Your Say: Tammy McLeod on The Main Challenge for Women
Tammy McLeod
Founder/Lawyer, Davenports Law
Best advice I’ve been given… the best advice I’ve been given was a family friend who encouraged me to go to university when I wasn’t sure. Coming from a smaller city in the South Island where there was no university, it wasn’t always a natural progression. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had a career in a job that I absolutely love, I wouldn’t have my business and most importantly I wouldn’t have met my husband. I guess the advice was strive to be the best you can be.
I’d name my autobiography… “A Little Bit More”. I am a very competitive person, but mostly with myself and I am always looking to push myself to do more than last time.
I made my first dollar… Babysitting and also working at New World after school. I loved my supermarket job. It taught me a lot about dealing with customers and also staff when I became a checkout supervisor.
Favourite book: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. This is one book I try and re-read every few years. Ken Follett is a brilliant storyteller.
The most rewarding part of my job… is when people say to me “Oh, you made this so easy”. Often lawyers can complicate things or speak in legalese. My challenge is to make things simple for people. And, I love working with families and helping them to resolve their issues and create solutions that will avoid issues in the future. Some of my best days are when I go home really feeling like I made a difference to someone’s family.
My goals for the next 12 months are… to take the next step/ change in my business and to take it to the next level. I have spent the last seven years striving to grow the business which has been achieved. However, now the focus is growing brand awareness of Davenports Law and how we operate in a slightly different sphere to most law firms. In particular, the area of trusts and asset planning is becoming a lot more specialised. In the past, it was something that general practice lawyers did. Now, it is very much a specialty and there are not many people doing it. I want that awareness to grow.
The women who inspire me: Actually, the Queen – she is a remarkable woman who has been a leader for so many years, as well as a working mother. She was so young when she took on such an influential role in the world and I am sure she helped pave the way for women leaders in the world. My mother inspires me every day to be kind, generous of spirit and a good person.
We need pay equality because… we need pay equality! The reward should be dictated by the job, not the gender.
Diversity in the workplace is… extremely important, but needs to be balanced by meritocracy. Hopefully, we will get to a place where we don’t even think about diversity because it just is.
I advocate for change by… being authentically me and not giving in to how people think I should be.
The main challenge for women in business is… work-life integration. I think work/life balance is a myth for women in business. I think you take a piece of your business home with you and you take a piece of your family to work with you. You need both to make a whole, rather than keeping the two completely separate.
