November 3, 2025 • 54 mins
When you're ill or disabled and working in the tech field, the long hours can be not just counterproductive, but discriminatory.
And it is also because of these stated ideas of productivity and leadership that disabled leaders often remain invisible, but they do exist, and we are here to talk to one today.
Our guest is Sally Lait, an experienced senior leader with two decades experience in roles, including engineering director and VP of Engineering. Sally's insights about energy management, boundary setting, and intentional leadership are wonderful for all of us.
This conversation was recorded in August 2024.
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(00:00):
But actually a lot of the questions, that's is the old
classic thing. As managers, as leaders, I think
we often can ask the coaching questions to other people and
then we know exactly what we should be asking ourselves and
don't follow our own advice. We're all hypocrites, yeah.
Exactly. And, you know, the question of
(00:20):
kind of how can you best set yourself up for success is a
general one that I think a lot of people can benefit from.
How do you get your energy? How do you restore your energy
after draining times? How do you best receive
information, you know, written or verbal?
All of these things I think are really great questions for
(00:43):
everybody to to think about themselves or to ask the people
around them. It's August 2025, and we're in a
time of incredible productivity,pressure on leaders as well as
on our teams. And it's a time where many
leaders are under a lot of scrutiny to do as much as
possible or, you know, ideally even more than possible.
(01:05):
And we need to talk about that. This is leadership confidential
with Lena Reinhardt. Real talk on more than two hard
things in technology, finding community and becoming the
engineering leader you can be today.
Being a disabled leader in tech.I vividly remember my first
startup job 15 years ago. I was working a full time job at
(01:27):
the startup on the side to also going to school full time.
My work started at 3:00 PM and often went into the nights and
weekends running on infinite cups of coffee that I got from
the small red coffee machine in our shared office with the
smelly carpet and all desks. I would heap piles of milk foam
onto my coffee and generally sprinkle the foam with sugar.
Anything to get through the day and on especially late evenings,
(01:50):
which we had a lot of, we would order pizza.
And all of that is what I thought I needed to do to be and
to let alone be successful in tech.
And let's be real, those things sometimes still are.
There's this hard to shake idea of the always on leader.
The person who works 80 to 100 hour weeks never says no and
(02:10):
treats their body like a machinethat just needs the right input
to maximize output. For the 2010 era, that used to
be pizza. Now the stereotype seems to have
shifted to kombucha. That set up certainly wasn't
sustainable for me. It's not sustainable for anyone,
I think. And not just that, it's also
incredibly exclusionary. Founder Rachel Thomas wrote in a
(02:33):
piece that are linked below. And work in the tech industry,
where there is an overt glorification and in many cases
a requirement of working unhealthily long hours.
This is in spite of research showing that putting in longer
hours doesn't lead to greater productivity and instead is
harmful. And when you're ill or disabled
and working in this field, the long hours can be not just
(02:54):
counterproductive, but discriminatory.
And it is also because of these dated ideas of productivity and
leadership that disabled leadersoften remain invisible.
But they do exist. And we're here to talk to 1
today. Let's look at some stats first
though, because those are important as part of this
conversation. It is estimated that over a
(03:15):
billion people worldwide live with some form of disability.
That's around 15% of the world population.
No matter which region you look at in detail, may it be Europe,
the US, or APEC for example, you'll find the same number
there between 14 and 16% of people.
It's also worth calling out, because this is a tech podcast,
(03:36):
that many of the people who use our tools and technology that we
build are also disabled. Even you will probably be
disabled at some point in your life, either temporarily through
an accident, for example, or permanently.
And so will I. But that selfish aspect isn't
why this topic matters so much, and I'm so glad to talk about it
(03:57):
today. How does a disabled leader
manage their time, energy, and their organizations?
And how do they do this in an industry that often doesn't
recognize different ways of working and how important and
beneficial those are? My guest today and I, we talk
about her leadership philosophy as well and the systemic changes
that make workplaces better for everyone, as well as some
(04:20):
practical strategies that she uses and that you can apply to
manage unpredictable events in your life while exceeding
leadership expectations. In addition though, I'm also
glad that we tackled bigger systemic questions like why is
there a representation gap for disabled leaders in tech?
How do you evaluate whether a company's stated values aligned
(04:40):
with how they actually treat people?
Which is a question that I know many of you are thinking about.
And what does it look like to create workplaces for?
Asking for what you need isn't seen as a weakness, but instead
as the strategic self managementthat it is and that benefits
everyone. The person who shares a lot of
insight on that, and who I'm very honoured to talk about this
(05:02):
with, is Sally Late. She's an experienced senior
leader with two decades experience in roles including
Engineering Director for Trust and Safety at Bumble, VP of
Engineering at Fairwill, and she's scaled engineering teams
during hyper growth at Monzo. Along the way, she's also
founded her own digital transformation consultancy and
speaks at conferences internationally.
(05:23):
And Sally will be available for fractional tech leadership
coaching and advisory work from towards the end of 2025.
You can contact her through the link on our show notes.
Sally also has MECFS. That's a not very widely known
illness. I want to give you a quick
introduction to its general meaning.
We will talk about Sally's specific experience and the
(05:44):
impact on her life that it's hadlater, so hear more about that
soon. MECFS, written as ME/CFS, stands
for myalgic encephalomyelitis slash chronic fatigue syndrome.
It's quite a mouthful, I know. I did practice before this.
So myalgic encephalomyelitis slash chronic fatigue syndrome
is a disabling chronic illness. It's often called in shorthand
(06:07):
just chronic fatigue syndrome orCFS.
But those things are important to keep in mind.
It's not just being tired. People with MECFS experience
profound fatigue that doesn't goaway with rest or sleep, as well
as a very wide range of symptomsfrom things like memory and
focus issues or brain fog to muscular issues like intense
(06:27):
muscle pain or the hallmark symptom post exertional malaise.
Shorthand PM, which happens after any kind of exhaustion,
which can be even positive emotional intense experiences to
stress to physical issues. It's still to this point not
known what exactly causes MECFS,but we know it's a physical
(06:49):
illness and not just a mental orpsychological one.
That's unfortunately still a common misconception, including
among medical practitioners. MECFS cases have also increased
with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it often starts with an
infection. All of this, unfortunately, also
means that it's still difficult to get the differential
diagnosis that's needed for it, and treatments are currently
(07:12):
only available for symptoms. That's the end of the MECFS
introduction. Again, Sally's situation is
specifically hers, but this is what this illness means.
We'll also add a couple of resources for how to get closer
to a diagnosis to the show notes.
I'm very honored and grateful toSally for having this open
conversation with me and for sharing so many tools and lesson
(07:34):
learned that I know will be valuable for everyone.
They've certainly been valuable for me already.
Sally's insights about energy management, boundary setting,
and intentional leadership are wonderful for all of us.
So here's real talk on more thantwo hard things in technology
with Sally Late. Who are you and what's your
(08:12):
experience been in tech so far? I'm Sally Late.
I've been working in the tech industry in various different
roles in different places since about 2005.
I started originally managing about five years later, but I've
had a a really varied journey. I kind of contracted, then I
worked for myself for a good chunk of years.
(08:33):
I came back to employment and kind of formal management roles
about six years ago now. But yeah, it's, it's really
interesting that you've invited me to talk about this topic.
It's something that is newer forme in all honesty, but really,
really happy to be here and and chatting about it and hope that
we can, you know, bring this to the masses of it.
(08:54):
The masses I might not be able to deliver.
The masses of you know. However many people will like,
but I'm, I'm very happy to, you know, be able to talk about this
with you and I'm really gratefulthat you honestly like agreed
much faster to do this than I thought you would so that it
means a lot. And so that probably it segues
(09:16):
nicely into the the second question that I'd like to ask us
now because many of course are here anonymously.
And I want to make at least makesure there's a bit of a window
for people to share a little bitabout themselves because like
representation matters. And so the second question is
like, is there anything about your identity that you find
important to share? Yeah, I mean, it's a really
(09:40):
interesting point and I guess goes into the question that you
and I talked about a bit of given the, you know, the
anonymity in the podcast and howI I really think that is super
important to to give people those options.
How much of this I wanted to kind of associate myself with
and how much it is part of my identity.
(10:01):
It is something that is like I say, still pretty new for me to
be kind of associating with myself.
Actually, the first time was really earlier this year as part
of one of the lead dev events, Igot asked to be part of what was
called a community representation group, where the
idea was to kind of connect withothers who had similar
backgrounds, similar experiences, and to really help
(10:23):
people build up a sort of peer network for support.
So that was the first time that I guess I kind of really started
to explore like this is part of my identity, other sort of
things that I think I have sort of really had to think about
over the last few years. Becoming a parent has become a
really big part of my identity as well-being a woman in tech
has always been a, you know, interesting challenge to to
(10:46):
navigate a thing. But yeah, I think that's one of
the things that I'm trying to, to think about more and more is,
is trying not to pigeon hole myself, trying to, to sort of be
a person who has these differentkind of attributes, has these
different, yeah, communities, I guess to sort of work with and
try to, to bring my experiences to, to the fore, especially if I
(11:07):
can kind of lend my privilege aswell.
I think that's that's really, really important.
And I love the complexity of, you know, identity and what it
means, especially I think be in tech with them.
It also honestly reminded me a little bit when you talked about
sort of, oh, it's only somethingthat I'm starting to talk a bit
more about and, and sort of be more open about and, and all
(11:29):
that. And it reminded me a little bit
that might be a bit different. But like, something I think
about a lot is that I've been intherapy for a long time.
And I recently spoke with a friend who's like considering
like working with a different therapist, not because her
current 1 isn't good, but because I found that there is
always an interesting thing likesaying those things out loud
(11:50):
about yourself and saying some kind of new things or things
that you haven't said as much out loud.
Where I I've encountered that a bunch of times myself when I
it's like, oh, I'm saying something that I hadn't even
kind of thought in this way. And now it's loud and it's, it's
audible even if it's just for one person.
And it's makes me sometimes feellike there's a different version
(12:11):
of myself that I'm encountering.Yeah.
I don't know if that resonates with you, but it, it kind of,
yeah. I reminded me of that a little
bit. Yeah, I mean giving, giving
something a name, saying it out loud, it all becomes more real,
doesn't it? And I think when I, I was on the
train this morning and I was just thinking about, on the one
hand, there is still a ton of bias.
You know, there are very stereotypical views of what a
(12:35):
leader looks like. Disability is not always
entirely aligned with that. And I'd be lying if I said that
I wasn't. It's not that I'm concerned, but
I guess that, you know, there isthe chance that people might see
a headline or they might not listen to this properly.
And there might be somebody who comes away thinking, oh, I don't
want to work with her in the future.
(12:55):
And, you know, different levels of privilege, I think means not
just for me, but you know, for other people in similar
conversations, might be that youcan afford to or not say, well,
those are people that I wouldn'twant to work with anyway.
