S2 Ep5: From Burnout to Allyship - Lee Chambers on Resilience, Masculinity and Gender Equity

What happens when success comes at too high a cost — and your body forces you to stop?

In this powerful and deeply human conversation, I’m joined once again by Lee Chambers, this time to explore his own leadership journey — one shaped by ambition, adversity, caregiving, and profound personal transformation.

Lee shares how burnout and serious illness in his twenties led him to relearn how to walk, rethink masculinity, and redefine success. We talk openly about him becoming a full-time caregiver, the invisible labour carried by women, and how those experiences reshaped his understanding of leadership, inclusion, and resilience.

We also explore how this journey led Lee to found Male Allies UK, and what organisations often get wrong when trying to engage men in gender equity conversations — alongside practical insights into what does work.

This episode is rich with lessons for leaders, HR professionals and organisations who want to build cultures that are more inclusive, resilient, and genuinely human — without blame, shame or division.

To connect with Lee, contact Male Allies UK at https://www.maleallies.co.uk/

Or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leechambers-1/

Also listen to Lee share Male Allies research findings from their Voice of the Boys report in this podcasts final bonus episode of Season 1

🔗 Connect with Mary: marygregory.com

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 ✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to GLeads Collective Podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a debate for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies, and bold truth tellers who are changing the game not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer and stronger. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the She Leads Collective podcast. What does it really take for men to step into the gender equity conversation? Not defensively, not performatively, but with courage, humility and commitment. If you listened back in December, you'll remember that I had a conversation with Lee Chambers where we explored his Voice of the Boys report and why listening to boys and men's experiences matter if we want to make a more equitable future for everybody. Well, Lee is back today, I'm delighted to say, and this time we go much deeper into his story. Lee is going to be sharing about his own extraordinary leadership journey, what shaped him from building and scaling a tech business, becoming seriously ill in his twenties, and completely rethinking success, masculinity, and leadership. We'll be exploring with him what caregiving taught him, how resilience is built through unlearning as much as learning, and how those experiences led to him founding Male Allies UK, a movement focused on engaging men meaningfully in gender equity at work. This conversation is going to be rich with insight for leaders and organisations who want to move beyond good intentions and bring men with them on this journey. Hello, Lee, and thank you so much for joining me here today. It's really good to see you again.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

It's a pleasure to be here, Mary.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Oh, it's lovely. And what's great about today is we're going to hear much more about your own personal story and what you brought you brought you to be really such a great ally for both equity for women and for men, and just hear more about the experiences you've had and what you've learned from them really, because they're quite incredible. So tell me, Lee, we're going to start off with sort of your story of origin, as it were. Many people know about your work. You're a very clear voice, you're a very big present out there on LinkedIn and out there in the world, but not everyone knows about your backstory and what happened before you became who you are today, as it were. Would you share with us what happened up to the lead up when you discovered you had burnout and you became completely paralyzed?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, so I've been on a bit of a journey, Mary, and I think that it's the journeys that make us who we are and make us passionate about what we want to achieve and the difference we want to make. So I was born 40 years ago in the northwest of England. My parents were teenagers when they had me, so it was apparently a lovely surprise. Um, and it was interesting. I grew up on an estate, but there were a few adults in my life who give me give me love and supported me and wanted great things for my future. I was the first one in my extended family to university, but ended up dropping out halfway through with some mental health issues. Took a year to get into a better place before going back and managing to graduate and get a graduate scheme in banking, which was seen by my parents as a real pinnacle thing, so much so they took me to Burton's to buy my first work suit, they were so proud. But it was an interesting time to graduate in 2007 into the finance world, and I got made redundant a year later. Uh so from there I worked in local government to just get by, help my parents out, and then built a tech business from a back bedroom where I was living at my parents' house, which five years later would be operated across Europe. I'd suddenly built a team and built functions and had all the stress of being a young leader, not much life experience, uh, making sure that people's livelihoods were covered. Uh, and then five years into that journey, which was really driven by wanting to prove people wrong, uh, to prove that I could to myself and to other people, uh, my immune system failed, and that left me in a place where all of a sudden parts of my body were swollen up, I couldn't move properly, and I was suddenly then lay in a hospital bed with a lot of time to reflect, having lots of things done for me instead of me doing them, uh, and that really brought a reflection point quite early in my life at 29, which made me think what was next.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

