title, she is a leader deeply committed to kindness, authenticity and creating space where people can thrive. Over the years, Ruth has built a reputation for leading with both head and heart, balancing accountability with empathy and championing organizational cultures that really value well being as much as performance. She speaks very openly about the importance of self awareness in leadership and the courage to show vulnerability and the power of care as a driver for trust and motivation.

Nia Thomas [00:00:56]:
Over the last year or so, I've been following Ruth on LinkedIn and I've really been struck by the warmth and openness with which she writes. And that's why I really wanted Ruth to join me today so that I can share a little bit of Ruth with you listeners and watchers. So join us today as we talk about what it means to lead with intention and how to stay anchored in your values when times are tough and why kindness might just be the most underrated leadership skill of all. Ruth, it's lovely to have you here.

Ruth Wells [00:01:27]:
Thank you very much. Very flattering to be asked to join. Thank you.

Nia Thomas [00:01:32]:
I'm thrilled you're here. So tell us about kindness. Kindness, I think it can be quite underrated in leadership, but it's clearly something very central to your approach. What does kindness in leadership look like, feel like and sound like for you?

Ruth Wells [00:01:48]:
It's being there for somebody in the honestness that they bring. You know, we used to say to people, leave your life at the front door when you arrive at work, but it's just not possible, is it? Actually, you know, the phone might ring and something might have happened at home or with another family member and that person's going to need a little bit more support. And I want people to be kind to me and I want people to be kind to the people that we serve. We're a brain injury charity, so it's all about people. And if I'm not being kind to, to the people that I work with, they're not going to be kind to the, to the wider public. They're not going to be kind to the person phoning up or the person that they're working with, and they're not going to be kind to our stakeholders. So for me, being kind means hearing where somebody is right now and then looking at what, what they need today and, and what you can give them. And it doesn't mean lying on the floor and letting somebody walk over you.

Ruth Wells [00:03:02]:
And it doesn't mean not running a good and effective organization. It just means meeting that person where they are.

Nia Thomas [00:03:11]:
Yeah. And interesting you say today because you're right. What kindness is for somebody today might change tomorrow when their life might be turned upside down by something overnight, who knows. So I think as a leader you've got to be on your toes. And you're right. Listening to people. Yeah. Definitely agree.

Nia Thomas [00:03:30]:
What are those non negotiable values then for you? And I suppose what do you protect in your organization and how do you make sure that your values are lived rather than those very nice posters that I'm sure graphic designers are paid lots of money to create and they sit on our walls. How do you live it?

Ruth Wells [00:03:50]:
So for me the most important values are being ambitious. I don't want to lead an organization where we don't make any differ difference. Where beneficiaries, you know, come along and we take them out for a coffee and they've had a nice coffee and they've had a nice chat and if you ask them what difference you've made or well, they'll tell you that support workers, very nice person, that's not good enough. I want us to be improving all the time and I want the members of staff to be improving all the time. I want the volunteers to improve and perhaps depending on where they are in their life, accept that that means they're only with us for a short time and then they go off and do something else. And I absolutely want the people that I work with to, to be improving and things to be getting better for them. And I personally am somebody that just can't help being very honest. It's something that people value in me, but it's, it's also a characteristic that I can't kind of help.

Ruth Wells [00:04:58]:
I just am an oversharer and so I respect members of staff who are private. It doesn't mean I'm going to go and pry but I do value people being open and honest with me. And if you're open and honest with me, then I'll work with you through everything else and then finally respect. I will not tolerate the people that we work with being treated as lesser. They are individuals. Brain injury can happen to anybody at any time. Just bad luck. And so it could happen to any of us tomorrow.

