Women’s History Month: Leading Through Challenging Times | A Conversation with Leapley Construction CEO & Founder Meredith Leapley and Gensler Atlanta Principal & Co-Managing Director Tory Winn
For many of us, working from home during a pandemic has turned the whole notion of workplace wellbeing upside down. And as designers and strategists immersed in the world of work and workplace — in which productivity and engagement is directly related to the mental health of employees and cultures—our team at Gensler got worried. We sought out answers to the the big question: “How might we radically reimagine workplace wellbeing for the WFH and hybrid era?”
In today’s conversation on the Gensler Design Exchange podcast, Gensler Atlanta Principal & Co-Managing Director Tory Winn sits down with Meredith Leapley, CEO & Founder of Leapley Construction, to discuss how their teams are successfully navigating these challenging “lockdown life” times under their leadership. Winn and Leapley also share personal anecdotes from their professional pasts and offer advice for budding leaders hoping to grow their careers in the industry.
“In times of crisis, basically the same skills and principles apply as when you’re not in times of crisis… You find yourself in this sort of ‘you’re it!’ moment where you’re tapped on the shoulder and you have to make a critical decision… But your career as it evolves is basically a series of smaller ‘you’re it!’ moments… Having people around you that balance you out, that help and support you through those decisions is really invaluable.” — Tory Winn, Gensler
The Framework of Good Leadership
When discussing leadership, Winn and Leapley describe humility, curiosity, empathy, and an appetite for learning as the fundamental building blocks of a successful leader. Guided by a mission of integrity and hard work, they credit these “soft” skills as necessary complements to optimizing a team’s working dynamic, especially during times when we must be physically apart.
“We have an acronym at Leapley… and it’s LEAP IN. The L is for ‘learning.’ I hope we never get to a place where we stop growing and learning — that growth mindset. The E is for ‘empathy’… We’re talking about the whole person, and more than ever, right? A [is for] ‘agility’ — I mean, talk about shifting and pivoting during this time. [P is for] ‘persistence’ and then [IN is for] ‘integrity.’ When I meet my future self, I want to be able to look over my shoulder and be proud of those decisions [I made] even though they were the harder ones.” — Meredith Leapley, Leapley Construction
One thing is for certain: We’re no longer planning for the “new normal,” but the next normal. According to Gensler’s 2020 Global Workplace Surveys — which surveyed nearly 10,000 office workers from the U.S., the U.K., France, and Australia — a hybrid work environment will define this next normal. Employees valued their work-from-home experience, in particular, for their home environment’s ability to support focus work, for improvements to wellbeing and work-life balance, and for remote work’s ability to empower them with the flexibility to manage their day autonomously. But they also value the physical office.
In Gensler’s Workplace Surveys, workers consistently ranked socializing and collaboration first as their primary reasons are for coming into the office; individual work ranked second. That means the core purposes of the office persists, but its power as a social and collaborative place are primary.
So as we re-enter our regular everyday lives, how can we take advantage of this unique moment in time to reinvent our shared spaces to support that need for human connection in our workplaces?
Following the success of Winn’s impactful conversation with Leapley on the webinar broadcast you will hear on this episode today, Gensler’s Southeast region officially launched its Southeast Region Women’s Leadership Forum, a digital meeting ground for people — both men and women — across the firm, across experience levels, and across personality types to share their raw insights on our current world, their professional experiences, and their predictions on what’s to come. Through a challenging time, this platform brought employees together in an organic way that cemented the team’s culture and empowered many members of Gensler’s global workforce to find their voices, access new mentors, and grow as professional leaders themselves.
In honor of Women’s History Month this March, we hope you enjoy today’s conversation, and we hope this episode encourages you or your organization to seek out creative ways to open up a dialogue with your teams — and in the spirit of Women’s History Month, particularly your women leaders.
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