Her Turn mentor Merle Viirmaa is an executive coach, trainer and experienced leader whose career has taken her from senior roles in the media industry to supporting other leaders in their growth. For her, leadership is not about having all the right answers, but about creating an environment where others can succeed, developing the self-awareness to understand what is really happening in yourself and in the system around you, and having the courage to take the next step before you feel completely ready.
Viirmaa has nearly 20 years of leadership experience in some of Estonia’s largest media companies. Today, she works as an executive coach and trainer and leads the coaching programmes at Estonian Business School and AoEC Estonia. She has coached nearly 150 leaders and trained more than 1,000, combining her leadership experience with studies in psychology and Gestalt therapy.
Looking back at your own career, which moments or choices have shaped you most as a leader?
Looking back, I probably wasn’t shaped most by the moments when everything went well, but by those when I had to relearn something about myself and the world around me. I am most grateful to myself for the moments when I chose growth, even when I did so with a trembling heart.
I spent around 20 years as a leader in media companies. That gave me a very strong focus on results and execution – ultimately, responsibility means that you have to create value. But the older and, hopefully, wiser I have become, the more I have realised that one of a leader’s most important tasks is to create an environment in which other people can act and achieve. In other words, the value you create for the owners is directly connected to the value you create for your people.
“But the older and, hopefully, wiser I have become, the more I have realised that one of a leader’s most important tasks is to create an environment in which other people can act and achieve.”
I have also been shaped by early personal experiences. I have told the story of how, towards the end of primary school, a school psychologist told me that my intellectual abilities were not sufficient for secondary school. As a result, I became someone who pushed myself extremely hard. That energy became a superpower in my career, but every superpower has a shadow side – in my case, for a long time it was not knowing how to look after myself.
The greatest boost to my self-awareness and courage came from taking part in a programme similar to Her Turn – Women Up in Sweden 12 years ago. It gave me an enormous amount of new knowledge and insight, but above all it strengthened my inner confidence and gave me a network of like-minded women. Without that programme, I would not have had the courage to take the step into a CEO role. And that, in turn, became the biggest learning experience of my life – what people say about how different the CEO role is from other leadership positions is true.
Another very important turning point for me was studying coaching, psychology and Gestalt therapy. They taught me to see leadership less as “providing the right answers” and more as the ability to notice what is actually happening within a person and within the system.
Was there a particular moment when you realised that you were no longer simply an expert in your field, but also a leader?
I don’t remember one cinematic moment when I looked in the mirror and thought, “Now I’m a leader.” It was more of a gradual realisation.
At some point, the nature of your work simply changes. You are no longer responsible only for what you yourself do well. You are responsible for the environment you create, the decisions you make, the standards you set and whether the people around you are able to succeed. Like many others, I did not find it easy to let go of the specialist role – after all, it was work I knew how to do and loved.
That transition can sometimes be painful for a specialist. It is very easy to keep proving how good you are at doing things yourself. But ultimately, a leader’s success is measured by what the people around them are able to achieve.
In coaching, I once met a female leader who told me with tears in her eyes that her people were achieving so much while she herself seemed to be achieving nothing. In reality, she was describing herself as a very good leader.
Which people, experiences or difficult situations have helped you grow the most?
I have been very lucky with people throughout my career. And I deliberately use the word “lucky” here, even though I have taught women not to attribute all their achievements to luck. 🙂
I have almost always had someone who, at a certain point, believed in me a little more than I believed in myself. Only later did I understand just how valuable that is. A mentor can share life experience with you and give advice, but a sponsor talks about you and opens doors in rooms where you are not present yourself.
At some of my own moments of greatest insecurity, it has helped me to think: if that person believed in me, perhaps I could believe in myself too.
“A mentor can share life experiences with you and give advice, but a sponsor talks about you and opens doors in rooms where you are not present yourself.”
Another major teacher has, of course, been leadership itself – change, difficult people, unsuccessful decisions and stressful periods. You cannot learn leadership only from books. Responsibility teaches you quite quickly.
And thirdly, I have learned enormously from the people I have coached. When you have been a thinking partner to nearly 150 leaders, you begin to see how many different paths can lead to good results – and, at the same time, how similar we are as human beings despite those differences.
Her Turn focuses on women in sports leadership. What invisible barriers do you see women facing most often on their leadership journeys?
For me, it is important to say that the glass ceiling is not one big sheet of glass that you one day smash with a hammer. It is more like a cluster of challenges – dozens of small things, some of which exist in the environment around us and some within ourselves.
Among women, I very often see perfectionism, playing oneself down and the need to be liked. We wait until we feel 100 per cent ready, even though 70 per cent would have been enough a long time ago. We hope our good work will speak for itself instead of saying ourselves what we have achieved and what we want next. And sometimes we still find it more difficult to take up space – both literally and figuratively.
“Among women, I very often see perfectionism, playing oneself down and the need to be liked.”
But I would not want to reduce this to a question of “what women are doing wrong”. Women and men still receive different kinds of feedback. Men are more often evaluated on their results, while women are also evaluated on their behaviour, tone, likeability and sometimes even their appearance. Women are also more likely to carry a greater share of responsibilities at home and to have less access to the networks where opportunities are created.
So the solution cannot simply be: “Women, be more confident.” The environment also has to change.
