Lynne Sedgmore, Chair, Glastonbury Town Deal; Coach; Author
- Dr. Lynn Sedgmore is the Chair of the Glastonbury Town Deal Board, Executive Coach, Author, and Leadership Developer.
Podcast
Overview
Dr. Lynne Sedgmore CBE is resetting the management literature on leadership, directing it to a new path. Hers is a bold statement: Lynne doesn’t do things by half. She positions contemporary leadership as a spiritual enterprise, insisting on incorporating the sacred feminine as an essential component of successful (read: humane, impactful, holistic, globally conscious) leadership.
00:42- Tell me about the chair of the Glastonbury Town Deal.
- I have sat on 26 boards in my time, but I think this is the most exciting project that I’ve been involved in.
- We’re one of 101 towns in the UK that’ve been given up to 25 million for regeneration.
- So we’ve got 11, grassroots-led projects, which are everything from its capital monies. So it’s all about renovating buildings, we’ve got this amazing Bailey’s building, encouraging community groups to step forward, improving sustainability, and clean energy.
- The Glastonbury Abbey, which is an icon in the town will receive funding.
02:06- What is it like to work with politicians and bureaucrats?
- I love working with Politicians.
- Once you understand what makes them tick, you make sure they get good press coverage, and they never get negative press coverage. And you really know what motivates them and what they want to achieve.
- They’re more transparent about what they want and what they need.
- The bureaucrats, the civil servants, I have to say, I really struggle with.
- I have people in my team around me who are good at doing that because my face gives away that unnecessary bureaucracy, which is totally pointless.
04:23- Why did you decide to become a coach?
- To be honest, it wasn’t something that particularly interested me. I’ve always been coached.
- And because I’m on a spiritual path, I’ve always had a spiritual director or a soul coach or a soul guide as well. So in that sense, I was always used to being coached.
- It was only when I decided to retire, that I really found that I liked coaching others as well, I’d always offered it free.
- I found one of them good at it. And two, I really enjoy it.
- And getting to know people from the inside out and supporting them is so beautiful, and rewarding. I’m it is the primary thing that I do now. I love it.
10:24- How have the people in your life influenced you as a coach today?
- Gandhi is my biggest hero if I’m honest. Martin Luther King, all very stereotypical, but I’ve read books about them read about their lives. Social justice and service are really important to me.
- I have had bosses, and people in my career, and I’ve learned from them. I’m learning how not to do it. I’m learning what doesn’t work. I’m learning what really doesn’t resonate with me. And then I’d go away and reflect and turn it around.
- I would say that I’m influenced and watch and listen and think and reflect and learn from everybody and anybody.
- But there are particular coaches, Dr. Simon Weston and his analytical network coaching Professor Peter Hawkins, his transformational coaching Lena Stopford, who was my first real serious mentor.
12:40- How does culture impact coaching?
- I think in relation to coaching, we have to have a seriously well-informed cultural awareness of society and the organizations we’re working in.
- When I was the Chief Exec of the Center for Excellence in leadership, in Further Education, we did not have enough. BME coaches.
- We don’t have a single black coach. So what are we going to do about it? We’re going to support and develop, and we went out of our way, we put 12 BME professionals who wanted to be coaches through a master’s program right through, so they got something.
- So we actually made sure that we had BME coaches available as a choice because there was always a choice.
- So my sense of culture, and particularly social justice, and looking for where there are inequalities, or things that need to be placed in a system to give the maximum availability and choice for different kinds of people is paramount.
14:33- What in your opinion are the areas millennials and Gen Z’s need to be coached in?
- What I found was that they had huge enthusiasm and brought very high-level skills, they were often overqualified for the roles that they were in.
- But I always, and I still do carry this sense of lack of loyalty or reciprocity. So I would be coaching millennials in reciprocity.
- Sometimes, there is quite a strong individualism.
- So I don’t want to take that away from them. I just want them to understand that there’s a whole system that works and is dependent and reliant.
20:36- What are the three life lessons you would like our reader to know about?
- From a coaching perspective, I would say, it is really helpful and important to have a coach, whether it’s a free coach or someone you pay for peer coaching.
- Find someone with that you can have those deep conversations that lead to real light bulb moments and whole new ways of seeing it.
- Be comfortable making mistakes, and being vulnerable. It’s really important to get yourself into a place where you can learn from your mistakes and move on really quickly.
- And I think I have to say the importance of self-awareness, reflection, time to, to really think about what you’re doing.
RESOURCES:
You can connect with Dr. Lynn Sedgmore- on LinkedIn
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Profile
- Dr. Lynn Sedgmore is the Chair of the Glastonbury Town Deal Board, Executive Coach, Author, and Leadership Developer.