Ruth Wells [00:05:37]:
And so we have absolutely got to meet people with the respect that we would expect to be given and, and I also want that through the organization. So we don't have a cleaner, but if we did, you know, it's the sort of typical, I will give the cleaner as much respect as I'm going to give the CEO for national body. And I think that's how it should be. When I arrived at Headway Devon, they were a values organization but unusually they hadn't written them down and so everybody had had slightly different versions of what they would think was a value. And, and so I did lots of exploring to be honest, until the people that we worked with started to say, can you stop asking me this? Ruth had enough of this conversation. So at that point I thought we'd probably chewed it over long enough and I'd had all the feedback and I talked to everybody, the people that we serve, their families, our stakeholders, everybody. And then I sat down with one of our trustees at the time, Dr. Mary Ryan, because often I read other people's value statement and it's, it's not a value, is it? It's a value based behavior and I'm an English graduate so I don't like that.

Ruth Wells [00:07:03]:
So we sat down together and we kind of robustly looked through all the descriptions and then got them down to one word and what was actually a value. And we have got a long values statement that describes what we mean by that. And then I printed them off and I put them up everywhere and when we had a meeting, we were making a decision, they were there on the table and when we held supervisions, asked people how they'd contributed to the values of the organisation since we'd had our last supervision and if they hadn't been behaving in a values based, we'd just be honest about that and explore why. And I'd look at that in interviews and ask questions that tease that out because you can train somebody and mould somebody, but if they hold different values to you, it's not going to work, there's no point. So that's, that's my approach and, and that I think helps us to live and breathe it.

Nia Thomas [00:08:07]:
I think it's interesting when you're having those initial conversations because people do have these slightly different ideas about what kindness or care or respect, what they might mean. So it's really interesting when you start talking to different people and then you've got to distill it down as you say it into that one word. It really brings people back to the fundamentals. What are we doing here? What's Our purpose.

Ruth Wells [00:08:29]:
Yeah, yeah. It means that the, the ground facing staff understand what you're trying to do at the top.

Nia Thomas [00:08:36]:
Yeah.

Ruth Wells [00:08:37]:
So I think it's critical.

Nia Thomas [00:08:38]:
Yeah. You've spoken about the importance of knowing your own limits and recognizing when you're not okay. How do you build that kind of self awareness into, well, your daily practice and then how do you create that for your whole team?

Ruth Wells [00:08:54]:
So I'll be honest and say that I don't always get it right, of course, and I don't always get it right. In me, there are particular things I find a bit difficult. So I am possibly. I haven't bothered to go and get a diagnosis, but I'm possibly autistic and so there are particular things that will be draining for me. So if I go to a massive conference, I'm going to find the actual day absolutely brilliant and wonderful. But at the end of the day my ears are going to hurt because I'm quite sound sensitive. And the following day I'm going, my ears are going to hurt a lot and I'm going to feel like I've been thrown at a wall. And the day after I will try to work from home, but I can't always work from home.

Ruth Wells [00:09:45]:
And so if I can't, then I'm. Now, in the past, you know, I wouldn't necessarily, but now I will tell people that I'm a bit drained. So that people know, not necessarily external people, but, but certainly close members of staff. Just so if I come across as being a bit, not quite as friendly and outgoing, then they know that and, and I try to do that for, for other people. So I learn members of staff, I watch them and people have tells, don't they? So they have tells that they're stressed. I've had members of staff where, you know, they start injuring themselves and you know, they're tired now. And I had one member of staff who actually built. It was fascinating.

Ruth Wells [00:10:38]:
He used to get boxes of papers and kind of build them up as a kind of wall. So that was a very clear towel and then I'll sit down with that member of staff. Now not everybody wants to tell me what's going on. People are private and I don't want somebody necessarily prying for me. But I, I'll use that as an opportunity to say I've noticed and watched. What do you need? And then they can tell me all about it if they like, but they don't have to. People that work with me closely say that one of. And they find it a bit irritating to be Honest.

Ruth Wells [00:11:19]:
But one of the things about me is that I will just sit quietly and look at you. And so it's difficult to wriggle out of that conversation. Yeah, so. So people do tend to. Tend to tell me what's. What's going on.

