Heart Centred Leadership
Fran Borg-Wheeler describes Heart Centred Leadership as being about connection, compassion, care and harnessing the power of kindness in leadership.
“My vision was for young people to be able to have safe place to live and for them to get the support to be able to flourish in life and create better futures. I was starting to experience some mini strokes. My health was a little bit questionable, but it was very important to me that I didn’t leave my role until I’d completed the mission of raising £1 million. It took me four years. The project is up and running now and I know it’s making a difference to young people’s lives. This is an example of an ambitious goal that I managed to achieve by focusing on a heart centred approach”.
So, heart-centred leadership can involve forging connections, showing compassion to others, caring deeply, and leveraging the strength of kindness in leadership.
“I need to make a connection first, work out what the other person’s problems and challenges are and find reciprocal benefits”.
“There’s quite a lot of synchronicity between heart centred leadership and courage. We have a bigger brain in our hearts informed by stronger skills, like empathy, compassion and understanding.
You’ve got to do the inner work. This involves looking at what our values are, our vision, making sure we’re being true to those values. We need to look at some of the barriers to courageous leadership… We need to talk about failure and not pretend we know everything. There’s the outside piece that involves standing up, stepping up, speaking out, setting boundaries, advocating for others, and amplifying unheard voices.
Outcomes are so much better when they are co-created – tapping into the other person’s knowledge experience, coming up with a shared solution that meet the situation and met the needs of the individual person “.
Fran finishes with a reminder from Mahatma Gandi.
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito!
Mahatma Gandi
“You have a courageous leader inside of you and, you know, think about all the things you’ve overcome to be here right now. You have great strength, you have great things to offer the world, and you know, none of us is too small to make a difference.
Ask what you want your leadership legacy to be, Take one step. Don’t worry about achieving the whole thing. Reach out, find mentors, find coaches. Find people to support you on your journey. You are not alone. You are all capable of achieving great things “
About Fran Borg –Wheeler
Fran started volunteering when she was 17 years old, first with children and then young people who were rough sleepers. She studied law and French at university and wanted to be a barrister. Instead, she followed her heart and went into the charity sector straight after university. She did a number of charity delivery roles in homelessness, mental health, learning difficulties, missing people and youth, followed by a few years at probation. And then she landed her dream job as CEO of a young people’s charity, Youth Concern. 13 years later, she set up her own business, which is called “Heart Centred Leaders” to support charity leaders and their teams to boost their impact while thriving.
00:00:00 Paula: Welcome to “TesseTalks” with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and co host me, Paula Okonneh, where we share with you top leadership and management strategies. This is a journey of discovery. We are learning that leadership is personal and professional, and we hope you, our listeners, will walk with us in this adventure. Our guest today is Fran Borg Wheeler, so I’ll tell you a few facts about Fran. She started volunteering when she was 17 years old, first with children and then young people who were rough sleepers. She studied law and French at uni and wanted to be a barrister. But instead, she followed her heart and went into the charity sector straight after uni. She did a number of charity delivery roles in homelessness, Mental health, learning difficulties, missing people 00:01:00 and youth, followed by a few years at probation. And then she landed her dream job as CEO of a young people’s charity, youth Concern. 13 years later, she set up her own business, which is called “Heart Centered Leaders” to support charity leaders and their teams to boost their impact while thriving. And she’s also a trustee for radical recruit. So the theme today is “heart centered leadership”. Welcome to “TesseTalks”, Fran.
00:01:38 Fran: Thank you very much for that lovely welcome. It’s great to be here with both of you too.
00:01:43 Tesse: Yeah. Hi Fran. I am so excited to have you on the show, and I’m so excited you said yes. You know, when I heard about the work you did, I thought your voice needs to be heard by as many people as possible. So I’m curious, 00:02:00 how would you describe “heart centred leadership”?