But I think for me, coming back to why I wanted to use my name,
if I was anonymous, I feel like it would send the wrong message.
(13:17):
And so as much as labels can be nuanced and, you know, there
could be some kind of personal challenges, I don't want these
conversations to be something that we hide away from.
If anything, again, you know, it's that that word privilege.
I want to use my privilege to help show people that they can
succeed. They can be in leadership roles
in tech. And I think that from the
(13:38):
conversations that I had earlierin the year, this is something
that people are really worried about.
It's something that they don't necessarily see as being able,
you know, for them to do in their future.
It's not an option. Yeah.
It's kind of like if I can help play a part in that as other
people have for me being role models in the past, then that's
something that I think it it feels like it's really important
(13:59):
to do. I find that it's so, so
important and that's why, you know, never a question.
I think, of course, I, I so love, you know, having you here
in this way. And it's not something that I've
been grappling a lot with in themaking of this podcast as well.
That side note. But initially, like, I basically
(14:19):
let people choose if they want to be anonymous or not.
And currently at least we're recording under the premise that
people will be anonymous becauseI've realized that there is a
material difference in what the conversations are and what
people are comfortable talking about.
And it goes exactly like I, I think I've recorded about 7
episodes that, you know, are still like, they're still great.
(14:40):
Like the people are smart, they're sharing interesting
things and whatnot. But the degree of vulnerability
that's possible and the degree of fake openness, especially
with challenges and all that, itwas so vastly different.
Like to a degree, honestly, thatwas shocking to me.
And you know, shocking as like I, I'd started this whole thing
here under the premise that, oh,I'm hearing so many things sort
(15:01):
of behind closed doors and in one to one conversations that I
also know so many people are struggling with.
And that's why, you know, it's such an honour.
And I'm so happy that you're here and that we can talk about
this. Yeah.
Thank you. Now we should probably actually
talk about what we want. To talk about.
So what's the, you know, two to three sentence summary of what
(15:22):
you're here to talk about with? Me absolutely, yeah, we should
probably get on to that. So as I mentioned earlier this
year, as you know, I was invitedto be part of this community
representation group. I had spoken really openly with
Mary Williams, who I know we both know about chronic illness.
Mary is the the chair of the lead dev conference.
And so the the context of all ofthis is I have MECFS chronic
(15:45):
fatigue syndrome. It's begun to be more open about
it online. Like I said, I talked about it
kind of 1 to one, but I think itreally surprised me.
Well, first of all, I, you neverknow who's going to turn up for
these things where it's at lunchtime at a conference.
We had some amazing people turn up who had all kind of different
(16:06):
levels of, you know, experience with disability, whether that
was personal, whether it was with their loved ones, their
colleagues. There were people who were just
there to listen and learn. And I think that for me, I came
away from that with a real hope that by bringing it to the
matters, as we say, you know, but by by talking about these
(16:27):
things more, that we can little by little breakdown some of that
stigma. Spark thoughts, spark
discussions, help leaders, you know, feel like they've got the
either the kind of like the language or the starting point
to, to be able to explore this if it's not a topic that they've
come up against, really. And just generally to, to try to
(16:49):
bring a bit more equity into work.
And I think that it's something that also was really highlighted
to me recently as well of do youknow that that graphic that I
think it was by Microsoft, whicheverybody uses in the context of
accessibility conversations online.
It's the one that talks about kind of accessibility is
(17:09):
sometimes situational. So it's got a person with a
broken arm or holding a baby andthings like that.
And similarly, I think when we think about disabilities, it's
very often kind of with the perception of it being all or
nothing. You know, this person is either
disabled or they're not. And actually there can be
nuances. So I've recently been working
(17:29):
with somebody who's had a horrible reaction to COVID and
has not been in this situation before and doesn't know really
how to deal with it. And so for me, being able to
kind of apply some of the experiences that I've got both
personally, but also, you know, just try to kind of put in some
support mechanism for them more widely.
(17:50):
You know, this is hopefully something that's very temporary,
but I think that you can absolutely kind of, again, make
the situation better for everybody through thinking
about, you know, everything through these lenses more
broadly. So yeah, just hoping to kind of
start some conversation, hear any experiences you may have,
and let us know if you have any other thoughts too, dear
listeners. Yes, dear masters, the prestige.
(18:12):
Masses. I do.
Since you mentioned language already, I do briefly want to
talk about kind of two definitions that I thought
about. It's the context of this sector
1 is basically I wanted to ask you, I'll just briefly
contextualise the questions of person first versus identity
first language. Like the whole idea being that
(18:34):
person first language emphasizesthe person before the
disability. So it's for example, a person
like talking about someone as a person who is blind or a person
with spinal cord injuries as an example at the a different way
of talking about disability and this identity first language,
which puts the disability first in the description like a
(18:56):
disabled person and or an autistic leader, a disabled
leader. And I, my understanding is at
least that a lot of big folks inthe disability community, as
much as that's a like big term that can even be used, but like
different folks and choose different language to describe
themselves, which is very valid.And so I wanted to check with
(19:17):
you, you know, how do you talk about yourself, your own
experiences? What language do you use?
I still struggle to, and this is, you know, this is all kind
of me, my journey. I don't have any issue with
associating with the word disability, but to me it's not
(19:38):
something that is like at the forefront of how I describe
myself. So I think it's not something
that I am very strict with or probably consistent with.
And you might hear me refer in different ways.
I think some of that is kind of societal as well, because I feel
like sort of person centric language and identity is still
(20:00):
very much emerging. So as I sort of said before, I
think this to me is part of my identity.
So I would always kind of centremyself as an individual, but I I
think that I don't always do that when I'm talking about it,
if that makes sense. So yeah, what I'm trying to say
is I think there's a lot of inconsistency.
For me it's less about. The the terminology and I'm, I'm
(20:24):
kind of OK with like either way,but as you say, I know that for
some people it's very important,you know, to, to have their,
their situation, their experiences framed in a certain
way. So, yeah, like for me it's, it's
very, very individual and very much kind of a personal
preference. But you're welcome to, to frame
it how if you want to. I'm not.
Yeah, it's not not the top of mind for me.
(20:45):
Yeah, OK. That's cool.
Yeah, I see. I did write the questions that I
put together with Identity FirstLanguage just because that's my
personal preference for it. But at least well, now I know
and Justin also, you know, then how you know how I introduce
you, for example, things like that.
Perfect. I think the other, the other
(21:07):
bit, I did briefly want to touchon this kind of
intersectionality, especially because you were, I think
alluded to it earlier in terms of like how different
experiences can kind of compoundand how, I mean, you also
mentioned kind of the fluidity the kind of disability can have
inside. They just want to like, you
don't even have to define the intersectionary part.
(21:28):
We we can do that like for the intro or something like that.
But I did just want to ask, you know, how you how you view that
and how it kind of impacts your own thinking about yourself, but
then also about like creating inclusive work environments.
It's intersectionality, I think is so, so important.
And you know, it goes back to the the tick box kind of
(21:48):
exercises that people go throughwhere they talk about it being a
diverse team because they have, you know, a white woman on the
team. So I absolutely think that it is
very, very important to recognise that people are going
to have very different experiences.
And actually going back to your point of anonymity, it would be
super interesting if not to giveyou extra work or anything here,
(22:09):
but like if we had a follow up from somebody who didn't feel
comfortable, but maybe wanted toshare a very different
experience, I would love to, youknow, to again, get that
conversation going. I definitely think that there
are certain groups I've, I've sort of talked about this in, in
some of my talks before and can link some of the stats
(22:29):
afterwards if that's useful. But just the, you know, the, the
challenges that they face with perception, with judgement and
bias around their leadership ability in particular can be
exacerbated by factors like racein particular, can be a huge
one. But also, you know, kind of
sticking with the topic of disability, you, you talked
(22:50):
about how it's not kind of like a spectrum in particular, but
there's, there's the classic of not all disabilities visible as
well. And I think for myself, it's
something that has been really interesting to unpick, primarily
because I am very high functioning, often to my own
detriment. And I imagine that if you spoke
(23:12):
to so many of the people that I work with where, you know, they,
I, I'm very open about this. But if you, you know, kind of
took everything at face value, they would not think that I had
a disability. It doesn't show up in so many
ways. So for me it, it, it's kind of
like, can you pass as, you know,non, non disabled as well?
And how does that affect you? There's, there's so many
(23:35):
different factors. I think you're you're absolutely
right to call that out. Do it.
This is a bit of a hard pivot, but since you just mentioned it,
I want to ask how did you go about telling your Co workers
just like briefly also backtracka little bit like we don't have
to talk about it explicitly, butmy assumption was that, you
know, any CFS wasn't always a thing in your life and then at
(23:57):
some point it became one. But maybe that's also wrong.
But so, you know, I was curious to hear how that oh, you're
shared with your Co workers. No, absolutely.
And like, I'm, I'm happy. So you know, I'm here to talk
about this kind of thing. It's, it's not an issue for me.
So yeah, I think for those who don't know me, CFS is it's a
long term chronic condition thatcauses currently unknown and
(24:20):
symptoms really vary. For me, they are around being
extremely fatigued, having sleepproblems, having brain fog.
There's a key kind of factor which is called post post
exertional malaise, which is basically feeling terrible after
you do physical or mental or emotional exertion, which is
(24:41):
fantastic for manager obviously.But I get these these really
weird kind of they call them flulike symptoms.
So I just feel really ill and also have other kind of factors
like short term memory problems and things like that.
And it's something that I just lived with for so long.
And actually, you know, I had other things that came up.
So I have hypothyroidism where some of the symptoms can overlap
(25:04):
in terms of fatigue. And I got to points where I was
like, oh, great, I'm on medication for this.
It'll all be fixed. But really, for me, having a
child two years ago kind of really changed everything.
And I wouldn't say that I went through a bit of, you know, like
an existential crisis, but it made me have to be very
deliberate about my energy management, primarily thinking
(25:26):
about how I want to balance my life inside of work with my life
outside of work. And so actually when I came back
from my parental leave, I neededto take a bit more time off
until my kid could start nursery.
And I realised I wanted to kind of redesign my work.
So I did a very easy thing of starting, you know, coming back
(25:48):
to work after having a child andjoining a new company, which
actually was great. But it, it gave me an
opportunity to really think, youknow, very deliberately think
through how do I interview, how do I ask these questions?
What are the kind of touch points where I can get a sense
of, is this company somewhere that I can be successful?
(26:09):
Is this somewhere that I can be open with my my colleagues, my
Co workers, all of that kind of thing.
So I think in terms of interviewing, I was very
interested to, to hear stories of people, you know, it's the
classic people like me. There weren't so many, you know,
very visible touch points of folks who have disabilities,
(26:32):
things that I could find. But I did find a blog post of
one of my Co workers who talked about how she found out she was
pregnant with her third, third child whilst actually
interviewing. And I was like, OK, cool.