Nia Thomas [00:11:35]:
I'm really interested. You talked about listening, but it feels like there's something about powers of observation that as a leader, you almost have to have your antennae on and be observing. What are people saying? What are they doing? How are they operating? Because that's very interesting. You're saying that actually people sometimes change their environment when they're. When they want to protect themselves. I suppose. Where do your powers of observation come from? Is it something you've learned? Is it something you've always done? Or have you got to be conscious and deliberate about it?

Ruth Wells [00:12:09]:
So in another lifetime, I was a theatre director and you can't direct if you don't know people and you don't see how they work. And so. And you can't work effectively with actors, I don't think, if you don't understand how they're ticking and the day that they're lacking in energy and what game they need you to play now to bounce them up, or sometimes actually telling actors that, you know, you're not supposed to get on in this play and you're spending too much time outside of the rehearsal room and you're being too friendly and it's coming across. But I am also possibly autistic, and so this is going to sound a little bit crazy, but I see people give off a kind of color, so, I mean, they do walk very differently. And watching somebody's body language when they don't think you're watching them. So in a previous building, we had lots of glass on the front of the office and their staircase, and I'd watch people walk up the staircase. You can learn so much just by doing something like that, because they don't think you're watching. And so they all of the kind of, all right, I'm going to put on my happy face and be all positive.

Ruth Wells [00:13:32]:
All of that goes out of the window and their game face drops and you can see who they really are. But people, to me, people give out a color when they're having a difficult day. There's a kind of hue to them. And so I have that kind of added. Added tool in the box that I don't think most people have.

Nia Thomas [00:13:55]:
No. That's fascinating. When did you discover that you were able to sort of pick out what was happening with individuals by that color.

Ruth Wells [00:14:05]:
Well, it's something that I've always been aware of and my other half is autistic. And so I, for a long time I wondered whether this was just kind of some weird thought in my head because I think we all have weird thoughts, don't we, that we don't share with other people and, and then we were able to, to discuss that and he doesn't see colors, but he does see numbers. And the thing that attracted him to me was that I, I don't have a number above my head. So he is, he can see what people are going to be like before they open their mouth by their, their number. So it's a bit strange but that we do have slightly different experience of the world.

Nia Thomas [00:14:52]:
But that's amazing that you can use those skills, as you say, they're your superpowers in a way to make sure that your teams, your colleagues are well supported and that you can actually, they don't have to put on a mask that actually you're there to support them and the mask can drop. And I think that's amazing. As a leader, your team are going to be taking their well being cues from you. And you said that you're quite open that if you've had a busy day, a busy social day today, you're going to try and work from home tomorrow. Does that sort of behavior in you support your staff to be more open, do you think?

Ruth Wells [00:15:33]:
I hope so. I hope so. And, and I do now. I didn't used to, but I do now check out with people. So one of the negative things is that I can get stuck in a cycle about so I can replay conversations at the end of each day over and over. How could I have said that slightly differently re scripting it and that used to be quite exhausting for me particularly. It's fine if I think the conversation's gone well, but if I think it hasn't then I can get a bit stuck there. So I now just ask people and so that gives people the opportunity to just ask me and for us to kind of check in with each other and I, you know, you have, the thing is you can't impose your way of coping.

Ruth Wells [00:16:27]:
So there are people that something terrible has happened and you want to kind of say oh, you know, maybe you need to do this and do you need a break? And, and actually they don't. They just want to work and, and you have to kind of learn to accept that and learn that other people's way of coping is, is not. But I mean I guess the staff team would be able to say whether they feel that they can be more open. I hope so.

Nia Thomas [00:16:59]:
What kind of questions do you ask to elicit that open feedback? Because I think we all struggle with feedback both in giving and receiving. But actually the way that the question is worded to start with really helps to open that door. So if watchers and listeners want any advice in terms of how do they ask the question? What kind of questions would you suggest, recommend, or what do you use?

Ruth Wells [00:17:24]:
So lots of silence, lots of just sitting there and holding space for somebody and saying, are you okay?

Nia Thomas [00:17:36]:
Okay?

