During our session on Wednesday, we had planned to share more stories from our faculty members. Here is some feedback from Jo Varney on her personal leadership, thank you Jo for sharing your story! How do you refine your leadership skills? Hah! by reading about leadership in preparing for this GAME programme, I've realised how little time I have ever spent on reflecting on or refining my leadership skills. One aspect I want to commit to myself to do, is keep Bass 4 I's in mind (or Kouzes and Posner's 5 principles, but I can't recall them all!) - as it is a quick and useful model to call forth and to try and consciously apply Who is a leader that you admire and why? I really admire one of my colleagues at work - Liz - she was actually junior to me a few years back but she has flourished and been promoted and now she leads me. She is inspirational as she clearly and consciously makes an effort to check in with every team member - she puts her team of people first, checking on our wellbeing and how we are doing. She's been phenomenal at galvanising us to deliver some big projects and this has all coincided with the global pandemic, when we've found ourselves atomised and at home on laptop screens. How do you ensure that your team and you stay aligned? Through trying to keep open channels of communication; through trying to ensure that we feel comfortable and trustful/safe with each other to say if things aren't going well, or if it's not clear on what needs to be done How do you cope with self-doubt? HAh! I find this incredibly difficult. When the voice inside is not only so critical but so all consuming, I find it hard to recall that there is another way of being. It can be overwhelming, and paralysing at times. Through years of cycling through these feelings, I've learned to know that it is transient, and you do come out the other side - and you can be a competent person. I've also benefited from good coaching and skills training' which has helped me to spot when I'm heading into imposter territory. I found reading about Emotional intelligence and watching some Daniel Goleman videos very helpful as he talks about using breathing techniques and other ways to help unlock the amygdala hijacking that can go on (this is going a bit beyond imposter phenomenon) - using breathing and mindfulness techniques to as effectively as possible get your body and brain into a different space.