Article by Kate Hesk, CPO and founder, Cognomie
Each of us as humans has different triggers and vulnerabilities to it – it’s hugely personal. And while some of us may have a narrative of “thriving under stress” the truth is, too much of it can lead to an overloaded nervous system, burn out and longer-term health issues.
In 2019/20 stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health cases. It also caused 55% of all working days lost due to work-related poor health. How do we keep the relationship between stress and the workplace from going toxic?
McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report found that while senior leadership for women is improving, the gap in burnout between women and men almost doubled in 2020- 21. And, last year, one in three women considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their career.
The same report found that employees with female managers are more likely to say their manager has helped and supported them – whether it’s offering emotional support or checking in on well-being, managing work-load or navigating work-life issues.
Here’s the thing about female leaders and stress. While we’re excellent at investing -through time and energy – the critical work of supporting our teams, we often do this at the expense of our own well-being, taking on more stress as a result. The adage you can’t pour from an empty cup rings true simply because it is. So how can we manage our own stress levels as leaders, staying replenished and topped up in our well-being?
Perspective as a superpower – Harnessing your perspective as issues arise can really help you create distance from stress – or stressful situations. Notice when it’s happening, pause and try to delineate your thoughts and response. When you step back, and look inwards, you can acknowledge the situation rather than be consumed by it. Know you are not your thoughts.
Understand where your stress and emotions are coming from too: are they environmental or could they be physiological? For many female leaders, the reality of peri/ menopausal symptoms can add another of stress to our working lives. And while efforts are in place to normalise conversations around menopause at work, the impact on our emotional, mental and physical health cannout be underestimated. Investing in coaching around menopause, and creating a personal plan to navigate this time of change can be a powerful step helping you manage this.
Connection is a huge part of perspective. Invest in connecting with peers and likeminded women in leadership cultivate that community, support and accountability where you can have conversations around stress and leveraging it openly.
Courage to seek support – As women, nurturing others while neglecting our own needs is sadly, a legacy blueprint of culture and society. When we’re spinning all the plates, it often feels uncomfortable to ask for something for yourself. But overwhelm can quickly move to burnout as it’s cumulative. This, in turn, compounds because of everythng we’re dealing with – at work and home. Have the courage and confidence to ask for help; as leaders we’d never expect our teams to manage alone, and stress is not a failing, rather a normal part of a full life.
Build your own trusted support team. This could be working with a coach or a thinking partner who holds that space for quality conversatiions that support your own self-awareness, reflection and growth.
Control what you can control – By focusing on the things that are within our control, we can again regain a sense of agency and self-efficacy – to empower, regain confidence, restore a sense of inner balance against a backdrop of external stressors. If we look at relationships at work, for example, it’s so easy to feel you have to take responsibility for another person’s feelings, reactions or responses to a situation. Ultimately, we can’t be responsible for a colleague’s set of circumstances beyond our control. Focus on what’s working within the relationship so that you can have the impact you want, affecting change within your capability.
This is a huge part of the resilience work I do with clients. When stress escalates, we need to remind ourselves why we’re here, and refocus on meaning and our sense of purpose.
This could start in the smallest way by setting an intention for the day.
Think: what do I want out of this meeting? How do I want this conversation to go? Make it super-micro in this moment: what’s the next positive step I can take towards this task or goal?
Stress turbocharges a sense that your agency and control are being stripped away from you. Feeling in flow and alignment counters this. What lights you up? What brings you joy? A great anti-stress strategy is to connect to joy in small, meaningful ways throughout the day. This could be a coffee with a colleague at the start of the day, a lunchtime walk, leaving a voicenote for your close friend.
Pay attention to what reconnects you with joy and commit to creating more of those throughout your day.
Bringing these strategies together can help you create a powerful resource to dip into throughout those sticky, stressful moments that have become of our working lives. By noticing when “good stress” tips into “bad stress” you have that presence to manage it effectively and fully.
