Be Transparent. Build Trust. Own It! with Leanne Lynch (Heathrow)
+ Notes
Leanne Lynch is Director Of Technology and Cyber Defence at Heathrow and 100% Imaginal Leader. After working for telecoms, internet, manufacturing, FMCG she joined Heathrow. 9 months later she was asked to head up, not the one department she signed up for, but all four technology departments.
This is the first time in this series that my guest Leanne, and I teared up. Her stories will resonate with every leader who fell victim to the unexpected and unwelcome explosion that was COVID. This courageous, caring woman tells three authentic stories about how she creates environments where people blossom and shine. She explains the need to continue to care and take ownership especially when the chips are down and the pressure is on.
+ Transcript
00:15 KATZ Welcome to Humans Leading Humans, towards the future of work that works for people: a smorgasbord of snackable stories to help you be a more effective leader. My guest this week is most definitely an imaginal leader, Leanne Lynch is director of technology and cyber defense at Heathrow. I met Leanne a couple of months ago. And her story, her way of talking, her openness, really resonated with me. So we've kept in touch, and every conversation we've had has inspired me so much, so of course I had to invite her onto the show, so that her stories could inspire you as much as they've inspired me. Just imagine what it must have been like to be a leader in aviation during this mad, Marta times, I hadn't really until I met Leanne, but you're about to find out what is it about her that made the CEO of Heathrow, when the shit hit the fan and COVID exploded when she'd only been there for nine months and had never worked in aviation before, to put her in charge of all four technology teams. Now you know why I'm dedicating time to make this podcast by now. I'm sure it's for all of you who work inside organizations, or who work with people and are struggling to get the best from them. You probably know by now that I've condensed 20 years of experience and learning, and pain and excitement and science into one simple framework to help leaders get the best from their people. I call it the Create framework. C stands for collaboration and communication and consistency and courage. R stands for reward and respect and recognition, I'm not going to go through all now. But you can see the whole framework at www.katzkiely.com Anyway, I've sent the CREATE framework to Leanne, and asked her to tell three stories of what makes her a special leader. Before I introduce you to Leanne, I really want to say a massive, massive thank you to all of you who have sent me feedback and suggestions for you'd like to see more of, and how I can improve the show. Andrew the feedback you sent me was extraordinary, thank you thank you thank you. Your feedback is really important to me. It energizes me, it makes me want to keep on making the show, so please do, head over to www.katzkiely.com. Sign up to the Humans Leading Humans newsletter and connect on our social channels, do all of that stuff. But enough of that. It's time for you to meet Leanne Lynch.
A few months ago, during these crazy years of Zoom, a wonderful woman called Liz Williams who has pulled together this organization called FutureDotNow, which is looking at digital skills, all together are really one of the nicest events that I've been on over this entire lockdown, in truth, looking at behavior and culture, and all of the things have to underpin digital transformation. Anyway, one of the women on this particular event was Leanne Lynch, and I was really struck by the way you spoke, and that's why I've invited you. So in time-honored ritual, could you tell the listeners a little bit about what you've done, not who you are, because who you are is this amazing woman who's courageous and has somehow made it as a woman to the top in technology, which impresses me beyond belief. So tell us a little bit about what you've done.
04:30 LEANNE LYNCH Oh thank you Katz, and it was great meeting you at that event and really being inspired by the way that you've brought CREATW to life and being able to articulate your leadership. So I think my journey today, well I'm actually not a technologist at heart - I did my education in history and my master's in Medieval Studies, which does throw quite a few people because they're like, how did you get here - but I think some of the things that really inspired me when I did history and why I loved it, it's all about people. It's about, why do people make changes, what really drives people to stay in IT and technology where success is always because people have taken hold of it and gone, ‘I can make this work’, whether it's improving my home life my work life, but that's when you really say you take life. And I think that's always excited me and all the roles I've done today have always been with that, bringing the change and really seeing how it can transform things. So, after I did my history degrees I started working in IT where I was in Customer Care, and billing, and then I started to train on the systems and teach other people how to do it, and then it just progressed from there and then when I work as a business analyst or I worked with organizations to understand what is it they were currently doing, what their challenges were and work with them to really see well, how the tool helps improve things. And then beyond that the thing that I always have loved is. Yes, everyone goes, yes, yes, that's what I need. I need one of those and you deliver it, and then people go through. Now what, so it wasn't just about making the tool, great for the day, you've landed it, and we've been staying on that journey so it became sustainable, and people didn't reject it because they weren't quite sure how it was relevant to them. So I've done that, I've worked through telecoms, I worked for [AOL] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL) for a while which was brilliant. I remember, creating screen grabs for the first end for a while this is going back before smartphones, it was very cutting edge, and then I've worked in manufacturing and CPG and now I work in aviation, and I'd say that the common thread throughout all is really kind of work out how to transform not just with the tools but how people work and helping people understand how it can add value, certainly the last year has tested even my transformation skills and my ability to change so it's been a good one.
