Leading with Purpose: Reconnecting Culture, Values and Inclusion

Why values-led leadership creates truly inclusive growth

In this inspiring conversation, Gillian Drakeford shares her journey from management trainee to leading IKEA UK & Ireland, and her deep insights from helping IKEA expand into China.

She reveals how formative experiences shaped her leadership style, including a key moment when asking “why” was discouraged — an attitude she actively challenged throughout her career.

Gillian discusses how cultural intelligence, values-based recruitment, and inclusive leadership fostered sustainable business growth and stronger emotional connections with customers and colleagues alike.

In this episode:

• The leadership lesson Gillian learned at 18 that stayed with her for life
• How she helped IKEA thrive in China through cultural sensitivity
• Rebuilding IKEA UK’s values and reconnecting teams with purpose
• Why inclusive leadership drives emotional connection and commercial success
• Her practical advice for leaders seeking inclusive growth

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inclusive Growth show with Toby Mildon. Future proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace.

Toby Mildon: Hey there. Thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon and today I'm joined by Gillian Drakeford. And Gillian has got some really fantastic experience working internationally for IKEA in China and also the UK and Ireland. So we're going to be sitting down and catching up with Gillian just to talk about her leadership experience, the leadership path that she took, what she learned as a senior leader in IKEA and how that has helped shape an inclusive culture. So Gillian, it's lovely to see you. Thanks for joining us today.

Gillian Drakeford: It's fantastic to be here, Toby, and have the opportunity to be in conversation with you.

Toby Mildon: So I just gave a very brief introduction there, but could you perhaps let us know a bit more about yourself in your own words?

Gillian Drakeford: Yeah, of course. So as you say, I have a career in retail and that has taken me actually to many different locations in the world, in Asia, here in the UK and I also spent some time in the Netherlands. So I see myself as being somebody who has worked internationally within a retail environment and for over 30 years. That was actually IKEA, which is quite an interesting home furnishing company because I think a lot of people know about their products but perhaps don't know so much about the organization. And it is a private organization. It's very vision and values led with a very strong purpose and of course a strong culture that is very Scandinavian but with multiple organizations in many different countries, which means you needed to find a way to work together. So I did that for over 30 years and actually since leaving them in 2021, I've started to build a bit of what we would call a portfolio career. And today I work and do some non executive director work. I work as a trustee with a number of organizations in Greater Manchester and I'm a coach and a mentor.

Gillian Drakeford: But what stays very common to me is that I'd worked for many years for a purpose led organization and I continue to do that. And it's organizations where people are really at the center and we can talk about customers, colleagues and also the communities that they work within. So that's a little bit about me.

Toby Mildon: Thank you. So we're both based in Manchester and that's how I met you. I met you at a networking event which was organized by Pro-Manchester, which is a fantastic organization at bringing Manchester based businesses and entrepreneurs together. And I loved your talk that you did at that evening, one story really stuck out for me, which was your formative years when you started working in retail. You were working for Lewis's and you were telling a story about a manager that you were working for and you questioned that manager about something and didn't really get a great response to questioning that manager should we say. Can you just share with us that story and the impact that that had on your leadership style?

Gillian Drakeford: Yeah, absolutely. And this is very early days. Toby, when I look back, I was probably just 18. And it was my first role working as a management trainee, the Liverpool department store. And I was in Liverpool on the toy department. And I really loved the customers and everything about it, products and all of the commercial side of it. But we were coming after Christmas, we were starting to do stocktaking. So things were quiet, but we were being taught the skills of stocktaking because I was a management trainee. But I remember being with my department manager at the time and she said, "You need to lead the stocktake in this area. And these are the things you need to do." And of course, I asked, "Okay, so why do we need to do this? What's behind it?" And the response I got was, "Yours is not to ask why, yours is to do."

Gillian Drakeford: And the impact of that was really strong for me, because I don't think I'd ever come across a situation growing up as a child where I'd never been able to ask why. I drove my parents scatty, but actually, why was always a part of being able to connect yourself to something. And it struck me very, very strongly at that point to say, but actually, if you want to engage me in this activity of stocktaking, I need to understand how that fits in the bigger context of retailing. Otherwise, I'm not motivated to do it. So that's probably very much something that influenced me when I left the department store group and looked for my next job. I was looking and searching for an organization probably that had a stronger why. And I joined IKEA hoping to travel because they were international, but probably there was something a bit deeper inside of me at that point that was I was searching but couldn't articulate it. So I really do believe that that had a big impression on me in terms of whatever I do, it needs to be connected to why I do it and actually the impact it has.

Toby Mildon: So when you went to go and work for IKEA, one of your first projects, really exciting, was to help IKEA expand into China. What were some of the cultural differences that you encountered? And how did you develop your own cultural intelligence as a leader?

