Chloe: To be an effective CEO, you need to be a generalist. You might argue with me about this Lawrie, but I think it, for me, that’s the best way to approach it.

But I do think being a producer is a really, really good way into being a CEO. My experience, although less traditional, probably sets you up much better for being a CEO than a lot of other people because you have so many skills that you can use. 

Lawrie: Today’s episode of Leadership Listening is with Chloe Straw, who is the Chief executive of Audio UK, and as we launched Leadership Listening as a podcast in the middle of June this year.

I thought one of the things I ought to do is scout around the world of podcasting. And of course I discovered not only audio UK, but also Chloe, and I think Chloe’s story, which you are going to hear now, is a wonderful example of how a chief executive can have, If I may say so, very non-classic beginnings.

A journey towards being a CEO, which is very difficult to guess from its early beginnings. But as you’ll see in the latter part of the podcast, you’ll see an episode which demonstrates really strong tenets of being a very effective CEO in the communications industry. So let’s enjoy the episode with Chloe Straw.

They do say that youngsters quite often have sort of leadership traits, whether it’s in the brownies or the girl guides or something else, sporting attainments or whatever. But what’s the story behind Chloe? 

Chloe: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t think I had any leadership aspirations when I was younger at all.

I’m trying to think, but um I didn’t do the brownies or the girl guides or anything like that. I wasn’t a prefect at school. None of those things. I don’t think I specifically focused on being a leader. I think when I was younger. I was really into science and maths when I was at school, which I notice as I sort of become acquainted with other people in CEO level positions, there seems to be quite a progression of people doing science and maths as a degree and then going on to be CEOs.

So maybe for a future episode, it’s something to look into whether if there’s a kind of correlation between CEO traits and science and math. But no, I was a good student, probably went slightly off the rails when I was a teenager. So in some ways it’s probably amazing that I’ve made it here at all.

Yeah, as I say, didn’t really have leadership ambitions. I think that only thing that I knew I wanted to do was that one of my parents worked in media. And the other one worked in as you know, business and consultancy. And the main thing that I thought when I grew up was I didn’t want to work in either media or consultancy.

And so of course I find myself working in media in a CEO position, so obviously had some sort of influence from my parents without meaning to.So, yeah, early life was sort of as it is for most people, I guess. I did relatively well at school, messed up my A levels because of a variety of reasons.

Probably went out too much, had to retake them. And then ended up at the University of Bristol where I wanted to study, or I did study physics and philosophy as a double major, which was great. It was sort of a wonderful university, really great course. But I primarily went there because I was really into music and Bristol has an amazing music scene.

So I’m not sure how other people choose universities, but mine was dual, kind of wanting to live in that city and also being really interested in the kind of physics and philosophy as subjects. 

Lawrie: Why, why those two subjects? A very, sort of a bit unusual, I suppose. 

Chloe: Yeah, I think I was always ambitious.

So not necessarily towards leadership, but ambitious in terms of what I studied and my interests. And I loved physics. I couldn’t tell you much. I love physics, which seems bizarre. It’s mostly why I hate it, but I think it’s just fascinating. Like what a satisfying subject to study. It’s so logical and you know, what makes the world go round. But I think I was quite conscious. I’ve always been, I don’t wanna say a bit of a rebel, it’s a bit cheesy. But you can probably, I mean, yeah, I have that in my blood and so I think part of me was like, I don’t wanna just physics, that’s boring.

So what else can I do? And obviously philosophy and physics have, you know, a lot in common in terms of how they look at the world or the way they examine the world. So I think that was why, but I also think that I liked going out a lot and I think that if you do a double major, it is a lot of work.

You don’t get half of the thing that I kind of thought was that they bring it together as a, you know, as one degree, but actually you’ve got three quarters of a physics degree and three quarters of a philosophy degree, and there was no crossover. You just got to do all the extra work. And I think in fact, there was a philosophy of science module, that was the only module there was, that had any form of crossover whatsoever and I thought it was too boring, so I did aesthetics instead. So, yeah. 

Lawrie: And what was the entry then to the world of work? How did that present itself? 

Chloe: So when I was at university, as I say, I went for the music and they had the kind of good old student radio station, I guess, called Burst. So I used to do that with two of my friends.