If this is a place where you canbe very open like that, that
bodes well. But that, that conversation or
that decision of how much to disclose and when I think again,
(26:54):
is very dependent on your situation, very dependent on
your, you know, your confidence levels, the company values, all
of these kind of things. And it took me I think maybe a
couple of weeks, if not more to just feel like, OK, this is what
it appears. I do feel safe.
My manager was fantastic, I haveto say.
(27:15):
And I decided to first share with, you know, with him and
then with my direct reports. But it's something that I've
factored into. I have a kind of working with me
document that explains a few things about just my, my
situation of a kind of the fact that I'm not based in London,
all this kind of thing. It's in there.
(27:35):
I share that with new joiners. So we, you know, we have new
leadership members, things like that.
It's something that, you know, Italk about very openly in terms
of if I've had a challenging weekend where I just need to
sleep and recoup. That is the stuff that people
don't see. So, you know, going back to
saying very high functioning, I crash in the evenings and the
(27:57):
weekends, but I basically just tried to kind of share a bit of
my life and share me as a, a person to, to be able to kind of
give people that context, which is not, it's not always easy to
do, but I feel very grateful to to be in a culture that does
genuinely support that and enable it.
I'm so glad that you know, you've found this place like
(28:18):
that. And also it, it does sound like
again, you did your research while interviewing and tried to
find sort of green flags pointing, but still we're like
bit hesitant initially. Take feel, feel out the place
and figure out, OK, is this actually what it sounded like?
Can I trust people? Like, I'm curious, what did your
manager do that made you feel after a couple of weeks?
(28:42):
Like OK, I can share this with him.
That's a really good question and I generally don't think that
it was any one thing. I think it was a combination of
different signals from seeing how he reacted to other people
who were in challenging situations.
So we had a a person on the teamwho had a young baby and who was
(29:07):
very open with babies at home with me today.
Bear with me folks, I'm very sleep deprived, all of these
kind of things. So being able to see somebody
showing their vulnerability and seeing how he responded to that
made me feel very safe. I think seeing how people were
living some of the the company values of kindness and equity in
(29:27):
real life was really, really keyto me.
And then also just again, like getting to know people, getting
to know their different situations, having people kind
of share things with me again interms of their own vulnerability
definitely makes me feel more able to share back.
And that's something that is genuinely very important to me
as a leader as well. It's one of the things that, you
(29:49):
know, I try to sort of really build into the cultures that I
build, but also some of the, thereally practical things like you
say that the green flags, the way that the company talks about
the fact that I, I know it's a very hot topic, but unlimited
holiday, for instance, asterisk with minimums, how people use
that. The fact that we have things
(30:11):
like what we call focus Fridays,which, you know, for no
meetings. And that can really help folks
who who really enjoy different kind of work situations.
And genuinely that that sort of culture of understanding that
people are individuals, they have their own lives, their own
situations was very, very helpful for me.
(30:32):
So yeah, it was no like one thing where I thought, OK, I
feel so for this person, it's just it's a general sort of
accumulation of signals. Yeah, well, it's, it's not the
sort of make a very silly example, but it's not the like,
oh, I have a disabled friend, like kind of a thing.
Yeah, but I mean it obviously hedidn't know.
It's like there was really, it sounds like there's a lot of
(30:55):
people around you kind of embodying the company values,
but a statistic being decent to one another and being like,
yeah, open. And of course that also takes a
bit of time, but that's, that's OK.
I think that's like very naturalas well.
But just it sounds like you ultimately realise that there
was space for other people to kind of show their human side at
(31:18):
work, and that, yeah, was a signal to you that like you
could potentially do that as well.
Yeah, and there's there's another person as well.
So I think it if it was just oneperson, I'm always a little bit
kind of, you know, am I over optimizing towards how I feel
because this one person is great.
But there were multiple people, some of my, you know, key cross
(31:38):
functional partners. They were absolutely incredibly
welcoming. One of them, I don't know
whether to like name people or not shout, shout out to these
people or not. They they hopefully know who
they are, but. You could tell them that like
at. The you know, time stamp, this
is you I'm talking. About yeah, exactly.
I'll send them the link. But one of my absolutely key
(32:01):
cross functional partners, who Ihave huge, huge amount of
respect for, she had come back from a very major health
incident, which is like life changing.
And that again, to me, there wasa lot of common ground, very
different situations, but a lot of understanding, a lot of
empathy. And I didn't actually meet her
until a little bit later. But again, it's kind of just
(32:22):
seeing the the sort of the reality of these people that I
work with are able to understand.
There is that lived experience, but also just generally the
openness to be curious and to toengage with people was just like
it's it's great to find people that you can, you know, you
really kind of gel with in that sense.
That's huge. Yeah.
Honestly, especially since you mentioned, you know, some of the
(32:44):
symptoms that you're dealing with.
How do you manage, you know, in the sense of like, you know, it
sounds like for example, there are some pieces where I mean
it's like unpredictable, you know, to a certain degree.
And like how do you manage just I mean that the question in both
means of the word, I guess. But yeah, I'm very curious how
how you make it work for you. No, I think I'm, I'm very
(33:08):
grateful that my symptoms much more mild than some people's.
So I think, you know, that's, that's an important kind of
caveat. But also I'm mindful of not kind
of minimizing. Yeah, my therapist would be like
don't minimize too much. But yeah, I think I kind of
mentioned I, I crash mostly behind the scenes outside of
work, which is to some extent like the nature of kind of the,
(33:30):
the post exertional element of it.
So my weekends, my holidays are very focused on recovery and
needing to be very mindful that I need to to build that kind of
stuff in. But that is obviously much, much
harder being a parent. So I, I do some things where I
also try to carefully plan my days.
So thinking about things like difficult conversations with
(33:51):
people or if I have to be, you know, really on it to be very
reactive to questions or, you know, have a high stakes
interaction, like a board presentation.
I want to make sure that I'm setting myself up to avoid
things like brain fog or being inarticulate.
But as you say, like there is anelement of variability.
So week by week, some weeks I'llbe absolutely on it, tons of
(34:14):
energy, incredibly productive. And then other weeks I'll need
to operate in a different way. I might need to, you know, like
not come into the office or minimise my meetings.
And I don't use this so often. Usually it's more in the sense
of, you know, external factors like having a massively busy
week with loads of interviews or, you know, some fire burning.
(34:35):
But one of my previous colleagues brought me this idea
of having kind of manager service levels really well
defined and shared so that you can say really quickly again,
I'll, I'll try and link to a blog post that she wrote.
But so you can really quickly say to somebody, I'm going to be
at service level 2 this week Forthese reasons.
And you have that shorthand of like what that means.
(34:57):
So yeah, like I say, I don't, I don't invoke that very often,
but it's useful. And then tons of other things
like little hacks like my notebook, it's right here.
It goes with the everywhere I write things down, I try to plan
my week every week have a sort of like a primary goal.
I share that out. I write weekly updates to my
(35:17):
org. So a lot of like process, a lot
of structure works really well for me.
Some other things that haven't worked so well though, So I
actually work 9 out of 10 days and the day that I take off is
do childcare. And I kind of went into that
thinking, oh, that'll be fun, we'll go to the zoo or
(35:37):
something. Bless your heart.
Like that, That is really not a rest day, I've come to learn.
It's probably like, nice that you went into without optimism.
I know. Oh no.
I know it's, it's a little bit naive.
What can I say? It's my first kid.
I'm still, I'm still learning. And then the other thing I'd say
that has not worked so well as not sticking to my own rules.
(35:59):
So things like blurking out focus time or whatever, telling
myself I'm not going to have, you know, kind of like 3 hour
long meetings in a row and then book it anyway.
Yeah, like that's on me. And I think in general, I have
incredibly high expectations of myself.
I'm still on that journey of, you know, again, trying to
(36:22):
balance all these factors and trying to work out what is
realistic and what's not and where my own kind of like
personal aspirations and my pre child's career might be slightly
different to to where I am. So yeah, so, so on that, Jenny,
would love to love to hear some tips if you could have them.
Honestly, as I was just listening to you, the big thing
(36:46):
that came up from is that they get quite simplistic, but I say
it out loud. But a lot of the things that I
just heard from you are things like so many people, you know,
including folks who are able bodied and folks who are
neurotypical or notic, who have these not these kinds of
challenges to deal with. But they are struggling with the
(37:06):
exact same things that are just in very inherent to leadership
roles. Like the the context, which the
like very emotionally demanding stuff, like a lot of
interviewing, for example, or like the high stress situations,
reactivity, sometimes, you know,different things that you've
alluded to. I was in my head, I was like,
yeah, I've, I've talked about this with like at least two
other people this week already who, you know, have very
(37:27):
different identities. But, and it, it does of course
sound like there is a big part where you are, you kind of have
to manage a lot of this much more intentionally because the
cost of like not managing it as well, it's just much higher than
for other folks or it's just, you know, it's a different price
tag. I don't even want to quantify
those things. But that was really interesting
(37:49):
to me because the same challenges that come with this
kind of work, but the kind of effects of it are just different
for you. Again, I'm trying to be mindful
of like qualitative statements. No, but it's thank you.
I appreciate that. But actually a lot of the
questions that's, you know, it'sthe, it's the old classic thing
as managers, as leaders, I thinkwe often can ask the coaching
(38:13):
questions to other people and then we know exactly what we
should be asking ourselves and don't follow our own advice.
All hypocrites, Yeah, I admit. Exactly.
And, you know, the question of kind of how can you best set
yourself up for success is a general one that I think a lot
of people can benefit from. How do you get your energy?
(38:34):
How do you restore your energy after draining times?
How do you best receive information, you know, written
or verbal? All of these things I think are
really great questions for everybody to to think about
themselves or to ask, you know, the the people around them
thinking about what you need andasking for it for me shouldn't
(38:57):
be a, you know, this is a like AI can't even think of the word
now see very informed, but this is, you know, an accommodation.
That's the word that we're making for you.
It's actually, you know, generally how can, how can you
best ask for what you need? Because again, you know, we're
all individual. We all have strengths.
We all have areas where we mightneed a bit more help.
(39:18):
Even if you don't identify as somebody with a disability,
again, there might be some situational things that come up
and being able to understand your needs in those times, ask
for them, advocate for them, andas leaders, create an
environment where people feel comfortable doing that.
I think it's just generally super, super important.
So yeah, absolutely. I think it's it's something that
(39:41):
maybe certain people are forced into thinking about a little bit
more, but we can all definitely,definitely sort of learn
something or try to make our ownenvironment a bit bit better.
Yeah, just try and be better. Awkward time.