06:51 KATZ All of the things you’ve said and it's so interesting for me. These moments for me were just so interesting to hear people's stories and to find out where people started because I think there always is an assumption. If you're this, then that must be what you've done all your life. Well not really, no. Because actually, leaders are people who can lead in any situation, whether it be marketing or business or tech, which is where you are now. Anyway, enough of that. What's your story, number one.
07:19 LEANNE LYNCH So my story number one goes back to when I think it was really when I learned, if you want to lead people, you have to get a balance between how much you lead them by the hand and how much you provide an environment for them to swell and grow and blossom. I was recently into a new role and was joined in my team by a lady an amazing lady called Marina, who joined my team and joined up to quite a low performance review if not fully understanding why it was, and we were asked to take a look and work together to see how would we improve and take that for what were the right next steps in this organization. And for me personally, I remember thinking, oh my goodness, what a responsibility, I've got to fix this, I've got to fix whatever it is that's going on, I have to fix it. I let it build up to that point of overwhelming and it's a terrific wreck and actually I thought well let's talk to Marina and find out about her. So I remember sitting down with her and listening to what she had done what her strengths were, where she was really passionate and I genuinely couldn't understand or tally that performance review that she had got, and it could be an array of things but I do think the situation you are in, and the environment you were in is really key to making sure that you're successful, where you can shine your strength. For as I spoke to her and I got to understand where her strengths were and what she was looking to do, we took a look at the challenges we had within the next year in terms of the deliverables and the things we need to get done, and we looked for things that would really bring to life those strengths so one of them is this amazing ability to network. When understanding who are the right people you need to bring on the journey, and turn that around, out, and then bringing a framework of organization to something that meant it was repeatable, which is really key when it comes to sustaining it. If you learned anything, would change anything that is too complicated for anyone to work out and carry on with its’ never going to be successful. So if you really focused on that and kept in constant contact throughout it, you know, I learned loads from your ability to work through them, or something like that I'm not necessarily really strong that way, wait too long to be invited into the room, where she would just be knocking on the door so I'm really learned from her as well. And so we had an amazing year. It was probably fab for us all, at the end of the year, rocky performance would move to the top performance review, we could reward somebody. It could have gone very differently. Had I not stepped back a bit. If I had suddenly not been so overwhelmed by that sense of responsibility I had to learn to stop micromanaging everything, fix it, and it was hard. It's not easy to step back because you ultimately take ownership of it, but you can only provide someone the ability to grow. And then they have to step on that journey, otherwise they're not growing. So that's probably my first, you know, when I look back and think about how I started to rethink where comfort might take me down the micromanagement or control it all route, and actually stepping back, is far more beneficial not just for them but for me because you just all grow when you're in that sort of journey,
10:43 KATZ And that takes courage.
10.45 LEANNE LYNCH Yes
10.47 KATZ It does because we've been programmed to think that leaders are a particular kind of creature that command and control, and we built organisations whereby people like your dear friend, what was the name, Marina. Marina, you know she's a change agent. She's the kind of person that doesn't necessarily fit particularly well into a corporate culture. But those people if you get it right and you empower them and you allow them to be the best they can be, they are the most important people inside the corporation and usually they get pushed out by the corporate antibodies. And because they're different. People don't know how to take them. So that resonates with me on so many levels, and makes me think about so many different situations I've been in over the years. Story number two.
