Lee Timbrell | Being a rock for others

Lee is clearly a true progressive leader in engineering and manufacturing world. He looks after three sites of about 800 people for Specsavers where he has had a huge impact on employee satisfaction. He took one of the sites where people were the least satisfied to getting a rating of 9.1 satisfaction. He describes the process of really listening to employees and taking on their full feedback and ‘falling on his sword’. This lack of defensiveness, he says, is the key to the process as people could see that leadership saw the issues and were prepared to act on them. He’s someone who has always treated people equally whether it be senior leaders or those on the shop floor, he knows that people at all levels need to feel valued. He’s had to undergo his fair share of tough conversations and for him, it’s about being direct and not fluffy and showing how the business will do its best by people. As someone who got his girlfriend pregnant at 17, he had to grow up fast! He married her before their first child was born and they’ve now been together 34 years. He had to be a real rock from an early age and that seems to have filtered into how he supports his staff too.