I think it's such an important point that you just shared in
there in terms of the there, there is a huge, I think trade
(40:03):
off. Like I had one question that I
kind of don't want to ask explicitly now, but like one
question that I kind of wanted to pose because it's a bit
prerogative. It's like, why aren't there more
disabled leaders and. That's why I'm so appreciative
of like you being here and beinghere with your name attached
because there is like you mentioned, you know how
important role models were to you in your own kind of career
(40:26):
and that you want to kind of give some of that back to other
people. But like there is so much in
like even creating that space for like talking about, hey,
here are things that I need to like be able to succeed as a
leader. And here are expectations that I
have that is still, I think it still needs to be normalized.
Like, it's still like, there's still so much that like, yeah,
(40:47):
leaders just, you know, you throw problems at them.
They have to get stuff done. And then there's all these
associations with, like, how a leader has to be in order for
that to be possible. And there's obviously so much BS
wrapped around all of this. But that's why, you know, I
appreciate these examples you gave Frank.
Yeah. Here's, you know, how I manage.
And it is about being able to express the like, yeah, I I need
(41:08):
things and then I can do a greatjob.
Yeah. And I think whenever you're
talking about this kind of thingof like, weren't there more
women in tech? Weren't there more, you know,
disabled leaders? I think we could go really,
really deep here and get into like, all the flaws of society
and all the things that if we were running the world, we would
(41:28):
be able to change. So, you know, I, I don't want to
discount them. There are so many factors I
think that go into these. And I don't want to give you
like a really pithy, superficialanswer that is going to be like,
Oh yeah, if we just change this,everything will be solved.
But I think that there is a bit of a gap.
And when I was prepping for this, I was actually trying to
find some stats. And as you would expect, I know,
(41:50):
I know you like a survey and some stats and things like that.
So maybe you got some better sources.
But I found one from the BCS, which is the the Chartered
Institute for IT. And as opposed, again, I can
share it with you back from February this year, which talked
about how people with disabilities comprise 16% of the
UK workforce, but account for 11% of the technology
(42:11):
specialists. And so there's a gap there in
terms of representation in what,you know what they're calling
IT. And so to be equal to kind of
workplace norms generally, thereshould be an additional 88,000
specialists with disabilities employed in the UK.
And so that's kind of like either those people aren't able
to succeed in the industry or maybe they're there and don't
(42:36):
feel able to, you know, to be sharing or sort of identifying.
And so for me, I think there's there's a lot of things that we
do need to do better. I think very simple.
Again, you know, I said I wasn'tgoing to just give you a pithy
answer to that. Like one of the most obvious
things for me is to try and create room for these
(42:58):
conversations in the workplace. So to ask people what their
needs are rather than assuming, again, like we've talked about,
this can be in a really broad sense as well.
But to use that feedback to helpbuild equity into the processes,
into the policies. And couple that obviously with
kind of, you know, individual adjustments if needed.
(43:20):
But just thinking about, you know, policies around attendance
in the office, thinking about whether you need, you know, a
formal diagnosis to get adjustments.
It, you know, chronic conditionslike mine can be very hard to
get a diagnosis for. And I was as a tangent that for
me was actually really importantgoing against what they said
(43:42):
about labels. But having a diagnosis allowed
me to not just be, I get tired every now and again, like it's,
it's the language again. But I think that once you sort
of, once you start looking at everything through the lens of
who is this potentially blocking, who is this excluding?
You can look at, for instance, other requirements in your
(44:04):
career ladder based on the language that you've used that
inadvertently make it harder for, for instance, you know,
diverse people or folks with anxiety or chronic pain to be
able to, you know, demonstrate this consistently.
Or how does our hiring process rule out people before they've,
you know, even got a foot in thedoor?
All of these I think you can, you can run some quite simple
(44:27):
like thought exercises to see where your processes may be
falling down, how you can, you know, bring bring these issues
to the forefront really. So it's not going to solve why
then will people in leadership positions?
But I think that if you can helppeople come in, if you can
provide environments where they feel like they can be themself
(44:47):
and they can succeed, and then they can progress, they can be
recognised, they can be promotedbecause you're not over
optimising for a very, you know,niche view.
And hopefully, as with everything, again, going back to
the insectionality point, hopefully you get more diverse
folks in leadership. But it's a, it's a tricky,
tricky journey. I know you're, you know, very
(45:10):
passionate about this as well. And I just hope that we, we can,
you know, turn the tide and, andget more people thinking about
this as well. I appreciate you engaging the
extremely silly question. It's not silly.
Giving perks a thoughtful answerto it.
And because honesty, it really sounds like a lot of it is what
I like to say about hiring. But I think it's so true for
(45:32):
anything that's ultimately like our job is creating an
environment where like you can achieve business results and
people can't like thrive, at least career wise or, you know,
to like be be well and be in that environment.
And there is a lot that's about like build a process that you
can trust to get you the resultsthat you want.
(45:53):
And so I think even, you know, what you described about, you
know, questions that you can askyourself or look at things you
can do to evaluate your process.Like a lot of this ultimately
just has to do with like making productivity accessible in the
sense of like all of those things are just in the, in the
spirit of helping your team communicate well and collaborate
(46:13):
well and everyone being able to like do their best work.
And that's again, it's a productivity thing.
I guess there is of course, likeI'm always with those
conversations about diversity and to civility belonging, I'm
always a bit worried. And because I ultimately believe
it's just, it's the right thing to do.
Like there, there shouldn't haveto be a business case for it.
(46:34):
But I also know that so many, it's a complicated topic.
And so I I also know that like being able to make a business
case for ourselves. Absolutely.
Being able to make a business case helps everything I think
sometimes. Even if you're not decay, you
know, I want to look at our, ourprocesses or the way that we
communicate and want it from theperspective of accessibility.
(46:55):
Well then look at it from the perspective can everyone on your
team do their job? Yeah, absolutely.
We don't want people, you know, dropping out.
I think we don't want people with my business hat not doing
their best work, not being as productive as they could be,
where there are arguably very simple things that we can do to
(47:15):
support people with their individual needs.
And yeah, like make make an environment where genuinely we
can have different shapes of people.
Because again, coming back to the DIB kind of conversation,
then you end up with better products.
And I'm again, a big believer ofthat as I know you are.
It just makes sense. Yes, yes, exactly.
I think you've alluded a few times to like that creating that
(47:37):
kind of environment is really important to you.
But like what else is really important to you as a leader?
Like what do you care about? So I think one of the threads
that is really tied together my career, you know, kind of like
looking back in hindsight, is working on things that that have
a purpose and that have the ability to kind of solve.
I, I'm loath to say like real world problems because, you
(48:01):
know, the real world is hopefully, you know, embedded in
different places. But the, the sort of the values
of the people that I work with, but also the impact that I'm
kind of leaving in the world hasalways been really, really
important to me. So that's something that I find
really, really motivating the, the legacy that I leave as well.
(48:22):
I think the, you know, the culture more broadly, how we can
kind of embed some systems, how we can get people like
propagating some of the ideas and, you know, being their own
little beacons to me is, is super, super important as well.
So thinking about how you can scale all of these ideas, you
know, they're not new ideas necessarily, but how you can
(48:44):
kind of scale, scale culture andscale some of the, the impact is
really, really important to me. But also I think as you've seen
for this conversation and, and just generally transparency for
me is it's a bit more of a buzz more than a buzzword.
I really genuinely care about kind of sharing work as much as
possible, sharing, you know, experiences, helping other
(49:06):
people relate to things. I think, you know, I know for me
it really helps me feel, let alone in certain situations or
if I can see something that resonates with me, it's like,
oh, that makes sense now. So yeah, just kind of, you know,
sharing and and being open and trying to help people again be
be themselves as as much as is appropriate within different
situations, as much as they feelcomfortable with.
(49:29):
I love them, and I've also realized that we're coming up at
time already, even though I know.
Talking to you for the next three hours.
But I do want to at least ask like, is there anything else
that you really want to say to to the masses?
To the masses, all two of them that are probably listening.
No, I think the, the main thing that I kind of wanted to, to
(49:49):
really close up was just to kindof go back to something that I,
I said before. So I really appreciate you kind
of inviting me on and, and having this conversation.
I just, I hope that it kind of sparks some people to, to think
about these topics or to, to feel less alone if it's
something that they're grapplingwith.
And I'm always very, very happy if people want to kind of
(50:09):
message me and, you know, kind of like reach out and, you know,
follow up on anything or, or talk about their own personal
journey. I, I love to hear from people.
I will put the slight disclaimerthat I am terrible with my
emails nowadays. So if I don't get back to you
very quickly, that's on me. But that's, you know, energy
(50:29):
management and all that. So please bear with me with my
boundary setting. Yeah.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Sally.
So thank you, Sally, for your time and for sharing your wisdom
with us. I want to highlight for you a
few points that stood out to me and that could be valuable for,
well, anyone listening to this. First of all, what strikes me
(50:53):
most about Sally's insights is just how much of what she shared
and what she's learned over the years is making any of us more
effective. Like, manage your energy
intentionally, set some boundaries across the board, and
be strategic about where you spend your time and energy.
The difference, of course, is that for Sally, like many other
disabled leaders, developing these systems wasn't optional,
(51:14):
but it was necessary. And that necessity has made her
approach to leadership incredibly thoughtful and
sustainable. I also really loved her
framework of manager service levels.
Have that kind of clear, shared language about your capacity in
any given week. That's something that can be
valuable again for all of us, and so is her point about making
productivity accessible. Like when we design our
(51:37):
processes and expectations, are we creating space for different
ways of working and leading, or are we optimizing for just one
narrow view of what productivityand impact look like?
Elsa enjoyed speaking to Sally because her experience speaks to
a duality in our roles as leaders that many of us
experience. We're in positions of relative
power and hopefully in a place where we can do a part to make
(52:00):
our organizations and teams better places for everyone,
including more accessible placesand inclusive places.
At the same time, though, many of us in those positions are
still impacted by systemic issues ourselves.
Microaggression, sexism, harassment, racism, for example.
Don't stop because you have AVP or Director title.
(52:21):
I've often been the only neurodivergent woman on a
leadership team or just, you know, the only woman.
And I've always done what I could to make the organisations
I ran or that I was a part of more inclusive and better for
everyone. And my lived experience and my
connections with people in similar situations helped with
that. I know many leaders who are in
(52:41):
similar situations, like queer people in leadership positions,
men and women of colour or disabled leaders who want to
make their organisations better but who also aren't unaffected
by the same issues that they want to.
And to some degree even have a task and mandate to address and
who aren't completely shielded from those just because of the
bigger title they have. I don't have a resolution for
(53:04):
that or here's what you can do about this, but I wanted to call
it out as a highlight from our conversation and the
continuation of it and somethingthat's been on my mind for many,
many years. Lastly, we also have a bunch of
resources from Sally as well as from me in the show notes to
help you become a better leader for everyone you work with and
for the users that your organization serves.
(53:27):
If Sally's story resonated with you, or if you have your own
experiences that you want to share, we'd love to hear from
you. e-mail us at pod@lenareinhardt.com.
You read every message, even if we can't always respond.
