Welcome to The Leader to Leader Podcast (season 2, episode 2)
What do feminist leadership, circus skills and the future of charity leadership have in common?
In the second episode of series two of The Leader to Leader Podcast, Irene Sobowale, former chief executive of Brainkind, passes the baton from her conversation with ACEVO chief executive Jane Ide to interview Lee Webster, deputy chief executive of Respect, the national organisation working to stop perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Drawing on more than two decades of experience across charities of different sizes, Lee reflects on how leadership has become increasingly complex. From funding pressures and rising demand to the interconnected challenges facing communities, she argues that leaders need to look beyond organisational boundaries, remain curious and recognise that the solutions to society’s biggest problems rarely fit into neat boxes.
But what does good leadership look like in practice?
For Lee, leadership shouldn’t start at the top. She talks about the importance of creating organisational cultures where people at every level have the confidence and authority to make decisions, learn from mistakes and contribute to a shared purpose. She also reflects on her relationship with Respect’s CEO and how trust, honesty and shared responsibility can help prevent the isolation often associated with senior leadership.
A committed feminist throughout her career, Lee explores what feminist leadership means to her and why it remains so relevant. From challenging traditional hierarchies and using power responsibly to prioritising equality, care and accountability, she makes the case for a more human-centred approach to leading organisations.
And then there’s the circus.
Lee offers a memorable analogy for the realities of charity leadership: juggling competing demands while hoping none of the glass balls fall, walking the tightrope between scarce funding and growing need, and occasionally becoming a trapeze artist, achieving things that once seemed impossible. It’s a reminder that, despite the pressures, charity leaders can bring hope, joy and meaningful change to people’s lives.
The conversation also explores the future of leadership, including how remote working might affect the development of tomorrow’s charity CEOs, the importance of building diverse leadership teams, and the need for greater collaboration and innovation across the sector.
Lee shares her thoughts on the challenges facing infrastructure organisations, the search for more sustainable funding models and why resilience depends on people, purpose and money. She also offers a more personal perspective on what helps her stay grounded when the pressures of leadership become overwhelming.
Throughout, Irene and Lee return to the importance of working together, staying connected to the people around us and keeping sight of why we do this work in the first place.
And as the baton passes once again, Lee introduces her next guest, Danielle Bridge, chief executive of Black Minds Matter, and the question she hopes to explore with her about strategy and keeping it alive within organisations.
Listen for an honest, thoughtful and hopeful conversation about feminist leadership, navigating complexity and finding new ways to lead in a changing world.
Transcript
Irene Sobowale
So Lee, we finally get to chat. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long while. I know you will. A lot of people already know you. Just do you want to just warm up by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Lee Webster
Yes, sure. So my name’s Lee Webster, and I’m the deputy CEO of Respect, which is the national organisation working to stop perpetrators of domestic abuse. I’ve been in leadership roles in charities for about 15 years, and I spent my whole career in the charity sector before that, since the early 2000s. So I’d say a couple of things to know about me and my career that inform my perspective, and will probably inform this conversation. Is first and foremost, I’m a feminist, and I have been for as long as I can remember. And I feel really privileged to have had a career that has had gender equality and women’s rights like right at its core. And to be honest, I still sometimes pinch myself 25 years in to think that I get to wake up and and be a feminist at work. Second is I’ve done quite a wide variety of roles. I’d say my kind of craft is policy and campaigns work, but I started off in admin of fundraising. I’ve led on comms and government relations, and I’ve latterly been working more at the intersection of programme evidence, research, and how that informs policy and influence. So I’ve got quite a breadth to my work, which means I’m a jack of all trades, a bit of a generalist, which definitely has its advantages in leadership, but also some some disadvantages and challenges. And thirdly, I’ve worked for all sizes of charities, so I was once the first and only staff member of a small maternal health charity, and on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve worked for a couple of large international aid and development organisations with 1000s of staff across the world. And where I think I’ve found my personal sweet sweet spot is in medium-sized charities. So I was the head of policy and communications at Womankind Worldwide, which had around 25 staff, and currently at Respect, we’ve had a period of growth, and we’re about 80 staff, which feels very much at the larger end of that medium-sized charity. But I’d say that when we’re at our best, we we can still balance that kind of that brilliant thing of having enough people and capacity, along with agility and responsiveness to what is still an ever-changing external landscape. So, yeah, that’s a bit about me and my career.
