My Biggest Lesson: Jessica Thompson
Jessica Thompson, known ever more broadly in professional circles as JT due to the need for distinction and the lack of imagination of new parents in the 1980s, began her writing career as an unpaid contributor to a now-defunct online magazine in 2010.
That was the first of many enriching yet unlucrative experiences (including three and a half tertiary qualifications, a co-authored book about t-shirts, a small business and a spell as an art writer and curator) as she clambered her way towards her ten year career as advertising copywriter and, ultimately, awarded creative director. JT is a mother to a two year old hurricane and a half-baked little prince, and a dedicated defender of women at work, in leadership, and everywhere.
*TW: Humble bragging. This story is going to sound a lot like me blowing my own horn, but I’m actually blowing the horn of every creative in their formative years who’s had the courage to be vulnerable, and all the leaders I’ve known who’ve had the humility to tread carefully.*
Late in October 2020, when I’d been a creative director for about four minutes, I was forwarded an email that had come through the agency’s website from a young aspiring writer and recent university graduate. She was looking for an internship or junior writer role, neither of which we had going at the time, so it was a case of ‘keeping her CV on file.’
But we’ve all got our CVs on somebody’s file, don’t we?
Dozens of files, all around the world, never to be opened or even thought of again. I remember the disheartening process of wanting and trying and being knocked back, of heading back to university one more time in the hopes that in lieu of the 3-5 years’ experience no one would help me get, more education would give me the edge.
How badly I wished, when I was throwing out lines in search of my own start, that someone would grab hold of the other end and give it a little tug so I knew I wasn’t just flinging impotent hope out into a void.
It was my own experience of closed doors that led to my resolve: when I finally achieved this holy grail of creative directorship, I would keep my door open.
So, rather than refer this young writer back to her drawing board, I offered to meet her or answer her questions online. We began a short volley of emails where she asked and I answered as best I could with what limited leadership experience I had.
She believed I knew what I was talking about and I wanted to uphold that illusion, bolstering my own confidence as much as hers. At the end of our exchange, she sent one last email that I screenshot and have kept ever since. The abridged version reads: “Wow! You’ve just taught me more than I learnt in my three years at uni. Thank you so much for your support and expert guidance, it really means a lot and I’m feeling very motivated.”
What struck me was how easy it was to make someone else feel that way.
It took so little of my time and almost none of my effort. All she wanted to know was a tiny bit of what I knew, and in that exchange, I discovered what kind of leader - and what kind of person - I wanted to be. I’m lucky to have had lots of opportunity to exercise this idea since then, and even though it’s lovely to be thanked, it’s also a bit disturbing how effusively that thanks is often expressed. Like help has come as a surprise. Like time and attention is a rare and precious gift, when really, ‘giving’ is our whole job description.
In the few years since that writer got in touch and I had my first opportunity to officially "do leadership", it’s become ever clearer to me that just because you excel at your craft, doesn’t mean you belong at the top of any hierarchy.
The skills it takes to have and execute a great idea are not the same skills it takes to bring those great ideas out in other people. Commercialised creativity is a delicate industry; the professional and the personal are inextricable, our work is only as good as we are passionate, but our passions are laid bare for the judgement and rejection of others. We owe it to the future of great work not to be passive, but to be gentle in our action.
What started for me as a lesson in the power of empathy has evolved into a lesson in management and operational effectiveness. It’s a stale, tedious, harmful and unproductive trope that leaders, but particularly leaders in this industry, must be cruel and cut-throat in order to be effective or to prove their authority.
That they’re too busy or too important to lend another person their attention when they ask for help, or that because they had to walk ten thousand miles backwards in the snow while being flayed by their own boss, that that’s the experience they’re now entitled to inflict on the people condemned to learn from them.
The more conversations I have with others - particularly women - who share the privilege of leadership, the more encouraged I am to know I’m not the only person to approach the privilege in this way. I hope that with openness, kindness, empathy, patience and a genuine investment in the development of the people we guide, we can cultivate more talent, unlock better ideas, and finally nail closed the coffin of the executive creative dictator.
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