Dr. Francesca Leithold joined Epro in 2014, where she began as project manager and product specialist and rose to the position of Chief Operating Officer six years later. As COO, she is now responsible “for the delivery of services across [Epro’s] NHS client base.”
In her role as COO, Francesca Leithold takes full advantage of her experience in “technological innovation and project management” as she fulfills her responsibility of “overall delivery of infrastructure, deployment, customer support, and project management.” Prior to joining Epro, she has earned a PhD in Germany, where she also lead teams and guided strategy.
According to Francesca Leithold, she belives that Epro “has one of the best informatic offerings on the market right now.” She adds, “The NHS is a vital part of our society and now I have more opportunities to support it.”
Epro CEO Bob Gilkes also says that Francesca Leithold as COO will help the company pursue its vision of accelerating its growth. He acknowledges that she has “delivered meaningful change throughout her time…she’ll bring her insight and passion to the role.”
Francesca Leithold should help Epro fast-track its growth and continue its mission to develop “market-leading tools through clinically-led expertise, collaborative software development with NHS Trusts, and integration services to empower healthcare professionals and support staff to do what they best—care for patients.”
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Jerome Knyszewski: What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Francesca Leithold: There are plenty of tech companies who describe themselves as fast moving, innovative, creative, but all of us here at Epro actually live that day to day, which makes a huge difference to our ability to serve our customers. Each person here is truly talented in their area, and there’s lots of crossover — as there always is when you have a group of clever people.
A company like that has quirks, and one of ours is that we have a frightening devotion to accuracy and attention to detail. Whatever you’re imagining, double it. For example, a ‘simple’ redecoration of our office meant working over long periods of time with the company to show them what we wanted, multiple meetings to review plans, and requesting updates if the final work wasn’t quite final.
The results look great, but even better, it demonstrated to me one of the reasons why our clients love us so much. We pay attention to everything, and if something isn’t right, we’re already working closely with them to understand precisely what they want.
Jerome Knyszewski: Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Francesca Leithold: One of the most essential things I would recommend, although it might be an obvious one, is to keep a healthy work life balance. The importance of rest for the body is an essential key to success, and without rest, the body starts to draw on essential resources quite quickly, leading to decreased performance and a steep drop in mental well-being.
One of the most unhealthy habits of our time, fuelled by the ubiquity of technology, is to check emails outside working hours — and then in some instances, expecting others to do the same. Blurring the boundaries between work hours and private time leads to a continuous state of alertness, resulting in fatigue.
The same goes for holidays and weekends. As managers, we have a responsibility to create a culture and an environment of resilience within the business. People need to be able to cover for each other’s workload, and feel safe in making autonomous decisions while their colleagues and managers are away, so that in turn they then can have a break and rely on other people to do the job when they are on leave.
Beyond that, doing something in your free time that complements your job or your day-to-day tasks is something I would definitely recommend. During the lockdown pandemic, I have explored my skills in alcohol ink art production (enthusiastic, but limitedly talented), epoxy resin crafting (rewarding but with too much environmental guilt), and amateur woodworking (electric table saws are THE best! Mind your fingers though!).
All these have been rewarding, as it takes your mind off your day-to-day business in the most satisfying fashion! If you get a lot of screen time during the day, try to listen to an audiobook or get creative! If you sit all day, go for a walk or cycle after work. Take a break once in a while. Ensure to take your mind off work. Recharge.
Jerome Knyszewski: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Francesca Leithold: As I mentioned, money was short when I was younger, and both my parents ended up having to entertain me in turns during the school holidays when I was younger. As an obvious solution to keep an eye out for me was taking me to work. There is nothing more intriguing for a younger child to be onsite at a sand and gravel plant one week, then running around the airport terminal the next!
That means some of my earliest memories are actually of engineering and industry, airplanes and neon lights, and the excitement for technology and industry has stayed with me ever since.
My father instilled in me a love for screws, the smell of petrol, and power tools of any sorts (welding was definitely the highlight!). My mother chose a school for me where higher education was combined with a strong focus on languages, and a) yes — Latin grammar is dreadful but b) it DOES open the door to the world (thank you mum — I’m aware it was not as appreciated at the time!), and my love for travel has always been fuelled by curiosity for languages across the world.
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Delegating effectively is a challenge for many leaders. Let’s put first things first. Can you help articulate to our readers a few reasons why delegating is such an important skill for a leader or a business owner to develop?
Francesca Leithold: Delegating work is a no-brainer. The fundamental rule applies, that if someone else does the work, you don’t have to do it yourself, right?
Jokes aside, distributing the workload and empowering people to make their own decisions is an essential part of business. For a company to centre both decision making and the implementation of tasks into few selected individuals is unhealthy (because it creates single points of failure) and inefficient, (because people await instructions, rather than owning a task or project).