That is absolutely incredible. So to have achieved all of that, and then for your body to have that reaction because you're so clearly in overdrive, but very, very ambitious and doing incredible things, but then your body saying, No, no, this is all too much. So, when you were in that moment, what did it teach you? And what what did you get present to when it comes to your learning about there must be another way to live my life and to do my work than this?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah, so it very quickly started to dawn on me after the initial why me, why now, it's not fair. Uh, that was lots of things I'd taken for granted, like the free education I'd had, the free healthcare I was getting, having a support network around me, uh, having had the finances to not worry about being on sick pay and not being able to afford to support my family. So all of a sudden, lots of things around gratitude came into my world. Uh, I then also saw how I'd taken things like just walking for granted. Um, and it made me then reflect a bit more deeply on what else m was I maybe not considering. I think the second thing, Mary, was it made me think what's actually important? Because I'd kind of fallen into a place where growing the business, you know, being successful, they kind of overtaken me a bit, pulled me away from some of my values, and distracted me from what my definition of success actually was going to be. In fact, I'd become scared by the success that I had. It was almost chasing me like a snowball down a hill. Uh, and that wasn't helpful, but it's hard to see that in the moment. Uh, I kind of climbed a mountain very quickly, but then started to get near the top and realised that maybe in the distance I could actually see where I'd wanted to be. This wasn't necessarily the mountain I'd wanted to climb, but I felt I almost had to to prove a point, which is powerful fuel, but it's also negative fuel. And I think the final thing there is it made me think about me as a man. Made me think with my self-sufficiency, my independence, my mobility, my status, my physical presence, with things that I'd thought were really important to me taken away, when all those were stripped away over the course of a day or two, who actually was I underneath all that? And that took a little bit more time, a little bit more kind of working on my own emotions, writing down how I felt, talking to people. But I actually started to realise that I'd it gave me opportunity to shine a light on who actually was beyond the surface. And that was such a powerful kind of moment in my own journey when I realized that firstly, there was more to me than I realized. And secondly, I had a support network around me to help me start to explore that.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

What you've just said there, I'm sure must resonate with so many people. That whole thing about that ambition, that being a success, that want to prove yourself and prove yourself to others. And then the whole I love the metaphor. I had a mountain to climb, but it was the wrong mountain to then realize you weren't aligned with your own personal values and how you needed to change and how your body so screamingly told you that that there was another way of being and and another path for you. So within a weekend, you went from being a CEO in tech to be a full-time stay-at-home dad. That's what was the result of you going through this. And you mentioned that your whole relationship with yourself and how you taught yourself, your relationship and understanding of masculinity changed and you became the caregiver and your whole identity shift shifted. So, what was that like going through that suddenly? Your mass, you know, your relationship with your masculinity has shifted. You're now in this caregiving role.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah. What was that like for you? Yeah, Mary, it was it was obviously an interesting transitional period, and kind of in between that was the learning to walk again, which also put me on a kind of a pathway to start to think beyond myself because my daughter was born when I was in walking rehab, and I actually learned to walk again as uh my desire was to be able to take her first steps with her, which is something that I managed, and I laugh because I've not beat her a much else since since she's now 11, but at least I beat her to walk in. Uh, but that decision was based on sat there reflecting that I want to go back into my business and lead on a North American expansion, and I just didn't feel that I wanted to. I felt like I wanted to explore that part of myself, have a bond with my children that I wouldn't get if I went back into the business, and also just to try and not conform to what was expected, but to try and have agency for what I felt I wanted to do at that moment in time. Uh, I had some very interesting perspectives, both positive and negative reactions from people in the industry. Um, I mean, that quite often says a lot about the individuals who made the comments more than my actual perception. Uh, but I still to this day, that time with my two little toddlers was the most effective leadership and development training course I've ever been on, and was incredibly powerful because all of a sudden I got very clear sight of how undervalued caregiving was in the UK. I got a very clear understanding of the mental lord of looking after two little children, which I'd underappreciated before. And then suddenly at 4 pm, when you're absolutely shattered, you realise just how challenging it is. And finally, Mary, you know, going into my local baby and toddler group for a bit of respite, and suddenly I walk in and realise I'm the only man in the room, and it was such a powerful mirror to my gender that I'd never really had before, despite having faced some racism and some classism on my own journey, and just sat with those mothers and grandmothers hearing the stories of what they'd been through, the things they'd had to face, the obstacles that had been put in the way, the way they'd been treated. I started to hear things that I didn't have a lot of perspective on, I'd not really considered. Uh, and they did make me think that actually maybe part of my purpose is to make workplaces and spaces safer, more inclusive and equitable. So these amazing women who I've got to know are not having to go through these things. And I must admit at that first point, Mary, I was really passionate about doing something, but it took time for me to understand what skills did I need to do it, how I needed to unpack some of my own conditioning and keep listening, and then start to think what difference I could actually make uh by going out there and thinking how I challenge other people to be part of making sure that spaces are in more inclusive and allow people to be able to perform, to thrive, and to be able to belong.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I hear two things going on in parallel here, because on the one hand, you had to relearn to walk and to move. And is your mobility okay now? Have you recovered completely?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Uh so I'm 70% physically where I was. There are certain things that I can't do involving like heavy weights and stuff like that, but I can walk around a city and sightsee, uh, I can walk between public transport, I can do a lot of things, and I've just got gratitude for what I can do. You will now find me walking around London, and I don't have to jump on the tube for a stop or two. I walk because I've got it, and I at one point I didn't have it, so now I've got gratitude for it.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