We had a friend called Mike, who is a DJ. He used to DJ kind of reggae and dance and then my friend Susie, who is now the head of international at Apple Podcast, so she’s fantastic. Used to come along and we’d kind of produce the show. So we’d press all the buttons but Suzy used to work as a receptionist in a sunbed shop. So we got into this hysterical kind of thing that we do. So I can’t remember when we recorded the show, but once a week I’d go to visit her at work and have a sunbed, which I’m horrified by now. Obviously in the middle of Bristol in winter, I’d go and have a sunbed and then we’d go and produce this radio show with our friend Mike, and that was what we did.

So it was quite a fun university time. But yeah, I did that. Graduated from Bristol and then the classic kind of young people, what do I do now? So then took the slightly weird root of doing a DJ and dance music production course at Lewisham College. Because I lived in London, so I was able to do that. At the same time, used to work in a pub and work in a clothes shop to pay the rent. So to kind of keep myself going.

So I did that and then became kind of obsessed with radio and music was totally obsessed with getting a job at the BBC as many people were those days. And there was a station called One Extra, which had launched recently as kind of, not recently now recently then, as a sister stationed radio one, and I loved the music there.

So I became totally focused on getting a job there. So the one thing that I am, not the one thing, one of the things that I’m good at is to really focus on what I want and do sort of everything to get there. But it’s not that easy to get a job at the BBC or it certainly wasn’t then. It was kind of one of the only places that kind of employed people in radio.

Lawrie: And why was it difficult? Interesting thought, difficult to get into.

Chloe: I think I’m very specific about what I want, so I really wanted a job at One Extra, you know, if someone said, oh, do you want a job at Radio Two? I probably would’ve gone, No, I don’t actually. So I think I make it less easy.

In some ways it’s good because I’m really hyper-focused on one thing, but in some ways I make it, my partner always says this, make it harder for myself because I won’t take the other thing that might help. But the BBC at the time, I don’t know if they still do it now, but they had very specific recruitment.

So a lot of the recruitment was done internally. So unless you were in there already, you couldn’t get a job. So I don’t know how anyone got in from the first place. It’s confusing. But I did a lot of freelance work there at the same time, worked in a DJ agency as well. Also worked for independent record label and for Ministry of Sound.

So did all of these different jobs. Again, I think I’m very good at doing everything to get what I want. So it’s like, okay, I can’t get that now. That was very much like I’d work in the daytime at the agency and then I’d go and do a night shift as a freelancer at One Extra. So that went on for some time. And then thankfully I finally got a job with a company called Something Else, who at the time were one of the only independent kind of audio producers, audio production businesses out there. So this will sound very strange to everyone who’s listening now because there’s so many different businesses that make podcasts and audio.

But I think we are looking back, not quite, 20 years, and at the time the only kind of independent businesses that existed mainly made a small amount of content for the BBC, which was commissioned. Or we used to do odd things like internationally syndicated music shows or radio shows that you could listen to when you’re on British Airways and things like that.

So it’s a very different world to now. I got a job there as a broadcast assistant and that was kind of the start of everything. 

Lawrie: Great stuff. And then was audio UK the next stop? 

Chloe: It was not Lawrie, as ever, I like to make things, not complicated, but you know, which is part of the charm, I think. So I’m trying to do this without it becoming incredibly boring.

I was a broadcast assistant. One of the beautiful things about independent production companies is, you can move really, really quickly because they, as you know, they’re basically startups and they are moving and growing at a really, really fast rate. So if you work in a big corporate, it can be harder to move around.

But when you work in a kind of independent startup, it’s fantastic. So because it was growing so quickly, it meant that I moved really fast from being a broadcast assistant to a producer, to a senior producer. And those are basically the people that you know, make the programs. I think what’s really good about producers is that you get all of these incredible skills that you can use for the rest of your life.

So you know you’re effectively a team leader, you are doing recruitment, you are doing HR, you’re doing firing, you’re doing organisational structure, you’re doing operations, you’re doing efficiency. And that’s before you even get to, you know, script writing, editorial compliance, talent management, all of those things. I was good at that. And what happens, particularly in the creative industry is when you are good at something is you you sort of hysterically stop doing the creative stuff and start doing the management stuff. But the management stuff was something that I really enjoyed. So from something else, I went freelance for a bit.

I have what I like to call a four year itch A lot of the time with the businesses I work for. So after four years, I often want to move on, feel like I’ve kind of done what I can do. So I went freelance for a bit and then actually got offered a job back at Something Else, which I quite a few people did, which was funny.