00:02:05 Fran: Such a good question. You know, I could give you a simple definition, which might be leading from the heart as opposed to what we’ve been taught for so many years, that leadership is about the thinking and rational and logical side of the brain. Apparently, we have a bigger brain in our hearts. So I think that leading from your heart, not ignoring the logic, but leading from some of what used to be called softer skill. I count them as stronger skills, like empathy and connection and compassion, listening, rather than, you know, trying to be that leader that knows it all or tells everybody how to do things. Those leaders that think they have all the 00:03:00 answers. Kind of reversing that completely and almost seeing ignorance as a virtue, that empty brain so that we can be really receptive and you know, I think building those trusting relationships, whether it be with your staff and your teams, or, you know, a lot of my work initially was with vulnerable people. And again, you know, I would find that if you just opened your ears and opened your heart and tried to listen to understand, rather than listen to come up with advice or a solution, then oh , there’s less driving. It’s more of a natural evolutionary approach. And it just seemed like the outcomes were so much better in terms that they were co 00:04:00 created. You tapped into the other person’s knowledge experience, and you often came with a shared solution that met the situation and met the needs of that individual person. But I said that was the short answer. I think I gave an initial short answer, but actually some elements, I think, of heart centered leadership, the word “la coeur” in French means courage and “coeur”, sorry, is the heart. So there’s quite a lot of synchronicity between heart centered leadership and courage. And if we’re looking at it from a courageous perspective, I see there’s two main elements. You’ve got to do the inner work. That’s first, we have to look at identifying what our needs are and meeting those needs. We have to look at what our values are, our vision, 00:05:00 make sure we’re being true to those values. We need to look at some of the barriers to courageous leadership. That’s the inner work. We need to be okay to talk about failure. We need not to be pretending we know everything. And then there’s the outside piece for courageous leadership or heart centered leadership, that I help a lot of my clients with, whether that’s in coaching or leadership courses, workshops. And this is around kind of standing up, stepping up, speaking out. You talked about authenticity earlier, you know, speaking your truth. Maybe feeling the fear, but saying it anyway. There’s a lot that we need to challenge in society at the moment. Please don’t get me started on politics. But you know, we’re seeing a lot of deeply embedded ills. And you know, it’s going to take a lot of us, individually, but also 00:06:00 collectively, to challenge, you know. For ourselves, setting our own boundaries. More importantly, advocating for others, amplifying unheard voices. And the question I sometimes share with people I’m working with is, what would you like your leadership legacy to be? Think about that now, you know, we associate it with when people are coming to their retirement. No, you want to think now about what impact do you want to have on others? As Maya Angelou, I can’t, I’m not going to quote it properly, so I’m not going to try. She talks about how people will forget what we say or what we did, but people will never forget how we made them feel. So asking ourselves how we want other people to feel and becoming really intentional about that. Working on ourselves, this courage piece, you know, I haven’t found it easy myself. I’m still on that journey. It’s not like we 00:07:00 either have it or we don’t. But it’s a bit like a muscle that we need to kind of keep working at. And then there’ll be another layer to kind of uncover. Another challenge will come our way and we’ll think, oh, now that piece is really messy or icky or challenging and then we need to work at that piece. So that’s just some of my ideas around courageous leadership and heart centred leadership.
00:07:25 Tesse: But that’s really beautiful, you know, to associate this kind of arts and leadership with bravery, you know, to kind of going to a gym in many ways to do the inner work. I so love it.
00:07:37 Tesse: Paula, what are your thoughts here?
00:07:39 Paula: Well, you know, she talks about courage and all that kept coming to my mind is that she was one courageous 17 year old, you know. She followed her heart, went into charity, she started her own business and the life she has touched by what she’s doing is remarkable. So, you know, I was going 00:08:00 to ask you, you could not answer Tesse’s questions, give a short answer for that, because there’s so much, I mean, you could hear the passion in your voice. So can you give me one story, one, just one, I’ll tell you what we have more than one, one story that has outlined the benefit of implementing this?
