Bossing It: Trusting Your Gut Instincts with Hannah Charman
Hannah Charman is a music supervisor with over 10 years of experience in the music industry. She has curated and brokered music deals for some of the world's leading brands and supervised multiple high end TV shows for platforms such as Netflix, the BBC and Amazon.
In 2020 she co-founded music agency RESISTER, built to combat the gender gap in the music for media space and last year launched its talent arm 515 dedicated to gender diverse composition talent for screen.
LBB>What was your first experience of leadership?
Hannah> In my previous career in live TV I stepped into a producer role quite young at the age of 21. I realised quite quickly that leading a team through a project didn't mean you were the best at everything but working with different people with different expertise, everyone had their roles and I was in charge of steering things through to the ad break.
LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?
Hannah> This was quite instinctual from how I have been motivated and incentivized in my past in work places, schools and even friendship groups and relationships. I've never stayed anywhere I'm not happy for long, as I truly do think it's a waste of precious time. So looking at these places where I've stuck around longer than a couple of years and why. It's always been places where I've been given a voice that is listened to and been part of a group rather than felt like I was clearly subordinate.
LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?
Hannah> When we started RESISTER back in 2020 and started growing our team, I learnt a lot of lessons beginning to understand the people we were bringing into the company, to learn about them and their individuality and try and put things in place in order to support and ultimately get the best out of them. Everybody is very different.
We are fortunate to have people in our team who all have different needs. Unfortunately, society is still trying to break away from a one size fits all working structure. So I think it's important for leaders to be adaptable in how they ask their team to work.
LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?
Hannah> I've never really set goals in that way, I've purely been motivated to grow as far as I could, I have this annoying 'what's next' voice constantly going on in my head and always wanting to understand everything. This meant whenever I was with someone who was in a leadership role I just wanted to learn what they knew and then give it a go. So I suppose my path was quite natural.
LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?
Hannah> I think everyone has the ability to lead in something they are truly passionate and knowledgeable about. It's quite rare to find someone in our field of music that doesn't really love what they do and chose this career because it's so exciting. If you can get up every morning and really want to do your job, want to help others to do theirs and have the necessary experience in your field then you can lead. There are skills you have to learn along the way and things that come with time too, but I think a lot of that is learning how to conduct yourself and how to think for the benefit of the company rather than just yourself a lot of the time.
LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?
Hannah> As RESISTER is a small independent agency there isn't one hat I wear. Sometimes it's very apparent what needs prioritising and what needs to wait, but my personality doesn't really like to leave any plates spinning just in case. In a perfect world I'd have one hand on everything at all times. So for me, it's time management based on immediate needs. Sometimes something I really wanted to complete in one week just won't get a look in because it turns out that something else really needs resources assigned to it.
The best thing I've found to get through it is to communicate that internally so teams understand that it's not forgotten or unimportant but I've had to spend a lot of time on something else as that is what needs doing right now, usually I find that support is always there to take a load off too if you ask!
LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?
Hannah> I think the biggest issue I've ever faced is doubting myself and my gut instincts, this ultimately has led to hesitation in making certain moves and wasting time and resources whilst I've been on the fence. This has taught me some lessons. I've definitely tried to think more in the "fail fast" mentality. Not all of the calls we make are going to be the right ones, but it's better to make the call, see it didn't work and change it than to put things off and have the whole thing play out anyway!
LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?
Hannah> I've always been an over-sharer and quite an openly vulnerable person. So if I'm not sure how best to approach a client on something or if I want opinions on a creative aspect or even a commercial proposal, my instinct is to open it up to the group and be open about it like "Hey, I think I've made a mistake here, what do you think?". I have made a conscious decision to do this often as I think it goes back to my previous point about allowing voices at the table.
I've always felt good previously when I've helped my leader solve an issue they're having and I like to give the team that opportunity too. It is important to tow that line of 'I'm human and make mistakes' to being a leader that is in control and makes people feel safe and supported. I think the open approach encourages others to do the same rather than trying to fix something quietly and anxiously alone - no one likes that feeling!
LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?
Hannah> Yes absolutely, Daniel Jackson has been pivotal in my journey to and through leadership and there is no question that I wouldn't be where I am today without his unwavering belief in me, he is the anti imposter syndrome tonic. Over time it has meant that I can call back to our lengthy talks and be like "I know how to handle this on my own".
I wouldn't say I'm in a mentor position on leadership just yet in my career but I do hope one day to pay it forward and I would hope that my approach would be largely shaped around the mentee and what I feel they need. Whether it's a cheerleader, someone to reign them in sometimes or someone to just say "when this happened to me, I did X and Y happened, let's work out what you want to try".
LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?
Hannah> We're extremely fortunate in our line of work that we have such a breadth of services across multiple media types. This allows us to notice trends and essentially follow the breadcrumbs. Calling back to failing fast - there is no point in flogging a dead horse. If something isn't working, or we're seeing more demand somewhere else, we rally the team to reangle our sales to where we are seeing the most response. We are here to help creators, we are equipped with all types of music services so having our finger on the pulse of the changing markets allows us to be malleable and find the right places where we can be helpful.
LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?
Hannah> We've been very sure from the start of the company that we want to provide flexible and hybrid working to our team allowing their additional needs and responsibilities to continue whilst they work. This means we can bring on the right people regardless of their additional needs.
We also reshaped our hiring process the last time we recruited. The names, any pictures and dates of birth were removed from applications before presenting to management to eliminate any unconscious bias.
From an even broader perspective - RESISTER is dedicated to closing the gender gap in the music supply to the industry, our music vendors are part of our wider team and we talk to creators everyday about the importance of using more diverse musicians - we have created a home for female and non binary composers and could shout about how talented they are all day.
LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?
Hannah> I think company culture is everything. We work majorly as a team with a hive mind at RESISTER which I really think makes us so strong, no one is island as there are so many different skills and expertise that together we can take on anything. Our whole positioning at RESISTER is our mission to tackle gender diversity in our field and that is a huge part of our culture which leads to such exciting conversations and creative brainstorming on every brief or pitch we have in. You can really tell how everyone lights up when we are like "who shall we ask to demo on this!?".
We have an office that we go into a couple of days a week and we listen to music, laugh and eat lunch together and needless to say our Whatsapp group is pretty hilarious the rest of the time.
LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?
Hannah> Definitely the people in my circle. I'm lucky that I am co-founder of RESISTER with Hollie Hutton. I've found having a 2 person leadership team extremely resourceful when braving new ventures in trying to build a company. It's great to have someone to ask the questions you're asking yourself in your head. Getting the answer you already knew is super reassuring and also getting another perspective can really assist in planning for success.
I've also really enjoyed seeing the people I first met when I stepped into the industry grow their careers too and see the choices they've made and hear about the leaders they've worked with along the way. There's a lot to be learnt from other people's experiences.