Leadership Confidential was created, produced, and presented
by me, Lena Reinhardt. Our guest's identity was not
modified for this episode. Theme, original composition and
(53:51):
mixing by Esteban Delpino, production assistant, guest
support and social media by Slice Stark.
Thank you for listening.
But actually a lot of the questions, that's is the old
classic thing. As managers, as leaders, I think
we often can ask the coaching questions to other people and
then we know exactly what we should be asking ourselves and
don't follow our own advice. We're all hypocrites, yeah.
Exactly. And, you know, the question of
(00:20):
kind of how can you best set yourself up for success is a
general one that I think a lot of people can benefit from.
How do you get your energy? How do you restore your energy
after draining times? How do you best receive
information, you know, written or verbal?
All of these things I think are really great questions for
(00:43):
everybody to to think about themselves or to ask the people
around them. It's August 2025, and we're in a
time of incredible productivity,pressure on leaders as well as
on our teams. And it's a time where many
leaders are under a lot of scrutiny to do as much as
possible or, you know, ideally even more than possible.
(01:05):
And we need to talk about that. This is leadership confidential
with Lena Reinhardt. Real talk on more than two hard
things in technology, finding community and becoming the
engineering leader you can be today.
Being a disabled leader in tech.I vividly remember my first
startup job 15 years ago. I was working a full time job at
(01:27):
the startup on the side to also going to school full time.
My work started at 3:00 PM and often went into the nights and
weekends running on infinite cups of coffee that I got from
the small red coffee machine in our shared office with the
smelly carpet and all desks. I would heap piles of milk foam
onto my coffee and generally sprinkle the foam with sugar.
Anything to get through the day and on especially late evenings,
(01:50):
which we had a lot of, we would order pizza.
And all of that is what I thought I needed to do to be and
to let alone be successful in tech.
And let's be real, those things sometimes still are.
There's this hard to shake idea of the always on leader.
The person who works 80 to 100 hour weeks never says no and
(02:10):
treats their body like a machinethat just needs the right input
to maximize output. For the 2010 era, that used to
be pizza. Now the stereotype seems to have
shifted to kombucha. That set up certainly wasn't
sustainable for me. It's not sustainable for anyone,
I think. And not just that, it's also
incredibly exclusionary. Founder Rachel Thomas wrote in a
(02:33):
piece that are linked below. And work in the tech industry,
where there is an overt glorification and in many cases
a requirement of working unhealthily long hours.
This is in spite of research showing that putting in longer
hours doesn't lead to greater productivity and instead is
harmful. And when you're ill or disabled
and working in this field, the long hours can be not just
(02:54):
counterproductive, but discriminatory.
And it is also because of these dated ideas of productivity and
leadership that disabled leadersoften remain invisible.
But they do exist. And we're here to talk to 1
today. Let's look at some stats first
though, because those are important as part of this
conversation. It is estimated that over a
(03:15):
billion people worldwide live with some form of disability.
That's around 15% of the world population.
No matter which region you look at in detail, may it be Europe,
the US, or APEC for example, you'll find the same number
there between 14 and 16% of people.
It's also worth calling out, because this is a tech podcast,
(03:36):
that many of the people who use our tools and technology that we
build are also disabled. Even you will probably be
disabled at some point in your life, either temporarily through
an accident, for example, or permanently.
And so will I. But that selfish aspect isn't
why this topic matters so much, and I'm so glad to talk about it
(03:57):
today. How does a disabled leader
manage their time, energy, and their organizations?
And how do they do this in an industry that often doesn't
recognize different ways of working and how important and
beneficial those are? My guest today and I, we talk
about her leadership philosophy as well and the systemic changes
that make workplaces better for everyone, as well as some
(04:20):
practical strategies that she uses and that you can apply to
manage unpredictable events in your life while exceeding
leadership expectations. In addition though, I'm also
glad that we tackled bigger systemic questions like why is
there a representation gap for disabled leaders in tech?
How do you evaluate whether a company's stated values aligned
(04:40):
with how they actually treat people?
Which is a question that I know many of you are thinking about.
And what does it look like to create workplaces for?
Asking for what you need isn't seen as a weakness, but instead
as the strategic self managementthat it is and that benefits
everyone. The person who shares a lot of
insight on that, and who I'm very honoured to talk about this
(05:02):
with, is Sally Late. She's an experienced senior
leader with two decades experience in roles including
Engineering Director for Trust and Safety at Bumble, VP of
Engineering at Fairwill, and she's scaled engineering teams
during hyper growth at Monzo. Along the way, she's also
founded her own digital transformation consultancy and
speaks at conferences internationally.
(05:23):
And Sally will be available for fractional tech leadership
coaching and advisory work from towards the end of 2025.
You can contact her through the link on our show notes.
Sally also has MECFS. That's a not very widely known
illness. I want to give you a quick
introduction to its general meaning.
We will talk about Sally's specific experience and the
(05:44):
impact on her life that it's hadlater, so hear more about that
soon. MECFS, written as ME/CFS, stands
for myalgic encephalomyelitis slash chronic fatigue syndrome.
It's quite a mouthful, I know. I did practice before this.
So myalgic encephalomyelitis slash chronic fatigue syndrome
is a disabling chronic illness. It's often called in shorthand
(06:07):
just chronic fatigue syndrome orCFS.
But those things are important to keep in mind.
It's not just being tired. People with MECFS experience
profound fatigue that doesn't goaway with rest or sleep, as well
as a very wide range of symptomsfrom things like memory and
focus issues or brain fog to muscular issues like intense
(06:27):
muscle pain or the hallmark symptom post exertional malaise.
Shorthand PM, which happens after any kind of exhaustion,
which can be even positive emotional intense experiences to
stress to physical issues. It's still to this point not
known what exactly causes MECFS,but we know it's a physical
(06:49):
illness and not just a mental orpsychological one.
That's unfortunately still a common misconception, including
among medical practitioners. MECFS cases have also increased
with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it often starts with an
infection. All of this, unfortunately, also
means that it's still difficult to get the differential
diagnosis that's needed for it, and treatments are currently
(07:12):
only available for symptoms. That's the end of the MECFS
introduction. Again, Sally's situation is
specifically hers, but this is what this illness means.
We'll also add a couple of resources for how to get closer
to a diagnosis to the show notes.
I'm very honored and grateful toSally for having this open
conversation with me and for sharing so many tools and lesson
(07:34):
learned that I know will be valuable for everyone.
They've certainly been valuable for me already.
Sally's insights about energy management, boundary setting,
and intentional leadership are wonderful for all of us.
So here's real talk on more thantwo hard things in technology
with Sally Late. Who are you and what's your
(08:12):
experience been in tech so far? I'm Sally Late.
I've been working in the tech industry in various different
roles in different places since about 2005.
I started originally managing about five years later, but I've
had a a really varied journey. I kind of contracted, then I
worked for myself for a good chunk of years.
(08:33):
I came back to employment and kind of formal management roles
about six years ago now. But yeah, it's, it's really
interesting that you've invited me to talk about this topic.
It's something that is newer forme in all honesty, but really,
really happy to be here and and chatting about it and hope that
we can, you know, bring this to the masses of it.
(08:54):
The masses I might not be able to deliver.
The masses of you know. However many people will like,
but I'm, I'm very happy to, you know, be able to talk about this
with you and I'm really gratefulthat you honestly like agreed
much faster to do this than I thought you would so that it
means a lot. And so that probably it segues
(09:16):
nicely into the the second question that I'd like to ask us
now because many of course are here anonymously.
And I want to make at least makesure there's a bit of a window
for people to share a little bitabout themselves because like
representation matters. And so the second question is
like, is there anything about your identity that you find
important to share? Yeah, I mean, it's a really
(09:40):
interesting point and I guess goes into the question that you
and I talked about a bit of given the, you know, the
anonymity in the podcast and howI I really think that is super
important to to give people those options.
How much of this I wanted to kind of associate myself with
and how much it is part of my identity.
(10:01):
It is something that is like I say, still pretty new for me to
be kind of associating with myself.
Actually, the first time was really earlier this year as part
of one of the lead dev events, Igot asked to be part of what was
called a community representation group, where the
idea was to kind of connect withothers who had similar
backgrounds, similar experiences, and to really help
(10:23):
people build up a sort of peer network for support.
So that was the first time that I guess I kind of really started
to explore like this is part of my identity, other sort of
things that I think I have sort of really had to think about
over the last few years. Becoming a parent has become a
really big part of my identity as well-being a woman in tech
has always been a, you know, interesting challenge to to
(10:46):
navigate a thing. But yeah, I think that's one of
the things that I'm trying to, to think about more and more is,
is trying not to pigeon hole myself, trying to, to sort of be
a person who has these differentkind of attributes, has these
different, yeah, communities, I guess to sort of work with and
try to, to bring my experiences to, to the fore, especially if I
(11:07):
can kind of lend my privilege aswell.
I think that's that's really, really important.
And I love the complexity of, you know, identity and what it
means, especially I think be in tech with them.
It also honestly reminded me a little bit when you talked about
sort of, oh, it's only somethingthat I'm starting to talk a bit
more about and, and sort of be more open about and, and all
(11:29):
that. And it reminded me a little bit
that might be a bit different. But like, something I think
about a lot is that I've been intherapy for a long time.
And I recently spoke with a friend who's like considering
like working with a different therapist, not because her
current 1 isn't good, but because I found that there is
always an interesting thing likesaying those things out loud
(11:50):
about yourself and saying some kind of new things or things
that you haven't said as much out loud.
Where I I've encountered that a bunch of times myself when I
it's like, oh, I'm saying something that I hadn't even
kind of thought in this way. And now it's loud and it's, it's
audible even if it's just for one person.
And it's makes me sometimes feellike there's a different version
(12:11):
of myself that I'm encountering.Yeah.
I don't know if that resonates with you, but it, it kind of,
yeah. I reminded me of that a little
bit. Yeah, I mean giving, giving
something a name, saying it out loud, it all becomes more real,
doesn't it? And I think when I, I was on the
train this morning and I was just thinking about, on the one
hand, there is still a ton of bias.
You know, there are very stereotypical views of what a
(12:35):
leader looks like. Disability is not always
entirely aligned with that. And I'd be lying if I said that
I wasn't. It's not that I'm concerned, but
I guess that, you know, there isthe chance that people might see
a headline or they might not listen to this properly.
And there might be somebody who comes away thinking, oh, I don't
want to work with her in the future.
(12:55):
And, you know, different levels of privilege, I think means not
just for me, but you know, for other people in similar
conversations, might be that youcan afford to or not say, well,
those are people that I wouldn'twant to work with anyway.
But I think for me, coming back to why I wanted to use my name,
if I was anonymous, I feel like it would send the wrong message.
(13:17):
And so as much as labels can be nuanced and, you know, there
could be some kind of personal challenges, I don't want these
conversations to be something that we hide away from.
