Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is practising psychotherapist and author Kathleen Saxton, Founder of The Lighthouse Company, a leadership head hunting firm and Co-Founder of Psyched Ventures, a coaching and psychotherapy business. Having held leadership positions at media owners such as Sky TV and Global Radio, and within agencies, PHD and Saatchi & Saatchi, Kathleen founded back in 2009 The Lighthouse Company, talent agents to the C-Suite that went on to place hundreds of CEO’s around the world. While probing beneath an interviewees polished persona, as she said, Kathleen’s questions revealed personal experiences that lead her to realise, and I quote, ‘if I want to ask those questions responsibly, I need training in psychotherapy or counselling’. Sounds like that’s what I’m doing next. Kathleen chose to study psychotherapy over 5 years while raising two children and running her own business and in 2016, having fallen in love as she says, with this new profession, she co-founded Psyched Ventures, offering company team and individual psychology, corporate retreats and performance programmes for executives. And later this year Kathleen’s following her first book, My Parent the Peacock: Discovery and Recovery from Narcissistic Parenting, which came out last year with Sly and Mighty, a book all about the impact of narcissistic leadership in business.
I’m very pleased to have you here and I want to, I start with, well it’s kind of a question where do we start? And the reason I have that is because you are a do not stay in one lane person.
Kathleen Saxton
Very true. Very exciting but equally costs me on energy but yeah, I’m doing a lot of things at the moment.
Elliot Moss
But always, I mean I think if you look at your life, people talk about chapters and sometimes they go one after another and sometimes they fold over. Yours is sort of a bit of everything.
Kathleen Saxton
It is isn’t it.
Elliot Moss
Why?
Kathleen Saxton
I think my dad said to me when I was a young girl, don’t be a Coco Cola bottle and what he meant by that was, they all look and sound and taste the same. Be brave enough to be who you want to be and follow what you feel you want to follow and have the courage to do that no matter what and I think it just stayed with me which is to, if you can, if you can imagine it, then why can’t it be you? Why don’t you find a pathway to make that happen whatever it is and I think I’ve just always done that.
Elliot Moss
The first thing you did workwise?
Kathleen Saxton
My very first job was, I was Theo Paphitis’ PA for about a year. I used to wear catsuits to work. Poor old Theo and he…
Elliot Moss
Was that just to put him?
Kathleen Saxton
Just to put him off.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Kathleen Saxton
He, he took me to meetings that I had no purpose to be in but he allowed me to view and listen in to him negotiating and doing all sorts of things. We remain friends after all these years and I think he also gave me a flavour of entrepreneurship. He definitely showed me what it’s like to be free, to be liberated from, to, to follow what you need to follow. So whilst I’ve been in and out of corporate roles and entrepreneurial roles, in my absolute heart of hearts, I’m an entrepreneur.
Elliot Moss
But those corporate days and I mentioned some of the, the organisations, Sky and Global, um, and loads of others as well. What was the attraction to that world? If now we’re here talking about the various things that you’ve set up?
Kathleen Saxton
I think it was learn how to do it.
Elliot Moss
Strategically though? I mean was it a choice?
Kathleen Saxton
It was a real choice, I was very clear about working for good brands and good people. So I would, even early on I would do my research so even if something, I’ll give you an example. When I was at Sky, at the time, you know, we were trading off ITV prices and we were relatively lowly at the time, um, I think our biggest rating show was The Simpsons and that was, you know, head and shoulders above most other things on, on the stations at the time. But I remember thinking, oh maybe I should go and work for ITV because they’re so much bigger etcetera but I did my research and I figured out if I went there I’d end up just spot matching P&G and I thought that, I won’t learn anything doing that whereas being at Sky I had to fight for every penny that we got in the sales team and that taught me how to sell properly and how to story tell properly etcetera. And then when I moved to radio a similar thing, it was an up and coming medium if you like, when I went to MSM and part of Capital and then EMAP and Bauer as it is now. But I quite liked the fights. I quite liked the struggle and the strife, that, that excites me rather than something where maybe back in the day we had the old joke that you opened the window at television and the money fell in sort of thing. I like trying for things. I find there’s much more payback when you achieve something that may not necessarily have been guaranteed.
Elliot Moss
Do you need fights? Is that what drives you generally?