Gillian Drakeford: Okay, this is a really good question, actually. So prior to going to China, I'd spent time in the UK. And what I'd probably learned during that period of time was I was working in an international environment. So even when I started in the UK, there were many Scandinavians working in the business in the UK. So I'd already come to terms with other cultures. And then when I had the opportunity to go and work in Asia, in Hong Kong, and then finally in China, I'd sort of... I suppose I had a real curiosity for people and I was really interested in people and therefore interested in different cultures. But moving to China, where really we were establishing the organization and expanding, we weren't sort of... We really needed to grow the organization, not only in terms of the number of stores we had and sales and profitability, but we needed to be able to develop people in order to run the organization. So when I landed in China, what I was faced with was, of course, I had my own culture and my own set of values.

Gillian Drakeford: I had an organization set of values, which of course is IKEA's, which is very much based in the Swedish Scandinavian values and very much of small land and that of the founder. And then of course, we had the Chinese set of values. And one of the things we did very, very early on was to really think about and be focused on individual organization and the culture we were in, where we had similarities and differences. So it was that awareness. And if I think back to the early days in China and some of the things that we were faced with I come from quite an individualistic environment, where it's about the individual stepping up and having their say. Of course, Sweden is more collective, so I'd learned what that meant. But then of course, when we sat from a Chinese perspective, we really needed to understand what was important for them. And it is a collective society. And because of its history, then we used to go into a meeting and what I'd find is that if you wanted to get feedback, you either needed to really involve everybody, allow people to have their say, and also then be able to assimilate that in a way that actually then was a plan for everyone.

Gillian Drakeford: So I learned very early on techniques and ways of really drawing out from individuals in a safe environment what was important in order to get a perspective that was relevant in the market we were operating. So that investment, I think IKEA has a set of values. An interesting one is togetherness. So togetherness from a Scandinavian perspective really is very much about bringing together lots of different perspectives, lots of different skill bases, focusing around a topic or an activity. And really with all that knowledge, experience and different perspectives, you get an outcome that's best for everyone. When we started to work with the value togetherness in China, then it was being interpreted as harmony. And of course that was not putting your head up, not having a point of view and almost just finding a way to come together, even though there were many underlying points of view that never came to the surface. So it was having that sensitivity of what sat behind the value in terms of behaviors. Cross-consciousness was another one which was very, very interesting. So suddenly you became aware of your own values and your own behaviors and what that meant when you were in another society with a different set of values.

Toby Mildon: Yes, interesting how IKEA had a stated value like togetherness, but it's interpreted in different ways, depending on where you're working in the world and the culture in those different countries. I find that really interesting. And.

Gillian Drakeford: This is one of the reasons why across all the organizations that they've been a part of, when you start to build an organization and you start to recruit, then you start with a values-based recruitment. And when you start to understand the purpose of the organization, the vision and the values, which means very early on in a relationship of recruiting somebody or working with somebody, if you're focusing on those things, you start to understand the nuances and the differences. And that goes beyond language. Language is the first hurdle. The second is then sitting in behaviors.

Toby Mildon: Yes. Yeah. What do you miss the most about working in China now that you're back here in the UK?

Gillian Drakeford: Do you know, I think at the time I was in China, so I was in mainland China from 2002 until 2013. And what I really, really enjoyed during that time, it was a time when China was open. There was a lot of acceptance of Western companies and a real coming together in order to deliver something and raise the base. One of the things I really miss is that can-do attitude and there was very much a belief in all the people I worked in that tomorrow was a better day, but actually you needed to put the effort in to do that. One of the things I really enjoyed was we were building competence. It takes time to invest in people and build confidence. But when you work with people who are fully engaged, who really want to make a difference, then you can, of course, teach people how to do things, but you can also nurture and develop them. And that was hugely exciting. I also miss the opportunity to live in somebody else's culture.

Gillian Drakeford: I really feel that that was a real privilege. And to live in somebody else's culture, to really understand what sits behind it and why people are the way they are is a huge privilege. But I also believe that that's an opportunity for us here in the UK because we are very, very diverse. And actually, how do we use some of the things that I learned during that time to be curious and open to being inclusive in the UK as well?

Toby Mildon: Yeah. So after you worked in China, you came back to the UK and then you were leading IKEA for UK and Ireland. One of the things that you mentioned that evening in Manchester where I met you was that you entered an organisation that had drifted from its core values. And I know values is something that is very important to you and has guided your leadership. What changes did you observe? And then how did you approach bringing the business back to its roots?