When is it hardest for a woman leader to believe in her own potential – and what can help her overcome that doubt?
Often, it is precisely when the next opportunity is slightly bigger than her current identity.
We tend to think that first we need to prepare really well – learn one more thing, read one more thing – and then we will take the step. Endless preparation. In reality, growth often works the other way around: you take the step and then grow into the role.
For women, perfectionism can be particularly deceptive here. If it feels as though 20–30 per cent of the skills are still missing, we sometimes interpret that as a sign that “I’m not ready”. I would interpret it more as a sign that this may be exactly the right kind of stretch for your development.
And this is where people who reflect your potential back to you are incredibly valuable. Not because we should depend on external validation for the rest of our lives, but because sometimes we need someone who sees something in us before we are able to see it ourselves.
Are there still expectations or stereotypes in leadership that encourage women to behave in the “right” way rather than in a way that feels natural to them?
Absolutely. The expectations placed on female leaders can sometimes be almost comically contradictory.
Be strong, but not too forceful. Be ambitious, but not too self-centred. Be caring, but do not become “the mother”. Be decisive, but make sure you involve everyone. Be confident, but do not take up too much space.
As a result, instead of leading, a woman can start performing the role of a leader – constantly checking whether she is behaving in the “right” way.
I like the idea that diversity only has value if we do not all try to become copies of the same successful leader. If women enter leadership and simply learn to imitate the leadership style traditionally used by men more successfully, then we have lost some of the value of diversity.
The ability to collaborate, empathy and relationship-building are not soft extras alongside leadership. They are powerful leadership capabilities.
What does good leadership look like in today’s world, especially when leaders are expected to be decisive, empathetic, clear and inclusive at the same time?
I think one of the key words in good leadership today is flexibility.
I do not particularly like the contrast between “old, tough leadership” on one side and “new, soft leadership” on the other. A good leader is not coaching all the time, involving people all the time or being authoritarian all the time. They have several tools in their toolbox and the wisdom to understand when to use each one.
In a crisis, you may need to make a quick decision. To support development, you need to listen and involve people. Sometimes a leader needs to create a sense of safety; at other times, they need to challenge people in ways that feel very uncomfortable.
For me, decisiveness and empathy are not opposites. Nor are clarity and inclusion. A mature leader is able to hold more than one truth at the same time.
And the foundation of all of this is being connected with yourself. If a leader does not understand their own strengths, what they genuinely want, where they need to develop or what is happening within them – when it is their ego speaking, when it is fear, when it is the need to be liked – it is very difficult to lead other people well.
Many leadership problems arise precisely because the leader has too little self-awareness or simply does not take responsibility for their role as a leader.
What skills or attitudes do women in sports leadership need most in order to move into senior leadership positions?
I do not know the world of sports leadership well enough from the inside to prescribe a separate formula for it, but from the perspective of women’s careers, I would highlight a few very universal things.
First, the courage to take an opportunity before you feel completely ready. Second, decisiveness and the ability to tolerate uncertainty – the higher you move as a leader, the less likely you are to have perfect information when making decisions.
Third, a business mindset. A leader needs to be able to speak the language of organisational results, money and value creation, not only the language of their own area of expertise.
And something else that is extremely important: relationships. Women are often well mentored, but under-sponsored. We know how to ask for advice, but we could be bolder in building networks, stating our ambitions openly and seeking out people who can open doors.
“Women are often well mentored, but under-sponsored. We could be bolder in building networks. ”
I would add one more thing: do not try to become the “right kind of leader”. Become increasingly better at being a leader in your own way.
As a mentor, you do not always provide ready-made answers, but help people find clarity for themselves. What is at the heart of good mentoring for you?
My coaching background definitely influences the way I mentor. I have 20 years of leadership experience and naturally I am sometimes very tempted to say, “I know what you should do.” But that is not always the most useful thing for someone’s development. I try to ask more questions and, when the “advice-giving maniac” in me raises its head, at least postpone giving the advice.
“A good mentor does not turn a mentee into a younger version of themselves.”
For me, good mentoring is a combination of three things: experience, curiosity and belief in the person. Sometimes I ask questions. Sometimes I reflect something back that the person cannot yet see themselves. And sometimes I challenge them. When I share my own experience, I always ask what the other person heard in it and what they might learn from it.
A pretty poor outcome would be for the mentee to leave the meeting with my answer and thinking that I am a superstar. I would much rather they leave with greater clarity, more courage and an answer of their own.
That is very close to how I describe coaching as well: creating a non-judgemental space for thinking, broadening perspectives and leaving the decision to the person themselves.
If a Her Turn participant is facing a major opportunity but doubts whether she is ready, what would you say to her?
First, I would ask: what exactly is making you doubt yourself? And what would you do if you did not have that doubt?
Are you genuinely missing a critical competence? Or are you simply experiencing that very human discomfort that comes when the next step is bigger than the previous one?
Those are two completely different things.
I have seen many highly capable women in my life who wait for an internal certificate before taking the next step: “Now I’m ready.” That certificate may never arrive.
So if 70 per cent is already there, the rest can be learned, and the opportunity both scares and attracts you a little, I would say: raise your hand.
“You do not have to be ready today to be the leader you will be a year from now. You only need to be ready enough to take the next step.”
In any situation, my advice is always to choose the option that gives you the fastest opportunity to learn.