April is Stress Awareness Month, and the 2024 focus is to talk about stress and it’s effect on people. Doing this raises awareness, helps people to ensure they don’t feel alone and enables sharing of things that are helpful.

I often hear from HR and People Managers in organisations who tell me that their people say they’re stressed or struggling with workload, overwhelm and wellbeing …. BUT ‘don’t have time’ to do anything about it.

This is just one of the reason why I’m sharing information that can help you make a decision on whether it’s worth investing in stress awareness.

The last few years has changed how we connect and communicate, and although it’s also taught us resilience and shined a spotlight on our ability to adapt, it’s also impacted our emotional, psychological and social wellbeing, so talking about how we feel is important.

Employers have a ‘duty of care’ to ensure that employees are not subjected to excessive stress in the workplace, this also means arming employees and leaders with the tools they need to manage stress effectively.

As well as costing businesses money through work-related stress and mental illness absences (£26 billion per annum in fact), stress thought to be responsible for almost half of working days lost in Britain due to health issues. 

Stress Awareness Workshops

To find out more about my Stress Awareness Workshops get in touch now, spaces are filling up fast.

You have the option of completely tailored workshops that focus on the area your business needs to make the most effective impact. That might be a workshop for managers ensure there is a clear understand of what can cause stress, spot the signs early, implement tools and tips to prevent reaching crisis point.

It might be a session for all people with top tips, quick wins and easy ‘at your desk’ stress reducing activities.

Lessons for Leaders Podcast Revisited

On a revisit, but just as relevant, on the podcast I’m talking about Why it’s Worth Investing in Stress Awareness.

I cover:

What is Causing Stress in the Workplace?

How will Stress Awareness Help Your Organisation?

How Does Stress Impact Productivity?

Is it Worth Investing in Stress Awareness?

Ways I can support you or help for you to do it yourself.

Stress is a word that we have heard so many times over the last few years. In fact, if you asked many people I am sure that ‘stressful’ would sum up their experience of recent years with pressure on hybrid working, financial worries and work pressure.

Listen for more details, ideas, information and discussion on this topic.

Ask me about my Stress Awareness Workshops or grab my DIY pack.

This is a pack full of factual information, instructions and resources so that you can implement your own Stress Awareness and activities with your workplace and colleagues without having to think up ideas.  There are also posters and images to share in your own newsletters along with a quiz and some conversation topics.

I hope this is helpful for you. Please do share any feedback or any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Welcome to Lessons for Leaders. Can you believe we are celebrating 100 episodes of the podcast already?!

The goal has always been to share lessons, learnings, tips and advice and, even when things got tough with it, I’ve enjoyed it more and I’m proud to be able to say I got to episode 100.

Many of my regular listeners will know that my girls are the reason I do what I do and my eldest girl is about to make me a Granny next month, so it seems like a good time to pause the episodes for a while.

This last one is a very special episode, with my other amazing girl joining me at the mic to ask some of the questions you, my listeners, sent in. I really hope you enjoy it.

I’ll be back in the autumn. In the meantime, there are plenty of topics in the back episodes for you to dive into.

Keep sending me feedback, loves, takeaways and requests for topics in the meantime. 

As always, thank you for listening 

I hope this is helpful for you. Please do share any feedback or any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

This week I’m sharing top tips and conversations I have frequently with people in organisations to help them persuade leaders to invest in wellbeing.

We’re covering:

• What to do to persuade your leaders
• The 3 R’s that I like to go to with organisations I work with
• Why we need to look at revenue in different ways… I dive into specifics here to give you a head start
• How to highlight the risks to an organisation
• Why it’s important to include reputation in this persuasive detail too

It’s easy to say wellbeing can help to reverse employee burnout and reduce stress, turnover and absenteeism.

Often dismissed or seen as nice to do, is it really essential?  Is it something worthy of budget or resources?

Promoting an environment where it’s ok to talk about mental health and encouraging good wellbeing is simply the right thing to do. Unfortunately, some of your senior colleagues won’t agree or will be more focused on investing in business projects that they deem to have a clearer ROI. The good news is that, whilst not everyone will see wellbeing plans and training as a business critical issue right now, there are strong reasons that it MUST form part of your core business strategy.

You just need to find what IS the focus of your senior people so we can determine how to convince, persuade, or justify the time and expense on wellbeing.

Company executives want to know that any new programme, including wellbeing, is going to support the bottom line of the business and its long-term growth.

I share in more detail how you can do that.  So have a listen.

