International Women's Day offers a moment for women to consider their personal journeys, and for everyone to reflect on the women who came before. For Managing Partner Ally, it sparked a line of thinking that begins with her grandmother Amy – a woman of great kindness and generosity, a community builder and strong leader. Here, Ally reflects on Amy's influence on her approach to client work, to nurturing and contributing to the Sheppard Moscow culture, and her own authentic leadership style.

As we move through the world we are shaped by the different people and experiences we encounter. For leaders, understanding these forces is a critical part of getting in touch with their authentic leadership. Reflecting on the influence my grandma Amy has had on me and my leadership, I am taken by a strength of feeling that we need to honour our ancestors; to keep alive that sense of where we’re from, who we are, and keep it present and vivid. Such reflection brings awareness to the impact of key role models from our past and enables a growth mindset, helping us to use and apply the learning from these influences and understand, ‘What does this mean for me?’.

My grandma was a very memorable woman.

When she died at 92 the church was completely full, bringing home just how many different lives she touched and continued to touch right into her early 90s with her generosity and spirit. But we’ll start further back. In WWII my grandma was in the Women’s Air Force (WAF) driving big vans with munitions and supplies. She once told me of how a senior officer instructed her to get under the bonnet and fix something. Thinking ‘I don’t know how to do that!’ she had a go anyway and got it done - and that was her through and through, she would always just get stuff done.

Fast forward over 60 years and Amy had traded the van for her own car, munitions for her community, and was helping the vulnerable get to appointments. She gathered donations for a women’s refuge, she was the warden in her senior living community, they even raised the working age at the cathedral to 70 just so she could keep working!

All this is to say she was passionate and generous, she had deep focus and remained active, always working in service of others. I can see these qualities and values show through in my leadership and feed into the Sheppard Moscow community, the team, how they are and how we respond to clients. I think about our work and impact all the time; it’s a true passion and it’s not hard to see where that passion and focus comes from.

Identifying the threads that define our authentic leadership

Authentic leadership is important not just for personal clarity and resourcing, but also to garner followership. People will follow a leader who is human and encourages such humanity in those around them. In developing one’s authentic leadership, a leader starts to answer the questions of what kind of leader they want to be and how they want others to experience their leadership.

One part of our authentic leadership facilitation is helping leaders to become more integrated with what’s important to them: What is their sense of purpose? What is their passion? How do they show up in their leadership? We encourage them to think about who they are and where they’ve come from, like I’m doing with my grandma, and then deeply consider what their values are.

Kindness and community are important values to me, and I can trace their roots to my grandma’s commitment and ability to build communities and relationships. Those values are also integral to Sheppard Moscow as an organisation, how we work with our clients, and the impact we can bring to the world. When I first became Managing Partner we created three strategic aims, one of which was the power of the collective. I truly believe we can go so much further together, and there is joy in going together.

Connecting with past influences to be at our best today

The leaders who inspire trust and loyalty are the ones that let themselves come alive in front of their teams. Following my inspiration from International Women’s Day, I wanted to bring a bit of that to my leadership with Sheppard Moscow. Many of the things that are important, that have defined me, that I want to honour and keep alive come from someone very influential and special in my life – my grandma.

It’s worth doing this kind of personal work because it’s not always a natural thing for people to do, to reflect on what’s created them, on the fabrics that stick together to make them the quilt that they are today. Such work helps us to see the bigger picture, to consider our own legacy and what it is we want to create.

See authentic leadership in action on the Future Business Leaders programme with the Bank of Ireland, or in our Enabling Leaderhsip Transitions programme, 'Leading self and others'.