Carol Black

Professor Dame Carol Black FRCP FMedSci is Principal of Newnham College. She has held top positions in medicine and now holds high-level policy advisory positions on health and work. She was included in the 2013 BBC Woman’s Hour Power List of 100.
 

Perhaps my earliest achievement was to defy limited family expectations. I was meant to stay living in my home town and work in a shoe factory or shop; but I had a stubborn belief that more was possible.

Both my parents were part of huge Victorian working-class families. After marrying late in life, they found it difficult to have children, and I eventually arrived when my mother was in her mid forties. Possibly in an attempt to keep me in good health, they fed me – and fed me a great deal. As a child I was a little, round Michelin person with masses of blond curls.

I scraped through the eleven-plus and went to a local grammar school. It was a huge shock to the system at first but as time progressed I became more and more dissatisfied with my circumstances at home. I didn’t really know what university was but it seemed to be a very good thing because I would be able to escape. That sense of wanting to become something more probably comes from my father. He had a superb voice and as a young man won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. He wasn’t able to go, and later became deeply resentful about the life he never had.

“Of course I worry about things, but if you’re going to succeed you must somehow develop the resilience to recover quickly from setbacks.”

I was Head Girl at school, then Head of my hall of residence before being elected President of the Student Union at Bristol. As President I only had a year in post and I remember my absolute determination to make the most of it. Even then I demonstrated a steeliness that characterises my leadership now. It means I’m not going to be put off if I think a thing is worth doing. The other quality I’ve relied on is resilience. It doesn’t matter how bad a day is, I will go to bed, sleep pretty well and tomorrow will be a new day. Of course I worry about things, but if you’re going to succeed you must somehow develop the resilience to recover quickly from setbacks. My starting premise is always to try to achieve progress consensually, but if there is going to be a battle about something important then I will put on my tin helmet and Teflon coat; I won’t avoid it.

I was eight years older than most of my peers before I started studying medicine, so what matters most to me about my career is that I was able to have one in the first place. I just love medicine and I suppose I became a workaholic, but then it never felt like work to me. In time I discovered that I knew how to build really good clinical or research departments and I was able to attract the best people to work in them. But I never expected to become President of the Royal College of Physicians. When that happened it did feel like a success, especially as I was only the second woman to hold the post. I realised that I had the influence to effect change and I didn’t shy away from the difficult things because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the face.

“If you’re leading an organisation, your job is to guide it, care for it, protect it as best you can and try to make sure good things happen to it.”

I have a belief in the importance of stewardship and that applies to my position here at Newnham too. If you’re leading an organisation, your job is to guide it, care for it, protect it as best you can and try to make sure good things happen to it. As a leader it’s very easy to become arrogant or self-serving but it’s awful to do things that diminish an organisation. If you do a good job, people will come to respect you and you’ll be asked to go for other things; so personal success comes as a by-product of making a positive difference.

In order to have this sort of career, I’ve had to get over low expectations of what women could do and be. It took me a while to realise that it was perfectly all right to want to be a Medical Director or lead a unit. As a result I’m very interested in mentoring women towards leadership positions and I actively encourage them to simply have a go. Even if they don’t get what they are going for, they’ll still learn from the experience. Many women walk away when they look at what it takes to make it to the top. I know there are people who say you can have it all, but I’m not convinced; something has to give. The important thing is that it’s a choice. A mentor can help you to decide what you really want and how to get over those final humps if you choose not to walk away. I’m all in favour of adequate crèches and all those practical things, but finding the right support at critical decision times is crucial.

With my own career, it matters to me terribly that I try and that I take risks. I would rather say, ‘I had a go and it didn’t work’, than look in the mirror and realise I didn’t put myself in the race.