00:08:21 Fran: That’s a really good question. And I think an example I can share with you, is when I was CEO of this small charity where the income was 150, 000 a year. And I was increasingly seeing that there was a growing problem of youth homelessness in the area that I was working in, across the country. But you know, the area that we were focused on geographically. And so we set up an emergency accommodation scheme called a night stop. And that was running well, but because it was so short term, what would happen was we would place young people, we’d get them out of the crisis, and then it 00:09:00 wouldn’t take too long before they fall back into homelessness again. And I knew that there was a need for a longer term solution. And so initially for a few years, I spoke to the Council and I would say, look, there’s a real need for a supported accommodation project in the area where, you know, the young people can have a safe place to stay, but they also have nurture, help them work through some of the traumas they’ve experienced. Build their aspirations, develop skills so that they can move on and do not return to homelessness. Okay. And the council would say to me, oh, we’d love to do that Fran but we can’t find a building or can’t find the funding. And I went to a leadership, or global women’s leadership conference. I won a scholarship place in 2016, and they were inviting people to come up on the stage and share their vision or a big goal. And so I came up 00:10:00 and I heard myself say, I need to raise a million pounds to set up a youth supported accommodation project. And I’d been thinking about doing it myself. But I had thought, no, that’s ridiculous, how on earth am I going to raise that money? I was the sole fundraiser in the organisation, and I wasn’t a fundraiser by trade. So I had just learned on the job. And so when I had set that vision because that’s what it was. My vision was for those young people to be able to have safe place to live and for them to get the support to be able to flourish in life and create better futures. And so I had that vision, but what I did not have as a project plan, and I knew I didn’t want a project plan, because if I wrote that plan, all it would show me was, I haven’t got a clue how I was going to get there. So I just have to put a lot of focus and intention around my vision. And then I had to just decide what the first step would 00:11:00 be and take that first step. And so it took me four years to raise the million pounds. We did raise it. And along those times, you know, there were times where I thought, what on earth are you doing? How on earth are you going to raise that money? Oh my Lord, you’ve shared this commitment now what if you can’t do it? You know, we all have those inner doubts, don’t we? Where we feel we’re not good enough. And so, I really had to learn, be a student, and learn about self compassion very deeply. This was at the time I was starting to experience some mini strokes as well, so my health was a little bit questionable. But it was very important to me, I couldn’t leave this role until I’d completed this mission. And so, yes, I think I learned that combining practical kind of techniques around self compassion plus feeding your vision, sticking with your values, asking yourself empowering questions. And, you know, I remember at the same time 00:12:00 I was trying to get myself fitter, lose weight as usual. And so I was making myself jog, and I wasn’t very good at jogging. I was struggling. And my inner voice would say, oh, why the hell are you doing this? There’s two things were sort of running parallel. Why the hell are you trying to raise this money? You won’t be able to do it. And then why on earth are you trying to jog? You know you’re not very good at sport. And there is this beautiful route near me called Dunstable Downs. And you can see kind of the peak of a hill. And I used to try and imagine that on the peak of that hill was the accommodation project with all the young people in it feeling safe and secure. And as I was jogging, I would think, okay, I’m going to get one step closer, one step closer. And if I have to stop, that’s fine. You know, be kind to myself. That’s a step further than you were yesterday, you know, and then reaching out for help as well. You know, thinking about who the best people were that could help unlock 00:13:00 doors or could, you know, already had the networks to get in front of certain people and have a conversation. And also to trust myself and the young people and my team to be able to, you mentioned passion, you know, to be able to communicate with passion, but messages that appeal to hearts and minds. Because, you know, sometimes I was criticized, oh, at the time I was a bit younger. So, oh, what’s this young woman doing with all these lofty dreams, really annoy me. And, you know, so you had to have some substance behind it to be heard by some people. But actually, yes, thinking about that messaging and just really believing that if I continue to take steps closer, I was going to find a way. If I needed to develop skills along the way, you know, I could do that. If I needed to bring other people in, I could do it and I would get there. And yeah, took me four years, but the 00:14:00 project is up and running now and I know it’s making a difference to young people’s lives. And so I think that’s an example of an ambitious goal that I managed to achieve by focusing on a heart centered approach. I think the other element would be the way I was dealing with people, you know, I needed to deal with everybody I came across, whether that was young people, my team, or potential supporters, with empathy, respect, compassion. We might not think that’s an obvious thing that you need if you’re talking to potential supporters, but if I barge in there with my plans, you know, a lot of people won’t want to hear that. I need to make a connection first. I need to work out what the other person’s problems and challenges are. I need to connect at that human level before I then say to them, oh, can you come and help me? You know, it’s reciprocal, isn’t it? And I’m all about, trying to find reciprocal benefits where 00:15:00 possible, you know. I hope that gives you a little flavor.