Kathleen Saxton
I think I grew up with fights in every sense so I guess it’s familiar to me even if it’s not great, you know, I was homeless at 11, so it was a fight to have safety as a kid in many ways. I think, um, the possibility of going to university was just not on the table because of the financial situation with my upbringing and so to get a job in the advertising industry which is what I wanted to do early on, was very difficult, you know, it was 1990, it was a recession, you know, back then. And so I think I’m just, for me it’s an every day situation I kind of wish sometimes it wasn’t but it definitely was so I guess I’ve just been trained in that way. I’m not saying that’s necessarily great all the time but it’s very familiar to me so I guess I’ve learnt to find that there’s a thrill in that rather than it being something that might make other people very anxious. I think I’m almost driven to overcome the difficulty rather than be fearful of it so for me it’s like, give me a tricky job, give me, tell me that we cannot do something and I will damn well make sure that we do. I think there’s something about that which there’s some mischief in that. I don’t know how life would feel if it was very, very straight forward and simple because I’m so used to always having the next thing that I’m trying to get done.
Elliot Moss
And that’s in a way a sanitised version of trauma, isn’t it?
Kathleen Saxton
It is.
Elliot Moss
I mean, you’ve got trauma sitting underneath and you’ve talked openly and you’re a psychotherapist so to get into someone’s individual trauma and life…
Kathleen Saxton
That’s right.
Elliot Moss
…experience is critical to understand and unlock it.
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
But trauma is utter fear, lack of safety and all sorts of things.
Kathleen Saxton
Lack of safety, lack of control, you know, and, and great confusion often when you’re younger as to why something’s happening because no one’s really explaining it to you. And I find…
Elliot Moss
Well it’s hard enough as an adult to understand sometimes.
Kathleen Saxton
Absolutely.
Elliot Moss
11 year old kid who’s now homeless, you know…
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…who’s experiencing serious problems at home in the family environment.
Kathleen Saxton
That’s right.
Elliot Moss
That is, that’s a thing.
Kathleen Saxton
It’s a real thing and I think it does shape you and my sense is that we, it’s not as linear as this but we sort of have two choices. We can either really go under with it or we can really kick very hard to come out and escape or, or find a different way with it. It’s definitely made me who I am. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. I think there are elements that, uh, I could live with again if I had to and there’s elements that I’d really rather not. Sometimes people say, well I’m, I suppose you’re glad that happened to you. Actually there’s some elements that I really wish hadn’t happened but there’s very many that did and have made me who I am and I think it allows me to really stand relatively confidently in most situations. I don’t ever really feel out of my depth, I’m not intimidated by anybody’s, um, job titles or what they do or craft systems.
Elliot Moss
Even behaviour because it’s relative isn’t it. You, you’ve seen things which are…
Kathleen Saxton
Really relative of course and I have people that come to me in a clinical setting and obviously when I was training, who have had the most appalling things happen to them so I think I’m pretty unshockable as well. I really, I always seek to understand. I don’t judge anyone or anything. If anything I’ll lean forward because I want to understand how and why did that happen, it’s fascinating to me.
Elliot Moss
And, and there’s something I just want to pick up on because you talk about, my job, and you sort of just alluded to it. Is to get underneath the skin of the polished person, the persona I see in front of me.
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
So Kathleen Saxton, I see in front of me an incredibly together human who’s a founder, who’s done this, who’s done that, who writes, who appears on This Morning and is incredibly eloquent about what she does. What’s underneath?
Kathleen Saxton
Underneath is, uh, a need for safety. Underneath is a need to succeed. Underneath is a very soft soul. I’m very, very soft underneath it all and I think most of my close friends would know that. But also underneath is someone who believes in justice and believes in doing the right thing and telling the truth even when that’s uncomfortable and I think that also has cost me something in life sometimes and equally it affords me lots of wonderful things. So I think there’s something about not being able to be a bystander. I’m not a very good bystander. I’ll always step forward and again I think sometimes understanding myself psychotherapeutically, it’s because there was too many bystanders in my own upbringing. So I’ve learnt to be the person that I didn’t have myself so I think that’s what’s underneath me really. I think I’m a very loyal friend, if I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it. Uh, if you need to take me to a fight I’ll come and help if I can but I’ll equally come and rescue you if you need it. So I’m very steadfast and very soft but my outer shell can often be much more Boadicea.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for Boadicea, Kathleen Saxton. She’s my Business Shaper today. I’m having a fantastic conversation here, I hope you’re enjoying it too. She’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Right now you’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya’s Emily Knight talks to Charlotte Yonge, a fund manager at Troy Asset Management about women historically invest less than men and what’s being done to change it.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guest today is Kathleen Saxton, Founder of The Lighthouse Company, a leadership head hunting firm and Co-Founder of Psyched Ventures, a coaching and psychotherapy business and a writer and has written, what’s the latest one coming out? It’s called…
Kathleen Saxton
Sly and Mighty.