Irene Sobowale
There’s so much in what you’ve just said, Lee, and so many questions that spring to mind, just in terms of the the breadth of experience you’ve had, but some of the challenges working across both small to large-sized charities and settling in the medium-sized charities. When we talk about leadership within the charity sector, what do you think about leadership today? What and what feels most different from when you first stepped into a leadership role?
Lee Webster
I think so much has changed since I first became a leader, and still my journey is relatively short. I’ve been in leadership for about 12 or 13 years, but still the landscape has changed hugely. And I think for me, it’s around complexity. Leadership has become more complex, and our understanding of the complexity of the world and the issues we’re working on has, I think, changed. And I guess, well, we know people don’t live single-issue lives. I think it was Audre Lorde that said that, and she probably said it many decades ago. But I think, as as the charity sector, it took us a while to really understand that, and we never used to articulate it very clearly. And I think it was very tempting to act as though we do live single-issue lives, so we have single-issue charities. And actually, what I’ve really come to appreciate through my leadership journey is that all these issues-poverty, social exclusion, violence against women and girls, inequality, racism, and other forms of oppression-the impacts of the climate crisis-these don’t sit in neat boxes, either in people’s lives or in society, and then so then neither do the solutions. So I think we’re increasingly called to think outside of those boxes, which means I think staying really curious, staying open to different types of action and solution, and always trying to listen to voices that that might not be heard, and keep keep on asking the questions. But it’s a much more complex world than it was, and funding to answer that complexity has not kept up with the need, unfortunately.
Irene Sobowale
You you spoke there about the breadth of of issues and challenges that we face, and the intersection between the the various sections and the various issues that we’re facing as a society and as a world, how do you then not make sure you focus on the on the specific requirements of your charity without losing sight of that bigger picture? And how do you think about how do you how can you contribute. Towards some of the solutions for some of those bigger world problems and issues that we’re facing.
Lee Webster
Yeah, I mean that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Is that I think it’s really finding that balance of how do we stay focused on our mission and make our contribution as part of a bigger movement or a bigger coalition. So, for instance, at Respect, we focus on the perpetration of domestic abuse, on stopping perpetrators, giving them the chance to change. But what we do is we work very much within that broader framing of violence against women and girls. So we are part of a movement that is working towards elimination of violence against women and girls. So we work very closely with our sister organisations who work to provide services and advocate on issues affecting victims and survivors. We, of course, make sure that victim and survivor safety is at the heart of our work in addressing perpetration. So it’s about knowing our own contribution and sticking quite closely to that, but not in isolation of what else is going on. And when we can build coalitions and come together to look for shared funding and shared approaches, we increasingly we can do that more and more. I think, but it does it does increase the complexity of how we work as well as what we’re working on.
Irene Sobowale
It does, yes. So could could you give us an example then of a particularly successful collaboration you’ve had, or a particular engagement with a wider group, where actually you’ve been able to come together to address some of those issues and challenges that Respect focus on.