If you’re looking for support for your wellbeing plan, coaching for your leaders or training programmes that not only help your leaders, managers and employees enhance their wellbeing and performance, but also gives you the tools and strategies to ensure senior buy in from the outset – get in touch.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

This week I’m joined by Gemma Woodward, People & Culture Manager for Netsells in York, to talk about why a good leader will give teams autonomy. Listen in for:

• What the benefits of allowing autonomy are
• How leaders can encourage autonomy in their teams
• Where leaders get it wrong with a top down leadership and how it can affect their people and the organisation
• The one key thing that people should remember about autonomy

Key Comments and Takeaways

A top down leadership can create a fear of coming forward and fear of making mistake… their ideas and decisions might be more beneficial than they think.

People have a valuable input to give a different perspective and do add value.

Businesses will tell you they trust you but don’t really demonstrate that.

If we want to retain staff, enhance talent and develop people, it’s really worthwhile for organisations to create a team culture that also makes them an employer of choice.

Culture is not defined with free tea and coffee and ping pong tables anymore.

We need to move away from the thought process of ‘it’s quicker if I do it’ because we create a bottleneck in the process which means you’re not passing on knowledge to the team.

Use mistakes as a focus to learn from rather than beat someone up about it.

How can leaders enable more automony in the workplace?

We need to recognise that everyone has a different way of working and different levels of creativity.

There is a saying that there is strength in numbers, so I believe we should embrace that by working collaboratively and learning from each other.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

Connect with Gemma on LinkedIn

What on earth is back to the floor?

I start with that and why I’m covering the subject of why leaders need to get back to the floor (it was inspired by my wonderful friend and leader Tina).  I’m also covering:

• Why it’s important to know first-hand what’s happening on your shop floor
• Some real life examples and stories of how back to the floor worked, and how it didn’t
• One really, really important question to ask yourself

I share stories from my experience in the corporate world as well as my friend Tina’s feedback too, to give you some real life examples – some are funny, some are lovely and one is a little shocking.

Here’s one of the key things ….

Without that interaction, engagement and visibility not only would you feel unappreciated and disconnected from the business, but you wouldn’t know or understand your position in the organisation, what you should be doing and what outcomes you should be striving towards. 

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

If you haven’t yet  left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com.   Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

It’s been two years since the UK locked down from the COVID-19 virus. In fact, pretty much the entire world locked down. In Lockdown Lessons for Leaders, the latest episode of my podcast, I share my reflections, lessons and learnings.

Lockdown changed so many things:

• About how we live
• How we work
• Connections & communication
• Wellbeing – what were thankful for – fear / perspective
• Resilience

Have you looked back at those pictures from cities that were empty and streets that were bare? I know I have.  There were bits that I loved and bits that I didn’t.

There was a significant difference in how people viewed the lockdown. Some loved it. Some hated it. For some it was frightening, and for some it was delightful. Some missed people, while some enjoyed the space.

However over time those views change. This is an important lesson to remember.

However hard we think things are at the time, they will change. It’s important to look back and see how far you’ve come, what you’ve coped with and how you’ve managed. These are great ways to reflect and learn the lessons.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

If you haven’t yet  left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com. Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.

In honour of International Women’s Day, I’m here to give ideas of ways that you can support women in leadership roles.  

There can be a number of reasons why there are less women than men in leadership roles.  

Data from the House of Commons found that companies led by women outperform those led by men – but despite this, we’re very far from achieving gender parity in the workplace.

I share information about:

Breaking the Bias

Unconscious biases, opinions and beliefs are formed early in our childhood. We learn these from family, friends and people of authority that are social messaging about boys and girls.  

Encouraging women to pursue leadership roles and supporting those who are already leaders is beneficial for the workplace as a whole.

Improving Confidence

Many women don’t apply for specific leadership positions, so work to improve confidence can be really helpful at this level.

Improving Language

When I say this, I mean changing the way that we are speaking up / giving time to be heard / not talking over the top of people; and establishing meeting etiquettes to ensure everyone is treated fairly during meetings, and that all have the opportunity to speak and be heard.

Listen for the story I share about how I had to have conversations about language being used, so I could keep a strong mindset about the work I was doing.

Male Allies and Cheerleaders are hugely important and I talk a little about this too.

Mentoring

Coaching

Women’s Networks

These are all important factors in supporting female leaders, so get in touch if you want more info on my services for these, but do listen in to find out how these are different and how they can help support women in leadership.

And finally,

Pay the same – if you’re not closing the gender pay gap then you’re missing one big thing.

Companies with female leaders perform better than those led by males, House of Commons data has revealed.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

If you haven’t yet  left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com or head over to my contact page to book into the diary.

