Elizabeth Clapson.
The MFA DE&I Council would like to see an industry where everyone can thrive, feel heard, supported, and safe to do their best work. Let’s meet the Changers who are sharing their own lived experiences to inspire us all to change for the better.
I’ve been at JOY for 10 years. I’ve grown up here professionally. I’ve built relationships, led clients, managed teams, been through the highs and lows of agency life and, like most people in our industry, worked through plenty of change along the way.
Then I took 12 months off to have my son.
A lot happened while I was away. There were big changes internally, new clients, lots of new people, and the business continued to move forward without me. I knew that would happen, of course. You don’t expect an organisation to stand still while you’re on maternity leave. What I wasn’t prepared for was how it would make me feel when I came back.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had something to prove. There were people sitting around the table who didn’t know me. They didn’t know the clients I’d worked on or the things I’d contributed to over the previous 10 years. They just knew me as someone who had been away for a year.
And, if I’m honest, I started questioning my own value. Could I still keep up? Was I still relevant? Had I missed too much? Was I still the leader I thought I was?
It was a strange experience because, on paper, I had plenty of reasons to feel confident. I’d been at JOY for 10 years and had returned to a senior role. But confidence doesn’t always follow logic.
The practical side of coming back was a big part of it too. I commute around four hours a day, two hours door to door each way, and I have a young family. For the first six months I was back at work, my husband was the primary carer for our son. That made a huge difference. He took on a lot of the mental load at home, which meant I could put my energy into work while I was rebuilding my confidence and finding my feet again.
The flexibility I had at JOY mattered just as much. I’ve always been ambitious and I’ve always wanted to do a good job. Having a family hasn’t changed that.
What has changed is that I can’t pretend the rest of my life doesn’t exist when I walk into the office. Working somewhere that understands that has been a big part of being able to come back and contribute at the level I wanted to.
Eight months after coming back, I’ve been promoted to Group Business Director.
That has made me think a lot about what I actually value in a leader. Before I went on leave, I measured myself by how much I could tick off my to-do list. Being across everything, solving problems, always being available. Coming back has shifted that.
I don't want to be the person my team needs for every decision. I want to build a team that is confident enough to make good decisions without me. That means giving people real opportunities to grow, rather than just delegating the tasks I don’t have time to do. It means helping people build commercial confidence and giving them exposure to things that might feel a little outside their comfort zone.
It also means being really clear. Agency life can be chaotic. There are always competing priorities, changing client expectations and a lot of noise. I’ve realised that one of the most useful things I can do as a leader is create some clarity in the middle of it. What are we actually trying to achieve? What matters most? What does good look like? What do I need you to own?
People don’t need me to have every answer. They need to know where we’re going and feel confident enough to work out how to get there.
I’ve also become much more conscious of trust. Coming back after a year reminded me that relationships aren’t something you can take for granted, particularly when some people know your history and others are meeting you for the first time.
For me, trust comes from being honest, reliable and giving people the space to make decisions and deliver.
I’ve experienced the value of that trust myself. JOY’s flexibility and trust in me as I returned to work has meant a lot. It has allowed me to find a way of working that works for my family while still being ambitious about my career, and it’s made me think more about the kind of environment I want to create for others.
I think that’s probably the biggest change in how I see leadership. The more senior I become, the less interested I am in being the person with all the answers. I want to create an environment where other people can lead, make decisions, take ownership, have a point of view, make mistakes and learn from them. And where they don't have to fit their entire life around work to be successful at it.
I still have moments where I question whether I’m doing enough. I don’t think a promotion magically gets rid of that. What has changed is what I use to measure myself against.
I don’t need to be across everything. I don’t need to prove myself to every new person who joins the business. And I don’t think my value as a leader is measured by how much my team needs me.
If anything, I’d like it to be the opposite.
I want to build capability, create clarity, earn trust and enable people to do things they didn’t think they could do. And if, one day, I can step away from the room knowing my team has everything they need to make good decisions without me, I’ll know I’ve done a pretty good job.
Elizabeth Clapson is Group Business Director at JOY
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