If anything, again, you know, it's that that word privilege.
I want to use my privilege to help show people that they can
succeed. They can be in leadership roles
in tech. And I think that from the
(13:38):
conversations that I had earlierin the year, this is something
that people are really worried about.
It's something that they don't necessarily see as being able,
you know, for them to do in their future.
It's not an option. Yeah.
It's kind of like if I can help play a part in that as other
people have for me being role models in the past, then that's
something that I think it it feels like it's really important
(13:59):
to do. I find that it's so, so
important and that's why, you know, never a question.
I think, of course, I, I so love, you know, having you here
in this way. And it's not something that I've
been grappling a lot with in themaking of this podcast as well.
That side note. But initially, like, I basically
(14:19):
let people choose if they want to be anonymous or not.
And currently at least we're recording under the premise that
people will be anonymous becauseI've realized that there is a
material difference in what the conversations are and what
people are comfortable talking about.
And it goes exactly like I, I think I've recorded about 7
episodes that, you know, are still like, they're still great.
(14:40):
Like the people are smart, they're sharing interesting
things and whatnot. But the degree of vulnerability
that's possible and the degree of fake openness, especially
with challenges and all that, itwas so vastly different.
Like to a degree, honestly, thatwas shocking to me.
And you know, shocking as like I, I'd started this whole thing
here under the premise that, oh,I'm hearing so many things sort
(15:01):
of behind closed doors and in one to one conversations that I
also know so many people are struggling with.
And that's why, you know, it's such an honour.
And I'm so happy that you're here and that we can talk about
this. Yeah.
Thank you. Now we should probably actually
talk about what we want. To talk about.
So what's the, you know, two to three sentence summary of what
(15:22):
you're here to talk about with? Me absolutely, yeah, we should
probably get on to that. So as I mentioned earlier this
year, as you know, I was invitedto be part of this community
representation group. I had spoken really openly with
Mary Williams, who I know we both know about chronic illness.
Mary is the the chair of the lead dev conference.
And so the the context of all ofthis is I have MECFS chronic
(15:45):
fatigue syndrome. It's begun to be more open about
it online. Like I said, I talked about it
kind of 1 to one, but I think itreally surprised me.
Well, first of all, I, you neverknow who's going to turn up for
these things where it's at lunchtime at a conference.
We had some amazing people turn up who had all kind of different
(16:06):
levels of, you know, experience with disability, whether that
was personal, whether it was with their loved ones, their
colleagues. There were people who were just
there to listen and learn. And I think that for me, I came
away from that with a real hope that by bringing it to the
matters, as we say, you know, but by by talking about these
(16:27):
things more, that we can little by little breakdown some of that
stigma. Spark thoughts, spark
discussions, help leaders, you know, feel like they've got the
either the kind of like the language or the starting point
to, to be able to explore this if it's not a topic that they've
come up against, really. And just generally to, to try to
(16:49):
bring a bit more equity into work.
And I think that it's something that also was really highlighted
to me recently as well of do youknow that that graphic that I
think it was by Microsoft, whicheverybody uses in the context of
accessibility conversations online.
It's the one that talks about kind of accessibility is
(17:09):
sometimes situational. So it's got a person with a
broken arm or holding a baby andthings like that.
And similarly, I think when we think about disabilities, it's
very often kind of with the perception of it being all or
nothing. You know, this person is either
disabled or they're not. And actually there can be
nuances. So I've recently been working
(17:29):
with somebody who's had a horrible reaction to COVID and
has not been in this situation before and doesn't know really
how to deal with it. And so for me, being able to
kind of apply some of the experiences that I've got both
personally, but also, you know, just try to kind of put in some
support mechanism for them more widely.
(17:50):
You know, this is hopefully something that's very temporary,
but I think that you can absolutely kind of, again, make
the situation better for everybody through thinking
about, you know, everything through these lenses more
broadly. So yeah, just hoping to kind of
start some conversation, hear any experiences you may have,
and let us know if you have any other thoughts too, dear
listeners. Yes, dear masters, the prestige.
(18:12):
Masses. I do.
Since you mentioned language already, I do briefly want to
talk about kind of two definitions that I thought
about. It's the context of this sector
1 is basically I wanted to ask you, I'll just briefly
contextualise the questions of person first versus identity
first language. Like the whole idea being that
(18:34):
person first language emphasizesthe person before the
disability. So it's for example, a person
like talking about someone as a person who is blind or a person
with spinal cord injuries as an example at the a different way
of talking about disability and this identity first language,
which puts the disability first in the description like a
(18:56):
disabled person and or an autistic leader, a disabled
leader. And I, my understanding is at
least that a lot of big folks inthe disability community, as
much as that's a like big term that can even be used, but like
different folks and choose different language to describe
themselves, which is very valid.And so I wanted to check with
(19:17):
you, you know, how do you talk about yourself, your own
experiences? What language do you use?
I still struggle to, and this is, you know, this is all kind
of me, my journey. I don't have any issue with
associating with the word disability, but to me it's not
(19:38):
something that is like at the forefront of how I describe
myself. So I think it's not something
that I am very strict with or probably consistent with.
And you might hear me refer in different ways.
I think some of that is kind of societal as well, because I feel
like sort of person centric language and identity is still
(20:00):
very much emerging. So as I sort of said before, I
think this to me is part of my identity.
So I would always kind of centremyself as an individual, but I I
think that I don't always do that when I'm talking about it,
if that makes sense. So yeah, what I'm trying to say
is I think there's a lot of inconsistency.
For me it's less about. The the terminology and I'm, I'm
(20:24):
kind of OK with like either way,but as you say, I know that for
some people it's very important,you know, to, to have their,
their situation, their experiences framed in a certain
way. So, yeah, like for me it's, it's
very, very individual and very much kind of a personal
preference. But you're welcome to, to frame
it how if you want to. I'm not.
Yeah, it's not not the top of mind for me.
(20:45):
Yeah, OK. That's cool.
Yeah, I see. I did write the questions that I
put together with Identity FirstLanguage just because that's my
personal preference for it. But at least well, now I know
and Justin also, you know, then how you know how I introduce
you, for example, things like that.
Perfect. I think the other, the other
(21:07):
bit, I did briefly want to touchon this kind of
intersectionality, especially because you were, I think
alluded to it earlier in terms of like how different
experiences can kind of compoundand how, I mean, you also
mentioned kind of the fluidity the kind of disability can have
inside. They just want to like, you
don't even have to define the intersectionary part.
(21:28):
We we can do that like for the intro or something like that.
But I did just want to ask, you know, how you how you view that
and how it kind of impacts your own thinking about yourself, but
then also about like creating inclusive work environments.
It's intersectionality, I think is so, so important.
And you know, it goes back to the the tick box kind of
(21:48):
exercises that people go throughwhere they talk about it being a
diverse team because they have, you know, a white woman on the
team. So I absolutely think that it is
very, very important to recognise that people are going
to have very different experiences.
And actually going back to your point of anonymity, it would be
super interesting if not to giveyou extra work or anything here,
(22:09):
but like if we had a follow up from somebody who didn't feel
comfortable, but maybe wanted toshare a very different
experience, I would love to, youknow, to again, get that
conversation going. I definitely think that there
are certain groups I've, I've sort of talked about this in, in
some of my talks before and can link some of the stats
(22:29):
afterwards if that's useful. But just the, you know, the, the
challenges that they face with perception, with judgement and
bias around their leadership ability in particular can be
exacerbated by factors like racein particular, can be a huge
one. But also, you know, kind of
sticking with the topic of disability, you, you talked
(22:50):
about how it's not kind of like a spectrum in particular, but
there's, there's the classic of not all disabilities visible as
well. And I think for myself, it's
something that has been really interesting to unpick, primarily
because I am very high functioning, often to my own
detriment. And I imagine that if you spoke
(23:12):
to so many of the people that I work with where, you know, they,
I, I'm very open about this. But if you, you know, kind of
took everything at face value, they would not think that I had
a disability. It doesn't show up in so many
ways. So for me it, it, it's kind of
like, can you pass as, you know,non, non disabled as well?
And how does that affect you? There's, there's so many
(23:35):
different factors. I think you're you're absolutely
right to call that out. Do it.
This is a bit of a hard pivot, but since you just mentioned it,
I want to ask how did you go about telling your Co workers
just like briefly also backtracka little bit like we don't have
to talk about it explicitly, butmy assumption was that, you
know, any CFS wasn't always a thing in your life and then at
(23:57):
some point it became one. But maybe that's also wrong.
But so, you know, I was curious to hear how that oh, you're
shared with your Co workers. No, absolutely.
And like, I'm, I'm happy. So you know, I'm here to talk
about this kind of thing. It's, it's not an issue for me.
So yeah, I think for those who don't know me, CFS is it's a
long term chronic condition thatcauses currently unknown and
(24:20):
symptoms really vary. For me, they are around being
extremely fatigued, having sleepproblems, having brain fog.
There's a key kind of factor which is called post post
exertional malaise, which is basically feeling terrible after
you do physical or mental or emotional exertion, which is
(24:41):
fantastic for manager obviously.But I get these these really
weird kind of they call them flulike symptoms.
So I just feel really ill and also have other kind of factors
like short term memory problems and things like that.
And it's something that I just lived with for so long.
And actually, you know, I had other things that came up.
So I have hypothyroidism where some of the symptoms can overlap
(25:04):
in terms of fatigue. And I got to points where I was
like, oh, great, I'm on medication for this.
It'll all be fixed. But really, for me, having a
child two years ago kind of really changed everything.
And I wouldn't say that I went through a bit of, you know, like
an existential crisis, but it made me have to be very
deliberate about my energy management, primarily thinking
(25:26):
about how I want to balance my life inside of work with my life
outside of work. And so actually when I came back
from my parental leave, I neededto take a bit more time off
until my kid could start nursery.
And I realised I wanted to kind of redesign my work.
So I did a very easy thing of starting, you know, coming back
(25:48):
to work after having a child andjoining a new company, which
actually was great. But it, it gave me an
opportunity to really think, youknow, very deliberately think
through how do I interview, how do I ask these questions?
What are the kind of touch points where I can get a sense
of, is this company somewhere that I can be successful?
(26:09):
Is this somewhere that I can be open with my my colleagues, my
Co workers, all of that kind of thing.
So I think in terms of interviewing, I was very
interested to, to hear stories of people, you know, it's the
classic people like me. There weren't so many, you know,
very visible touch points of folks who have disabilities,
(26:32):
things that I could find. But I did find a blog post of
one of my Co workers who talked about how she found out she was
pregnant with her third, third child whilst actually
interviewing. And I was like, OK, cool.
If this is a place where you canbe very open like that, that
bodes well. But that, that conversation or
that decision of how much to disclose and when I think again,
(26:54):
is very dependent on your situation, very dependent on
your, you know, your confidence levels, the company values, all
of these kind of things. And it took me I think maybe a
couple of weeks, if not more to just feel like, OK, this is what
it appears. I do feel safe.