Lee Webster
Yeah, that’s a great question, Irene. And my role at Respect was brought in to help develop and set the new strategy and then oversee its delivery. And as part of that, we set a really bold new ambition to establish a centre for excellence on addressing the perpetration of domestic abuse because we really saw some key gaps. Like the perpetrator sector is really quite new. Respect is 25 years old, and it was a it’s a second tier organisation that was set up to bring together perpetrator workers from across the country who are really at the cutting edge of thinking: How do we get in a room with perpetrators of abuse and support them to change their behaviours? And over 25 years, we’ve seen a huge growth in the sector, but there’s still a long way to go. And some of the gaps that we’re seeing are really the gaps between where what research is telling us and how that’s driving practice, and really crucially how practice is driving research, because practitioners every day thinking how can I do this work better, what is working, what isn’t, and very rarely do they get in a room with academics and shape research agendas together. So we wanted to disrupt some of that power imbalance and make sure that the expertise is really feeding into each other. We’ve started, and and this is a this is an initiative that we’re still very much getting off the ground. And as all of our brilliant ideas in the charity sector is very funding dependent, but we have built brilliant collaborations with across the respect membership, with academics, and we’re looking at how we can really shape the future discourse of what works to address the perpetration of domestic abuse by bringing these different networks together. So we’ve got lots of green shoots on that at the moment, but it is all about that kind of getting the funding in place
Irene Sobowale
to do it. Yeah, the current climate, the current environment is very challenging in respect of funding, and which led to my previous question in terms of how you collaborate and bring people together. And I think Pat, what what leads very nicely onto my next question, which is talking about and thinking about how the charity sector needs to rethink leadership and and its role within society. What do you? What assumptions about leadership do you think that the charities sector needs to rethink?
Lee Webster
For me, this is about an assumption that leadership starts at the top. For me, leadership doesn’t start at the top. It starts at all levels of our organisations. So, what are we doing to encourage that leadership within our teams, amongst our staff, and for me, that really starts with organisational culture and about building trust in an organisation, and also the safety, the psychological safety to make mistakes and own them and learn from them. So I think for me, when that works, it’s about everyone in the organisation really understanding their role, how it contributes to the strategy, and what are their parameters of authority and decision making, and then encouraging people to work at the upper limits of them. If I have authority to make this decision, I’m going to make it. I’m going to, you know, like going to listen to the right people. I’m going to consider them. I’m going to make the decision. But also, then people need to know that those times when they make the wrong decision or there are unintended consequences, it’s not a disaster that they can talk to their manager, they can bring in colleagues, and we can work these things through. Because for me, that’s how we become leaders. We don’t become leaders by getting it right all the time. We become leaders by learning some really hard lessons and realising that whatever. Mistakes we make, we can usually often sort them out as we go along, course correct as long as we’re being transparent and honest about them with ourselves, with our peers, with our line managers, as appropriate. So I think that that’s for me the the kind of future of how do we do that well. I love nothing more than someone coming to me saying, Lee, I’ve really messed up today, and because it’s very rare that I would ever need to kind of, you know, add to how somebody’s feeling about that mistake, because people feel bad enough if they’ve made a mistake. But if they come and say and say that, I’m like, okay, well, let’s reflect. What went wrong? What might we do differently next time? Is there anything we need to adjust in terms of organisational Processes, and we fix it best we can, and we move on.
Irene Sobowale
I think that’s right. I think that’s right. It’s really interesting when you think about leadership and saying leadership runs all the way through the organisation, and you don’t have to sit at the top of the organisation. You’re not the only leader within the organisation because you happen to have the role of the chief executive. It’s much more about an approach, as you said. It’s that psychological safety. It’s that clarity of responsibility and accountability. So if you take that forward, then what do you think? What kinds of skills or mindsets do you think we need within the charity sector?
Lee Webster
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I keep thinking of the circus and circus skills because I think we need to be kind of plate spinners and ball jugglers as leaders in charities. And I so often say to like our CEO, I’m juggling loads of balls, and it feels like they’re all glass, and I’m just hoping that the biggest one doesn’t land and smash. And it does feel like that to me quite often. But then when we work together, okay. So, what are those balls, and what need to be gently put down, and which ones do you need to get a grip of? So, there’s something about that, like just keeping many things moving. There’s also the tightrope walking analogy of there’s such a fine line of funding scarcity and rising demand for services that always feels like such a tight line to walk, and and much more of my job than I would like is spent on actually getting the income to do the activities rather than being able to think about the strategy and where we’re going. So I think that’s always a challenge, and we have to be able to lift ourselves out of that as well, and look forward towards the towards the horizon. And then I think the the third circus analogy, if you forgive me my analogy, but it’s the trapeze artists because actually we are awesome. We fly through the air when we’re when we are at our best. We can bring that joy. We can bring hope to communities to people’s lives, and we can actually do things that seem impossible and make people gasp. So I think we need to not forget that either, because we, I think most of us in the charity sector get out of bed in the morning to make the world a better place, and we need to remember that when we’re in spreadsheets of donor reporting and and management accounts and funding bids and HR issues. We need to remember like why we’re all here. So being able to always elevate back up, look to the horizon, and keep that hope like hope in a better world. Like a better world is possible. And and I hope I never forget that. I really keep keep needing to stay enthusiastic, stay optimistic, and and believe that we can make a difference.
