In this Season 3 opener of Beyond the Status Quo, Tamara and Kathryn speak with Dr Eve Poole OBE, chair of the Woodard Corporation and pioneer of the \"leadersmithing\" movement. Drawing on a career spanning the Church Commissioners, Deloitte, Ashridge Business School and a string of chair and interim chief executive roles, including the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Carnegie Trust, Eve argues that leadership isn't a title bestowed on the charismatic few but a craft forged through hard experience, failure and deliberate practice. She makes the case for \"stacking the deck\": seeking out difficult moments on your own terms that build the templates leaders draw on under pressure, and for reclaiming the \"junk code\" of being human- the emotion, intuition and storytelling that AI can't replicate and leadership has always actually run on.
Takeaways:
· Leadership isn't a title for the charismatic few, it's a craft (\"leadersmithing\") built through hard experience, failure and deliberate practice.
· \"Stacking the deck\": deliberately seeking out difficult experiences on your own terms builds the templates you'll need when real pressure hits.
· Imposter syndrome isn't a flaw, it's a sign you care enough to try, and it shows up in almost every good leader.
· AI has absorbed our \"rational\" knowledge, but our \"junk code\"- emotion, intuition, storytelling, meaning-making - is what makes leadership actually work, and it matters more than ever.
· Good governance is unglamorous but essential: clarity about delegated authority is what keeps organisations, and their leaders, safe.
· Reclaiming words like \"bossy\" matter. Much of what holds women and diverse leaders back is a heroic leadership myth modelled on a narrow, historically male archetype.
· Know why you're doing the job, and have an exit strategy: that clarity is what lets you make hard calls and know when to walk away.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/evepoole/
https://evepoole.com/
Leadersmithing | Eve Poole | TEDx Durham University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73L1613KDnw
Robot Souls: Programming in Humanity? | Eve Poole | TEDx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMVDkSuzQbk
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