What’s more, by modelling this behaviour for your team, you’re giving other people permission to do the same, and reset the culture around stress in the workplace.
You can find out more about managing stress here.
February
25feb09:0017:30International Women's Day Conference & Exhibition 2025 | ThinkFest IWD
25/02/2025 09:00 - 17:30(GMT+00:00)
Millennium Point - Birmingham
Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG
Join us for a kick-ass International Women’s Day Conference & Exhibition, celebrating and empowering women from all walks of life! International Women’s
Join us for an inspiring and empowering event celebrating women’s achievements and promoting gender equality. The International Women’s Day Conference & Exhibition will take place at Millennium Point – Birmingham. This in-person event brings together influential speakers, thought-provoking discussions, and a vibrant exhibition showcasing the talents of women from various fields. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect, learn, and be inspired by remarkable women from around the world. Come and be part of this incredible celebration of women’s accomplishments and the journey towards a more inclusive society.
The Event is split in two, a ticketed Conference and a free to attend Expo.
FREE TO ATTEND EXPO – This part of the event will feature a number of exhibition stands as well as seminar stage delivering content to individuals, small businesses and young females. This is completely free to attend and we have content running throughout the day.
For more for more information about all of the sessions we are running, please take a look at our website. www.IWDExpo.com
We look forward to welcoming you all there, don’t forget it’s not just for women, we need more men in the room to create a greater alliance for gender parity.
10:00 AM Welcome & Introduction
10:30 AM Motivational Networking
11:00 AM How to Start and Scale Your Business
11:30 AM The Magic of Writing Your Book
12:00 PM Funding Females
12:30 PM Mental Health & Wellbeing
1:00 PM Women In STEM
2:00 PM Women in Media
3:00 PM Empowering Girls for Career Success
4:00 PM Building Your Personal Brand
4:40 PM Monetise your Passion
5:10 PM Finish
PAID TICKET CONFERENCE – The content delivered at the conference will be targeted towards senior leaders across business and corporate as well as third-sector organisations. We will be exploring a range of different topics, looking at key issues that women face and what we can do to improve the experience for women in the workplace. A key part of the conference will focus on how we increase the number of male allies for females and have a dedicated panel of speakers discussing this. To top it all off we will be hearing from fashion entrepreneur Karen Millen OBE, founder of Karen Millen.
25feb10:3011:30The FTSE Women Leaders Review | Report Launch Tuesday 25 February 2025
25/02/2025 10:30 - 11:30(GMT+00:00)
We are delighted to extend to you a special invitation to the live broadcast launch of the FTSE Women Leaders Review report on Tuesday 25 February 2025 from
The FTSE Women Leaders Review has made remarkable strides, with the FTSE 350 achieving over 40% women’s representation on boards ahead of the target. However, our work is far from complete. Achieving gender balance and diversity on boards and leadership teams has never been more crucial to harness the wealth of experience, expertise and skills essential for business to navigate complex issues successfully.
With just one year remaining to reach our recommendations, realising genuine equality and enabling further progress will require a united commitment from us all to achieve the 40% women in leadership target and to drive more appointments of women into the ‘four key roles’; the Chair, Senior Independent Director, CEO and Finance Director.
We therefore warmly invite you to join us for the 2024 report launch, where we will share new and exclusive findings on the progress made in achieving gender balance during the year. We are delighted that the Secretary of State for the Department of Business & Trade and the Minister for Women & Equalities will be sharing their support for the Review, and we are excited to host a panel of distinguished guests who will share insights on how they are accelerating progress.
Our panellists include:
– Allison Kirkby, CEO BT Group Plc
– Lee Chambers, Business Psychologist, Speaker, Author
– Yetunde Hofmann, Non-Executive Director Cranswick Plc
– Mary Ann Sieghart, Author of ‘The Authority Gap’
Please confirm your attendance at this virtual event by completing this registration form. If you encounter any difficulties during the registration process, our team is available to assist you at [email protected]
This year, our event will be exclusively a live broadcast, and so we encourage you to share this invitation with your network.