You're making the most of it, yes. And can you hold your children and could you hold them as you were grow as they were growing up?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, so I had to adapt some things such as like nappy changing, I couldn't get down, so I had to bring them up. Uh, I had like modifications in my house um to help me with that, and that's where having a father-in-law with his drill and all his tools was really helpful. Um, but it it's like it did make me think about things I had to modify because that then makes you more agile and more adaptable. And the truth is you need to be really adaptable when you've got two little children, and you there's only you've only got one pair of legs and they've got two. That's like that that in itself creates an imbalance and a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I can well imagine, I can well imagine. So I see that that parallel of relearning physically how to walk, how to hold yourself, how to adapt, but also the immersion in what it's like for someone who's got caring responsibilities, which is the majority, I say the majority, it is the majority of women have those caring responsibilities. Even though more men are um getting involved, it's still majority women who have that. So the real immersion in that was also an opening up and a learning for you as well. And it's completely guided the the the um the direction of travel that you've gone in since then, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, and I've definitely had like a physical relearning, a mental unlearning and relearning, and an emotional unlearning and relearning as well, all in a period of time, which I suppose is just part of human growth. Um, and each one kind of overlapped into into the other one, which has been really powerful because I still use all those skills now in the very work that I do, and in itself want to showcase just how powerful it is when other people go on that journey too.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

