Angie chats to Orla Murphy, Founder and Director of Seeblue Marketing about her leadership journey. How change has been a constant for her, providing sound advice on getting comfortable with change and movement, to see the positive, embrace it and look for opportunities to grow.
Having had a great corporate career for 15 years, how did you embrace change?
Change has been a part of Orla’s life for a long time and she embraced it to grow. In her own words: “the only certainty in life is change” which we found to be very empowering in these uncertain times.
Having trained to be a biochemist she was very structured. She talks about getting comfortable with the flow your career moves in and seeing it as potential to grow and focus on different things. Her various roles allowed her more direct input into the department she moved into. Also, as women we tend to fear failure more and this can prevent us from moving forward.
What do you think of failure?
She laughed and told us that it even has a name now which is imposter syndrome – the constant feeling of doubting whether you are good enough.
“I worry even more about failing as a business owner – but I harness that into optimistic energy to keep striving, pushing and learning from mistakes.”
Angie notes that the companies that actively encourage employees to try new things are the most innovative and reach new milestones quicker.
Moral of the story: failure should be embraced because if you’re afraid of failing you’ll never make a different decision or take a new path in life. Culturally, all organisations should convey the message: it is okay to fail and try new things.
Individual contributor to people manager role
Becoming a manager was a big feat in Orla’s career which again was embraced and allowed her to grow.
She says: “I always encourage my team to explore new ideas providing we know what we are trying to achieve and whether or not we achieved it”
Orla mentions that creating structure and clarity and including everyone in new things is the key to a great leader.
What prompted you to set up a marketing agency?
“There’s always reasons not to do something when I was a part of the corporate world but being made redundant prompted me to become an entrepreneur. “
There’s a lot of new things to learn as she is also a business owner so had to become an expert in sales, finance, human resources and selling what Seeblue Marketing does as a business.
Any final words of advice for your younger self?
Fear of failure was covered, and Orla offered the advice; ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. View it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Recommending that organisations need to foster a culture of failure, in order to embrace the learnings from it and this is where the real innovation and growth manifests. Know your value and be confident in what you deliver and embrace change. Take the next step into the unknown and embrace change.