Elliot Moss
Sly and Mighty. Good titles.
Kathleen Saxton
It’s coming out later this year, yeah.
Elliot Moss
That’s the, the communications person in you, still knows how to nail the headline.
Kathleen Saxton
Uh, this one was a marketer right. You’d hope I might have a decent crack at it.
Elliot Moss
Well it’s good.
Kathleen Saxton
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And so, and so there’s a thing that underpins the transitions you’ve made and that is, and you’ve talked about this, um, in some of the things I’ve read. It’s a love of learning. And it’s the belief that we’re here to learn. Again why? Is that an insecurity, is that a passion for life and everything it offers? What’s going on over there?
Kathleen Saxton
I think, uh, there’s probably two elements. I think the boring element is that having not gone to university I’m sure early on there was probably some sort of a chip on shoulder which meant I felt I needed to get an ‘ology’ in something. If that makes sense. Just to kind of tick that box. But actually I, I hate not understanding things and that also might be a control element but I don’t like not understanding and I think I’m able to still just about manage my ego enough to be able to say when I don’t understand something and ask someone to sit with me and show me how to do it. So I think realising that you can keep learning no matter what career you originally chose, I think is very interesting and as we’re beginning to realise that we’re living longer, god willing, and we have access to all sorts of levels of education, whether it’s in person or online or globally. Why wouldn’t we go and learn to be something else. We don’t have to say, well I decided to be a lawyer or I decided to be a marketeer or I decided to be a doctor, and that’s me for the rest of my days. I think we’re starting to realise and particularly having come out of the media industry where it’s incredibly ageist, you know, by the time you kind of hit 50 there’s a question mark. If you’re not a chair woman or man or a CEO by then, you’re waiting for the tap on the shoulder I think. And so from that point, what are you going to do next because there’s only so many non-exec directorships, there’s only so many bed & breakfasts in Cornwall that you can go and run so what are you going to go and do?
Elliot Moss
I’d like to run a bed & breakfast in Cornwall, that sounds nice.
Kathleen Saxton
I’m sure we can arrange that.
Elliot Moss
Will there be, are there views?
Kathleen Saxton
We can arrange that for you.
Elliot Moss
Can we arrange it. I want a view of the sea.
Kathleen Saxton
That’s fine, you can do lots of things with a view of the sea.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Kathleen Saxton
Including being a psychotherapist but to me, I, I looked at, I originally wanted to be a dentist. That’s what I wanted to be when I was at school. For my whole teenage years I did dental nursing in my summer holidays. I’m sure deeply illegally, I was mixing fillings and doing suction for dentists when I was 15 years old, I mean it literally…
Elliot Moss
Ah the good old days.
Kathleen Saxton
I loved it. And so I went and looked whether or not I could go back and become a dentist when I was in my mid-40s and I looked whether or not I could become a doctor, like I looked at a number of things and the truth is you can go and do it if you really want to go and do it, you can. So I’m really fascinated at the moment about why people wouldn’t stop and think about, um, would they go and re-train and so when I’m doing coaching or psychotherapy with people that are looking at beginning to make a pivot or a shift, I’m encouraging them to just take a bit of a moment to pull the lens right back and think about what it could be rather than necessarily only adjacent careers.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Kathleen Saxton
Because I think that we are, as I said, you could re-train at 50 and have another 20/30 years in a completely different profession if you wanted to. I’m very keen to, you know, advocate for that.
Elliot Moss
There’s a thread I think as I look at what you’ve done, uh, which is around asking questions.
Kathleen Saxton
Yep.
Elliot Moss
And wanting to know what the answers are. Not, not for the sake of the answer but because it genuinely pleases you to understand.
Kathleen Saxton
Well I think it’s how we connect.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Kathleen Saxton
You know, you and I would have been to many black tie do’s across the years and sometimes you don’t necessarily want to be there and my view is, well I’m going to be sitting next to this person for the next 2 hours so I might as well see if I can actually connect with them. I could have small talk with them, I could ask them about the kids and how work is but actually what I really want to know is a human, as a head hunter, as a psychotherapist, I want to know what really makes you tick. Because that will be a much more enjoyable evening for me, I hope for them but I don’t know. So for me, every opportunity to actually really get to know someone is incredible and I think it’s also a massive gift for anyone to be generous enough, as you are right now, to ask questions of another human. Because the chances are they might give you an answer you weren’t expecting and then you’re connected and that’s magical.
Elliot Moss
Kathleen Saxton is my Business Shaper. Music lover as well?
