Fellow Insight: Five Transformational Insights from the Leaders Plus Fellowship That Changed How I Work and Live

2024 Fellow Samantha Eades shares how the Fellowship impacted her career and family life. In this blog she shares her lightbulb moments that led to an incredible family trip, setting up a new venture and landing her dream job.

When I applied to the Leaders Plus Cross Sector Fellowship back in 2024, I was desperate for change. Having recently returned to work after a second maternity leave, I felt like I was failing on all fronts. Trying to work as if I didn’t have children and trying to parent as if I didn’t have to work. A low moment was missing my daughter’s parents' evening as I was too embarrassed to leave when a meeting overran. 

Leaders Plus empowered me to make courageous decisions. These resulted in a dream job-share role as well as starting a new business with a fellow working parent who I met at the school gates. Here are five lightbulb moments I experienced during the programme that enabled me to finally thrive in my career and family life.

At the start of the course fellows create and present their visions for the future, covering both career and family life. Having the time, space and permission to do this is such a powerful action. It helped me achieve clarity of what I wanted my life to look like. Previously I had a vision board languishing at the bottom of a wardrobe, buried under a pile of clothes. Sharing visions within a group setting also led to creative inspiration. I was so impressed by my cohort and what they wanted to achieve, how broad their horizons were. What surprised me during this session was that rather than climbing further up the corporate ladder, I wanted more adventures with my children. Fast forward to 2025 and I took three weeks off work at Christmas to travel to India with my family, something I never thought possible with two young kids.

Fellows regularly participate in a thinking pair exercise, where one person acts as the thinker and the other is the listener. The listener is actively engaged with what the speaker is saying, but rather than second guessing what they will say or interrupting with their experiences,  they only ask “What more do you think or feel you want to say?” Thinking pairs led to surprising insights, one of which was that I was putting off applying for a senior role in another company as I didn’t want it. Deep down I knew it would take me away from doing what I really loved and was good at. It would stretch me even thinner at a time when I was already at breaking point. It was during a thinking pair exercise that I started to reshape the job I wanted in my mind, one that would enable more work/life balance.

Leaders Plus Fellows on the cross-sector programme are paired with a mentor. My mentor came from outside my industry, and that difference brought greater honesty, fresh ideas and new perspectives. My mentor inspired me and, while I was job hunting, encouraged me to prioritise working with people who shared my values. That conversation prompted me to set up the business Book-Fix with journalist, editor and school mum Francesca Brown. We had known each other for years after mat leave and were on the same page about how we wanted to support writers in a kind and encouraging way. On the first Friday of every month, we run an online clinic for emerging writers where they can share their work in a friendly and safe environment. They leave with clear steps of where to take their book next, and we leave inspired by their beautiful stories.

I had a real lightbulb moment during the limiting assumptions exercise. Limiting assumptions are subconscious beliefs we hold about ourselves that drive self-doubt and missed opportunities. My biggest limiting assumption was that my career mattered less than my husband’s, so I avoided opportunities for travel and change. This was complicated by the fact that we had worked in the same building and group company for ten years! Eventually I took the difficult decision to leave my existing job to create the headspace to find something new, a decision that proved right for me and my family.

Leaders Plus continues to have an impact long after the programme ends. My cohort has kept in touch via whatsapp, and it was a peer sharing a link to a job share that inspired me to return in-house to a senior position after six months of freelancing. When checking out the article she had shared, I saw a LinkedIn post from recruiter Suzy Astbury, the CEO of Inspired Selection. She had posted a callout for job shares, and I sent her a quick pitch via email about myself and a former colleague Sophie Wilson. Suzy helped us work up a pitch for a job share and introduced us to Perminder Mann, the CEO of Simon and Schuster UK. Perminder Mann is renowned for being a supportive, innovative and courageous leader, and we immediately felt our values aligned. Sophie and I are now one-month into our job-share role as Publisher of Skylight, and love working in such an innovative way.

If you feel like you’re drowning at work and at home, I can’t recommend Leaders Plus enough. The Fellowship became a life raft for me, helping me navigate some tricky professional and personal waters and find my feet on dry land.  Be courageous and apply!