Gillian Drakeford: Yeah, it was a bit of a shock for me. I remember actually having been the CEO in China and I remember my line manager at the time coming in and saying, "Would you like to go to the UK?" And I looked in and I said, "Why? I've got the best job in the world." There's nothing better than working in an organisation that is establishing, growing and you had the opportunity to influence it. So then I was a bit curious and I thought, "Okay, why should I go back to the UK?" And it was a situation actually where the country was underperforming. It had been here for 25 years. It wasn't growing. It wasn't delivering in the way that the global organisation wanted and they were rather frustrated. And so I got this story of it's about change and it was around the time of Omnichannel. So there was a lot of disruption going on in the business as well from single to multi-channel. And so I landed back in the organisation and I didn't recognise it. And I'd worked in the organisation for nine years.

Gillian Drakeford: I'd then had 11 years working out in China where I felt we were more IKEA than perhaps the IKEA organisation was in the UK. And it allowed me to step back and think, "Well, what's happened here?" And what I met was an organisation that had become disconnected from the why. The purpose of IKEA, why they existed as an organisation, what was our mission, which was about home furnishings and being connected in the market. And what was going on was when I talked to them, they were saying, "We need to be like other people. We need to be like other retailers." And I was going, "But what's wrong with being IKEA?" Because actually by being IKEA, that makes us very unique in the market. And look, the car park's full. It was very much for me, it became very clear that there were two elements to the job I needed to do. One was I needed to build confidence in the team that we could grow, that we were relevant and that people wanted to have home furnishings from IKEA. And that was short and long term. But we did that by really stepping back and going back to what is IKEA's role in the UK?

Gillian Drakeford: How do we want to add value? And one of the taglines we actually developed during that period of time was something called the Wonderful Every Day. So we knew that actually by people making small changes in their home, it improved their everyday life. And that's very close to the vision of IKEA. But it was a process of really engaging the whole organization. And what I'd learned in China was that in order to get perspective on the market, our plans, we developed an inclusive approach. And what I found in the UK was an organization that was actually quite traditional, hierarchical, top-down, where we had a workforce which was quite disengaged. So working with my leadership team and the wider organization, we started to reconnect everybody towards IKEA's vision, its mission, and the values and the behaviors we wanted to see in the organization. That was an inclusive leadership approach. I don't think I'd had the... If I hadn't had the China experience, I'm not sure I would have done it in exactly the same way. It was just so obvious to me when I came back that this was about mobilizing the organization.

Toby Mildon: What outcomes did you manage to achieve by mobilizing everyone?

Gillian Drakeford: We took it from many different areas. So we looked long-term, and we wanted to really think about, well, what was the emotional connection that we'd like both consumers and our colleagues, or we call them co-workers, to be connected and engaged with IKEA? And I would say that that was probably a big part that we worked with in terms of really improving the consumer experience but driving an emotional connection. I'll give you the results, the hard facts, but one of the days where I felt that we'd really reached the customer was when I received a poem from a customer, and the poem was about her experience with an IKEA product. It was with an armchair, and she talked about what that armchair meant to her in her life at home, and that, for me, demonstrated how home furnishings could improve your life at home.

Gillian Drakeford: When I started to look at my colleagues in the wider organization, there were a number of elements. One of the elements was to take care of our co-workers in what I believed was the way that we would take care of people. So we looked at fair and equal pay. We looked at shift patterns. We looked at employment standards. But we also looked at leadership and really looked at what do we expect from our leaders as an employee but also as a leader. So really developing a leadership approach where people felt connected to the direction and engaged in the direction.

Gillian Drakeford: So we worked a lot on the development of people and also in connecting our teams to the agenda in their stores, their units, and their contribution to the UK and to wider IKEA. It was very much an emotional journey in total, but then we needed to deliver results, consumer-facing organization. So what we did was we put the customer in the center of everything we did. That allows the breakdown of silos. You get rid of the silo working because it's about the customer and it's about the outcomes for the customer. And then it's also about allowing the people in the organization to deliver to the customer.

Gillian Drakeford: And that then gave us a way of working that demanded us to be much more inclusive. And where it really struck me for the co-worker community was we did a number of events which were around sustainable life at home. And we did pop-ups and many different activities. And for me, it's when you hear the voice of the frontline co-worker describing the activities we were doing and their connection to it and their part of it in it was really for me when you get goosebumps. So that was the emotional connection. But during the five years I was in UK, together with the team, we achieved double-digit growth. We moved the market share from 6% to 8%. We moved the engagement of our co-workers, but also the engagement of our customers. And for me, by having an inclusive approach, not only with your people but with your customers and listening to them and really trying to do a better job, then you get better business outcomes.

Toby Mildon: Definitely. So IKEA's got a really solid set of values. They've got eight. And I'll just run through what the eight are. So we've got togetherness, caring for people and planet, cost consciousness, simplicity, renew and improve, different with a meaning, give and take responsibility, and lead by example. How do you see the connection between these values and creating an inclusive culture within the workplace?