So I went back in as an executive producer and led a department of about 30 people delivering content primarily to the BBC, but also to other brands such as Red Bull and Spotify. So that was good. And from there I went to be the head of content at a business called We are Grape. Similar production business, but that was a new role. So that was very much about setting up that role, helping to, you know, set up the kind of podcast side of that business and to grow that business and lead that team. So that was great.

And then from there I went to, again, I got the four year itch and then I went to Audio UK. And part of that was, yeah, I really enjoyed the business side.

Lawrie: And one of the things I often think about becoming a CEO is that people have largely been functional. They’ve been a CFO or you know, down the finance line before that or maybe whatever, in your case, there was a sort of torrent of being a generalist. 

Chloe: Yeah. 

Lawrie: And how then does that play into when you sit at the top of the pile as the CEO of something like Audio UK?

Chloe: I mean, I think it’s probably the best way that you can approach being a CEO. because actually to be an effective CEO, you need to be a generalist. You might argue with me about this, Lawrie, but I think it, for me, that’s the best way to approach it. I sort of laugh, but I do think being a producer is a really, really good way into being a CEO because at a much smaller level, you have, as I said, budget, responsibility, you know, HR, responsibility, organisational responsibility, but you are also, a lot of my previous experience was around pitching for new business.

So we also had that strategic responsibility and strategic oversight. So I think in many ways. I, you don’t necessarily have the sort of, I’ve really specifically looked at finance or I’ve really specifically done an MBA, but I think actually my experience, although less traditional probably sets you up much better for being a CEO than a lot of other people because you have so many skills that you can use.

Lawrie: And are there particular leadership stresses then in the creative industries? You know, I mean, I’m outside of that, other than doing this podcast. But I think some people would say, well, you are surrounded by people who are, you know, geniuses at one thing or another. They’re very artistic. Some people call them lovies and so on.

I mean, I don’t know, what do you as the CEO say about those kind of things? 

Chloe: I think, what do I think? So first of all, I have to say that our, so we’re a member funded business. You know, we’re primarily, we have other commercial revenue streams as well, but we exist to, you know, support, promote our members, help grow the industry.

The members that I work with are all fantastic and they all run their businesses really well. So I just have to say that as a slight disclaimer. Having said that, I think what happens in the creative industries is you are really good creative, so you’re good at making programs or developing ideas and the sort of next natural progression step is into management or founding your own company. And I think that just because you’re a good creative doesn’t mean you will be a good manager or a good founder. I think often creatives are good founders, up to a point. I think they have incredible vision, incredible drive, but I think there comes a stage as businesses grow where they kind of need the, what do we call it? The engine, the kind of organisational and operational engine, which is very much the kind of supporting piece. So I don’t know if that’s how you find other industries as well. But I’m not sure that skills such as creativity necessarily translate into good management. 

Lawrie: And there’s lots of things, components, roles within being the role of aCEO. What are the bits, and you said you love them all, but I don’t know whether that’s statistically possible. What are the bits you love and what are the bits you perhaps don’t like so much? 

Chloe: That’s a really good question. What do I love? I mean, I love strategy. People look at me like I’m totally mad when I love strategy, when I say I love strategy.

But I think that has got something, perhaps to do with my background in science like strategy is you get to be kind of inspirational at the start of it, and then just hugely logical in terms of how you deliver it. Which really fits in with, you know, the way that I like to approach the world. I enjoy the kind of people and operational side of it, just because they’re so important.

You know, I’m lucky enough to have built a incredible team at Audio UK. One of the greatest joys of my job is working with them. They are, you know, really highly intelligent people who have incredible delivery capabilities. And I think one of the things that I get the most satisfaction is that we’ve put their structure in and we’ve got the strategy to ensure that they all are empowered and have the autonomy to do their jobs incredibly well. And I find it really satisfying to see how great they are and how well they deliver. I think for a team of our size, our output, I’ve just written the annual report for our A GM and our output is absolutely incredible. You know, it’s kind of the output that you could see from a team that’s kind of 5 to 10 times the size of ours. So I enjoy the kind of people and the delivery. You know, that’s what makes an organisation. I enjoy the public facing part of it. Do I enjoy it? I sort of enjoy it. I sort of hate it and sort of enjoy it. I think that I’ve had to learn to enjoy it. I prefer chairing things, if I’m honest from being the center of attention.

But, I like the public part and I also think it’s really necessary. You know, we, one of the things that all the Audio UK is very much about, we needed to grow our membership base, which we’ve done very successfully. We needed to grow awareness of the organisation and a lot of that has to be done by me, so I’m kind of happy to do it.