00:15:03 Paula: I love that answer.
00:15:05 Tesse: That’s a great question there, yeah. Fantastic question you asked there. And Fran, you know, congratulations on the big, very audacious goal in BHAG. You got it there. And when you said this, what came into my mind were a number of things. Connection, compassion, care. And these are fantastic things. And as Paula said, your purpose flows through this with meaning and with power. So I’m curious, what can possibly get in the way of this heart centered leadership, because it sounds awesome, and there’s barriers.
00:15:41 Fran: Mm, very good question. You know, it can pull a lot of people off. They’re not used to operating like that. I think culturally, in the sector, but also more broadly, and I’m not talking kind of ethnicity and 00:16:00 culture I’m talking about if there is such a thing as British culture, I don’t know. But, you know, we’re not brought up to be visioning. We’re not brought up to identify our values. We were told to rote learn. We were told to set academic goals. And I think that’s how we were measured. You know, I’m not sure some of these skills were valued so much. And you know, that there are only pockets, I think, of society that now value them. Trying to avoid saying white and male, but I’m just going to say anyway, oh, white male, there we go even worse. But you know, there was this sort of stereotypes are often born of some reality, aren’t they? And, you know, there was this breed of old white male leader, and the virtues of leadership were not courage and compassion. They were business acumen and project 00:17:00 management, and all things that sort of scare me a little bit actually. And I remember working with my chairman who was a banking partner, you know, and so he would look at the figures and that’s how he would understand a lot of the charity, and I think to a certain extent broader than that, you know, the community, and I would start with need. And in fact, as long as we listen to each other, you know, we could meet somewhere in the middle. So barriers, so I think it’s kind of the old way, the supposed successful or right way of doing things with almost the opposite side of the coin, you know. And I still think even though, you know, some more diversity is creeping in, in terms of gender and ethnicity, I still think we still have women who might think that the way then to be successful is to emulate some 00:18:00 of these old archetypes, which I call dinosaur archetypes, because I don’t think they, maybe they worked at that point, I don’t know, but I don’t think they are fit for purpose any longer. You know, there are so many entrenched issues, as I said, you know, homelessness is one racism is another, mental health. The old way has not worked, you know, and I know I’ve only tried it on a kind of micro scale, but when I used to compare our approaches, our organization, you know, we could support all the young people that no other organization would work with, because they were about enforcement and making people jump through hoops, not trying to understand from other people’s perspective and coming in from that angle with empathy and compassion, you know. So I think the barrier is maybe that people are used to the old way and perhaps they haven’t experienced 00:19:00 the difference in the difference in the journey, as well as the difference in the impact and outcomes. If you can embrace a more heart centered leadership approach. And I’m really pleased you touched on kind of powerful, because there’s the second point is myths around heart centered leadership. You know, I do a module in my leadership, what’s it called? Harnessing the power of kindness in leadership. And if you talk to people about kindness and leadership, a lot of people fear that they will be mistaken as weak. And they give examples, you know, of talking to their line reports. And then, oh, and then we were walked all over, or we were taken advantage of, or, and so I think this piece around discernment is really important with kindness. I am not particularly soft and fluffy. I can be very loving and caring, but there is a strength in heart centered leadership. And so 00:20:00 it’s not kindness and stupidity, you know, it’s kindness with discernment. And we have to think about our own boundaries. We have to think about the amount of energy we reserve for ourselves and the amount of energy we give to others. You know, it’s not all give, give, give, we have to give to ourselves as well. So that was a secondary, I think, myths around heart centered leadership being fluffy and weak. What else? I’m sure there are others that are not popping into my head at the moment, but I’m experiencing it. I think once you start practicing it, like when I do my courses with leaders and they might be curious about some of these elements, they might have tried it a little bit, but maybe haven’t quite had the space to reflect and then, you know, review where they’re putting their focus. So I think there’s