This week I’m talking to you about why empathy is crucial for great leaders.

I cover :

• What is empathy
• Why does it matter in leadership
• Whether empathy can be learned 
• How it can improve performance, create connections and
• What you can do to be more empathic

Why is empathy crucial for great leaders and what is empathy anyway?

Empathy is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experience of others. So it’s about truly feeling what the other person is feeling.

You know I often talk about how we don’t ‘do’ emotions. But empathy is about connecting with emotions and feelings.

Why does empathy matter?

If we were to do a list of successful leaderships skills, empathy would rarely be included, but it’s essential in my opinion.

I’m often asked the question “can we learn empathy”?  It’s often thought that we either have it or have not.  You’ll have to listen to the episode for the answer to this one!

Listen more for the ways that you can improve empathy.

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

Do you find it difficult to say no to people? Perhaps it means you end up being busy, stressed, or over-committed?  Often when we struggle to say no to people it can leave us feeling used, put upon, or juggling too many things. Are you the one who ends up working late because you’ve said yes to others, yet you’re the one with more to do?

Then this episode – Easy Ways to Say No – is for you.

I talk about:

• How to say no and establish healthy boundaries
• How to handle the fear, stress, worry and guilt
• The surprising reason that saying no is good for you
• Key phrases that you can begin to use to get you started
• Why it’s not always about you
• Suggestions to think about helping you with easy ways to say no

It’s important to be able to say no so you feel empowered while still maintaining your relationships with others. Saying no helps you establish healthy boundaries and enables others to have clarity about what they can expect from you.

When you struggle to say no, look at what’s going on when you feel like this? What feeling or emotion comes up for you when people ask you do something? Perhaps there are past experiences and situations that mean you’ve learned it’s easier to say yes than no.

For many it’s a worry or fear about what others will think. 

Consider the other situation – you say yes so many times that you end up worn out. Then there’s really no chance of you saying yes to anything if you’ve made yourself poorly!  Focus on the benefits of saying no.

Apparently the Mayo Clinic has done research that concludes that saying no can help to reduce your stress levels and increase your happiness.   

Any questions on this, drop me an email at emma@emmalangton.com

For further information on 1:1, group coaching or training get in touch.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient, less stressed in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you send me an email or use the online diary and arrange a time for a chat.

This week I’m sharing tips and information about De-stigmatising Mental Health.  I share key points on:

• Why mental health is stigmatised
• How stigma brings shame and what that looks like
• How it will impact on your organisation
• Good news on the wider impact of investing in de-stigmatising
• Key things that you can do and examples too

When we prevent people talking openly and transparently, we also prevent those who need it from having support. 

Stigma brings shame. Listen in for information about how people respond then feel ashamed, what the impact will be on your organisation and how it can impact absenteeism, presenteeism and attrition.

Mixed anxiety and depression has been estimated to cause one fifth of days lost from work in Britain.

In May 2021, The Office for National Statistics revealed that depression rates doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The good news is that it’s not just about investing in wellbeing and culture. It’s helpful for everyone. Listen in for the explanation of the work I did in schools when my kids needed extra support that was helpful for all children, not just them. 

The same is true in an organisation, so what you get is happier, more inclusive workplaces where people feel accepted and want to come to work.

Let’s not forget that stress and mental health works on a sliding scale… you never know who might slide up that scale to a point of difficulty and who might get a ton of crap thrown at them for longer periods so they stay at the top end of that scale and hit crisis mode. 

What can we do?

I talk about the education, training and culture that can be impacted.

Language is huge and I share how you can impact this.

People need to feel safe enough to talk and that they will be heard. They don’t even need you to understand them or be able to stand in their shoes. 

I share a couple of key phrases that help you to help de-stigmatise mental health and support your people.

As well as language they hear at work, there’s also a language going on inside their own head based on their own upbringing and experiences. They might be ashamed, believe they’re weak (this has been said to me often), think no-one will understand or don’t want to show a vulnerability. 

My daughters both think they can hide their worries and concerns. Yet it shows in their behaviour. 

It takes the entire team to work together to make progress and consistently send the message that there is no stigma or shame around mental health. 

Even then, don’t be offended if someone still struggles to talk to you. It’s not you. You can still help.

As the stigma lifts and the culture changes, the sense of shared trauma and experiences are making it easier for people to talk, not just about their own struggles, but to recognise those issues in others.

Please do make sure you hit ‘subscribe’ so that don’t miss an episode.  

If you haven’t yet  left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.

Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE

If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to emma@emmalangton.com or head over to my contact page to book into the diary.