What bit do I not like? Um, I don’t, I mean, yeah, I don’t know Lawrie, people like, maybe people complaining, but then I quite enjoy sort of getting back to those complaints. So even the complaining, I like. We don’t get much complaining either. So.

Lawrie: Yeah, strategy is certainly an interesting subject because, uh, lots of places I’ve been, you know, the word is strategies for clever people and, you know. And once of course the strategy is there, in some organisations, it’s sort of locked away in the drawer, not communicated to the organisation.

And the thesis then is that a miracle occurs and well implementation, you know. Carrying it out is just for ordinary people.

Chloe: Oh, funny. You just have to write it and it’ll happen. Is that right Lawrie?

Lawrie: It’s not my experience. It’s like a magic trick, but I often find that actually the implementation is the really difficult bit, in a sense, more difficult than the think piece that is strategy.

What do you think? 

Chloe: No, I totally agree. I mean, if I think as well, going back to sort of creatives and so on. In some ways the strategy is the exciting part, isn’t it? Because it’s the visualization and the, you know, thinking about what it looks like. But the perseverance and the legwork needs to come from the delivery.

And I think it’s very much about the visualization of the strategy, the communication of that strategy towards the wider, you know, particularly as your business grows, it’s so key that you have a really key, sorry, a really clear way of communicating that strategy to your team. And that’s where your team is, 50 people or you know, 500 people or 5,000 people.

And as you know, as we know, that comes hand in hand with the values. So the strategy and the values. And then I think from there it’s very much about, it’s the checking in and the measurement, isn’t it? So as you say, it’s not just about writing something and popping in a drawer. You have the writing, and then you have the communication, and then you have the measurement, and then you have the reports and you know that all then is a circle that feeds all back into the strategy, isn’t it?

So it’s a living, breathing thing. It’s not just a bit of paper and a draw. but that’s satisfying because yeah, you can measure your success.

Lawrie: And in this day and age, because everything is moving so quickly, our advice to clients is revisit the subject every six months. Big time. Spend some time on it. And ask yourself, are we on track with strategy? If not, why not? What could we learn from that? And by the way, is it still the right strategy? because things are moving so quickly these days.

Chloe:  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we do a lot of that with the Audio UK and I’m fortunate enough to have a fantastic board as well.

We’re again, currently because it’s AGM time, we’ve got board elections coming up, which is exciting. But I think because of the cadence of our board meetings and I would do it anyway, we check in every quarter with the board. So obviously when I report to the board, we very much go through, You know, in terms of setting the strategy, I do that with the board on the away day.

And then we go back through and I will talk about what we’ve hit, what we’ve not hit, where we’re at with it all. But the key point that you make there, which is key for me, is the constant adjustment, particularly the creative industry, is podcasting moves so fast that something that might have been relevant, you know, even a month ago in some ways is not relevant.

We tend to break our strategy down quite a lot as well, so we have kind of the headlines and then the kind of key objectives. And more often than not, the headlines stay the same for the year, but the key objectives change quite a lot. I think that’s really important for us and I think for me as well, I just find strategy incredibly useful.

I kind of call it our guiding light. So for me and the team and every decision that we make, no matter how big or small it will always be with that strategy in mind. And I think that like genuinely makes my job easier, if I’m honest, to be able to think about what we’ve set. 

Lawrie: Yeah and I often think, and perhaps always think that the relationship between a chair and the CEO is one of the absolute vital ones in an organisation and as a CEO what do you want out of that relationship that suits you and your role? 

Chloe: Yeah, so I work best when I’m given quite a lot of autonomy. And that is just something that I know about myself. So, it’s not gonna change. I know that I’m, you know, the best leader when I am left to get on with things. I drive things very hard. That doesn’t mean I don’t wanna communicate that to anyone, but it means I want to be, you know, able to have that autonomy and to take decisions. So I’m very lucky with my chair, who’s actually about to step down after six years. The senior team and the board that I have an enormous amount of autonomy to run the organisation as I think it should be run. So the way that it tends to work for us is I will do the work either around strategy or other decisions and then present that to the board with my recommendations around why I think that should work.