11:38 LEANNE LYNCH So story number two is just going forward a few more years where I was taking over a new department. It was one that I'd gone for and it was all just being finalized and hadn't been formally announced, and I'm sat at my desk and someone, a gentleman called Andrew came, tapped me on the shoulder and said so I hear you're going to take over the department and be in charge. I said well it's not formal then he went you’re one of the people I would like to tell you what we need for you. I mean I was really taken aback. Okay, I mean, I felt very included because they wanted me over. And I went and met this team, and they were amazing. I mean loads of organisations talk about the agile organisation, constantly changing and challenging, rolling out test products, really short and fast if it doesn't work and moving on, actually doing that is really hard. Having that continual change, grow, takes a mindset that is just phenomenal and one that I will constantly aspire to truly understand. So, I went and I met them, and I usually was brought up to speed. I had to do a lot of reading, I said that I understand the principles but you guys actually live this on a day to day. I need to learn what it is you do, how I don't get in the way of it. And then what you actually need from me and they knew that, for they knew that if I came in and tried to apply a command or control type leadership and there's nothing wrong with command control in the right environment but if I tried to take control of it, to bring myself up to speed, I would break this wonderful thing they had. So they knew it. And so they got in front of me, and they did bring me up. I would say that some of my biggest leadership learnings were just writing, always making sure I was doing right by them. As I took over the department we really decided, we have lots of capabilities for rolling out time and time again. And then we had one capability that we wanted to roll out to a wider organization that had not lived in this, you know, rolling out of a trial, or if it doesn't work, then bin it or change it quickly, and we're much more used to the sort of, I need this product. Here's everything I'm going to need for the next five years when building. So we probably, looking back, maybe should spend a bit more time bringing everyone up to speed with what it actually means if you want to go into that route of testing and trialing and moving fast, but we didn't. So we went in, we built something within eight weeks. The business didn't quite understand that what we built wasn't going to look perfect, it was going to be what was needed, right for when we went live. They were still building out the business model that went alongside it. And it just got very heated in terms of the market that we're going to go live with it, felt that we'd let them completely down, we were getting frustrated because we were like, look, it's not going to look perfect, it's just going to be what you need from day one, learn and let's move on. And the trust wasn't there, and that's nothing but any individual in the room, all wanted to do the right thing. So my lead at the time was an amazing lady called Dimple. And again, I have a wall, and I call it the Costner wall of phrases and terms that Dimple comes up with to succinctly put why things are successful, challenging, and, and to still post thank goodness I still learn from her, but she was in charge of this area and had complete autonomy to make it work, and was going out to the markets, and I could sense the tension in terms of how far this could explode in terms of, you know the consequences and people being pulled out, so I stepped in, not to remove any autonomy on the product from her, but literally to support the conversation, because at the end of the day, I fully trust, and would always trust individuals who are SMEs to know what they're doing, if they're given the right framework, the right conversations, they will 99% of the time, nail it. When it doesn't go right, often could be that the conversations not right, frame knots not right, so I never wanted to remove the autonomy but I just needed to make sure that everyone understood that it was my accountability, and it was me in the room that had the hard conversation if it went that way, but again a real balancing act not to take over and not to undermine the skill and the fact that she was the expert, but provided that yes I want my name on the door. I'm the one that ultimately is accountable for it and kind of getting that balance right.
16:16 KATZ Why God I tell you about my first company. It always, it feels really uncomfortable and somebody is going to be pissed off somewhere. But I'd always end up saying in the meetings at the end of the day it's my fault. I hired you, and therefore, the buck stops with me, and somebody would always go well no it was my fault and I was going but it doesn't matter whose fault it is the point I'm making is, we are all learning together. So I absolutely love what you just said. And I think the temptation is very courageous I think because when things start going wrong and you've got somebody breathing down your neck the temptation is to go, oh yeah, they should never have done that, as opposed to what you did, which is, I'm going to sit by your side, I've got your back.
17:04 LEANNE LYNCH I do remember that we did have that conversation and also always remember that there's always exceptions, but nobody does something wrong, or makes a mistake on purpose. Even if, when it's horrible and you think, that’s it, it’s my people not liking the place. Most times it's something that is not in someone's intention to do it wrong, that certainly wasn't the case here, but just when you were saying about people getting worried about it being their fault when mistakes are made, that's just how we learn.
17:34 KATZ One of my strap lines is the only failure is failure to learn from mistakes. If you can't create an environment where people can go, I'm really getting hammered here and I'm not sure that I've done something wrong or maybe I did. You know you need to make sure that people feel safe enough to step forward and say, yeah, okay, I could have done it better. And the next time we do it, we'll do better. I think what the opposite side of that is the opposite of CREATE leadership is, yeah, you should never done that, I haven't got your back, just get on with it, and therefore you lose all your trust. They get unproductive. I love your story. Okay so, story number three, please Leanne.