And I want to acknowledge you because I think you are a real thought leader in the world of gender equity and and allyship. Um, and you're very brave in the things that you post and share about. You're very perceptive as well. And I'm kind of asserting here that I imagine that's because of all the unlearning and relearning that you've done.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Well, I think self-awareness comes from first noticing how you show up, then being able to interrogate it a bit, then being able to listen to others and get that feedback, and then being able to, yeah, feel that little bit of courage to put stuff out to the world and have it tested, have it challenged. Uh, and I think that that's fundamentally how we learn. It's how we learn when we're young. We just tend to lose that as adults. And the truth is we don't become self-aware by not listening, and we don't become self-aware by not noticing, uh, and we don't become self-aware if we can't be curious. So those are all things I've held deep to me. It's required listening both to my own body, which is something I learned after becoming unwell, is listen to your own body. It it it's a it's a really powerful feedback loop, it tells you. Then listening to my own mind. And what what filters do I need to clean? What lenses have I got on the world, and then listening to others and just getting curious about you know, what am I not seeing, what am I not noticing, what have I not been through? What would it be like to be in someone else's shoes? And there's such power because it then widens your perspective on the world, it cleans your lens, you just get you know, it just feels like a like a it feels so powerful to have more of more vision than you previously had. And as someone who's got very, very poor vision since I was born from an eyesight perspective, it's just I appreciate the difference between not having my glasses on and having my glasses on, and realize that actually you don't realise how poor your eyesight is until you start to craft a set of glasses and then put them on.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, and uh opens up a whole new world, doesn't it? Okay, so you became a stay-at-home dad. Um, how did other people react to you at that time? And what did that show you about societal expectations of m men?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Oh yeah, it was fascinating, Mary. So I had two like very distinct sets of feedback. The first was quite challenging. So I had someone in the industry refer to me as a loser, I had someone tell me it was career suicide, I also had someone ask me what my wife was doing, and another person who very proudly told me that you'll get bored, mate, and you'll be back in two weeks. So I kind of had some of those, how should we say, more negatively framed perspectives, which on reflection probably say more about their own lack of having that opportunity or feeling like they were missing out on something, uh, probably more so than actually being directed towards me personally. I've kind of saw it was more based on more their projection. Yes, of course. Uh that's how I saw it. But then on the other side, I had people telling me, you know, what a role model, what an example you're setting for other men and your team, the bond you'll have with your children, you'll never get it back. You know, it's it's been really powerful you're doing that. Now you're caregiving loudly, you're you're just showcasing what's possible, you're setting a precedent. So I had people also telling me it was a really kind of noble thing to do. And if I'm honest, Mary, I was just in the middle. I'd done a lot of work, I'd got ill, I'd had a lot of time to reflect. There was an expectation that I'd go back and work really hard again, and I just said, you know what, I've got a long life ahead of me, I've just recovered. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna prioritize my children, they'll be at school in a few years, and maybe then I can you know go and build something. Uh, but actually, these years before they go to school, never gonna get this time back. Those statistics, you know, after 11, you've spent 70% of the time you will with your children. Uh, and before school, it's like 40%. So that time you get with them is incredibly precious. I wanted to cherish that. The bond I've now got with them at 13 and 11, there's nothing that could ever pay that back, nor finances, nor time in the future. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Different way of a different way of measuring success, actually, and what an enlightened way of looking at that very special time when your children are so young. So, as you started to rebuild your career, what did you do differently as a result of all that learning that you've taken on board?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, so I just I actually became more purposeful. I decided that the tech business that I'd built just wasn't going to fulfil me or be what I wanted to do. So I decided to sell what I had remaining of that and build the well-being agency because I'd been through health challenges, I'd started to see the challenges around gender health. I felt that there was a lot of work that businesses could do to make sure that workplaces you know contributed to people's health rather than took away from it. Um, and I think that even starting that work, I started to see how wide the gender health gap was in the UK, which is the widest of all G20 nations. But then also seeing that a lot of well-being in the workplace, it just wasn't speaking to men, they weren't attending things, they didn't feel like it was for them. And at that point, I kind of took a step back and thought, there's a bigger picture here than just health. This is a whole kind of gender stereotypes aspect and genders not coming together to explore these things. So I I just thought there needs to be something that starts to think about how we bridge that gap between genders not engaging in things together. Uh, and that was obviously the kind of the fundamental foundations of Male Allies UK, thinking how can we get men to engage in inclusion so that everyone is part of shaping what it is, everyone gets a voice within it, uh, everyone takes an equal amount of emotional labour for making it happen, and people start to realise that inclusion fundamentally is when everyone takes some small intentional inclusive actions to make a culture a bit more flexible, a bit more accepting, a bit more kind of just not stuck in the way things have been and a bit more curious to how things can be in a modern world that's very unpredictable. And what we realise, Mary, is actually building those allyship skills, everyone can build them. Men have historically been less likely to, but actually they're a competitive advantage for the future. Uh they have Help us navigate lots of the uncertainty, the retraining, lots of the things we're going to have to do in years to come. And actually, for those who are working on those skills, they are already finding it easier to navigate this complex landscape that is the modern world today.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

What you've talked about there is the power of purpose and how becoming more purposeful and intentional, particularly around the well-being piece connected to your own story, but that then opened up the whole gender awareness of the differences in gender and how each gender treats well-being. And then that's moved you into that inclusive space about allyship and male allies, which is fantastic. And I love what you say about um allyship being a skill set, that it's a practice. Well, so what does that practice look like in everyday life?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, so I mean, for me, that practice it is small intentional things. It's not grand gestures or sweeping statements, but it's literally thinking how we show up in the world, how we turn up, those little things that go for our heads and just listening to them a bit more, thinking about the conversations that we have and just being a bit more selective over the words that we use, thinking about the impact they might have, thinking when we're in a room, who's not had the chance to speak, who's not got credited for the project, who's who's been interrupted? Can you bring them back in? Thinking about who's getting the space, who's in the rooms when decisions are made, who's missing out on those opportunities, you know, who's getting mentored and who's not, starting to just notice lots of these little things around us, even noticing on your own bookshelf are all the authors, men? In your own content cycle, is it the same thing that you're getting all the time? Are you curious enough to step outside of that to get a different perspective? Looking at your network, is everyone the same? Thinking about the way you operate, is it is it very narrow? Could it be wider? You know, what risks are you not considering because of you know who's there, what opportunity you're not seeing because of who's not there? So it is that just that intentional practice of looking and reflecting on the little choices we make, the little interactions we have, the way we navigate things, the little things we think about. It's about noticing the little thoughts that we have, and you know, we've picked up so much stuff from the world that's just stuck upon us. I always tell people, think about a program that you've watched recently that you're used to watching your childhood, and when you've watched it recently, you think, oh, that's not age well, or oof. They wouldn't they wouldn't get away with putting that on TV, you know. Um, and a realisation that that was used to be normal when you were younger.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

