HR Spotlight Interview
Joining us is Advita Patel, an award-winning business communications consultant, professional confidence expert, and the 2025 President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. As the founder of CommsRebel and co-founder of A Leader Like Me, Advita specializes in building inclusive, high-performing environments. She is also the host of the Decoding Confidence podcast, with her highly anticipated book of the same name launching in May 2026.
In this interview, Advita breaks down the exhaustion of the modern workforce, the amplified pressures of the “Glass Cliff” for women of color, and why true empathy in leadership requires active practice, not just assumption. From setting non-negotiable boundaries to challenging the dangerous reliance on “gut feeling” in hiring, Advita provides a masterclass in leading with clarity and intention.
Thank you for joining us, Advita! If you could describe the current ‘mood’ of the workforce in 2026 using just one word, what would it be? Why?
Advita Patel:
Tired. The last six years have felt relentless for many people: constant change, new technology, economic uncertainty, and very little space to breathe or reflect. That’s why taking charge of the things we can control and prioritising our wellbeing matters more than ever. When you’re running on empty, you simply can’t show up properly for anyone else.
We often talk about the ‘Glass Ceiling,’ but lately, the conversation has shifted to the ‘Glass Cliff’, where women are promoted to leadership only during times of crisis. Have you ever felt that pressure to be the ‘fixer’ in a broken system?
Advita Patel:
Absolutely, and not just as a woman but also as a woman of colour, that pressure is amplified. There’s this unspoken expectation that you have to constantly prove yourself, outperform, and somehow fix what others couldn’t. You’re pitted against each other, and you genuinely believe you need to give twice as much just to be seen as half as capable. What makes it worse is that when you can’t fix a broken system, you internalise it as personal failure. It’s no wonder so many women burn out.
HR professionals are the ‘first responders’ of the corporate world, handling grief, layoffs, and conflict. What is your specific protocol for protecting your own peace after a day of absorbing everyone else’s stress?
Advita Patel:
Strong boundaries, and I don’t negotiate on them. My laptop stays in my office, and I don’t check anything work-related after 6pm. I know how tempting it is, especially when there’s an on-going issue. But if you don’t model your own boundaries, you can’t expect others to respect them either. Burning yourself out helps no one, and the long-term cost of not protecting yourself can be devastating.
Without naming names, tell us about a time you had to deliver tough news (a termination, a restructuring) that actually taught you something profound about leadership or empathy.
Advita Patel:
I was once asked to send out a restructure email just before a Bank Holiday weekend. The thinking was that it would get ahead of the rumours without leadership having to field questions straight away. I pushed back. Dropping news like that with no context, right before people disconnect for a long weekend, is unfair and causes unnecessary anxiety. The response from senior leadership? “Everyone’s an adult, they’ll understand.” That moment crystallised something important for me: empathy isn’t instinctive for everyone. It has to be actively practised, not assumed.
Have you ever felt pressure to soften your delivery or ‘be nice’ in a way that male counterparts aren’t? How do you balance empathy with the need to be firm on policy?
Advita Patel:
Yes. I was told my tone came across as aloof and cold, which genuinely surprised me because warmth is a big part of who I am. But I noticed the feedback only surfaced when I challenged or disagreed with something, and that told me a lot. Real empathy isn’t about backing down or over-softening to avoid discomfort. It’s about recognising that people aren’t difficult, they’re just different. It means understanding someone’s perspective without needing to agree with it, and holding your position without becoming defensive. Giving people space to be heard is empathy. Disappearing into agreeableness is not.
The age-old tension is between ‘People’ and ‘Profits.’ Can you share a specific example where you had to fight for a budget or a benefit that didn’t have an immediate ROI, but you knew was critical for the culture?
Advita Patel:
How to fight for a budget without a clear ROI? That’s practically a book I could write. In the work I do, it’s rarely possible to show an immediate return because it forms part of a much bigger picture. So, alongside attaching metrics to spend, I always talk about the consequences of not doing something, not just what success looks like if we do. That reframe gives budget holders the full picture rather than just our version of it.
We talk a lot about ‘gut feeling’ in hiring. How are you using data to challenge your own biases, or the biases of hiring managers, when it comes to promoting women and underrepresented talent?
Advita Patel:
Gut feeling is based on your lived experiences. And if your lived experiences have been sheltered and you haven’t had much interaction with people who are different from you, the bias you show in your gut will be aligned to your version of what good looks like. That’s why so many teams and boards have similar faces. This, in many cases, isn’t intentional. People will generally believe they have hired the best. But what they may not realise is that they are measuring best to their personal criteria. And if someone who is different or looks different is being interviewed, the natural reaction is that they are not a good fit. This is why data and evidence are needed to help slow your thinking down and help you tap into your reflective side of the brain.
If you could ban one corporate buzzword forever, what would it be?
Advita Patel:
Leverage. We don’t use that word at home, in conversation, in real life. I genuinely have no idea why it became so embedded in workplace language.
“Giving people space to be heard is empathy. Disappearing into agreeableness is not.”
That powerful distinction from Advita Patel fundamentally challenges how women are often conditioned to operate in corporate spaces. Her insights remind us that true leadership isn’t about fixing fundamentally broken systems at the expense of our own well-being; it is about establishing non-negotiable boundaries and using data to dismantle the biases hidden within our “gut feelings.”
A huge thank you to Advita for her candor and for giving us practical tools to protect our peace while driving meaningful organizational change.
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