As the business grows, both workload and complexity will increase in scope, and the only way to address this is to break larger projects into smaller chunks of work who then have allocated individuals accountable for them.
This frees up time at management level to focus on the wider business strategy, while creating ownership at operational level. It avoids micromanagement and focuses resource at where it is best placed
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you help articulate a few of the reasons why delegating is such a challenge for so many people?
Francesca Leithold: Fundamentally speaking, I would think that delegating a task, no matter how big or small, can be a challenging thing to do because it sends a message on many levels. Technical support is a good example, because it interfaces with many elements of the business.
The customer reports a problem, and I am giving this problem to you to resolve. This means I am entrusting the business relationship with the customer to you, as the customer will remember later whether you were accommodating or a bit short with them, whether you were efficient or slow to respond, went out of your way to make yourself clear, or whether your reply had spelling mistakes.
I am relying on you being familiar enough with the workflows and product to understand the customer issue fully, and that you will get help from the right technical people if you are not. I need to assume that you will do the task I have given to you with the same level of dedication, motivation and efficiency as I would have done myself, and that you will report back about success in a time you see appropriate. I give up control over the task at hand, and, more than that, agree not to get involved unless you ask for help.
That is a big ask for anyone. Smaller companies such as ours, where knowledge and skill are concentrated on a small number of people, may find this a bigger challenge than large corporations where workflows, tasks, and processes are meticulously documented and standardized.
When you’re delegating to junior members of the team, this will have to come with an acceptance that people will make mistakes along the way. This can be particularly challenging for experienced members of staff, or high visibility responsibilities, but this is part of learning. Again, we as managers have a responsibility to ensure that we make people succeed in the tasks we are giving them by clearly outlining what is expected.
Jerome Knyszewski: In your opinion, what pivots need to be made, either in perspective or in work habits, to help alleviate some of the challenges you mentioned?
Francesca Leithold: Three things. We need the presence of trust, the acceptance that mistakes will be made, and an understanding that not everyone will do a task the same way.
I talked about trust earlier, and I remain convinced that nothing enables people more than a trusting relationship with their coworkers and managers: where people can feel safe, supported, and have all the necessary prerequisites to deliver the job well. A lack of trust usually manifests itself in micromanagement and over-exertion of control, leading to inefficient workflows (if you re-work every single spreadsheet a member of staff has produced, then you may as well have done the work yourself) and disengagement from employees who feel that they are being overly monitored.
A good working relationship requires two things — a clear understanding of what everyone is doing, and a shared understanding of what good looks like. To come back to our excel spreadsheet example — if you have to rework every single sheet, is this because genuine mistakes were made (which may need addressing elsewhere) or were the requirements maybe not quite clear enough? Responsibility for success is always shared between the person allocating the task, in making the requirements clear, and the employee delivering that task and being accountable for it.
This ties in with the creation of a culture where people feel that it is okay to make mistakes, and who then can learn from what went wrong. Without mistakes, there will be no learning and sometimes sitting around the (virtual) table with the team going through lessons learnt can be hugely beneficial. There is a reason each Prince II project is supposed to have a lessons learnt log! Moving away from a culture of blame and instead implementing an environment of learning where, as a business, we encourage all to be open about mistakes to use them as an opportunity to learn is where I feel we need to be.
As a very last not least, accepting other people’s way of working is key to effective delegation. Not everyone completes a task the same way. Some people write meticulous lists and some people keep it all in their head until it is done. Some people report back on progress every day, and some people at the end of a week. Again, it is essential that there is a joined understanding of what is expected and what the outcome needs to be. In between, have some trust in your employees to own their task and let them get on with it!
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Francesca Leithold: Crisps need to disappear from the shelves. Yes, really. I would like crisps to cease being a part of those meal deals in supermarkets, and I would like cafes, snack shops and other providers of food that keeps our kids going to consider the choices they make by offering meal options. It’s always surprised me in the UK that crisps are more often a part of lunchtime meal deals than fruit and vegetables which are so much better for you. The way crisps are on display and made available normalises their presence on the lunch menu, and where eight varieties of crisps are displayed, who would opt for the humble hummus on the corner shelf? Exactly. Few people. Also — side note — crisp bags are NOT recyclable!
In a similar vein, I’d like those meal deals which are less healthy to be more pricey. That margin doesn’t have to line the pockets of supermarkets, but can instead be used to fund early prevention programs for childhood obesity and other health challenges. The perfect mixture of dis-incentive and additional funding for the health sector. It would be within the government’s power to change this, and they should.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Francesca Leithold: You can connect with me on LinkedIn, and follow Epro on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