Ruth Wells [00:17:37]:
And then they'll say, oh, yes, I'm fine. And then don't necessarily say anything else, just sit there and look at them. And then if they're not fine, then. Then they'll say, and checking, just checking in with people. And so we have time limits. So I would try and give somebody supervision every six weeks. But if they're, you know, you learn how somebody needs that to be. So there are some staff that, if you sit down and look at them, they'll clam up.

Ruth Wells [00:18:11]:
So you might need to take them on a walk. You might need to. There are some people that you absolutely need to kind of say, I want to have a chat with you because I. You don't seem quite yourself and I just want to check you're okay. Or I just want to check how that conversation's going. Or that seemed quite difficult. How did that feel? And you need to warn them because some members of staff will panic if you say, can we have a quick chat? Other members of staff, if they know you're going to have supervision, then they're just going to get so wound up. Up.

Ruth Wells [00:18:46]:
So there are members of staff who are sort of ask a couple of questions and my supervision form will be sort of slid out of sight and I'll get them to sit down and they'll just be chatting to me. And then at the end I'll say, okay. So I consider that with supervision. Is there anything we haven't talked about and. And do it in. In that way. But it is. You have to mold it to each member of staff.

Nia Thomas [00:19:13]:
So that very much comes back to what you said earlier about that observation. You have to listen to individuals and treat people as individuals.

Ruth Wells [00:19:21]:
Yeah, very much so.

Nia Thomas [00:19:23]:
You mentioned very early on that striking the balance between leading with empathy and kindness, but making sure that you still got an organization that has standards, expectations. You are aspirational, you're always looking for improvement. How do you balance that?

Ruth Wells [00:19:42]:
It's really Hard. And I've had to do horrible things. I'm a, you know, I'm a CEO. All of us at some point will have to do a restructure, make somebody redundant. All of us at some point will have to fire somebody. And I focus on the fact that I'm there for the people that we serve, and so are they. I'm. This isn't a club.

Ruth Wells [00:20:09]:
And so, so when that happens, when I have to do one of those horrible things, I remind myself of that and I remind myself to do it in a way that I would want it done to me. And I do. I. I don't always get that right, of course. And there may be some people who watch this back who have been made redundant by me or fired and don't. Don't have positive thoughts about me. You're. You're not going to be liked by everybody, but there are some people.

Ruth Wells [00:20:46]:
A few months ago, I met somebody who. We'd had to do a restructure. She'd had to reapply for her job. She hadn't got it. She'd been offered another post, but it was a demotion. And so she found another job and left. And I knew she was going to be at this conference. We were both working on it.

Ruth Wells [00:21:06]:
We had different roles, but we're both going to work on it. And so I went up to her at the beginning of the morning and she threw her arms around me. It's. It's about the way you. That you do that for somebody and it's. It's about holding that, but also being respectful. It does make it harder for you. Be much easier if you think, oh, this person's a, you know, an idiot and they need sacking.

Ruth Wells [00:21:35]:
If you, if you decide that you don't like them or they don't have any worthwhile qualities and you stop seeing them as a human being, it makes it much easier. But I. I think that's just not the job. It's. It is hard.

Nia Thomas [00:21:51]:
Yeah, I think you're right that there is that level of respect that you always have to ensure that you are treating people in that way, because it does come back in a different way, in a different life, in a different relationships. But if you have done those difficult things in a very respectful, supportive way, whether that's preparing people for whatever comes next, I think that does. That does count a lot for people who are going through these difficult situations. Many leaders feel they've always got to appear strong. And something that I've picked up from the way you write on LinkedIn is that you hold a lot of stead in vulnerability and that actually that openness and vulnerability. What are your thoughts about vulnerability? And particularly when you're trying to build up trust and credibility, how do you balance all of those things?

Ruth Wells [00:22:44]:
So it's. So the reason why I am so vague. Fun. Well, it's partly a character flaw in me. I cannot help but overshare and it's. But it's also because the kinds of people that I work with, a lot of the people that we work with have had their brain injury while they were. And they've lost all their identity and they, There are things about themselves they hate. There are things about themselves they're embarrassed about.