27feb08:3014:00Clarity Connect International Women's Day Conference | Clarity Leadership Ltd
27/02/2025 08:30 - 14:00(GMT+00:00)
Bloomsbury Ballroom
Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1B 4DA
Ahead of IWD2025, please join Clarity Leadership as we hear from leaders and generate discussion around the key themes of gender equality. Ahead of International Women’s Day
Ahead of International Women’s Day 2025, please join Clarity Leadership as we invite you to join us for an open and inclusive morning of presentations and lively debate. To follow the IWD 2025 theme, #AcclerateAction, the speakers will be generating discussion and debate around female leadership, gender equality and the creation of an inclusive and more gender-equal world.
We will be joined by two exceptional leaders, Lee Chambers, Founding Director of Male Allies UK, and Riham Satti, Co-Founder and CEO of MeVitae, Creating Fairness in the Workplace. They will share their experiences, challenges, and the obstacles they’ve overcome in their efforts to create a more equal world.
We also invite you to hear research, experiences, and views from a group of leaders who identify as women from several leading organisations, including Pfizer, Microsoft, Vodafone, Reckitt, and Bayer. The speakers join us from all over the world and around the UK, providing a global perspective on their discussions. This is the culmination of six months’ work by 16 leaders who identify as women, who have been through our Women in Leadership Programme. The final part of their journey has been the design and delivery of this event.
This is an event for everyone and we look forward to welcoming you!
Free
27/02/2025 12:30 - 13:30(GMT+00:00)
We are delighted to be joined by Laura Bates, Best-selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Founder of the Everyday Sexism Project.
Laura will be setting out the existing and potential ways in which emerging technologies can have unintended negative impacts on women and marginalised groups, both in and outside the workplace. From the metaverse and deepfake technology to AI and adult robots, these technologies are fast becoming the building blocks of our future societies, so it is vital that we understand the risks and act now to prevent them from reinventing existing forms of inequality in our brave new world.
Laura Bates is a best-selling author, keynote speaker and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project. Her books include Everyday Sexism, Girl Up and Fix the System, Not the Women. Laura writes regularly for the New York Times, Guardian and others, and is a frequent media commentator and consultant for TV productions tackling issues around gender inequality.
She works closely with government, schools, businesses, police forces and bodies from the United Nations to the Council of Europe on sexism and inequality.
In recognition of Laura’s work surrounding sexism and gender inequality, she was awarded a British Empire Medal in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and has been named Woman of the Year by Cosmopolitan, Red Magazine and The Sunday Times Magazine. She is also an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Please note, this event will be hosted as a Teams Town hall. Please register your place on Eventbrite and we will share the Teams meeting link.
We look forward to seeing you!
free
27feb18:0020:30Planning and Goals Workshop | WeAreTheCity
27/02/2025 18:00 - 20:30(GMT+00:00)
Nomura
1 Angel Lane, London, EC4R 3AB
Join Dr Vanessa Vallely OBE to discover why and how to create your career strategy and plan in order to
This interactive session is aimed at injecting the “va va voom” back into your career.
Dr Vanessa Vallely OBE, CEO of WeAreTheCity, will share why leaving your career solely in the hands of your line manager is no longer enough. Vanessa will provide insights on how to take charge of your career, create a strategic plan, and actively seek opportunities to propel your professional growth.
The workshop focuses on why and how to create a career strategy and plan, to unlock your potential and path to success. This session is not about theory, science or blue sky thinking, it is about a realistic look at what you want to achieve and actions to take in order to get where you want to go!
Session includes:
By the end of this session, participants will have the foundation of a career plan they can continue to develop and implement throughout 2025.
We will close the evening with networking and drinks/canapés.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Please note that on arrival at Nomura guests will be asked to provide photographic ID, a passport or driving licence.