JUMP TO CONTENT

How working at Legal and General helped me gain the confidence to lead.

Posting date: 25 Aug 2023

Growing up as the youngest of eight children, I’ve always loved being around other people. I’d always wanted to be a primary school teacher, but it never crossed my mind that my people skills would take me into management.


After a gap year volunteering in Africa changed my outlook on what I wanted to do, I was at a loose end. I went back to the job I had been doing previously, working at the pub chain Harvester, but I knew catering wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term. Then, after putting up a Facebook post looking for opportunities, I got my first job at Legal & General working in a call centre.

After around six months in the job, I still wasn’t sure whether an office job was right for me, having done shift work in the past where I’d had a lot more free time. I was literally on the verge of typing up my resignation letter, but a conversation with my manager at the time convinced me to give it another shot, and I’m glad I did.


Everything changed after I applied for a talent programme at Legal & General called Step Forward. The programme gave me an opportunity to develop and during that time, I realised I wanted to use my people skills and go down the manager route. A few months after graduating from Step Forward, I applied for a seconded team manager role and was successful in the interview. I haven’t looked back since!


As part of the programme, you’re encouraged to get a senior level mentor within the business. I was overwhelmed by the commitment the senior leadership team had in staff at my level. Mentoring is something Legal & General is very encouraging of, to anybody at any level, not just the high achievers. That forms part of the culture. People might be really busy in their day-to-day roles, but they still find that time to invest in a member of staff who is trying to develop and progress with their own career.


As a new team manager, stepping up and managing my own team was a challenge at first, and I had to work against some unconscious bias because I was younger than a lot of the people on my team. Thankfully, the Step Forward programme had helped me learn the skills I needed and the confidence to step up to the role.


Now, I love managing people and being able to develop them and help them continue to move on in their careers. Quite recently, a member of my team was on the Step Forward programme. He was on a journey that I had already been through. A job came up that I thought would be perfect for him, so I encouraged him to go and speak to the hiring manager. He applied for it and was successful, so he’s moved on to a new role which is a promotion. It feels like it’s come full circle – my manager helping me by convincing me to stay was one of the reasons I wanted to become a manager, and it’s really nice that I’ve been able to help the member of my team in a similar way.


Step Forward has really changed the direction of my career. During and since the programme, I’ve never once had an opportunity taken away from me because I’m not ready for it. I’ve always been encouraged and given the opportunity to prove people’s unconscious biases wrong. The programme is a great example of how at Legal & General, there’s a wealth of opportunity and investment that is put into employees that really want to progress and develop.


If you’re interested in finding out more about careers at Legal & General, visit our careers site here: https://careers.legalandgeneralgroup.com

List #1

Related roles

View all
List #1

Related posts

image of hafsah
Hafsah’s journey through L&G’s finance graduate scheme

Teaser

Future Talent

Content Type

Blog

Publish date

10/14/2024

Summary

At Legal & General, we’re passionate about nurturing talent and empowering the next generation of finance professionals.  We recently caught up with Hafsah, one of our Finance Graduate Programme

Teaser

We recently caught up with Hafsah, one of our Finance Graduate Programme participants, who just completed her first year with us.

Read more

by

Enrique Rodriguez

by

Enrique Rodriguez

image of jennifer
Empowering engineers: leadership lessons from L&G’s engineering team

Teaser

Our people

Content Type

Blog

Publish date

10/14/2024

Summary

At Legal & General, we believe that great leadership is about more than just delivering results - it's about nurturing teams, fostering diversity, and driving innovation.  We sat down with one o

Teaser

We sat down with one of our engineering leaders, Jennifer, to explore what inspired their career in engineering.

Read more

by

Enrique Rodriguez

by

Enrique Rodriguez

image of jesal from defined contributions
Jesal Mistry’s career journey in Defined Contribution

Teaser

Customer Service & Sales

Content Type

Blog

Publish date

09/25/2024

Summary

At Legal & General, we take pride in our talented professionals who are dedicated to making a difference in the world of pensions and investments.  Take Jesal, a leader in Defined Contribution (D

Teaser

Jesal shares insights into his DC career journey.

Read more

by

Enrique Rodriguez

by

Enrique Rodriguez

View all

Job search

What we do?

There’s so much more to us than meets the eye. We’re insurers, investors, builders, city-regenerators and green technology champions.

And whatever the future holds, our people’s knowledge, skill and passion will mean we’re placed to make a real difference to society.

Click here to join us
Search for jobs