Ruth Wells [00:23:13]:
I will hear people that we work with saying, talking about their stupid body. And so I don't think it's helpful to, to have this kind of perfection thing. And there are two things that kind of really pushed me in that direction. One is I had really severe postnatal depression whilst running a mental health organization and I couldn't, I couldn't either. The doctor wanted to sign me off, but my other half's an immigrant so if I had been signed off he would have been deported because I, I must earn a certain amount at all times. And so I had to go to work whilst a mess poor staffed him And I did try and hide it, but it meant my recovery was much slower. I think I probably came across really unhelpfully. I look back at that kind of period and think I just should have been honest about it, I really should.

Ruth Wells [00:24:12]:
And I did do that whole kind of putting my face on and walking down the corridor and. But I mean I'd have been having a panic attack the entire journey to work because I had separation anxiety from my baby. So. And then I had terrible visualizations that my baby and my other half were dead ridiculous ones. I've worked with dying people. They don't look like what I saw, but I couldn't stop seeing it. So there was that and the learning from that and then there was. I just got fed up because people were misconstruing me and I was hiding the fact that I thought I was autistic.

Ruth Wells [00:24:58]:
When I first realized my daughter, they, the school were observing autistic traits in her and because my other half is autistic and my stepchildren are autistic, I thought, I thought, oh, she's just got it from him. And then the teacher phoned up, described all the traits over the phone and they described me, not him at all. And it was during the pandemic, so I had some kind of privacy and some opportunity to try and work through that. But I was, it was because I was desperately trying to hide it. It was coming across. I was not able to say I need to work from home tomorrow because I've got a conference. I was not able to. Or if I'm thinking about something, I need to move.

Ruth Wells [00:25:48]:
So it, I might get up from my desk and then go move and make a cup of coffee and then come back. And all the time I'm thinking about what I'm going to write next in the, in, in the thing that I'm doing or what my to do list is or what this problem is and how I'm going to fix it. And I find that people don't like that because they, you, they want you to move through the office being oh, hello. But I can't do that because I'm in my little focus bubble and if you, if I didn't come out and say I think I'm probably autistic, then people wouldn't know that about me. And I don't understand jokes. So you can, unless it's a political joke, you can crack a joke at me. And it just goes completely over my head. And of course that doesn't help with staff bonding either.

Ruth Wells [00:26:41]:
So, so it just, it became a necessary thing. And I think that if we're going to truly tackle the stigma in the world against people that are having difficult time, we have to be honest that none of us are robots. And if we're going to, if I, as a female leader, I'm not going to do the 80s thing and pretend I'm male and I'm, and I'm saying this with all due respect to, to male counterparts because a lot of them are not that kind of stiff upper lip, straight faced, hide it all. But that's how we're sort of brought up, isn't it?

Nia Thomas [00:27:24]:
Yeah.

Ruth Wells [00:27:24]:
And I want to, I want to, I want to be a female leader and I'm emotional and that's how I want to be. And if I'm excited about something, I want to be openly excited about something. And if I'm sad about something or disappointed, I want to be honest about that and I want other people to be able to do that too. So for all those, all those reasons.

Nia Thomas [00:27:51]:
And I think that's probably one of the things that I really like in your writing is that, that vulnerability, that openness and you share part of your own experience and you always do it very Professionally, respectfully. And I think that's something that we should all aspire to. So, listeners, watchers, if you aren't already Following Ruth on LinkedIn, I really recommend you do, because the way she writes is really important. And if you want to become a better leader, this is the kind of leader that you need to emulate and you need to learn from. So, yeah, most definitely follow Ruth. When, when we are talking about feedback and creating space for people, we've talked more about one to ones, but if you're in a situation where you want to create that opportunity for people to feel safe, to speak up, to share ideas and admit mistakes in that professional context, what mechanisms or practical steps have you got in your organization that creates this kind of environment?

Ruth Wells [00:28:56]:
So we have the value of learning and we pass that down the chain.

Nia Thomas [00:29:02]:
Okay.