Irene Sobowale
I love that, Lee. I love your circus analogy. I love the thought of juggling the tightrope, tightrope, tight rope walking, being the trapeze artist. But you spoke. You also spoke importantly about keeping the hope alive, staying enthusiastic, making sure that you get the funding to keep going without losing sight of the strategy, and I think those are all really significant parts of the role of a CEO and leaders leadership within an organisation more widely. But ultimately, all with all of that that’s going on, ultimately you as a CEO, you are the box stops with you, as as people say. And in previous series, people have spoken openly about the loneliness of the loneliness of leadership, and the sense of carrying things alone, and the pressure to always appear okay. You spoke about that hope, that enthusiasm, and there must be times when you may you may feel less enthusiastic than than at other times. Does that has that been true for you? And if that has been true, how do you deal with that sense of lonely of loneliness at the top?
Lee Webster
For me, I’m very lucky, and it hasn’t been true. But remember, I’m a deputy CEO, so I did actually check in with my CEO Joe this week on this, and because I feel like it’s part of my role to actually make sure that she, as the CEO, and my peers, directors on the leadership team, are not lonely and are not isolated, and that we’re working together. And she said she felt very much the same, and we talked about our. Relationship and we work really hard on that. We get on very well. We make sure that we have really robust and honest conversations. We’re extremely honest with each other, but we also enjoy working together. And we we want to come to work and meet each other and talk to each other about about what’s going on. And we make decisions together. Of course, at the end of the day, she has that ultimate responsibility. But we have worked hard to make sure that she’s not making decisions in isolation, and that we all really support each other. So I think for me, that again, it goes back to that kind of dispersing leadership as much as possible and ensuring that people are supported to make decisions at the right levels is part of that. But it’s also sisterhood and camaraderie, and and you know, just coming to work, enjoying the people that we work with. I think really helps as well.
Irene Sobowale
I love that. I love that sense of camaraderie and that sisterhood. And I think I think that structure of having a deputy CEO is slightly different in some organisations where you’ve just had the CEO and directors within within the organisation. How does that structure work within your organisation, working as a deputy CEO, working with the CEO?
Lee Webster
It works really well. We’ve had the we’ve had this structure for about four years, and I was the first deputy CEO, it’s an it’s always an evolving structure. Actually, like we we keep it very live. So to some extent, if there becomes a capacity gap in a particular area, like for instance, our operations director left, I might put my attention on that area of the organisation for a little while, and that helps where I am a generalist, and I have worked across different functions of organisations through my career. On the whole, I I still hold those strategy development and strategy delivery, which is a brilliant part of my job that I love. Obviously, the board and the CEO have ultimate responsibility for the for the strategy, but it’s my responsibility to actually make sure that it is set, and that we deliver it, and that staff know about it, and that that is a live document within our organisation. So that’s a big part of my role that is very distinct to me. But a lot of the rest of it is being very flexible. And in fact, I have a meeting with Joe today to talk about the split of our roles and responsibilities because that can and does change. So, what is it? What is it important this year that she is focusing on? And what can I either take off her, or what can I focus on? And we we we sort of try to find a balance of working to our own skills and experience, and we have very complementary skills and experience. So we we’re good at different things and similar in many ways, particularly in in values, but we try to play to our strengths. But we also try to make sure that we each get enough of the good stuff and the fun stuff. So I’m not the kind of deputy CEO that stuff gets dumped on that no one else wants to do because I don’t think I’d thrive in that. So she helps to make sure that I I thrive and have space and some of the fun stuff to do as well.
Irene Sobowale
That sounds brilliant. I really like the sound of how that works together with you both. So then, leading on from that, how do you see the role of the CEO changing in the next decade?
