From learning languages and leading coachloads of holidaymakers across Europe to becoming an RAF Squadron Leader and, ultimately, assessing and coaching some of the social housing sector’s most senior leaders, Pauline Drissell’s career has rarely followed a predictable path.

But one characteristic has been present throughout: curiosity about people.

As ema consultancy celebrates its 20th anniversary, Executive Director Pauline reflects on her long association with the business, a career spanning the public, private and not-for-profit sectors and how recruitment, leadership and the expectations placed on senior people have changed.

For someone who spent much of her career trying to understand what really makes people tick, Pauline has a deceptively gentle approach.

She recalls once being described by a client as having “a steel hand in a velvet glove”.

“I think some candidates underestimated me when being interviewed,” she says. “I’m a woman of diminutive stature and I think they sometimes thought I might be a pushover. Then the questions became a bit more probing and I didn’t let go.”

A career that started with languages

Pauline’s original ambition had little to do with HR, executive recruitment or coaching.

Languages were her passion at school and a teenage exchange visit to Germany sparked a fascination that would eventually lead to a degree incorporating German and a year studying in the country.

“As a 16 year old, I was astounded that people actually spoke this foreign language there,” she recalls. “It just kindled my interest. I’ve always been an outgoing, friendly type of person and enjoyed contact with people. I suppose I’m a communicator in the broadest sense.”

After university came a management training scheme with the John Lewis Partnership. Pauline quickly realised retail was not for her and, utilising her German, instead spent a year as a tour guide, aged just 22, taking coachloads of holidaymakers through Europe to Austria.

It proved an early lesson in dealing with people and building confidence. Then came the RAF.

Learning to adapt

Pauline initially joined the RAF on a four-year short service commission after seeing an advertisement seeking German speakers for training and development roles. She stayed for 15 years.

Her career took her across the UK and Germany and into roles ranging from graduate recruitment to managing a £21 million construction project. In her early thirties, she rose to the rank of Squadron Leader.  During that time she also qualified as a professional German interpreter.

“You become very adaptable,” she says. “Not everything plays to your strengths, though. I was always better at the people-related jobs than the bricks and mortar ones.”

That realisation helped shape what came next.

Her experience of graduate recruitment had given her extensive interviewing experience, while another strand of her RAF career involved supporting people preparing to leave the service.

After leaving, Pauline gained formal qualifications in psychometric assessment and began working with specialist career transition and outplacement consultancies.

Her work took her into major organisations in the City of London, coaching senior people from blue chip businesses, including GE and Lehman Brothers, at difficult moments in their careers.

Getting beneath the surface

Over the years, Pauline developed expertise in executive coaching, assessment and selection, leadership development and career transition.

Her work with ema drew particularly heavily on executive coaching, outplacement and the assessment of candidates for senior roles on executive teams and boards.

“I don’t settle for the superficial,” Pauline says. “People can be very well practised at interview, but I need to satisfy myself, and therefore our client, that we’ve really understood their strengths and any potential development needs.”

Psychometric assessment became an important part of that process, but Pauline never saw it as something that should replace human judgement.

The CV, covering letter,  interview, personality assessment and wider evidence all helped build a picture of the person behind the application. Cultural fit mattered too. A technically excellent candidate was not necessarily the right person for a particular organisation, leadership team or board.

Understanding the organisation first

Pauline believes one of ema’s strengths over the years has been taking the time to understand clients rather than treating recruitment as a transaction.

“We went the extra mile for clients,” she says. “ema is a company with a soft edge, not a hard edge.”

For Pauline, that meant understanding far more than the job description.

“I think an important part of ema’s success has been understanding the client, their culture, their aspirations and the dynamics of the team that a new person is going to work within.”

For Pauline, that understanding is fundamental to successful executive and NED recruitment. Technical ability and experience were only part of the picture. The real challenge was understanding whether someone had the leadership style, values and personality to succeed within that particular organisation.

“You have to get beneath the surface,” she says. “It’s about understanding the organisation and understanding the individual, then asking whether the two genuinely fit together. That’s where taking the time to really know your client makes such a difference.”

For Pauline, understanding organisational culture has never meant simply finding more of the same. During her time with ema, she was also part of the team working with clients to encourage greater diversity at senior and board level, widening the pool of people able to bring different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to leadership.

That commitment also led to Pauline being involved in developing ema’s Get on Board programme, designed to help people from more diverse backgrounds develop the knowledge, confidence and practical skills needed to secure their first non-executive or trustee position.

“Diversity around a board table really matters,” Pauline says. “You need different experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking. Part of our role was helping organisations look beyond the traditional candidate profile, but also helping talented people recognise what they could bring to a board and giving them the confidence and skills to take that step.”

The programme has achieved a 90% success rate, with delegates going on to secure board or trustee positions. 

Leadership has become more complex

That understanding has become increasingly important as social housing itself has changed.

Over the course of Pauline’s association with ema, housing organisations have become larger and more complex, while regulation, governance and scrutiny have increased. The expectations placed on executives and boards have changed with them.

Technical competence remains important, but senior leaders increasingly need to demonstrate judgement, self-awareness and adaptability.

“People are not always terribly self-aware,” she says. “Developing that self-awareness and the ability to self-reflect are really important, and that is one of the things good coaching can give people.”

Her approach to coaching was built around that principle, establishing clear outcomes and working with individuals to understand behaviours, challenges and opportunities for development.

The most satisfying part was seeing what happened afterwards.

“Whether it was somebody I’d coached or someone I’d helped into a new career, it was lovely seeing people move on and up, or sometimes move into something different that suited them better.”

20 years of ema

Pauline’s association with ema’s Managing Director, Anne Elliott, predates ema consultancy itself. A friend in social housing originally suggested she get in touch with Anne. The timing wasn’t ideal initially, but they kept in contact and later began working together.

“Anne told me afterwards that one of the things she liked about me was my persistence about working together,” Pauline laughs. “I think that might have been a backhanded compliment.”

It became a long and successful professional relationship – and, more importantly, a personal friendship.

Pauline describes ema as a business that fitted naturally with her own values, particularly its focus on relationships, understanding clients and doing more than simply completing a piece of work.

“Anne is an amazingly talented woman and ema is a wonderful business to work with,” she says. “We all brought different things to it and there is a lovely atmosphere within the team.”

Planning a career – not just the next job

After decades spent interviewing, assessing, coaching and supporting people through career transitions, Pauline has a few pieces of advice she believes apply at almost every stage of working life.

“Most people spend more time planning their summer holidays than they do planning and managing their careers.”

For Pauline, career management does not mean plotting every promotion or relentlessly pursuing the next job. It means being conscious of  the direction of travel you want your career to take and looking for stepping stones.

“You don’t have to be completely ambitious, but you don’t want to leave everything to chance.”

That means continuing to learn, thinking about the skills that might be required five or 10 years from now and being prepared to listen.

“Embrace feedback,” she says. “Feedback is a free gift. It isn’t always comfortable, but I’ve always found it incredibly helpful.”

Her final advice neatly brings together a career characterised by change, curiosity and a willingness to keep learning: “Live in the present, but be prepared for the future.”

It is an outlook that has served Pauline well throughout a career that has taken some unexpected turns. What has remained constant is her curiosity, her willingness to keep learning and, above all, her fascination with people – their potential, their motivations and what makes them tick.