Ruth Wells [00:29:02]:
So because we're a countywide organization, there are members of staff I never meet, so I hold new managers to account. I think when you're inexperienced, you feel very vulnerable, so you don't want to show it. You want to feel safe and you. So you want to be the kind of the robot version of you that's perfect and doesn't have anything going on at home. And you might get very irritated with your staff team when they don't do that or they have issues. And so it's. So it's about holding the line management team to account on that and to making sure that there's a learning approach to the whole organization. It's written into our policies when something goes wrong.

Ruth Wells [00:29:56]:
You know, we try to understand what it is that happened. And it's about being honest when something doesn't go right. So if I've tried some fundraising strategy and I've fallen flat on my face case, it's about being honest about that. And I think, and I hope that that creates a culture where people can feel safe.

Nia Thomas [00:30:21]:
How do you bake that learning in? I'm just thinking about governance structures. Is there a way that you are openly, deliberately baking that into your governance process so that learning is the way that you operate so that you can try, fail, but learning is something that we, we do very consciously. How do you make it happen?

Ruth Wells [00:30:45]:
So it is about processes, it is about policies, it is about looking at things and investigating things. It's about having Those sort of 360 reviews for people. It's about having a learning plan for individuals and making sure that's cascaded down the organization. It's. It's about challenging and creating culture where it's okay for people to to challenge us both externally and. And internally. And it's about understanding. It's a.

Ruth Wells [00:31:24]:
So. So you have to have all the processes and the strategy documents and. And everything else. It's really difficult because we're a small charity and the margins are minuscule and so there's not a lot of space for getting it wrong. But it's important. And the very best people succeed by having fallen on their face 10 times.

Nia Thomas [00:31:54]:
Yes. And got up the 11th.

Ruth Wells [00:31:57]:
Yes.

Nia Thomas [00:31:58]:
If we think about feedback then. And you've talked about your becoming aware of maybe an autism diagnosis even though you're not diagnosed. Have you had any feedback during your career or your time in the world of work that gave you a light bulb moment or really helped to develop your self awareness?

Ruth Wells [00:32:20]:
Yes, of course. So I was very lucky about 20 years ago to win upcoming leadership award by Akivo and. And I got free training by the leadership Trust and it is about strategy but it's about. So you sort of experience. I don't know whether they still do, but you. You experienced 10 years worth of career squashed into a few days. So you were put in teams and they looked at the way that you cope and they. And it was one of these kind of influenced by the military horrendous things where they purposely put you into your most stressful situation.

Ruth Wells [00:33:09]:
So caving was. I hate caving.

Nia Thomas [00:33:14]:
Yeah, I'm with you there.

Ruth Wells [00:33:15]:
Hate it. And so I had to do caving and I. I got round to the first cave because the rest of the team knew that I was open about that. I hate caving. But it was a dry cave which was slightly easier to cope with. We didn't have any light but a member of my team put themselves behind me and in front of me and I was able to just follow them. So the second time we went in a cave they took my team away and the third time they took me in a cave, they made me squeeze through a very little gap and they made me swim underwater. To be honest, at the point where they made me swim underwater I got quite cross and refused.

Ruth Wells [00:33:58]:
I told them that was enough. Now I'd learned the lesson so that that gave me feedback. And then at the end of the session you're just exhausted after all those days. They do little mind tricks on you. So about the second day I started laying my clothes out and the floor because they were telling us they might come and knock on our door and make us start the day earlier. They moved meals around so you didn't know what the plan was. They did all Sorts of things they did to us. It's horrific.

Ruth Wells [00:34:31]:
And we had to. There were problems that we had to solve and you had to solve that as a team. I was very frustrating for me because they were all business people and I was one of the few women. I was the only woman in my group and there were some ex military people in my group and they were terribly competitive. They just wanted to beat the other teams.

Nia Thomas [00:34:58]:
Okay.

Ruth Wells [00:34:58]:
And several of the challenges I realized we could win if we collaborated, but nobody would collaborate. I just couldn't get my team to do, to do that. That was anathema. So yes, they would win, but so would we. So, so frustrating. So. And then at the end of it, I got given some feedback about. And the things that they had struggled with were that in the middle of.

