Hypatia onboards; 90 days as a new leader

Hypatia Kingsley 2 Oct 2024

It has now been over 90 days since I began my new role at Leathwaite. For my fifth and final post for Hypatia Onboards: The Mini-Series, I reflect on my learning curve as a new leader and share some personal insights. Alliteration can be an easy way to organize one’s thoughts. During the last 90 days I keep coming back to words that fit the alliterative bill for my leadership journey:

Curiosity

 

My profession requires insatiable desire to know, so this one has been easy. I have enjoyed a firehose of learning about Leathwaite, benefiting from my colleagues’ willingness to satisfy my curiosity for answers and the why’s behind the answers.

Culture

 

Leaders have an outsized influence on organizational culture and when leaders fail a lack of cultural fit is often the culprit. At Leathwaite I have been embraced by an inclusive, dynamic, entrepreneurial, and execution-disciplined group of wonderful colleagues both in the Americas and globally. As I add my strengths to the collective’s and embrace colleagues in turn, my cultural touchstones are focused on building partnership and collaboration.

Collaboration

 

You knew that was going to be the next word!! No way to be leadership advisors without triangulation and teamwork. Collaboration with colleagues, clients and prospective candidates requires trusting others, active listening to understand, applying judgment and conscious consideration of different points of view, and ultimately navigating paths using a collective compass vs one’s own ‘true north’. Collaboration may not be the fastest way to execute at first, yet once established, genuinely collaborative teams travel farther and achieve more. I am particularly grateful for being able to collaborate with Leathwaite’s Co-Managing Partners, Tom Pemberton and Martha Harvey-Jones. Both understand intimately the need to work together in order to go far.

Conviction

 

This is where true north comes in! In investing as in leadership, conviction in one’s strategy is key. Leaders are decisioning beings demonstrating their conviction by making difficult or uncomfortable decisions on behalf of the team/enterprise. My first 90+ days have traveled multiple tough forks in the road, and given circumstances, not all decisions have been broadcast or even explained to the team. The future will determine if I’ve made the appropriate strategic choices and I should be held accountable — why would I not be given my conviction?

Compassion

 

Difficult choices usually involve humans. Humans (as John Maeda reminds us) are easily distinguished from AI by both curiosity and compassion — we are human because of our need to know and our concern for others. Keeping humans at the center is a mantra, regardless of a decision’s outcome.

Thanks for being part of Hypatia Onboards. My leadership journey continues – get in touch and let me know more about yours!

Hypatia Kingsley

Hypatia Kingsley is Partner and Head of the Americas. She brings over two decades of experience from Spencer Stuart, where she played pivotal roles across multiple geographies. During her time there, Hypatia demonstrated remarkable leadership, notably in her role as…

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