It did. So that's a really good gauge for how things shifted, because things have shifted, although sometimes it feels like it's painfully slow. I also am curious about what have you learnt from the from women? You know, you said this whole thing about immersing yourself in a in the caregivers' world and learning from what women experience, but for the women in your life who've shaped you or challenged you, um, how have they expanded your thinking?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That that's quite hard to put into uh into a short sentence, Mary. Um, so just spending time in those environments uh was really, really powerful because my background, you know, I'm one of three brothers. I was in kind of finance and tech, involved in sports, I was always in male dominant spaces. Just sitting in female dominant spaces allowed me to listen. Now, firstly, like I said earlier, I realised that you know the more and more women that I spoke to and I listened to, the more I realised they'd been through things that I hadn't considered. And we're talking about everything from being underestimated to being bullied to being harassed to not having their health validated, to not being listened to, to not being treated with respect and dignity, to you know, facing things that were illegal and not there not being the systems to actually support them through that. Uh obviously in that space, a lot of stories of maternity discrimination uh that were live things that were going on at that very point when I was sat there thinking, wow, like is this how things are in 2016? But it was, and the truth is I firstly thought well they I'm I'm like a different person in this space, but they trust me to share this, and that trust is quite powerful because I wouldn't normally have access to people who would share these things, so I I really valued that trust. I also then realised if I challenge some of these things as a man, I won't get the oh well she would say that, or well she's self-interested because that's her position. I'd actually get, oh, why would he say that? Maybe there's something in this. So realisation of the of the responsibility that I could carry, um, and how I could challenge from the position of being a man, which is different simply because of the way the world is structured and the way that systems orient towards gender, in a way that was more sustainable, that wasn't re-traumatising me, and actually I wouldn't get as much pushback and would be more likely to be listened to. And I also found that being in that position, I I had to you know continue to listen to these women, ask questions, you know, let them challenge me and give me feedback about things that you know I wasn't seeing, and sometimes things that I thought but actually weren't weren't as binary as I thought they were. Um and it was a the you know, I kind of really value how they spent that time giving me perspectives, and I tried to then give them some perspectives back uh from my own journey, and also just a realization that kind of fundamentally I was in a space where I was the only one in the room, but they were often in in that space in in their own workplaces or in things that they did, and just uh just a an acceptance of the discomfort of that when systems weren't designed with you in mind, uh, but the the real kind of true power in doing stuff together. Um, and I then went back into my own business and started to have those conversations to listen to think about how I could make a difference because at the end of the day, Mary, I was benefiting from like you know, flexible working, benefiting from shared parental leave. I benefited from lots of things that women fought for years for in terms of legal progress.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yes, things that you took for granted that women had to fight for. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

And lots of men have benefited from those things, despite the fact that women put the emotional labour into making it happen. And I felt I had a responsibility to actually get other men to start doing some of that movement.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Well, I think that's what's so fantastic, and that's definitely um has spurred you on to establish Male Allies UK. But uh one of the challenges in this conversation is that many men aren't aware or not conscious of um what it's all about, really, and and and actually feel quite threatened by the whole gender equity conversation. So, what do you think helps men genuinely step into this space and become more allies?

