Reframing expectations has encouraged both Colleen Chapman and her staff to maintain a balance in their professional and personal lives
QBE Australia’s Head of Financial Control Colleen Chapman thrives as a talented leader for her financial management team, setting an example with flexible working arrangements.
“With such a challenging role, the fact that I have flexible working arrangements and unconditional support from my manager and from my team is of huge value to me,” she says. “I’m able to work from home one day a week, and start and finish at set times so I can pick up the kids from after school care and their activities.”
Like many people, Chapman believed the demands of family life would interfere with achieving career milestones.
“I thought my career was on hold once I had children, but I’ve had some excellent managers over the years allowing for flexible hours, so my career has continued to grow. Now that the kids are a bit older I feel that my career pace is really starting to pick up again.”
Chapman enjoys the broad scope of her accounting position, looking after many of the areas within the Australian Finance team. She now has a team of over 40 staff in Australia and, based on her own experiences, encourages them to embrace flexible work practices.
“When I first started there was still some scepticism about working flexibly but I try to lead by example by being diligent about my work-from-home day.”
Working consistently hard but smart, being reliable and maintaining integrity have been integral to Chapman’s career.
“Earlier in my career I found it a little bit difficult to be taken seriously, being in a traditionally male dominated industry, but changing attitudes have helped as well as my own experience,” she says.
Overcoming a lack of confidence in the very early career stages was a challenge, but Chapman quickly realised it may have been purely self-perception that caused any doubt.
As a result of this, she now thinks that rather than being overcritical and overthinking things, if an opportunity presents itself you should learn to trust your instincts and back yourself.
“As I’ve become older, I’ve become more confident in my abilities and how this translates into other’s perceptions of me. A turning point in my career occurred when I had a Chief Financial Officer offer me a senior management role in his accounting team and said, ‘Don’t come to me with reasons why you can’t do the role, but put yourself forward with what you can do’.”
Chapman encourages others to ‘act the role that you want’ now, before there is even a position on offer, so you’re seen as the natural successor when an opening does arise.
“I also received some valuable advice to become less focused on the details, and to start looking at my work from a more holistic and strategic viewpoint to advance. There’s been a lot of luck and good timing in my career but, a number of people say, you do tend to make your own luck. Also, you get to a point in your career where you know where you’re going and what you need to do to help make it happen.”
Written by: Thea Christie