18:18 LEANNE LYNCH Well this one's more recent and probably the biggest change I have gone through in leadership and everything and I'm sure I'm not alone. So, this story actually comes at the beginning of the pandemic where I took on the role that I am now in. So when I joined Heathrow, I'd only been in for nine months, I came in very specifically to set up digital services. And then COVID hit and, as an industry, aviation could see what was coming sooner than some other industries. And so the organization made a decision to reorganize and downsize to face the next 18 months. So, to where we are about now, and as a result of that, I went from working in a department with a CIO, and four other directors to just me. When I say just me. It was then I was in charge of the whole department. And yeah, even now when I try and articulate that first week. I remember getting called in go, we'd like you to take this on, you need to reorganize and resize the department to reflect how much investment and how much we're going to be able to grow in the next 18 months. And I had only been there nine months so I didn't come from aviation. Two or three individuals I knew really well but most I knew of by reputation. And so I had to appoint a new leadership team, and an operating model and I had a week. So I got told this, and then, on the Monday morning, we all went into lockdown and I’m sat in my room and I'm going, oh my gosh, on the one hand you're right, treat it like a puzzle, we've got this. Look at the organizational chart. How can you make it work where you're driving efficiently, getting most efficient way of working, and I've also got to change the size of the organization. And it wasn't something that was just hitting our work it was at home, like you had no escape from it. So I sat there and I immediately thought well I need to be transparent and again I've had to obey some leaders and I do think a lot of what's really positive about my leadership style is because I had leaders the company blossomed in this way, but sometimes you find that the transparency is always there. Don't get me wrong, for certain messages that need to be handed a certain time, you just don't share everything. But when you are facing that when I was in that situation, I have to get to a point as quick as possible to share my ideas and my speaking with potentially this might be the new thing, and the peers that have just moved into to new roles who were really generous with their time, and I had to get trust in my new leadership team, but we were on the right path, so I shared, I said, and I shared, I got approval for all the HR because we're still in reorganization nobody's roles were secure. I was like, right, this is my thinking, what won't work, what will work, you have been in this organization for 10 years plus, am I insane? And literally we have to go that transparent there was no room for, well do you know what I'm thinking, is if you've been in those leadership meetings. Well, I want you to achieve this and you're like yeah, you've just given me a North Star framework, I had no room to pass, or I really had to be transparent. So I opened up, and we put it into place. We've got the new operating model, and I have to do a reorganization at the same time and I had to buy. And it was one day I had 24 One to One calls, I couldn't do it in a room, and yes I have a video on, but you can't, you've got to own it. Yeah, you've got to look those people in the eye, and go ‘I'm sorry,’ and
22:08 KATZ No I can't imagine.
22:12 So, we got through them, and it was, you know, and they were so brilliant, everyone understood and this was the one thing I was really clear. Nothing I was doing, I mean what are we doing, and I was doing lots but no matter how much I included people, no matter how transparent I was, it was my accountability, my responsibility. So I brought them on the journey. And I made it clear to them every step of the way, what was happening was not because we had an issue, we didn't have a burning platform before. The leadership team I belong to have done some amazing things and it's because they had done these amazing things 18 months later, we're still going because if they haven't made some of the changes and decisions they've made when all of this has happened. Well, we could have been in an absolute nightmare. But we were able to work overnight. We have some of the best platforms that are out there from a technology point of view to build on. And we were already looking at how do we live in our operating model. So that was really key in that whole conversation, in that conversation that I had with all the individuals within that first round of change was, was genuinely, it is not because we are broken. This is a circumstance. So we then launched the new operating model, we had a big meeting again, teams, oh my gosh, I have lived on teams for 15 months, I've spent the last 15 months, inviting what feels like the whole organization into my home on a regular basis. While I'm on teams, one of the things that was really key, once my leadership team was in place, as we were working through, you know the real realization, as we were working through the operating model. We have daily calls, half an hour, every day. Every day we got on a call with everyone. Okay, my leadership team are phenomenal. The minute they knew that they took ownership of having the talk, who within their own team rather than me having to do the whole organization, but every day we'll check, that you’re okay having this talk, this is not a sign of not being a leader if you really can't have that one to one real personal connection. So we've really worked closely on that, and there was no measuring people's capabilities through that time so we had a regular chat. And then we got to