I don’t think they’re, maybe once or twice, but generally because we have a really good trusting relationship, they’re always behind me and they will always sign it off. I’m trying to think if there’s occasions when they haven’t done that. But generally not. They will challenge me. They will challenge us and that’s fantastic because that’s what they’re there for, you know, the governance piece and to challenge us. Much of the growth and the movement and the drive of the organisation is driven by me, and I feel very lucky. So, specifically with my current chair, so she called Kelly While. She is just a very good sounding board. So I think in terms of kind of the public face of the organisation, often that can be done by the chair. But for Audio UK it works best if it’s me. But Kelly is very good if there’s, you know, a decision I want to talk through and I need an extra pair of ears, if there’s something that I want her to come along to represent Audio UK, then she’s very good with that and I think our board is interesting because a lot of the businesses in my world are SMEs small to medium enterprises. So anywhere from, you know, one person to 200 people, they’re not that big. But because of that, a lot of the driving is still done by their CEOs or their founders. So actually in terms of their time, they don’t have a huge amount of time.

So I think, you know, I always say to the board, they have kind of the four board meetings a year in the AGM, and for the majority of them that’s what they come to and you know, they get presented with everything they need to know, and then we kind of move on from there. But I’m very conscious that they do not have much time.

And I think what’s really nice is that we have such a great relationship that they trust me to just, you know, get on with it, make the right decisions. If there’s something I need extra input into, I’ll take it to them. 

Lawrie: A very significant subject of our time is artificial intelligence technology generally and the impact that that has on your kind of sector generally and then as a CEO, the organisation in particular. Any thoughts that illuminate that pathway? 

Chloe: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s fascinating. I’m trying to think of, it’s a very volatile subject, I would say, within a lot of the creative industries.

So one of the quotes that really stuck with me about AI is it’s not AI that will take your job, it’s someone who knows how to use AI who will. And I think that that has always been quite a guiding principle around how we try to approach AI as an organisation. So it is not about saying you need to be using AI.

AI is really important. Why aren’t you using AI? But it’s about providing people with enough information about the tools that are out there to make decisions as to how they want to use it. And I think it is tricky because I think there are people who are really into AI understand that they want to use it as a tool to, you know, increase business efficiency or increase production process efficiency. You know, there’s, even in audio and podcasting, there’s AI for everything. But then of course a lot of the people that I work with are producers and they are worried that their livelihoods will disappear because AI’s suddenly gonna do all their editing for them.

So it’s, as with any membership organisation. It’s balancing those different opinions. Some people are horrified, some people think it’s great, it’s, you know, as it is everywhere. I think from our point of view, the one thing that it is, is that it’s coming. So we need to give people the support and the information to decide how they use it for themselves.

So I think that’s really key. So, you know, we provide support for our members. There’s like an AI usage template, things like that. We are looking to do a collaboration with Acast around AI and audio and podcasting just so people can really understand how they can use it and decide if they want to. I think in some ways, if it’s used right, you know, it’s the same as using, I probably get struck down for saying this, but you know, Google for a web search, a lot of people just use Chat GPT now, so.

But it is about how you use those tools. And then on the other side, we are a slightly sort of, we sit in the middle a bit. Obviously if you’re a narrator, we don’t, we have some audio bit producers who also narrate who are members, but if you’re a narrator, then AI can be really worrying because there’s a lot of AI narration out there.

So they have Equity who are their union, who are doing a lot of work around that. And there’s various different ways in which it sort of becomes a threat. So we keep on top of it. I’m part of the Creative Industries Council, IP subgroup, which looks at the use of AI and exploitation of intellectual property.

And, you know, we fed into the government consultation around copyright and AI earlier this year. So I think it’s just, as with any membership organisation, it’s understanding that there will be lots of different perspectives on it and sort of honoring those, but also trying to give people the information and the tools so that when and if they decide to use it, they know what to do.

Lawrie: Got it. The media is full these days of people who say What we want is leadership. 

Chloe: right? 

Lawrie: So there’s an interesting sort of backdrop in all sorts of dimensions. So when I say the word leader to you, who comes to mind? 

Chloe: I think I, you pre warned me of this one, Lawrie, but I’ve somehow forgotten. So I think the leader that comes to mind and I’m actually never quite sure how to pronounce her surname properly, um, but is Alex Mann or Mahan, who’s the outgoing CEO of Channel Four? I think she left a couple of months ago. I believe a fellow physics and maths or similar graduate. So it’s obviously the way to go, particularly if you’re a woman for some reason. And she did an incredible job. I think I’m gonna backtrack a bit my experience in not just the creative industries, but in leadership as a whole. You can either be a totally commercially driven leader who only, you know, looks at the bottom line, looks at profit, doesn’t really think about your people.

