Gemma Burton-Connolly is the Chief Governance Officer at Abri. For International Women’s Day, Gemma reflects on the experiences that helped build her confidence, encourage her to be authentic, and hone her leadership skills. Her journey, from teenage self-doubt to advocating for empathy and empowerment shows how supporting one another can create environments where women truly thrive.
We all have experiences in life that shape who we are. If I rewind back to my teenage years, I had low confidence, didn’t believe in myself and needed to do something about it.
I’ve always been impulsive and so I took the decision to move to Australia on my own at 16. I enrolled in a school there and met the most wonderful teacher, who was called Helen. For the first time ever I felt seen. Helen invested her time in me, taught me that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I believed in myself, was authentic and put in the hard yards. I flourished during my time with Helen. She was a real pioneer and a champion of spotting those in need of a voice.
Fast forward to when my career started (back in the UK) where Helen’s voice was thousands of miles away and I lost perspective. There was a myth in my early career that to succeed as a women you had to be aggressive. I’m actually embarrassed to say that I adopted that approach, I’d lost of sense of who I was and thought to progress I had to live up to a bizarre stereotype.
I then took a big decision in my career and decided that’s not the world I wanted to be in. I moved to Texas and worked on death row appeal cases, the environment couldn’t have been more different. This time it was no longer about having the loudest voice, it was about stripping back humanity to its rawest – I saw the darkest and brightest parts of humanity during that time. This is a period in my life that I hold dearest as it was about self-discovery, thinking about who I wanted to be, and how I could make a greater contribution to society.
For those that know me, being authentic is one of the most important things to me, this has come over years of developing my self-worth. Today I am confident in who I am. This isn’t the case for everyone though. Why did I feel I needed to be aggressive in my early career? I was young and mimicking the behaviours around me, it was the cultural norm of the environment I was in. We have the ability to reshape our environments, whether that’s at home or at work – but we have to take action.
I wanted to challenge the perception that to be a female leader you have to be hard-nosed. Today I lead through feelings and my gut. For me it’s important to champion one another - none of us know what’s going on in someone else’s mind, so take time out of your day to tell your colleagues (not just female) when they’ve done a great job. That feedback can make such a difference and boost confidence.
We’re all at different stages of life, but I’d encourage you to think about a time where someone made you feel bad or not good enough, not because I want you to relive that time, but think back to how it made you feel. Then use that feeling to show empathy and lift someone up, knowing you don’t want anyone to feel the way you did at certain points in time. Let’s give to gain as what better place to work than an organisation that champions women and sets the tone for the next generation.
This International Women’s Day and beyond, let’s give to gain and create workplaces where everyone feels seen, valued and supported, setting the tone for the next generation.