the point that we launched our operating model and we were able to show how it just evolved from what we were doing before, to reflect where it was. It was during that call that I then realized I'm now asking a Department of 64 people to trust me. And they you know for nine months they have seen me, I stand up at certain meetings and they seem to progress. They really didn't know me and we weren't going to catch up in a comfortable chair. So I worked with my PA, Suzanne. I scheduled a 30 minute chat with every member of my organization. And before that chat went out, I made it really clear, this isn't just to get into knowing you but for you to ask me questions. I am not here to mock your homework, it is literally so that I had the opportunity to say tell me a bit about you, what do you love, and we found out some amazing things. I've got people who are experts at flying drones in my organizations. I've got people who have lived all over the world. The beginning of that journey was really about taking ownership of the fact that I was doing this change, really being transparent and working quickly to earn their trust, because I had to earn their trust. We no longer meet half an hour every day. In fact, we you know, once we were more comfortable we had an open honest, we need this really on a regular basis and I was saying to you earlier I would like to drop in on a Friday. And then we meet as a big leadership team across the departments on our Wednesday. Yes, we still had amazing deliveries. We took something like 30% out of our total cost base, we delivered a digital Academy and you mentioned earlier in the chat about Sammit, and that is you know we built on this amazing digital workplace this rollout of power apps which is a tool from Microsoft that means you can build your own application, you know to take away some of the manual just really inform your job and Sammit had originally been a security guard had been offered power wraps, came up with this amazing language translation application to help him in his job when dealing with this. And then he just blossomed from there he then created a community he's won all industry awards. Now he's in my team. I'm continuing to build and grow on that. What a year.
26:55 KATZ Yeah, fantastic story. And I think we're really, as you were talking about the fact that he was taking on an entirely new situation in probably one of the most stressful times that anyone has had to work, and you are having to tell people, you did that in the right way, face to face that I mean all you know and so many leaders would say, I don't have time for this. We're under pressure. We need to get this done, therefore why on earth would I waste 30 minutes for each human being in my team. What you did was common sense, but rare and I can't even tell you how in awe I am of you in your style of leadership over that time, and how much I thank you for being so authentic and honest, and talking about the real people side behind how it feels to be a senior leader, especially this time. There's something about the way that women lead, which is not always and I'm making a big stereotype, but it is based upon a feeling of I care. I want to do the right thing. And it's something I'm hearing a lot anyway. Anyway, so the last thing that we need to do Leanne is to figure out, what are we going to call your episode of Humans Leading Humans.
28:28 LEANNE LYNCH Oh my gosh, you know on your CREATE thing, I think transparency, trust, are two things that are essential. But accountability is a big one because I think always if you are going to take a leadership role, whatever that leadership role is, you own it, and you have to take accountability for it, even when it is more than just a deadline, when it is about people, and you are owning the story that's going to impact. And I think last year has really brought home, what does accountability mean, when you are a leader. And it's not just about getting projects in on time or keeping within budget is about making your people blossom, giving them a safe environment. And then as a team, you will exceed and excel.
29:18 KATZ Oh my god.] What an amazing session I can't thank you enough. Yeah. Honestly I can't thank you enough for your authenticity and your openness, your humanity. It's so easy to pitch about leaders at organizations to see the bad in everything, and keep criticizing. But the flip side of that is that taking responsibility is freaking hard, being a leader is hard. It takes real courage to retain humanity, when the chips are down. And when the pressure is on. It's even harder. Leaders are humans too guys. I love, love doing these interviews, I'm learning so much. It doesn't matter whether you're a CMO or a CGO, or a CHRO or CTO. Your only job is to empower people to give them a platform to rise from to make them feel safe. I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did. You have been listening to Humans, Leading Humans towards a future of work, works for people. This podcast is brought to you in partnership with the marketing society. If you are a senior leader, and you need to know how and the network to succeed, and you're not already a member, get over to their website and become part of that tribe. The notes are below. I would 100% recommended it. A massive, massive thanks to the fantastic super Terranea for the magical Stinger stings, go to wearebeep.com To find out more about the CREATE framework and how we support companies by unlocking the problem solving potential of humans. If you love this podcast, pass it on to your friends and your colleagues, subscribe. Thank you, thank you for joining us. The links are in the notes. Be inspired, Be imaginal, Be more human, and I'll see you next week. .
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