You can be a leader who thinks about equity, diversity, inclusion. Think about the culture of your business and think about the people. And the amazing thing about Alex was she was very, very outspoken about EDI, about equity, diversity, and inclusion. And she was also an incredible commercial leader in terms of the repositioning of Channel Four to a much more digital space.

And I think that she embodies for me the combination of looking after your people and making sure that you are really making change within the industry as a whole, within leadership, within senior leadership positions. But also being really commercially successful. And I think in an ideal world, that is how all organisations would be built and driven for me. I think another really good example is, and forgive me because I forget her name, um, but the woman who came up with the idea for Canva. Which is the editing sort of Photoshop, but easier. Design kind of software. I can’t remember their valuation, but it’s absolutely huge. You know, very much in the billions. And again, the story around her, I don’t know, you know, I’m not as intricately acquainted with her leadership. Very, very commercially successful, but also very much about valuing her employees, rewarding those employees. I think a lot of them just got, you know, 3 million dollar payout.

And really making sure that the company is built on a really good culture, and I think often people are starting to realize that if you have good culture and good values, that enhances your commercial success and doesn’t pull it back. Whereas I think in the past people have thought, oh, we have to keep driving forward.

You know, we can’t think about looking after our employees or spending time there. But I think it’s, you know, it’s much more  obvious now that the two can go hand in hand. 

Lawrie: And I must say I’ve lost track just to follow your theme of the number of organisations I’ve been into when I’ve talked to the leaders, the board members, or the C-Suite executive team, and amongst other things, I ask them, have you got values? And they say, oh yes, we’ve got values. And I say. What are they? and they struggle and that happens all the time. So I think it’s all very well to actually say the words. But there’s a big, big premium on meaning them understanding them and delivering them and driving all your people processes through the lens of your culture.

Chloe: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, they’re as important as strategy, aren’t they? So you effectively have your, you know, your business purpose and the values and the behaviors that sit underneath that. And then you have your goal and the strategy and the kind of, OKRs or KPIs that sit under that. And a lot of the time you see the strategy and the kind of statistics around that, but you don’t see the other side of it.

And I think unless you have both sides, it’s just not balanced, is it? I think it’s really important and yeah, I think Alex embodies both sides of that sort of delivery. 

Lawrie: Yeah. And there is that famous saying that culture. eats strategy for breakfast, which is worth thinking about. It’s a good one.

Yeah. As we come towards the end of our conversation, I’m kind of interested if there are one or two bits of advice you’d give to leaders who are out there today who will be listening and watching the Leadership Listening podcast. What are the things that Chloe would bring to the party that are just things that there need to be more of and you do not need to forget? 

Chloe: That’s a tricky one. Let me think. I think the big, I’m gonna give a few Lawrie. So the first one is trust your teams. So one of the things that I see, I think I’m lucky enough to have done is I have worked in a lot of, fast growing startup businesses, but I have also worked, not quite on, but with, as clients, huge businesses. You know the BBC, Spotify, Acast, I’ve seen how businesses with thousands of people work. And then I’ve seen how businesses that have gone from, you know, 400 to, not 400, sorry, four to 4,000 people work. And when those businesses work. It is because they trust their teams, but there’s so much more around it than that.

And I think you need to make sure that you are empowering your teams to give them autonomy so that they’re really good at their jobs and you can trust them. But I think in order to make sure that they’re operating well with that autonomy, you need to make sure that the structures, everything we’ve been talking about, the communication.

In place so they know what they’re doing, they know how they should be doing it. But I think once you have that, the kind of, it’s quite a freedom, being able to trust people to do what they’re doing, and it means the organisation is a lot more efficient. So I think that’s really important. So I don’t necessarily speak that much about being a woman but the statistics speak and there still aren’t that many women in leadership positions for a number of reasons which I, you know, a lot historical. But similarly I’d say, trust women. I think the stats very much speak for themselves, that if you have a woman on your C-Suite team, not only is your business statistically shown to be successful for a longer amount of time but it’s also shown to have a higher profit growth.

So if there’s ever, you know, has to be the right person, but I think it would be remiss of me not to push the, you know, work with women agenda because I think there needs to be more of us, you know, as a section of the population and we are good leaders. I think that’s it really. What have I missed?

