In the third episode in this series of conversations around The Devil Wears Prada, Julia speaks with Öznur about the relationship between excellence, fear, creativity, and psychological safety — and whether the kind of environment created by Miranda Priestly still has a place today.
Reflecting on her early years working in London design agencies, Öznur describes environments where relentless pressure, perfectionism, and long hours were normalised in the pursuit of excellence. Like Miranda, many of the figures leading these spaces were deeply committed to producing exceptional work. But the conversation asks an important question: does commitment to excellence inevitably require harshness?
Öznur speaks candidly about the impact of fear-based environments — how they create stress, mistrust, and competition within teams, while slowly eroding creativity and confidence. Rather than bringing out the best in people, she argues, these cultures often prevent talented individuals from contributing fully.
A central theme in the episode is the importance of psychological safety. Öznur reflects on the kind of environments she has consciously tried to build throughout her own career — spaces where people feel trusted, supported, and able to speak up, including the quietest voices in the room.
The conversation also explores the tension between empathy and standards. Julia and Öznur discuss the challenge of balancing care for people with clarity around performance and expectations — and why avoiding difficult conversations does not necessarily help teams thrive.
Returning to Miranda Priestly, the episode reflects on how differently her behaviour might be viewed today. Was she simply a product of her time? Or have expectations around work, wellbeing, and leading fundamentally changed over the last twenty years?
Together, Julia and Öznur explore a more sustainable vision of excellence — one built not on fear and control, but on trust, clarity, stability, and collective creativity.
About the Guest:
Ally Vaughn
Öznur is a design and research leader with 20 years of experience in the field, working in complex industries like healthcare, life sciences and technology.
A champion of cross-disciplinary collaboration and psychological safety, she leads her teams and her organisations towards delivering better services to their users. She is also a trained horticulturist and a garden designer, and enjoys bringing gardening metaphors to her work as much as possible.
Öznur is currently heading up design at Isomorphic Labs, and she previously held similar roles at Genomics England, DeepMind and Google.
About the Host
Julia Middleton
Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading. In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.
Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.
Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan. Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and lots of grandchildren.
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