Ruth Wells [00:35:27]:
Because all the challenges were timed. In the middle of the timed challenges I had realized that we needed to do something and I hadn't checked in enough what that person was doing. At that point I'd interrupted them.

Nia Thomas [00:35:42]:
Ah, okay.

Ruth Wells [00:35:44]:
And I'd been, I'd been emotional and some of them hadn't been able to cope with that.

Nia Thomas [00:35:49]:
Wow.

Ruth Wells [00:35:50]:
I got cross. And they didn't like that. So not in a shouty, ridiculous way, just in a frustrated way. And so that was interesting and helpful. But at the beginning, they were all quite honest that at the beginning of the week, because I didn't like caving, I also had to absolutely. I don't really like that. And I'd come down the first morning and I'm allergic to feathers in pillows. And so I asked for a different pillow.

Ruth Wells [00:36:20]:
And they apparently decided that I was going to be a nightmare from this. Oh, wow, little prima donna they thought I was. And then they told me that they'd realized as the week went on that I wasn't like that at all. That I just was allergic to the better than the pillow. And so their, their view of me had changed. And you know, all credit to them. So being able to adjust in that way. So I learned from that.

Ruth Wells [00:36:50]:
But yes, of course, all the way through my career, you're going to get a. You're going to get chairs that give you really challenging feedback. You can do 360 degree feedback and read some things that aren't very nice. You're gonna have to sack somebody and get really bad feedback. At that point. You're going to make somebody redundant and they're going to tell you it's your fault because there isn't enough money for the organization. Why are they losing their job? Why aren't you losing your job, you're going to have all of that. I think feedback is difficult.

Ruth Wells [00:37:24]:
I allow myself to stand in the emotion and have my emotional response silently. Nobody else has to deal with that. Perhaps family, but nobody else has to deal with that. And then when I'm ready, unpack. What I can learn from that, what training do I need, how can I do that? And I have improved. I haven't stopped being emotional and I'm not sure that's possible, but I am conscious when I'm around somebody that's going to find that uncomfortable. And I will schedule my being emotional to a different time. But other members of staff are emotional and so some people do find it helpful because they then feel that they can be themselves and not hide so much.

Ruth Wells [00:38:13]:
And I, I write, so I'll write a reflective journal so that I don't lose that. That bit of feedback is very easy, very, very easy and tempting to just think, oh, that person's wrong and they're not, not to deal with them. But we, you know, I, I think we learn until we die. So, yeah, there's going to, there's always going to be negative feedback and that, that's a good thing.

Nia Thomas [00:38:38]:
And I think you're right. It's about how you learn to cope with it and to accept that if you do have a very emotional reaction to feedback, that you give yourself space. Because if that's the reality of how you operate, you've got to go with it and make sure that your team are supported as you live through that. And like you, I always say that if I have difficult feedback, you need to give me 48 hours before I can do anything logical, sensible with it and learn from it. So, yes, definitely. So the final question I want to ask you is what quality do you want to be remembered for as a leader? What is the one quality that you want to be remembered for?

Ruth Wells [00:39:19]:
I want to make a difference. So I want somebody to look back at their time working with me and think that it was a positive experience. Even if it ended badly, it was a positive experience and they, they learn or they grew in some way from that experience. That that's what I want. And I, you know, I'm not going to be able to do that for everybody, of course, but I think if you're the sort of leader who's worked your way up from being a support worker, which I have, then you're, you know, it's sad when you have to put the client work down and do the wider stuff and you replace your clients with your team members.

Nia Thomas [00:40:09]:
Yeah. Ruth, it's been lovely having a conversation with you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. Really lovely to have had the opportunity. So thank you so much for joining me.

Ruth Wells [00:40:19]:
Thank you very much.

Nia Thomas [00:40:21]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed the conversation as much as I have. If you want to keep up to date with what's happening with knowing self, knowing others, head over to my website, ksko.co.uk.

Ruth Wells [00:40:36]:
SAM.