Lawrie: I don’t think you’ve missed very much. I like the idea that the CEO needs to be thoroughly conscious of the responsibility to create the organisation, to do the work. And I sometimes think, especially when we come into contact with great big transformation projects, that the CEO has lost focus With that notion of creating the organisation to do the work, the organisation has therefore gone out of focus and now needs a very expensive transformation process.

So expensive, distracting, worrying to staff takes you away from business as usual. I’d say be very conscious, especially as. You are supposed to be a generalist that you are there to create the organisation to do the work, and you need to keep your eye on that on a much more regular basis these days because everything’s moving so fast.

Chloe: I think you’re right also, you don’t want too many leaders to be good at that, Lawrie, so you’d not have any work. So maybe just a few more. But I think as well as a leader Don’t be afraid to let go, and maybe that goes into the trust. So you need to create the organisation where you can trust your teams and your workflows and your processes.

But actually I see this a lot with organisations that grow quickly. The skills you need as a leader when your team is three people, versus the skills you need as a leader when your team is 300, where you might actually not know some of the people in your company are very, very different, and I think it can be quite tricky.

I think you can get your organisation to a certain size, but then moving beyond that can be quite hard because you have to start to accept that you are not gonna be able to have your finger in every single pie. And I think that must be quite a weird feeling, you know, it’s kind of your baby. But I think you need to, you know, have that leadership to work with those people so that you are empowered and you can trust enough to kind of step back and know that you can’t be on top of absolutely everything, but you know that your business is gonna run well still. So I think that’s important too.

Lawrie: mm-hmm. 

Lawrie: Terrific Chloe, we’ve, we’ve had a marvelous conversation across the leadership scene.

Thank you for that. And one thing before you leave us is to tell us. Two things. One, your pet hate and two your secret passion and I bet you’ve got both. 

Chloe: Yeah, my pet, Hey, I actually, I clearly thought more about this than the tips that I should give to other leaders, so I’m not quite sure what that says about me, Lawrie.

And my pet hate sounds really pedantic, but I thought, should I say this? Or should I come out with something that is less honest? But I always am generally applauded for my honesty. So I thought, why not? So I hate it when people tell me things that I know already, particularly when it’s people who I think know less than me.

So they shouldn’t be telling me stuff at all, which sounds terrible, but it does happen quite a lot, believe it or not. And my poor partner has to put up with it because I’ll ask him something and he loves to go into detail about stuff and I’ll go, no, I don’t want the detail. I know all that already. I just wanna know the top line. So yeah, It’s sort of a secret pet, hey, that I don’t normally let out there, but you, you couldn’t, if you want to really enrage me, not that you ever would, Lawrie, if someone wants to really enrage me, just tell me something blatently obvious that I know already and then I’ll say thank you through gritted teeth and then scream into a pillow. 

Lawrie: I’m amazed that I’ve survived so far with you, Chloe, but, sorry. Come on. Secret passion. 

Chloe: Secret passion. I mean, there’s loads, but probably, ironically reading for me. So obviously I am in media, love podcasts, love watching tele, films, but I have read nonstop since I was a child, primarily because I can’t actually go to sleep unless I read before I go to sleep, it sort of relaxes me. But I just absolutely love reading and I think because a lot of my brain activity is writing or listening or, you know, having conversations, reading is just totally different and a total switch off for me. So I went on holiday over summer and it was the first time the kids could kind of play in the pool without drowning.

So managed to get through a lot of books then, and the one that I’d really recommend is one called Father Figure. I can’t remember the author, but I’m sure it’s easily findable. And because it was just totally unexpected, you know, from the title you can have quite a perception of all what the book might be about and even from the blurb.

But then you get into it and my first reaction was like, this is very weird. And almost like I really didn’t like it and wanted to put it down. But then the story is so well told and the characterization is incredible. The characters, you don’t really like any of them, but they’re all brilliantly well done.

And the story continues in a way that you could never expect. So it is a sort of remarkable book, and I’d recommend it to everyone. 

Lawrie: Terrific. Well, as I say, we’ve had a terrific tour across the subject. So Chloe, on behalf of viewers and listeners to Leadership Listening. Many thanks for everything this morning.

And of course if viewers and listeners have got things to say about what we’ve talked about this morning, then you can email us at podcast@leadershiplistening.com. So Chloe, many thanks and good luck with Audio UK in everything you do. Many thanks. 

Chloe: Thank you for having me, Lawrie. Thank you.