My Biggest Lesson: Cath Brassington-Richards

Cath Brassington-Richards is an award winning creative and strategic marketing professional with a proven track record of success across numerous high-profile healthcare clients. She is currently global chief health officer at Iris. 

In 2015 I was an account director and suddenly found myself as a leader of an agency. Needless to say, I felt a little out of my depth. Surrounded by Havas leadership – all of which I respected, but none of which felt truly authentic to me - I was trying my best to transform from a member of the team to leading it.

In my previous life, I was a qualified football referee, so leadership came somewhat naturally to me. And yet, I was not much of a football fan so the piece of advice that came from my now long-suffering musician husband in our early days together had very little meaning to me. 

‘Do you want to be Tony Adams or Alan Shearer?’ 

This slightly bizarre question - coming from the unlikely source of my very creative and not at all business-focused partner - was shared over wine after a particularly challenging day. Nonetheless, he explained that they’re two different styles of captains out of necessity based on where they played on the pitch.  

Shearer, a striker, leads from the front, running down the pitch with the team behind him and scoring the winning goals. Whereas Adams, a centre-back, captains from the back and can therefore see everyone in front of him. He is there when the team is in trouble and stops them from conceding.

Now this might sound a bit far away from the concerns of an up-and-coming marketing executive, but it really struck a chord with me.  

At the start of my career – it was all about scoring the goals, hoping like hell the team were all there behind me to support me. Ultimately, I’d always be the closer. But on reflection, it dawned on me – it wasn’t about me anymore, I needed to channel my inner-Tony Adams.

My wins would become about seeing my team do amazing things. Knowing that I would be there to help make them opportunities to shine and when things got tough. This advice has served me well. I’ve grown and the teams I have been a part of have grown around me. From needing to be the goal scorer to being fulfilled by seeing my team take the win.  

As leadership has evolved tremendously in the last 10 years, it’s clear to me that this small but mighty piece of advice was incredibly timely. Successful businesses today aren’t all about a figurehead. Instead, they care about creating a successful team of superstars that have the time and space to be brilliant. 

As I’ve evolved, it’s helped me craft my leadership style – I’m a facilitator, a problem solver and yes, occasionally I go up front and score the goal. But my team has that covered.

In case more evidence in support for this style of leadership was needed…Tony Adams won two premier league titles. Whereas, Alan Shearer only took one (I’m reliably informed).

I bring this up regularly – to mentees, my team, my clients – and once they’ve gotten over the shock of me talking about football, they grasp it too. Not only that, they also carry this advice through their own evolving careers and roles into leadership. 

I also want to mention one other stand-out piece of advice as there is no way I could be where I am now without it – and that’s ‘Do less, better’ which the wonderful Eliz Egan (my former boss and now good friend) once said to me. Never have truer words been spoken (except for those ones about the 90s footballers from my husband).