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high-performing resilient teams
BECOME A RESILIENT LEADERS CONSULTANT
RESILIENT LEADERS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (RLDP™)
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Instant access to our FREE webinar: Navigating Uncertainty
Consultant story:
Becca Meadows, Resilient Leaders Consultant
We asked Becca Meadows, RLE Consultant and Women's Health and Leadership Consultant, to tell us about her experience.
"I suddenly realised that me leaving the Army was actually strongly linked to a lack of resilience at a specific time in my life, balancing career progression with two small children. I didn’t feel I could ask anyone for help. When I felt my most vulnerable, I left. This has ignited a passion to ensure that women leaders feel safe and supported to be vulnerable, to be authentic and to ask for help."
Why did you choose Resilient Leaders Elements (RLE™)?
For me the RLE™ framework put into words something I had been trying to articulate for a long time. As soon as I saw the framework and the RLDP™ I had this lightbulb moment as to how I could clearly articulate my specific offering as a physical wellbeing and leadership consultant, who firmly believes that a strong physical foundation is essential to develop resilient leaders. So many of the other leadership models I was familiar with from 15 years in the Army focused on ‘what I do’; the results, the effect, the ‘action’ part. I needed something that saw the ‘who I am’ element as equally important.
Why did you need leadership training?
I had been developed as a leader in the Army. I completed multiple courses and accreditations all teaching me how to lead better. But I felt that on leaving the Army this aspect of me was, interestingly, quite vulnerable.
In order to serve my clients to the best of my ability and develop them as resilient leaders I knew I needed to go back and question my own leadership assumptions and behaviours.
I had been taught how to lead in a very specific way and given a very narrow demographic of military leaders to look up to and emulate. I was suddenly questioning a lot of the leadership norms I had grown to accept.
How has the Resilient Leaders Development Programme (RLDP™) helped you professionally?
I have taken a lot from refining my own strength mantra. Many leadership development programmes focus so much on identifying development areas, it can be so powerful to also support people to focus on their strengths. There is also some irony that the RLDP has helped me see that even as a nutritionist I was not sufficiently prioritising my own wellbeing whilst growing a business. I am much more conscious now of knowing what takes me from pressure to stress, being able to identify when this is most likely to happen and putting in opportunities to rest, energise and renew as a preventative strategy for supporting my own resilience and allowing me to fully realise my strategic intent.
What stories do you have about the impact the RLE™ and RLDP™ have made?
‘What stops you asking for help?’ This was the coaching challenge on the RLDP™ that gave me the biggest lightbulb moment. Without consciously thinking, the immediate response that came out was ‘because everyone is watching, waiting for me to fail’. I realised I had been carrying the weight of this throughout my time as a military leader.
I found a photo taken at the end of our military leadership training that suddenly I saw in a different light. There are 500 leaders on parade, I am stood at the front. At first glance, it should be photo to be celebrated, I am being given an award. But this image has such a deeper, very visceral feeling attached to it, of the pressure, the fear of failure and the inability to demonstrate any vulnerability in front of my peers. I suddenly realised that me leaving the Army was actually strongly linked to a lack of resilience at a specific time in my life, balancing career progression with two small children. I didn’t feel I could ask anyone for help. When I felt my most vulnerable, I left. This has ignited a passion to ensure that women leaders feel safe and supported to be vulnerable, to be authentic and to ask for help. The links to how this supports our nervous system regulation on a physiological level are also huge.
The other is from one of my ‘friendly clients’ (the term given to those people we practice using the RLDP™ with during the Accreditation) who I could see was distracted during one of our earlier sessions. When I asked them if they were feeling OK, they replied that their partner had just asked for a divorce. We decided to change the goals and apply the challenges to their domestic situation rather than their professional one. I am happy to report that they are enjoying family life again and that the professional one also came into focus as a result.
What would you say to anybody considering the resilient leaders consultant accreditation course?
The more I consider the role of a leader now and in the future, the one certainty is the need for leaders to be comfortable in uncertainty. You can learn leadership theory and discuss its pros and cons but ultimately the need for resilience is paramount. I would urge anyone when considering any leadership training to ask themselves if the proposed course really addresses this. From my experience of 15 years developing military leaders, this is the first time I have truly understood and practiced the behaviours needed of a resilient leader and this is in part due to the efficacy of the RLDP but underpinned by the strong RLE community, brimming with support and expertise, that continues to support me on my personal and professional journey.