40 minutes with Dame Ann Limb

The latest episode of Unlocking Your Potential, the ASK Podcast, is an insightful conversation with Dame Ann Limb. A leader, a teacher, a mentor, a consultant, a coach, with so much experience in influential positions. Dame Ann Limb is the current High Sherriff of Buckinghamshire, and is a huge proponent of the importance of support and compassion for successful leadership, of challenging those behaviours that don’t serve you or your organisation, and of the value high-level coaching and mentoring bring to any leadership role.

Named as one of the 50 most influential women born in the north of England, her current title is just one of many achievements peppering an illustrious career; an educationalist, business leader, charity chair and philanthropist, Dame Ann brings her insight into Leadership in both public and private sector roles, and in exec and non-exec positions. Her experience, insight, and unique pathway through such a remarkable career, bringing her both CBE and OBE accolades, is a masterclass in personal and professional growth, the benefits of self-reflection and working within your own values, and in creating healthy workplace cultures.

“I’m not somebody who has studied the theory of leadership particularly … first and foremost, you’ve got to believe in what you do … there’s very much more to it; you do have to have a clear set of values and a clear vision about what you want to do with the organisation – and the kind of culture that you create, and the kind of people that you gather around you…be self-aware enough to know where those values come from within yourself.”

This self-awareness is something that Dame Ann credits for her success in Leadership; she also discusses that this was something she consciously worked on learning, after committing to a management development programme during her first leadership role, which helped her to identify how she leads, and how to do it well. She went on to detail her view that great leaders all need a great coach and mentor – a string she has added to her own professional bow after benefiting from that support in early leadership roles, and a significant part of her ongoing philanthropic work.