Kathleen Saxton
Massively so.
Elliot Moss
You liked that one.
Kathleen Saxton
Yeah absolutely loved that, it was a great choice Stuart but I think, um, my dad was a pianist and an organist, my mum was a sister, my brother was a cellist, so I was surrounded by musicians.
Elliot Moss
And you play?
Kathleen Saxton
I play the flute and the piano and I always credit music as being the thing that probably saved me from a life of delinquency actually in many ways. I grew up in Gravesend which is not the most exciting of places.
Elliot Moss
That’s a cultural mecca.
Kathleen Saxton
It is absolutely a cultural mecca, in good ways though too. It’s the third Sikh and there’s the most beautiful Sikh temple in Gravesend and I went to a Catholic school but I’m not catholic but, um, it was a very tricky time, as I said, given what was going on in my life and, and given what was going on in the area that I lived in and so at the age of 11 I was very lucky, my flute teacher, who has only recently passed away, was called Norman Blow. His name was Mr Blow.
Elliot Moss
You can’t make it up.
Kathleen Saxton
You can’t make it up and he taught the flute, the piano and the, uh, the flute, the clarinet and the oboe and I was with him until I was 11. My dad took me to see him when I was 5 because I learnt the piano from 4 and he said, she’s way too young to be taught the flute and so my dad said, well she reads music and she plays the piano. So he said, bring her next week and if she can get a note out of the mouthpiece of a flute I will take her on. And if any of you know, if you can get a note out of the top of a bottle, it’s the same embouchure that you need. So of course I practised it to death, I got the cleanest note out of that mouthpiece and poor old Norman Blow had to take me on. But I got to a level and he said, I don’t think I can take her much further, I think she needs to go somewhere else. So I very luckily got a scholarship to a music school and I went at weekends and I think that stopped me from basically becoming an addict in Gravesend, genuinely. So that’s the thing that saved me and I think it also taught me to perform.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Kathleen Saxton
So now speaking in public, going live on This Morning…
Elliot Moss
Yeah you’re really relaxed.
Kathleen Saxton
…those sorts of things.
Elliot Moss
You’re super relaxed.
Kathleen Saxton
I’m very relaxed because when you play the flute or the piano, often if they’re solos, and this is why I love boxing and, anything where you’re a solo artist in way, in some form. Once it’s live, once you go that’s it, you’re on your own, nobody can save you. You’ve got to deliver and you’ve got to bring it and I really credit my music, um, my parents encouraging me to play music, to, it’s the thing that has given me a lot of personal confidence.
Elliot Moss
And that solo thing, and I read about your box, your love of boxing which kind of makes sense literally from a fighting point of view…
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…but metaphorically that sense of also as you said, being alone and, and bidding on them and performing. When you coach people, within, I know you, you’ve got coaches in the business.
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
But I imagine, you know, that you’re involved in that as well. I suppose at its, some ways psychotherapy might lead to, well hold on a minute, let’s talk about this and then maybe people get something from it in terms of a behavioural change. How do you help them become, in those moments when they are literally on stage?
Kathleen Saxton
So I’m a big believe in understanding what we call internal family systems. So all the little other ages of you that travel with you. So even sitting here now, there’s a 5 year old Kathleen and there’s a 13 year old Kathleen and there’s a 25 year old. So they’ll all have different feelings and so I’ll help them identify which one is scared or which one is intimidated or which one is excited so that they can begin to have a dialogue internally with those parts that travel with them to say, how are you really feeling? Check in with them. What do those parts need in order to be calm and to be excited about what they are about to go and do. Rather than to feel that actually that is kind of crippling for them in the moment. So I’ll work with what part of them is it. Often people say to me, I’m very scared or I’m very anxious and my view is. You are not, but a part of you is. Let’s go and work with that part and get that healed and then you’ll feel much more together in whatever it is you are about to do.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of jumping into the entrepreneurial thing over the years.
Kathleen Saxton
Yes.
Elliot Moss
Was there a part of you stopping you doing that at any stage?
Kathleen Saxton
I think the opposite. Having lost my home at 11 because my dad’s business went bust, I actually lived the worst case scenario and survived. And I think when you’ve done that you’re not so frightened of it because you know that there’ll be something that will happen that you’ll save yourself or you’ll find a way through or out of it. But even if the worst case happened, thank goodness it hasn’t again. You would think, well I survived it once, I can survive it again. So to me it’s taken the fear out because I’ve actually experienced it.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with my guest today, it’s Kathleen Saxton. That’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
Just for a few more minutes I’ve got Kathleen Saxton with me, she’s my Business Shaper, psychotherapist, recruitment leadership roles, I mean, writer and everything else. The latest book, Sly & Might: The Impact of Narcissistic Leadership in Business. What’s that when it’s at home?
