The more we talk about kindness in business, the more we'll break through the hard structures that have defined business and alienated women from getting to the top.

Mary Portas

Categorized in : Kindness Structure Break Through

I don't want to be Sheryl Sandberg and 'Lean In', I don't want to lean in like a guy. I want to be more. I want to be a woman and proudly a woman.

I really, really do believe that the future of being successful in work is going to be about embracing all of those wonderful things women bring - empathy, collaboration, flexibility - all those wonderful feminine traits we've suppressed for too long.

successful long believe

When you meet people at dinner parties, you'll ask what they do and it might be a woman who'll say: "Oh I used to work but I'm only a housewife now." They'll put down what they've achieved, like raising kids. You want to say to people "well you're just a wonderful human, just because I have my gob on the telly and I've made some money, it doesn't make me successful or any better than you."

party successful kids

The elephant in the room time and time again when it comes to work and promotions is maternity leave. We need to work with businesses so they work with women and make it easy and supportive for them to come back into the workplace.

supportive elephants needs

I have a responsibility to lots of people in my life. I have three children, I'm a wife, I have 60 staff and lots of charity shops, so therefore I have a responsibility to be well, I think. I have a personal trainer three times a week, I do yoga and I meditate.

yoga responsibility children

Balancing your ego is the most important thing, because success fuels ego - and that is not easy sometimes. When you're in the public eye, people see that as success and it's just not.

I think we need to embrace feminism, we need to embrace all of the gifts women bring to the workplace.

feminism needs thinking

Because of the financial crash, we've lost trust in these big businesses that were led by a linear ambition to reach the top by risk - and invariably led by men. And so I think all the stuff that was seen as great "behaviour" will not be in the future, which I'm really pleased about.

ambition men thinking

When I first went on TV, to make you look like a successful woman you had to be ball-breaking. I remember looking at these shows and thinking 'I'm not sure that's me'. It seemed like you had to behave like a man - but I think that's all going to go down completely, that's not the way we're going to live.

successful men thinking

I get up because there is just so much out there and you just don't know what's going to happen, that's the great thing.

great-things get-up happens

Success is a balance thing, it's about work and play together, so we need to work on how we embrace that. The conversation we need to keep having is how women and businesses learn to embrace women having children.

balance play children