My manager was fantastic, I haveto say.
(27:15):
And I decided to first share with, you know, with him and
then with my direct reports. But it's something that I've
factored into. I have a kind of working with me
document that explains a few things about just my, my
situation of a kind of the fact that I'm not based in London,
all this kind of thing. It's in there.
(27:35):
I share that with new joiners. So we, you know, we have new
leadership members, things like that.
It's something that, you know, Italk about very openly in terms
of if I've had a challenging weekend where I just need to
sleep and recoup. That is the stuff that people
don't see. So, you know, going back to
saying very high functioning, I crash in the evenings and the
(27:57):
weekends, but I basically just tried to kind of share a bit of
my life and share me as a, a person to, to be able to kind of
give people that context, which is not, it's not always easy to
do, but I feel very grateful to to be in a culture that does
genuinely support that and enable it.
I'm so glad that you know, you've found this place like
(28:18):
that. And also it, it does sound like
again, you did your research while interviewing and tried to
find sort of green flags pointing, but still we're like
bit hesitant initially. Take feel, feel out the place
and figure out, OK, is this actually what it sounded like?
Can I trust people? Like, I'm curious, what did your
manager do that made you feel after a couple of weeks?
(28:42):
Like OK, I can share this with him.
That's a really good question and I generally don't think that
it was any one thing. I think it was a combination of
different signals from seeing how he reacted to other people
who were in challenging situations.
So we had a a person on the teamwho had a young baby and who was
(29:07):
very open with babies at home with me today.
Bear with me folks, I'm very sleep deprived, all of these
kind of things. So being able to see somebody
showing their vulnerability and seeing how he responded to that
made me feel very safe. I think seeing how people were
living some of the the company values of kindness and equity in
(29:27):
real life was really, really keyto me.
And then also just again, like getting to know people, getting
to know their different situations, having people kind
of share things with me again interms of their own vulnerability
definitely makes me feel more able to share back.
And that's something that is genuinely very important to me
as a leader as well. It's one of the things that, you
(29:49):
know, I try to sort of really build into the cultures that I
build, but also some of the, thereally practical things like you
say that the green flags, the way that the company talks about
the fact that I, I know it's a very hot topic, but unlimited
holiday, for instance, asterisk with minimums, how people use
that. The fact that we have things
(30:11):
like what we call focus Fridays,which, you know, for no
meetings. And that can really help folks
who who really enjoy different kind of work situations.
And genuinely that that sort of culture of understanding that
people are individuals, they have their own lives, their own
situations was very, very helpful for me.
(30:32):
So yeah, it was no like one thing where I thought, OK, I
feel so for this person, it's just it's a general sort of
accumulation of signals. Yeah, well, it's, it's not the
sort of make a very silly example, but it's not the like,
oh, I have a disabled friend, like kind of a thing.
Yeah, but I mean it obviously hedidn't know.
It's like there was really, it sounds like there's a lot of
(30:55):
people around you kind of embodying the company values,
but a statistic being decent to one another and being like,
yeah, open. And of course that also takes a
bit of time, but that's, that's OK.
I think that's like very naturalas well.
But just it sounds like you ultimately realise that there
was space for other people to kind of show their human side at
(31:18):
work, and that, yeah, was a signal to you that like you
could potentially do that as well.
Yeah, and there's there's another person as well.
So I think it if it was just oneperson, I'm always a little bit
kind of, you know, am I over optimizing towards how I feel
because this one person is great.
But there were multiple people, some of my, you know, key cross
(31:38):
functional partners. They were absolutely incredibly
welcoming. One of them, I don't know
whether to like name people or not shout, shout out to these
people or not. They they hopefully know who
they are, but. You could tell them that like
at. The you know, time stamp, this
is you I'm talking. About yeah, exactly.
I'll send them the link. But one of my absolutely key
(32:01):
cross functional partners, who Ihave huge, huge amount of
respect for, she had come back from a very major health
incident, which is like life changing.
And that again, to me, there wasa lot of common ground, very
different situations, but a lot of understanding, a lot of
empathy. And I didn't actually meet her
until a little bit later. But again, it's kind of just
(32:22):
seeing the the sort of the reality of these people that I
work with are able to understand.
There is that lived experience, but also just generally the
openness to be curious and to toengage with people was just like
it's it's great to find people that you can, you know, you
really kind of gel with in that sense.
That's huge. Yeah.
Honestly, especially since you mentioned, you know, some of the
(32:44):
symptoms that you're dealing with.
How do you manage, you know, in the sense of like, you know, it
sounds like for example, there are some pieces where I mean
it's like unpredictable, you know, to a certain degree.
And like how do you manage just I mean that the question in both
means of the word, I guess. But yeah, I'm very curious how
how you make it work for you. No, I think I'm, I'm very
(33:08):
grateful that my symptoms much more mild than some people's.
So I think, you know, that's, that's an important kind of
caveat. But also I'm mindful of not kind
of minimizing. Yeah, my therapist would be like
don't minimize too much. But yeah, I think I kind of
mentioned I, I crash mostly behind the scenes outside of
work, which is to some extent like the nature of kind of the,
(33:30):
the post exertional element of it.
So my weekends, my holidays are very focused on recovery and
needing to be very mindful that I need to to build that kind of
stuff in. But that is obviously much, much
harder being a parent. So I, I do some things where I
also try to carefully plan my days.
So thinking about things like difficult conversations with
(33:51):
people or if I have to be, you know, really on it to be very
reactive to questions or, you know, have a high stakes
interaction, like a board presentation.
I want to make sure that I'm setting myself up to avoid
things like brain fog or being inarticulate.
But as you say, like there is anelement of variability.
So week by week, some weeks I'llbe absolutely on it, tons of
(34:14):
energy, incredibly productive. And then other weeks I'll need
to operate in a different way. I might need to, you know, like
not come into the office or minimise my meetings.
And I don't use this so often. Usually it's more in the sense
of, you know, external factors like having a massively busy
week with loads of interviews or, you know, some fire burning.
(34:35):
But one of my previous colleagues brought me this idea
of having kind of manager service levels really well
defined and shared so that you can say really quickly again,
I'll, I'll try and link to a blog post that she wrote.
But so you can really quickly say to somebody, I'm going to be
at service level 2 this week Forthese reasons.
And you have that shorthand of like what that means.
(34:57):
So yeah, like I say, I don't, I don't invoke that very often,
but it's useful. And then tons of other things
like little hacks like my notebook, it's right here.
It goes with the everywhere I write things down, I try to plan
my week every week have a sort of like a primary goal.
I share that out. I write weekly updates to my
(35:17):
org. So a lot of like process, a lot
of structure works really well for me.
Some other things that haven't worked so well though, So I
actually work 9 out of 10 days and the day that I take off is
do childcare. And I kind of went into that
thinking, oh, that'll be fun, we'll go to the zoo or
(35:37):
something. Bless your heart.
Like that, That is really not a rest day, I've come to learn.
It's probably like, nice that you went into without optimism.
I know. Oh no.
I know it's, it's a little bit naive.
What can I say? It's my first kid.
I'm still, I'm still learning. And then the other thing I'd say
that has not worked so well as not sticking to my own rules.
(35:59):
So things like blurking out focus time or whatever, telling
myself I'm not going to have, you know, kind of like 3 hour
long meetings in a row and then book it anyway.
Yeah, like that's on me. And I think in general, I have
incredibly high expectations of myself.
I'm still on that journey of, you know, again, trying to
(36:22):
balance all these factors and trying to work out what is
realistic and what's not and where my own kind of like
personal aspirations and my pre child's career might be slightly
different to to where I am. So yeah, so, so on that, Jenny,
would love to love to hear some tips if you could have them.
Honestly, as I was just listening to you, the big thing
(36:46):
that came up from is that they get quite simplistic, but I say
it out loud. But a lot of the things that I
just heard from you are things like so many people, you know,
including folks who are able bodied and folks who are
neurotypical or notic, who have these not these kinds of
challenges to deal with. But they are struggling with the
(37:06):
exact same things that are just in very inherent to leadership
roles. Like the the context, which the
like very emotionally demanding stuff, like a lot of
interviewing, for example, or like the high stress situations,
reactivity, sometimes, you know,different things that you've
alluded to. I was in my head, I was like,
yeah, I've, I've talked about this with like at least two
other people this week already who, you know, have very
(37:27):
different identities. But, and it, it does of course
sound like there is a big part where you are, you kind of have
to manage a lot of this much more intentionally because the
cost of like not managing it as well, it's just much higher than
for other folks or it's just, you know, it's a different price
tag. I don't even want to quantify
those things. But that was really interesting
(37:49):
to me because the same challenges that come with this
kind of work, but the kind of effects of it are just different
for you. Again, I'm trying to be mindful
of like qualitative statements. No, but it's thank you.
I appreciate that. But actually a lot of the
questions that's, you know, it'sthe, it's the old classic thing
as managers, as leaders, I thinkwe often can ask the coaching
(38:13):
questions to other people and then we know exactly what we
should be asking ourselves and don't follow our own advice.
All hypocrites, Yeah, I admit. Exactly.
And, you know, the question of kind of how can you best set
yourself up for success is a general one that I think a lot
of people can benefit from. How do you get your energy?
(38:34):
How do you restore your energy after draining times?
How do you best receive information, you know, written
or verbal? All of these things I think are
really great questions for everybody to to think about
themselves or to ask, you know, the the people around them
thinking about what you need andasking for it for me shouldn't
(38:57):
be a, you know, this is a like AI can't even think of the word
now see very informed, but this is, you know, an accommodation.
That's the word that we're making for you.
It's actually, you know, generally how can, how can you
best ask for what you need? Because again, you know, we're
all individual. We all have strengths.
We all have areas where we mightneed a bit more help.
(39:18):
Even if you don't identify as somebody with a disability,
again, there might be some situational things that come up
and being able to understand your needs in those times, ask
for them, advocate for them, andas leaders, create an
environment where people feel comfortable doing that.
I think it's just generally super, super important.
So yeah, absolutely. I think it's it's something that
(39:41):
maybe certain people are forced into thinking about a little bit
more, but we can all definitely,definitely sort of learn
something or try to make our ownenvironment a bit bit better.
Yeah, just try and be better. Awkward time.
I think it's such an important point that you just shared in
there in terms of the there, there is a huge, I think trade
(40:03):
off. Like I had one question that I
kind of don't want to ask explicitly now, but like one
question that I kind of wanted to pose because it's a bit
prerogative. It's like, why aren't there more
disabled leaders and. That's why I'm so appreciative
of like you being here and beinghere with your name attached
because there is like you mentioned, you know how
important role models were to you in your own kind of career
(40:26):
and that you want to kind of give some of that back to other
people. But like there is so much in
like even creating that space for like talking about, hey,
here are things that I need to like be able to succeed as a
leader. And here are expectations that I
have that is still, I think it still needs to be normalized.