Kathleen Saxton
Well I think having been a head hunter for many years, then a coach, then a psychotherapist I’ve been so fascinated by the human condition and I’ve witnessed and seen and interviewed and worked with so many leaders. It’s a real blessing that I have managed to do that and it’s been a real joy to do that. But of course along the way I have both seen, worked with and heard about the impact of brilliant bosses and terrible bosses and I think as I’ve then studied trauma, and then when I started studying narcissism and personality disorders I started to notice some patterns of things that were going on. And it wasn’t just what happened to people that were suffering under difficult bosses or toxic bosses, it was the long shadow that it cast for them many years after they’d left that boss or the boss indeed had been fired. So I was fascinated for us to understand. I always think once we’re better educated and we can spot things, we are more able to cope with it or avoid them or to call it out. And so my view was, well actually I’ve got a very unique position that I have, you know, worked with leaders my whole life and I have now studied them and now I’m a therapist, I’ve got quite a unique position to say, I think I know what this might look like and what it’s about and how can I help people to spot it, escape it or indeed, call it out. So that’s why I’ve written this book.
Elliot Moss
And if there’s a number one trait?
Kathleen Saxton
Well I actually talk about a thing called ‘The Dark Triad’ in the book. Which is three traits that can live on a little triangle: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Kathleen Saxton
And all those words sound a little bit awful but actually you’ll be very surprised what I write about in the book is there’s a much higher proportion of leaders that have narcissism, it’s been proven with the Harvard research. Lots more people that have had childhood trauma that has developed into personality disorders as they’ve become older. So there’s lots of metrics and science that shows you that in leadership we’re quite attracted to a lot of the traits that might be included in that dark triad. Because often you’ll see that people are more successful when they’re narcissistic as well. So often we like to be lead, we can be drawn to people that are very charismatic, well that might be also machiavelliasm at play. So the book talks about how there is a high proportion of them but there for what you can do about it but it’s all backed with science.
Elliot Moss
What as the last one? You said machiavelliasm, narcissism and…
Kathleen Saxton
Psychopathy.
Elliot Moss
And what does psychopathy mean?
Kathleen Saxton
Psychopathy is people that really have no interest in their impact on you. They will do whatever they need to do to get what they want and they can be quite cruel and quite callous. They would never look behind them at the collateral damage that they’ve made. They literally don’t care.
Elliot Moss
Wow, luckily I don’t think I’ve met too many of those people.
Kathleen Saxton
You’re lucky.
Elliot Moss
You scared me. Um, final question before I ask you what your song choice is. You talk a lot about understanding people’s true emotional motivation. And over time those will change I imagine.
Kathleen Saxton
Of course.
Elliot Moss
Where we are now, today, talking to Kathleen, what is Kathleen’s true emotional motivation?
Kathleen Saxton
To, I would say, to fully realise the third chapter of my life, I think I am just entering the third chapter of my life and I think I have lots of plans and things that I’d like to do that I would never have dreamt that I would ever get the chance to do, even 5 years ago and they’re starting to happen for me and my view is that if the door is slightly ajar, I’m going to push it all the way open so that when I am really old and grey, maybe if I even get to 90, I will look back with great humour and great pride that I got to do the things that I’ve always wanted to do.
Elliot Moss
Brilliant. Thank you. Um, just before I say cheery bye, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Kathleen Saxton
My favourite band in the whole wide world is Incognito. I love Bluey and the whole team, I go and see them regularly and when I’m sitting in Ronnie Scott’s with a glass of red wine listening to Incognito, I literally could not be happier. And so I had to choose Incognito and they have a beautiful piece that came from an album called a 100° And Rising many years ago called I Hear Your Name. And when you hear it with an orchestra it would make anybody melt.
Elliot Moss
That was Incognito with I Hear Your Name, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Kathleen Saxton. ‘Don’t be a coco cola bottle, be yourself, be you, be different’, the advice from her father. ‘I’m not a good bystander’, one of the big lessons for Kathleen in her life was that maybe too many people have been bystanders and that’s not her and that’s why she gets involved and that’s a very entrepreneurial trait to go and do stuff. And finally, ‘I quite like the fight’. Part of what drives Kathleen has been about the challenge every time and the fight every time, something new and something difficult comes along and again underpinning what makes a great Founder. Really good stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds of more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.