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah, so I mean I reflect and obviously speak to a lot of men who've stepped in, and there is a small cohort of us who've been through some significant adversity that's shaken us up and kind of fired us off on this journey. Uh, but there's a realisation that lots of men haven't had to have such extreme things happen. Uh, what's really powerful is what we see is most men don't realise how beneficial it is to them to build this skill set, and there's lots of myths and misconceptions that exist, and obviously some online voices that tell men that actually they're gonna lose out. But the men who's gone on this journey actually show that it's expanded their world, but also expanded the world for other people as well. It's made the team more effective, it's made their function more effective, they're seeing other people thrive and getting joy from that, they're getting more self-aware, and that's helping them do challenging things and see risks earlier and see more opportunity. Uh, and talent is more likely to come and work with them, which is always a joy. Um, and they're seeing the benefits, but they say I didn't know this until I went on the journey, and I think it's like anything for the men who've not taken a few steps down this pathway, they can't really see all the nice little things that you will see as you continue down. It looks quite dark sometimes, and people have actively being told that, well, you know, if you help women, then they'll take all your jobs and oh dear, and it's like it's just very reductive. And the truth is the world is pretty uncertain. So some men do feel the scarcity at the minute, financially, you know, societally, technologically, but actually, with this being a skill set that's gonna be really valuable in the future, that's really beneficial to men if they can move beyond those barriers of fear, and also if they can move beyond those misconceptions that they're gonna lose out, it's actually a lot to gain for the men that step in, not just personally, but in their own lives outside of the workplace and their own teams within it.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So it's something about building that understanding of what is the are the benefits for men of of going down that road. And for organisations, what do organisations most commonly where do they go wrong when they try to engage men in these initiatives from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Um, well, I mean, lots of organisations are only just realizing that it's probably a good idea to engage men in these initiatives. Um, you know, we we had a we had a conversation just last week of an organization that isn't willing to uh give support to setting up a men's network because men are not a minority in the workplace. And that's just such a reductive way of operating. Men might not be a marginalised group per se, if you're looking at groups as homogenous lumps. But actually, men have a whole range of challenges and could really benefit from spaces in workplaces to explore not just the skills of allyship and how beneficial they are, but actually bring topics forward that men are facing in terms of challenges, everything from fertility to divorce to mental health to suicide to male cancers. Uh, and it's just creating those spaces for men to start to go on the journey together because allyship is a journey you should never try and do on your own. It's a tough journey, it's uncomfortable sometimes. Having other people on the journey helps, and I think organizations sometimes it's communications, like men are susceptible to opting out if communications don't sound like the you know the centre in men at least to get them in the room to explore things. Obviously, sometimes comms can actually create pushback when they see there's a woman's leadership programme, but they've heard it on the grapevine, they don't know what barriers it's there to tackle, they don't know what it's not there to do, and they don't know what else is available for them. Um, obviously, blame and shame isn't helpful for long-term development. It might make them react in the moment, doesn't make them choose an empowered response to keep learning and keep going and build this sustainable journey of learning skills. Uh, and then there's role models, because obviously organisations need this to be role modelled at different levels so that people can see that actually it is something that the organization is putting as a priority. Because let's be honest, you know, sometimes inclusion work it hasn't been that effective, and that's something else we can be honest about. But on the other side, if you're not doing it and it's not embedded into systems and it doesn't become the way that we work, it ends up being not a priority in most people's worlds when things get tight or busy or stressful.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So there's something there about making sure that organizations develop and grow and promote those people who will role model positive allyship behaviours.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

So, in closing, what's the one thing that you hope men and women take away from the story and the experiences that you've shared today?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Um, so that we're so much more powerful when we come together. The skills of allyship are pivotal to working across difference in the future. And fundamentally, this isn't a zero-sum game. Everyone wins when we accelerate inclusion in the workplace and beyond, and those small actions gradually compound over time, like ripples on a lake. But when everyone creates some of those ripples, it can create a whole wave of change across an organization, and that's what we need to see going forward. So we have the organizations that do prioritize that will be the ones that the talent wants to go to, that people want to work at, and the products and services will be better for more and more markets as the world continues to change.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

That is fantastic. Thank you so much, Lee. And how can people connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Uh so the best way to connect with me would be to visit our website at mailallies.co.uk. I'm sure that'll be in the show notes. And I'm also active on LinkedIn, it's Lee Chambers on lookout for the little picture with the blue glasses.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

And you are definitely someone to watch on LinkedIn because I follow your posts and they're always incredibly fascinating. Thank you so much for joining me here today. Thank you so much for listening to the G Leads Collective podcast. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show or share it with a friend and leave a quick review below. Or leave us a comment. Change happens through conversation, so let's keep this one going. Listen out for the next episode and join me as we keep lifting the lid on the stories that matter. Take care and keep leading with heart.