Lee Webster
Yeah, this is something that I really think about quite a lot as well because I think there’s a lot to consider about future charity leadership, and especially in this environment where many of us have moved to remote working, respects a remote organisation, and many of my friends in the charity sector are now home-based workers. And I guess I grew up through the charity sector in what is probably now the olden days, but we sat in offices, and everyone was in the office at the same time. So, for instance, I’ve never been a press officer, but I sat next to the press office and heard them answering when when journalists used to call phones on desks, and I’d hear them answering the call, and I’d sit next to fundraisers. So by osmosis, you begin to understand how charities work. Like for years, I never went to a board meeting, but trustees would come into our charities and say a load of stuff on their way to board meetings, and and now a lot of that work of not all charities, but many charities, a lot of that happens behind screens and Microsoft Teams, and and so we don’t see it. So I do wonder what that means for future charity leaders, because I think what often happens, I think, is that people who become quite specialist in what they’re doing and their home base, we do a lot to ensure collaboration amongst our staff and to encourage people to come together in person. But still, a lot of the time, staff are doing their particular role in their homes. So I think when we fast forward 10 or 20 years, who are those future charity leaders? So I think for anyone listening to this who might have leadership aspirations, my advice would be to always try and keep a bit of breadth in your role. And what are the things on the edge of the of your role, or where you can learn from people in other teams that will give you that kind of wider angle, wider view. On your organisation and on charities, but also I think it means let’s just be realistic. If specialists are becoming, if more leaders are going to be a bit more specialised in a certain area, it goes back to my previous point of then devolving leadership and decision making and making sure that we are really mindfully building leadership teams with a real, genuine diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of background, to complement the future leaders. If that if that makes sense, but sometimes it troubles me a bit. But then when I when I was thinking about this podcast, I thought there’s another side to this. If we accept that that’s happening, we can plan for it. Like specialists are brilliant people. So yeah,
Irene Sobowale
I love that thought because it’s you’re starting to touch on then how things that we as as leaders in the sector how we address the future and how we begin to change and do things differently. What else do you think as leader as a leadership practice? What else do you think we should be doing more of, or perhaps less of, or shifting towards. Are there other areas where you think actually yes, we should be focusing on this area in preparation for what’s to come?
Lee Webster
Yeah, I think for me, I started this by saying I’m a feminist, and feminist leadership is really important to me. And I think it’s a concept that’s been around for quite a long time, and it we’re not done with it. It hasn’t had its day, and it’s still evolving, and we’re still learning how to be feminist leaders. And when I worked at Action Aid, an international development organisation, we developed well feminist leaders within Action Aid across the global South developed a set of feminist leadership principles that was really about bringing self-care, dismantling bias, transparent and transparent and responsible use of power, zero tolerance for abuse, bringing some of those things that we understand within feminism into how we lead, and it’s not perfect, of course, and and we live and learn and adjust. But for me, that’s really still a really important part of how I try to lead. And there’s a great organisation called We Are Feminist Leaders, who are doing some really good thinking across the sector around what it means to be a feminist leader today, and bringing together feminist thinkers and leaders from across the world to share expertise and experience, and have some really good thinking spaces. So there’s a lot of resource out there to lean into. But for me, yeah, feminist leadership is really something that we can keep evolving.
Irene Sobowale
I love the sound of that. I’ve never heard that those two words put together in quite that way in terms of feminist leadership. But as a concept, it’s it sounds logical and it makes sense. Can you tell us a little bit more about feminist leadership?
