Wired for Connection 10: How Positive Thinking Makes you a Better Leader

Lenka Koppova

Wired for Connection 10: How Positive Thinking Makes you a Better Leader image

Hannah Lloyd is the Chief Revenue Officer at Enhanced.io. She’s worked with hundreds of MSPs to launch, sell and scale cybersecurity services. She knows exactly what makes go to market strategies succeed and where they tend to stall.

Hannah has held several leadership roles and her impact has already been widely recognised. She was the youngest-ever GTIA Member of the Year, receiving the GTIA UK Advancing Women in Technology Spotlight award.

An Interview With Hannah Lloyd

How Hannah Deals with Work Stress

Hannah admits that she’s not a typical salesperson. “I don’t push people to deadlines, because when we’re selling a solution, I want them to trust us. Otherwise we’re not building a good partnership. I’m very logical and I enjoy problem-solving and thinking outside the box.

“I like to look at problems and see if we have a solution or an SOP. And in cyber there’s no standard answer. It depends on the client. You need to be able to think quickly and come up with solutions. And sometimes that’s exhausting. When you work from home, it’s hard to switch off from the day job. I need a way to let go of problem-solving.

Having studied art when she was younger, Hannah unwinds with an hour or so of drawing. “I don’t think about anything other than creating. When I give myself that time to relax, I’m much more focused for my next day at work. I don’t think I could do without that now.”

The Power of Positive Thinking

As a leader, Hannah often has to attend meetings with potential clients to present the company’s products and services. So her advice is to go in with a positive frame of mind straight away.

“If you’re thinking to yourself, ‘This isn’t going to go well; I’m not going to be effective in this meeting’, or ‘I won’t be able to convince them to buy from me; I can’t change their mind about what we do’ then you won’t be successful.

“At the end of the day, all the energy that you put into the conversation is going to be negative. You’ve convinced yourself before you even start that you’ll fail, so you will. Positive thinking is essential to get the outcomes you want. Going into a meeting with a positive frame of mind means you’ll appear more confident to your client.”

Dealing with Business Challenges as a Leader

As an MSP owner, a client will sometimes request something you’ve never dealt with before, which can be challenging. “There might be a lot of information to gather together, or your engineer needs to learn a new skill in order to meet the client’s request,” says Hannah.

“But I reframe it as, how do we positively create an outcome so we don’t have this experience next time someone asks for this? How can I empower my team so that they see these requests as a challenge to fulfil rather than something they can’t handle and makes them anxious?

“It’s my responsibility, as the leader, to model calm and confidence. I want to show that I have faith in them and believe they can deliver a positive outcome. And when they do, we make a point of celebrating with them. We champion their growth and help them advance their careers.”

Hannah’s Strong Female Role Models

Although her family is male-dominated, Hannah says she has three strong female role models in her life – her mother, maternal grandmother and paternal grandmother.

“They ruled the family and were the backbone of it. What they said goes, and it means that I was brought up believing that there’s no reason why I can’t do anything I want to. My mum pushes me forward and encourages me to challenge things that are unfair.

“These three women have encouraged me to see that being a woman is a positive and shouldn’t hold me back. They taught me to pick myself up and start again when I didn’t think I could. It’s not about surviving, it’s about thriving. And having these strong women in the family means that the men see all women as equal, which is so empowering for me.”

One Thing She Loves and One Thing She Dislikes About the Industry

In past roles in other industries, Hannah was often mistaken for an intern. “But in the IT industry, nobody has ever done that. I’ve been acknowledged for my skills and offered a seat at the table. There’s never been an automatic assumption that I was a junior person.

“And the MSP space feels like a small but strong community. It’s rare I go to an event and don’t meet someone I can build a good connection with.” Hannah says that if she could change anything about the industry, it would be for it to be even more open-minded.

“Not just women in tech, but for those in the LGBTQIA+ community. We want all of those people to feel not just welcomed but supported. I want embracing minorities to be a standard. We’ve already come so far, and I’d love to see us do even more.”

A Key Piece of Advice

The IT industry moves so fast, says Hannah, that it’s not always possible to have a clear five-year plan. “I was always told to think about where I wanted to be in five years’ time, but that’s just not practical. It’s brilliant to have goals, but they can be flexible.

“The way that I always think about it is that I continuously want to learn, move forward, grow and then take the right decisions at the right time. And to have that as a conceptual goal rather than having something definitively really helps.

“If you make your goals learning and doing the right thing, you won’t let a door to an opportunity close just because it doesn’t match your goals. Take more calculated risks and be inspired by those around you. Be open-minded and you’ll find things that you didn’t even know existed.”