Gillian Drakeford: For me, this is foundational. IKEA values are very, very much the glue that holds the organization together. But it doesn't mean that all values are the same or the behaviors that are the same depending on the market you're in and the situation you are in. So if I go back to my time in China, for instance, we had the set of values that were IKEA values, and we also had the values that were important in our employees and our coworkers. But there were certain ones where perhaps we needed to amplify them more and focus on them more because of where we were in our development in that organization. So for instance, in China, I didn't need to talk about cost consciousness because they had a very clear view about how to do things with small means because that was just the nature. We had to focus on togetherness because that was about harmony. Also there, it was very much about giving and taking responsibility, really focusing when we talk about leadership, that leadership is about leading oneself before you lead others and organization, and that leadership is something that is, you can be given a title, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to turn around and people will follow.

Gillian Drakeford: And of course, IKEA is quite a flat organization with very few titles or very bizarre titles. So there we had to focus a lot. We also focused a lot on leading by example. And there were times that I was in China where I might have had expats or transferred employees in the business, that if I didn't feel that they were leading by example or they weren't true ambassadors for IKEA, then in some cases I had to let them go. So just because they had IKEA experience, it wasn't a good fit with what we needed in China. And then if I come back to the UK and having to start it, for me it was very much about togetherness again, because it was how do we come together to deliver the best experience for the customer while our business model is changing from being single retail to omnichannel? We needed to create an environment of trust and for me as a leader, an environment of safety because we didn't have all the answers. We had to have the right questions and then explore the answer. And that's where the renew and improve and that constant innovation and learning also comes through very, very clearly.

Gillian Drakeford: And then I would say difference with a meaning. When I landed, and I'll be really honest, they wanted to be John Lewis. And I was like, "Why do you want to be John Lewis? We need to be IKEA." Yes, we're disrupted, but actually if we go back to who we are and what we stand for and how does our business model develop in a way that actually the way we do things are different, but actually it has meaning and it has value for our customers and also the people that work in our organization.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, excellent. So this is the Inclusive Growth Show. So I ask everybody this next question, but what does inclusive growth mean for you?

Gillian Drakeford: But you know, for me, it is about the practice of embedding fairness into an organization. It's about empowerment and representation in all the decisions that you make. That then allows collaboration through leadership and collaboration. People will sometimes say, "Oh, it slows things down and it takes too long." But I've always seen that by creating space where progress is co-owned and it's co-created, you will get growth and you'll actually get growth that impacts all of the people that you work with. So that could be your closest people who are your co-workers, your colleagues. They grow and the business grows. So you make big IKEA or the organization happy because you get the sales and the profitability, but also it touches your customers because they see that you are growing and you're changing and also the communities in which you work in. So for me, if you have a co-created and a co-owned growth, then the impact of it goes lot way beyond sales, profitability and return on investment. But for me, inclusivity isn't an outcome, it's a way of working.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, absolutely. So my final question, what is one action that you would like the person listening to us right now to take away from your experience that they can start to introduce to their own organization?

Gillian Drakeford: Yeah, when I reflect, everything is disrupted and everything's changing. And what often happens in organization is we're running with the short term all the time. We're firefighting, we're making decisions. And I would really, really encourage anybody who is leading an organization, it could be a function, it could be a smaller team, is to really take the time to actually step out of the everyday, decide on what is it we want to achieve together, and invest time in really getting different perspectives of how people see that. What are the opportunities? What are the challenges in order to find solutions that actually can really move you together in a collective way? And that requires time and space. And sometimes when you talk to organizations, they're so busy running that actually they don't see that as being important. But I actually see that that's where the power sits. And actually leaders who do that and invest in that, then actually end up with a much greater engaged organization who will go out and solve all those everyday problems for you.

Toby Mildon: Yeah. Excellent. Well, Gillian, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today. It's been great to catch up with you. And thanks for sharing all your experience and wisdom with us.

Gillian Drakeford: Thanks, Toby. It has been a great pleasure and lovely to have the time with you today.

Toby Mildon: You're welcome. And thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast with myself and my guest today, Gillian. We learned a lot about her experience, her first experience of questioning why, and how actually why is really important to her and an inclusive leader should have embraced that, should have explained the why, because that would have helped connect Gillian to the workplace and the work that she was doing. But then her great experience of helping IKEA expand into China, the importance of having that cultural awareness and open-mindedness, and then coming back to the UK and helping an organization really reconnect with its core values and core values that really had inclusivity embedded throughout and how doing that really helped the organization grow and prosper. So thank you for tuning in. Hopefully you found today's conversation really helpful and useful. And I look forward to seeing you on an upcoming episode, which will be coming out very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.