Lee Webster
Yeah, sure. So I think really, it’s if we’re for me as a feminist, it’s about believing in equality of all people, believing in freedom and liberation for women in particular, and believing in that end to the patriarchal order of things, the way things have always been done, that has significantly disadvantaged women. And then, when we take an intersectional lens and look at the way the ways that women are disadvantaged because of race or disability or other intersecting axes of oppression, we start to see a picture really build up of how the world isn’t equal. So when we put that first in our leadership, it means working from a point of trying to address it, and I guess doing the work while we’re leading. So if we kind of break some of that down, it’s when we take power as women leaders and as as feminists, it’s about really treating that with care and being responsible and accountable with it. So I don’t take my power and say, right, I’m making this decision and I’m the deputy CEO, so go and do it. I’m obviously like accountable to my team, and being a feminist isn’t the only way to be this. I think the vast majority of charity leaders, whether they whether they name themselves, identify as feminists or not, are very committed to that kind of dismantling of traditional hierarchies. We always say respect, actually, like we might be in an organisation with a hierarchy, it doesn’t mean that we are hierarchical as individuals. I would much prefer people to call me up and ask if my son scored in his football match at the weekend. Get to know me a bit as a person. Dive into those values of like, why why are you here today? What what drives you? And in the violence against women sector and the domestic abuse sector. Most of us are really driven by passion for a better world. For that, like free the the notion of freedom from violence for women is revolutionary, because if you’re free from violence and free from the threat of violence, like because we all live with the threat of violence, like women, especially young women, would. Always text their mates when they get in from a night out because it’s actually not inevitable that they’ll get in safe safely. So we like women live with that threat, and to live without that threat would be a wholesale revolution. So to to kind of discuss that openly with colleagues and understand motivations, and sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes people are motivated by difficult personal experiences, but we bring that too. But we handle it with care. So it is about that not tolerating abuse in the workplace, bringing self-care. I’m much more. I’m much more often. In fact, probably 99% of the time, I’m like, are you well enough to work? Do you need sick leave? Have you taken your holidays? Are you working too hard? I very rarely-I can’t remember more than once or twice-ever saying, “Have you done your hours? Or like you know. So I think it’s it’s that it’s that real kind of human centreness, building relationships and working from a a position of of respect.
Irene Sobowale
I love it. It’s a changing world that we live in, and changing approaches, and recognising that what existed in the past is not necessarily what we want to take forward into the future, and thinking about how to do things differently, being very intentional about focusing on where that change is needed is really important as we shape organisations for the future. So let’s shift tack a little bit. We spoke about change and we spoke about how systems, processes, the world around us is changing. One of the big things that I’m very conscious of and wonder how it impacts on our or will impact on our organisation is innovation. There’s a lot of technological change, but innovation more widely. Where do you think the next wave of innovation in leadership will come from?
Lee Webster
For me, what I’m really interested in is innovation in second-tier infrastructure organisations. Respect is a membership organisation and a sector leader of the perpetrator sector. And as listeners will know, over the past couple of years, we’ve seen infrastructure organisations, second-tier organisations, really struggling, and some really, really excellent ones closing down. And that’s really, really sad to see, and worries us all. And it’s really understandable in times like this when need in communities is high, that funding goes to meet that need, and at the same time, actually having the architecture behind those organisations supporting them, supporting their innovation, supporting them to connect and come together, calling for better, more transformative, more equitable funding for those organisations, strengthening the sector, doing the workforce development, making sure that the workers in those charities have the skills and experience and expertise to do that really, really skilled work that we expect charities to do. That our roles as second-tier organisations has never been more vital, and at the same time, it’s never been more difficult to sustain the funding for that particular role. So I think that’s really about how do we keep ourselves relevant? How do we make sure that in our sector we are those leaders that make sure that our brilliant members can be more than the sum of their parts? So I think for me that’s about innovation in funding, and I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience. I actually went to an ACEVO training on resilience last week that was brilliant. Shout out to them, and they talked about resilience as purpose, money, and people. And I feel like there’s something going forward around all we know is that the world is changing. Like that is change is constant, and I don’t think that change is going to slow down. I think with the the really fast advances around AI, for instance, that’s only speeding everything up. Like we can’t keep up. So how through that do we become resilient? What I do observe is we have such brilliant people across across our organisations and across our sectors, that if we can innovate in how we bring in funding, can we get beyond those traditional funding models? Can we think more creatively about our offer, about consultancy, about how we sell our services in different ways? And there are great charities out there that are doing that. That I would personally love to learn more about, but I think somehow if second-tier organisations can collaborate and think that through and really start to develop a different model for how we are sustainable and resilient, I think that would make a big difference. I definitely don’t have the answers on it. Would love conversations on it.
