You have to lead as who you are, not as someone else
In the arc of a long career, Vicki Brady — now chief executive of Telstra — found that the most durable leadership lesson was not one she learned by watching others, but by being asked why she was trying to become them. A mentor's well-timed question and a counterintuitive move from finance into sales reshaped her understanding of what advancement actually requires: not the erasure of self, but the deepening of it.
- Brady nearly fell into a trap common to ambitious professionals — mistaking imitation for growth, believing that rising higher meant becoming more like those already at the top.
- A mentor interrupted that logic with a single question: had she been chosen for her role because she resembled her peers, or precisely because she didn't?
- Seven years into a finance career that felt like a permanent identity, she accepted a move into sales — half-convinced it was a sideways push rather than a genuine opportunity.
- What she found in sales was proximity to customers and a kind of energised purpose that spreadsheets had never offered, transforming her sense of what leadership could feel like.
- Brady now leads Telstra with the conviction that effective leadership has no single template — only the ongoing, sometimes uncomfortable work of finding and owning your own.
Vicki Brady recalls the moment a mentor interrupted her self-doubt with a question she hadn't thought to ask herself. Early in her time leading a business unit, she sat in executive meetings watching colleagues operate with a confidence she felt compelled to replicate. She told her mentor she planned to adapt — to become more like them. He listened, then asked whether she had been chosen for the role because she was like those people, or because she was different.
The question dismantled an assumption she hadn't realised she was carrying: that advancement required conformity, that moving up meant wearing someone else's style. The advice that followed became the foundation of her leadership — operate as who you are, not as a copy of someone else. She carries that principle into the CEO role today, knowing that every person who holds it does so differently.
Her path to that chair was anything but linear. Brady began in accounting and finance, building the kind of deep functional expertise that can quietly become a ceiling. Seven years in, someone suggested she run a sales area. Her first instinct was suspicion — it felt less like opportunity and more like displacement.
It became the best decision of her career. Sales brought her into direct contact with customers and with the immediate, human work of delivering something people actually needed. The energy was unlike anything finance had offered. That move also changed how she thought about her career itself — less a single track to follow, more a landscape to move across deliberately.
The two moments are connected by the same underlying truth: the qualities that make a person valuable don't disappear when the role changes — they find new expression. Brady's finance background didn't vanish when she stepped into sales; it shaped how she led there. Her difference was never something to overcome. It was always the point.
Vicki Brady, now chief executive of Telstra, remembers the moment a mentor stopped her mid-spiral of self-doubt and asked a question that changed how she thought about her own leadership. She was still relatively new to running a business unit, sitting in the CEO's leadership team meetings, watching the executives around her operate with a confidence she thought she needed to replicate. So she told her mentor she was going to adapt, to change, to become more like them. He listened and then asked: did she think she'd been chosen for the role because she was like them, or because she was different?
That question undid something in her. She had fallen into the trap of believing that advancement meant erasure—that to succeed at a higher level, you had to shed your own instincts and wear someone else's style like a borrowed suit. The advice her mentor gave her that day became the foundation of how she would lead: you have to operate as who you are, not as a copy of someone else. Even now, stepping into the role of CEO, she recognizes that every person in that chair does it differently. The work is finding your own way and being genuinely comfortable with it.
Brady's path to the top wasn't a straight line, and that mattered. She started her career in accounting and finance, the kind of functional expertise that can feel like a permanent address. Seven years in, she had built something like tunnel vision—this was where she belonged, where she would stay. Then someone suggested she run a sales area. Her first instinct was that they were trying to get rid of her. Why would anyone move out of the precision and structure of finance into the unpredictability of sales?
It turned out to be the best decision of her career. What she discovered in sales was proximity—to customers, to the actual work of delivering something people needed. Leading sales teams had an energy that accounting never had. There was immediacy to it, a feeling of being present and useful in a way that spreadsheets, no matter how elegant, could not provide. That pivot wasn't just a job change. It was the moment she decided to broaden her experience, to stop thinking of her career as a single track and start thinking of it as a landscape she could move across.
The through-line connecting these two moments—the mentor's question and the leap into sales—is the same insight: leadership isn't about conforming to a template. It's about understanding that the qualities that made you valuable in one role are often the same qualities that will make you valuable in the next one, but expressed differently. Brady's background in finance didn't disappear when she moved to sales; it informed how she led. Her difference wasn't something to overcome. It was the point.
Citas Notables
Do you think you were chosen for the role because you are like them? Or do you think you were chosen because you're different?— Brady's mentor
I loved being at the front of the business, close to customers. Leading sales teams, there was an energy and a feeling of actually delivering and being there for customers.— Vicki Brady, on her move from finance to sales
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When your mentor asked you that question—whether you were chosen because you were like them or different—what did you actually feel in that moment?
Relief, I think. And a kind of permission. I'd been exhausting myself trying to be someone else. The question made me realize I'd been operating from fear, not from any actual evidence that I needed to change who I was.
You spent seven years in finance before moving to sales. That's a long time to be certain about a direction. What made you willing to leave?
Honestly, I thought it was a mistake at first. But once I got there, I realized I'd been missing something—the direct connection to what we were actually doing. Finance is important, but it's one step removed. In sales, you're right there.
Do you think that experience in finance actually made you a better sales leader?
Absolutely. I understood the numbers behind the decisions. I could see the full picture. But I also brought something else—I wasn't trying to be a traditional sales leader. I was just myself, with that financial background, leading a sales team.
When you say every CEO does it differently, what does that mean for someone coming up through the ranks now?
It means stop looking for the formula. Stop trying to figure out what the successful person in the room is doing and copy it. Find what you're actually good at, what energizes you, and lead from there. That's when you're most effective.