Key Takeaways from a Leadership Masterclass at Ulster University

For context, Bernie has been working in a Formula One environment for much of her career and thus, she has often had to make decisions “lap by lap” with seconds in between.

🚫 You rule yourself out of opportunities by not putting yourself forward.

🎢 I made a decision to walk away when “I had succeeded enough to park it”.

🤷‍♀️ The worst thing to do is not making a decision, in a direction, within the time allowed.

👍 Go back over decisions and think about what led to the particularly good ones.

1️⃣ Don’t give up at the first answer.

👀 Examine the decisions that others make.

➕ “A sum of the parts only works of the parts are a bit different…. If they’re all the same, then you’ve only one part”. #diversity

📔Understand why people make the decisions they do (and I give an example of my experience of this in the video)

👂Listen back to how you communicated with others and reflect on it.

(FYI Bernadette mentioned this when I interviewed her before for IoD Northern Ireland. It is an incredibly powerful technique. It’s uncomfortable and can really teach you a lot. I use Avoma to help me).

🤝 Show trust by taking the work that others have done and believe it. You can always review or reverse it afterwards. “What’s the worst that can happen?” can be effective for small and big decisions.

👥 A real leader cultivates an environment where if they weren’t there, the team would still succeed.

💬 Take the opportunities you’re given and if they’re not given, ask for them.

(This made me consider “what opportunities am I not giving to my team?” and “what opportunities am I not asking for?”)

🤲 Be curious to see a situation through the eyes of another person in your team. #Empathy

🎒If you’ve had a bad pit stop, start anew with the next one. Be careful and critical of what you’re carrying into your next decision.

Thank you so much to Paul McCormack, Elaine Fugard, Michael Shannon, Damian McAlister FCIPD and Paul Seawright OBE for giving me the opportunity to lead this masterclass and our next one is coming up soon!