Irene Sobowale
One of the challenges, isn’t it, of working within our sector where there’s so much need, so many areas for consideration, for many, so many areas for us to focus on with limited time, resources, ability to actually grab a really grab a hold of those and focus on those areas that we really need to think differently. And then going back to something you said earlier about collaboration and actually working with other others within the sector who have aligned whether it’s areas of work or aligned interests, so that we can actually optimise optimise our contribution to the wider society. So it’s bringing all of that together to make sure that works effectively.
Lee Webster
Yeah, it’s a really good point. Yeah.
Irene Sobowale
When the pressure is high, what helps you stay anchored as a leader?
Lee Webster
Ah, that’s a great question. Definitely, my colleagues. As I said, my relationship with our CEO and our directors and and colleagues across the organisation keeps me really grounded and anchored. But I also feel like it’s my responsibility to just kind of have a focus on my well-being because these are hard jobs that we do, and they are high pressure. So I do try outside of work to look after myself. And for me, when I feel the pressure, I just like to zoom out mentally and kind of zoom right out into the universe and look back down and see myself as this increasingly smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller until I’m like no, no bigger than a tiny speck of dust in a huge, massive universe, and it just kind of keeps things in perspective because what can feel like an unsurmountable problem is actually in the grand greatest scheme of things probably well definitely not. So I, yeah, I like to really zoom out, and I’ve learnt as I’ve got older that there’s some real, there’s really worth, there’s real worth in doing activities that are calming for the mind and body. So I love a jigsaw. I’ve learnt to crochet in my 40s, and I’m always crocheting blankets and bed runners and cushion covers for for friends of mine. They always have to be in like squares. I can only do granny squares. I can’t follow a pattern. I love to crochet, and I love to be outside in nature again because that helps me just remember that like there are there are powers greater than me in the world, and nature is way bigger than me. I can, I’ve got, I live in London, and I’ve got a balcony garden, and and weeds grow through the cracks in in the balcony, and I’m like, but I live four flights above a main road in Croydon, and still the weeds come through. So that’s definitely like power’s greater than me. So I just like to ground myself by by thinking about that, and it just helps me to keep things in perspective. I’ve also got a very sporty 11 year old son, so I spend a lot of time watching football.
Irene Sobowale
Lovely, lovely. You’ll miss that when he’s older. So I enjoy those times, those times on the touchline, and watching him playing football. Fantastic. Is there anything that we haven’t. Talking about today that you actually wanted to discuss.
Lee Webster
Well, then it’s a good. I’d like to just do this in return and
Irene Sobowale
speak to
Lee Webster
you and ask ask you all the same questions. But I know that someone else has asked you the questions, so I’m definitely looking forward to to listening to your edition of the podcast. Thank you. But I think we’ve covered a really wide range of issues, and it’s been really good to have this conversation. And yeah, great that ACEVO of kind of making this available to the sector because I shall listen to all the other episodes with real interest and lots to learn. So thank you.
Irene Sobowale
Absolutely, absolutely. So I’m I’m sorry to say you won’t be able to interview me, but I do know that you will be having a chat with another guest. So, would you like to introduce whoever you will be interviewing in your next episode, and tell us which question you’d like to ask them?
Lee Webster
Yes, definitely. So, I’m really excited to be interviewing Danielle Bridge, and she is the CEO of Black Minds Matter, and she’s been a leader in the mental health space for a number of years. I don’t know her, so I’m really looking forward to meeting her and getting to know her. And I understand that part of her role at Black Minds Matter has been to set strategy and develop infrastructure. And I’ve done something similar at respect, so I’m really interested in kind of digging into that strategy setting and keeping strategies alive in organisations. I’m really looking forward to listening and learning from her on that.
Irene Sobowale
Well, I look forward to having you in the in the in the opposite seat. So you in the hot you rather than being in the hot seat, you asking the questions. I look forward to hearing all all about that. And it’s been really good to meet you, Lee. Really good. Oh,
Lee Webster
thank you. You too.