a lack of space for reflection. And then when they start practicing it and trying it out, I 00:21:00 mean, people come back to me and say, oh, it’s transformed their own experience, their teams, the organization, you know, it’s like this ripple effect, isn’t it? And exact, two quick examples I’ll give you, I remember a team I worked in and one of the ladies was a Spanish Muslim and she came to me and she asked if she could pray in the quiet room and she said to me, Fran, this is the first time I’ve worked in an organization where I’ve felt okay to ask that question. Now for me, that’s sad, but it’s, you know, and the second piece of information to share is that, you know, I’ve been working with a particular team recently, had all been through quite a tough time, quite a lot of overwhelm as we’ve seen a lot since COVID, lockdown, you know, remote working. And I’ve been in the team meetings, I’ve been encouraging them to ask them, each other, what’s one thing to do with self compassion that I’ve been practicing and what’s one area of self compassion I’d like to put some more focus 00:22:00 on. And we’ve been doing that for weeks and weeks and weeks. And until recently, a couple of them came to me and were able to share they’ve been experiencing some mental health problems. And again, they said to me, this is the first time we’ve felt safe to share this piece of myself, which will allow me then to get the support I need to feel like I’m thriving and therefore to bring my best self to the party, because that’s the piece as well. You know, if we can kind of embrace everybody with heart centered leadership, you are going to get better, better results out of them as well. And you’re enhancing their experience. I do believe, you know, especially in the charity sector, people have the right to thrive, not to be stressed all the time and overwhelmed. And we have to, as managers and leaders, we have to start role modelling that. Because we know that our staff do what we do, they do not do what we say. So we have a responsibility, I think, to learn how to thrive so we can show others 00:23:00 how to do the same.
00:23:01 Paula: Oh, wow. Yeah. I love that answer. You know, show others how to thrive so that they can do the same or so that others can do the same. I love it. So because we are running out of time, I know you’re into metaphors, are there any metaphors that you can share, surrounding heart, mentored leadership Fran?
00:23:20 Fran: Ah, very good, very good. I’m pre rolling the questions you see, so you’re putting me on the spot here. One is, where there’s a will, there’s a way and by will I mean, you know, if you have a vision, passion then we don’t have to know all the steps to get there yet. You can feed that and we are capable of incredible things, you know. It’s not a very good metaphor actually, so I don’t know if I can think of a metaphor. Hmm. There’s not one popping into my mind other than that.
00:23:56 Paula: Okay, well, let’s not do a metaphor. Any last words, any words 00:24:00 of encouragement?
00:24:02 Fran: Yeah, absolutely. I think each of you listening to this podcast, you know, is listening because You have a courageous leader inside of you and, you know, think about all the things you’ve overcome to be here right now. You have great strength, you have great things to offer the world, and you know, none of us is too small to make a difference. I think it was Gandhi. Ooh, was it? I don’t know. I can’t quote and get it wrong. The quote that says, if you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. Is that Gandhi? Yeah. So all of you can ask just what you want your leadership legacy to be, and just take one step, you know, don’t worry about achieving the whole thing. And reach out, find mentors, find coaches, 00:25:00 find people to support you on your journey. You are not alone. But yeah, I think you are all capable of achieving great things.
00:25:08 Paula: Couldn’t have been better said, because we close out with saying thank you to our amazing audience for always tuning in, and we continue to ask you our amazing audience and listeners and viewers, because sometimes we do clips on this, to head over to “Apple Podcasts”, “YouTube Music”, because Google Podcasts is being faded out, “Spotify” or anywhere else that you listen to podcasts, and please click subscribe. If you like what you just heard, and who wouldn’t, “heart centered leadership”, please write us a raving review. And if you have any questions or topics that you want us to cover related to leadership or governance, we ask that you send us a note. Remember, your questions can be personal, as well as professional. And last but not least, if you’d like to be a guest on the show. Please head over to our website, which is 00:26:00 “tesseakpeki. com/tessetalks” to apply. Thank you so much, Fran.
00:26:08 Fran: I think I went on a bit.
00:26:10 Tesse: Everything, is brave, courage. What’s there not to like, Fran? You’re great.
00:26:17 Paula: You are great.