Like, it's still like, there's still so much that like, yeah,
(40:47):
leaders just, you know, you throw problems at them.
They have to get stuff done. And then there's all these
associations with, like, how a leader has to be in order for
that to be possible. And there's obviously so much BS
wrapped around all of this. But that's why, you know, I
appreciate these examples you gave Frank.
Yeah. Here's, you know, how I manage.
And it is about being able to express the like, yeah, I I need
(41:08):
things and then I can do a greatjob.
Yeah. And I think whenever you're
talking about this kind of thingof like, weren't there more
women in tech? Weren't there more, you know,
disabled leaders? I think we could go really,
really deep here and get into like, all the flaws of society
and all the things that if we were running the world, we would
(41:28):
be able to change. So, you know, I, I don't want to
discount them. There are so many factors I
think that go into these. And I don't want to give you
like a really pithy, superficialanswer that is going to be like,
Oh yeah, if we just change this,everything will be solved.
But I think that there is a bit of a gap.
And when I was prepping for this, I was actually trying to
find some stats. And as you would expect, I know,
(41:50):
I know you like a survey and some stats and things like that.
So maybe you got some better sources.
But I found one from the BCS, which is the the Chartered
Institute for IT. And as opposed, again, I can
share it with you back from February this year, which talked
about how people with disabilities comprise 16% of the
UK workforce, but account for 11% of the technology
(42:11):
specialists. And so there's a gap there in
terms of representation in what,you know what they're calling
IT. And so to be equal to kind of
workplace norms generally, thereshould be an additional 88,000
specialists with disabilities employed in the UK.
And so that's kind of like either those people aren't able
to succeed in the industry or maybe they're there and don't
(42:36):
feel able to, you know, to be sharing or sort of identifying.
And so for me, I think there's there's a lot of things that we
do need to do better. I think very simple.
Again, you know, I said I wasn'tgoing to just give you a pithy
answer to that. Like one of the most obvious
things for me is to try and create room for these
(42:58):
conversations in the workplace. So to ask people what their
needs are rather than assuming, again, like we've talked about,
this can be in a really broad sense as well.
But to use that feedback to helpbuild equity into the processes,
into the policies. And couple that obviously with
kind of, you know, individual adjustments if needed.
(43:20):
But just thinking about, you know, policies around attendance
in the office, thinking about whether you need, you know, a
formal diagnosis to get adjustments.
It, you know, chronic conditionslike mine can be very hard to
get a diagnosis for. And I was as a tangent that for
me was actually really importantgoing against what they said
(43:42):
about labels. But having a diagnosis allowed
me to not just be, I get tired every now and again, like it's,
it's the language again. But I think that once you sort
of, once you start looking at everything through the lens of
who is this potentially blocking, who is this excluding?
You can look at, for instance, other requirements in your
(44:04):
career ladder based on the language that you've used that
inadvertently make it harder for, for instance, you know,
diverse people or folks with anxiety or chronic pain to be
able to, you know, demonstrate this consistently.
Or how does our hiring process rule out people before they've,
you know, even got a foot in thedoor?
All of these I think you can, you can run some quite simple
(44:27):
like thought exercises to see where your processes may be
falling down, how you can, you know, bring bring these issues
to the forefront really. So it's not going to solve why
then will people in leadership positions?
But I think that if you can helppeople come in, if you can
provide environments where they feel like they can be themself
(44:47):
and they can succeed, and then they can progress, they can be
recognised, they can be promotedbecause you're not over
optimising for a very, you know,niche view.
And hopefully, as with everything, again, going back to
the insectionality point, hopefully you get more diverse
folks in leadership. But it's a, it's a tricky,
tricky journey. I know you're, you know, very
(45:10):
passionate about this as well. And I just hope that we, we can,
you know, turn the tide and, andget more people thinking about
this as well. I appreciate you engaging the
extremely silly question. It's not silly.
Giving perks a thoughtful answerto it.
And because honesty, it really sounds like a lot of it is what
I like to say about hiring. But I think it's so true for
(45:32):
anything that's ultimately like our job is creating an
environment where like you can achieve business results and
people can't like thrive, at least career wise or, you know,
to like be be well and be in that environment.
And there is a lot that's about like build a process that you
can trust to get you the resultsthat you want.
(45:53):
And so I think even, you know, what you described about, you
know, questions that you can askyourself or look at things you
can do to evaluate your process.Like a lot of this ultimately
just has to do with like making productivity accessible in the
sense of like all of those things are just in the, in the
spirit of helping your team communicate well and collaborate
(46:13):
well and everyone being able to like do their best work.
And that's again, it's a productivity thing.
I guess there is of course, likeI'm always with those
conversations about diversity and to civility belonging, I'm
always a bit worried. And because I ultimately believe
it's just, it's the right thing to do.
Like there, there shouldn't haveto be a business case for it.
(46:34):
But I also know that so many, it's a complicated topic.
And so I I also know that like being able to make a business
case for ourselves. Absolutely.
Being able to make a business case helps everything I think
sometimes. Even if you're not decay, you
know, I want to look at our, ourprocesses or the way that we
communicate and want it from theperspective of accessibility.
(46:55):
Well then look at it from the perspective can everyone on your
team do their job? Yeah, absolutely.
We don't want people, you know, dropping out.
I think we don't want people with my business hat not doing
their best work, not being as productive as they could be,
where there are arguably very simple things that we can do to
(47:15):
support people with their individual needs.
And yeah, like make make an environment where genuinely we
can have different shapes of people.
Because again, coming back to the DIB kind of conversation,
then you end up with better products.
And I'm again, a big believer ofthat as I know you are.
It just makes sense. Yes, yes, exactly.
I think you've alluded a few times to like that creating that
(47:37):
kind of environment is really important to you.
But like what else is really important to you as a leader?
Like what do you care about? So I think one of the threads
that is really tied together my career, you know, kind of like
looking back in hindsight, is working on things that that have
a purpose and that have the ability to kind of solve.
I, I'm loath to say like real world problems because, you
(48:01):
know, the real world is hopefully, you know, embedded in
different places. But the, the sort of the values
of the people that I work with, but also the impact that I'm
kind of leaving in the world hasalways been really, really
important to me. So that's something that I find
really, really motivating the, the legacy that I leave as well.
(48:22):
I think the, you know, the culture more broadly, how we can
kind of embed some systems, how we can get people like
propagating some of the ideas and, you know, being their own
little beacons to me is, is super, super important as well.
So thinking about how you can scale all of these ideas, you
know, they're not new ideas necessarily, but how you can
(48:44):
kind of scale, scale culture andscale some of the, the impact is
really, really important to me. But also I think as you've seen
for this conversation and, and just generally transparency for
me is it's a bit more of a buzz more than a buzzword.
I really genuinely care about kind of sharing work as much as
possible, sharing, you know, experiences, helping other
(49:06):
people relate to things. I think, you know, I know for me
it really helps me feel, let alone in certain situations or
if I can see something that resonates with me, it's like,
oh, that makes sense now. So yeah, just kind of, you know,
sharing and and being open and trying to help people again be
be themselves as as much as is appropriate within different
situations, as much as they feelcomfortable with.
(49:29):
I love them, and I've also realized that we're coming up at
time already, even though I know.
Talking to you for the next three hours.
But I do want to at least ask like, is there anything else
that you really want to say to to the masses?
To the masses, all two of them that are probably listening.
No, I think the, the main thing that I kind of wanted to, to
(49:49):
really close up was just to kindof go back to something that I,
I said before. So I really appreciate you kind
of inviting me on and, and having this conversation.
I just, I hope that it kind of sparks some people to, to think
about these topics or to, to feel less alone if it's
something that they're grapplingwith.
And I'm always very, very happy if people want to kind of
(50:09):
message me and, you know, kind of like reach out and, you know,
follow up on anything or, or talk about their own personal
journey. I, I love to hear from people.
I will put the slight disclaimerthat I am terrible with my
emails nowadays. So if I don't get back to you
very quickly, that's on me. But that's, you know, energy
(50:29):
management and all that. So please bear with me with my
boundary setting. Yeah.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Sally.
So thank you, Sally, for your time and for sharing your wisdom
with us. I want to highlight for you a
few points that stood out to me and that could be valuable for,
well, anyone listening to this. First of all, what strikes me
(50:53):
most about Sally's insights is just how much of what she shared
and what she's learned over the years is making any of us more
effective. Like, manage your energy
intentionally, set some boundaries across the board, and
be strategic about where you spend your time and energy.
The difference, of course, is that for Sally, like many other
disabled leaders, developing these systems wasn't optional,
(51:14):
but it was necessary. And that necessity has made her
approach to leadership incredibly thoughtful and
sustainable. I also really loved her
framework of manager service levels.
Have that kind of clear, shared language about your capacity in
any given week. That's something that can be
valuable again for all of us, and so is her point about making
productivity accessible. Like when we design our
(51:37):
processes and expectations, are we creating space for different
ways of working and leading, or are we optimizing for just one
narrow view of what productivityand impact look like?
Elsa enjoyed speaking to Sally because her experience speaks to
a duality in our roles as leaders that many of us
experience. We're in positions of relative
power and hopefully in a place where we can do a part to make
(52:00):
our organizations and teams better places for everyone,
including more accessible placesand inclusive places.
At the same time, though, many of us in those positions are
still impacted by systemic issues ourselves.
Microaggression, sexism, harassment, racism, for example.
Don't stop because you have AVP or Director title.
(52:21):
I've often been the only neurodivergent woman on a
leadership team or just, you know, the only woman.
And I've always done what I could to make the organisations
I ran or that I was a part of more inclusive and better for
everyone. And my lived experience and my
connections with people in similar situations helped with
that. I know many leaders who are in
(52:41):
similar situations, like queer people in leadership positions,
men and women of colour or disabled leaders who want to
make their organisations better but who also aren't unaffected
by the same issues that they want to.
And to some degree even have a task and mandate to address and
who aren't completely shielded from those just because of the
bigger title they have. I don't have a resolution for
(53:04):
that or here's what you can do about this, but I wanted to call
it out as a highlight from our conversation and the
continuation of it and somethingthat's been on my mind for many,
many years. Lastly, we also have a bunch of
resources from Sally as well as from me in the show notes to
help you become a better leader for everyone you work with and
for the users that your organization serves.
(53:27):
If Sally's story resonated with you, or if you have your own
experiences that you want to share, we'd love to hear from
you. e-mail us at pod@lenareinhardt.com.
You read every message, even if we can't always respond.
Leadership Confidential was created, produced, and presented
by me, Lena Reinhardt. Our guest's identity was not
modified for this episode. Theme, original composition and
(53:51):
mixing by Esteban Delpino, production assistant, guest
support and social media by Slice Stark.
Thank you for listening.
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