Leadership Amplified by Dr Karen Morley

As Janice Hoogeveen, Head of Marketing at Terrywhite Chemmart reflects on her career in the latest episode of Leadership Amplified, one key piece of advice that she passes on is to always look for the learning opportunity. She was and remains keen to receive feedback, as she knows just how important it has been to her. She says, ‘If I learned the hard way, I found out what I could do better next time.' ‘What did I do well, what could have been done better, is there a learning opportunity?' Her career has spanned Australia, Switzerland and the US, and through that she's learned a lot about understanding different cultures, and the impact on problem solving techniques and leadership styles. She found that having frameworks helped to navigate these differences, manage relationships with stakeholders and reduced the guesswork in decision making. Here's a summary of her key lessons: ✅ Get in quickly with new roles, and within the first 60-90 days find a way that you can add value, otherwise it's easy to get lost in analysis paralysis. ✅ Be really honest and authentic: with experience you become more comfortable in your own skin. ✅ Build relationships with people at all levels across the business ✅ Learn continuously because it could take you down a different path: you can pass on what you learn to your team ✅ Create a team charter – this is a recipe for how the team operates and a way to keep everyone accountable ✅ Share the love, because passion motivates.  If you have a particular skill set and people need help in that area, share your skills across the wider business.

The key focus for our discussion was on how leaders can successfully navigate the increasingly digital world we inhabit. Alena started her career studying English, then moved to Economics and finally settled on Geography in her quest to understand why things are the way they are. Geography provides her with an interesting perspective, revealing how much our lives are informed and touched by where we live. Over time she's moved into the technology side: she says we have a big data problem as we're always collecting masses of geospatial data, and the big challenge is what to do with it, how to learn from it? Which is now her day job as Principal, Technology and Strategy, at Digital Twin Victoria. Alena counsels leaders unfamiliar with/suspicious or nervous about AI to take the time to become familiar with the technology tools. She reassures us that it's easier than we might think. Her tip is to use a simple AI tool and ask it all your ‘dumb' questions about other tech tools to build your understanding of what's going on. Her three top pieces of leadership wisdom apply both to leading in general, and leading through technology:

This statement encapsulates much of my conversation with special guest Glen Sharman who is General Manager for MaxiTRANS NSW. He's always been in the transport industry and has had the happy opportunity to have a diverse career across different working cultures, with global and local brands, working for large and small companies. Glen reflects that from a young age he had a diverse mix of people around him who were invaluable for providing him with advice and suggestions, which he greatly appreciated. He started his career in the transport and manufacturing industries and he's maintained a lot of passion for it, he loves it. He says ‘I've never looked back'. Glen enjoys the creative, innovative side of things and tries to think outside the square.  ‘Where are we now and where do we want to go.'  He describes himself as an early adopter, a disrupter. Much of our conversation focuses on a significant change that Glen's business has recently been faced with – having to move a large industrial site at short notice – and we discuss his approach to the change. What stands out most is Glen's commitment to collaboration with his team - having a strong collaborative foundation with the team meant that everyone was prepared to roll up their sleeves and make it happen. ‘I'm proud of our team.' Glen says yes, it was stressful, yet ‘when you have to manage change, you have open communication and good dialogue with your team, a trusting and safe work environment, it can all come together really well.  I truly believe we've done a fantastic job.' Congratulations Glen! Three key things Glen recommends leaders do for their teams:

It can be challenging knowing what it's like to work in a particular role, industry or organisation. Not knowing is one of the real impediments particularly for women moving into male dominated work. This is something that Donna Stace mastered very early in her career. Donna is an Operational Specialist in a Functional Safety Team at Rio Tinto. Growing up in The Pilbara as she did, she was exposed from an early age to various trades and to the mining industry, and that sparked her interest. She fed her interest by getting out and finding work experience and became known, which of course helped her immensely when she started looking for work roles. She went on to complete her Mechanical trade qualifications and over her career moved into operational leadership roles and has worked across a range of industries. Her approach remains a key part of the advice she provides to others, especially young women, to encourage them to find out more about joining trades as career options. She encourages women to get out and find work experience options, and to challenge the people doing the hiring – ‘make sure you find out about culture and leadership style, what they are like and whether they will suit you', she says. She's a great advocate for women in trades, becoming more so after returning to the maintenance area after many years and finding that the dial just hadn't shifted. To do something about it, because she likes to be active, she co-founded Women in Rail. WIR continues to focus on increasing gender-balance in apprenticeships and trades. There's been real success there, with numbers approaching parity over the last couple of years. Great work Donna! Donna's advice for increasing inclusion at work is for leaders to identify the value that diversity can bring to a team. There are benefits, and leaders should know what they are.  Donna says ‘It's important to challenge yourself about what are you actually after, what do you want in this team, what are the skillsets, what are the gaps in your team?  Do you need another person that looks exactly like the three other people in your team?  Everyone wants to hire themselves, it's easier.' To make it easier for leaders to be more inclusive they need a good support team, including people who'll challenge their thinking.  

This is such an important piece of advice that Hanli Pretorius offers in this Leadership Amplified episode. Hanli is General Manager, People and Culture – Defence and Social Infrastructure at Ventia. As she says, while she got into HR by chance rather than design - she took on a job, and found herself a career - she's had great leadership support and the freedom to play and experiment to implement new programs or technologies. She's had experience across many different organisations and industries, both partnering in the business as well as working in a centre of excellence. Hanli says ‘This year I have shifted in leaps and bounds in my thinking around my purpose. There's such power in having clarity in your own mind and being able to articulate it.' Since clarifying her own purpose, she's been very aware of noticing when others articulate theirs and how it conveys their focus and strength of direction. She says ‘When you hear someone else able to clearly articulate their purpose it's quite striking.' It's striking to hear the clarity about what they DO want and what they DON'T want.  She says, and I can only agree, ‘The inability of people to say no to things comes from not being clear about whatever contribution you want to make to an organisation or society.' (Clarity doesn't always make it EASY, but it does makes it EASIER.) ‘The ability to be clear about my purpose, what I want, to recognise and articulate it, has given me focus, it has been powerful and refreshing.' These are Hanli's three pieces of advice for early-career HR people: Don't specialise too early on in your carer Value in working as both a BP and in a centre of excellence Gain experience with multiple organisations/industries Listen in for access to much more of Hanli's wisdom.

It was an interesting way to end the latest conversation on Leadership Amplified: getting great performance from others starts with you, the leader, taking accountability for your own performance and self-improvement. Rohan Horsley made this conclusion after we'd discussed the often-times tricky challenge of team performance and its successful measurement. I enjoyed Rohan's take on performance and its measurement: it alternately seems to be pretty obvious and yet is at times – usually the tough ones- a delicate balancing act. He starts with the foundation assumption that people want to perform well – a very good place to start! The object is for people to have ownership of their measures, to be clear about what success is, and for their individual measures to be aligned with the team's and the organisation's. When people take ownership they naturally achieve and perform. We agreed that this is something both important and challenging, and that it takes time too. It's so easy, Rohan says, to pick up the old measures and roll them forward; they might no longer apply, might not be the best (just the easiest) to measure and probably won't be terribly inspiring. He also counsels the importance of trialling measures, as long as you are super-clear that is what you are doing. When the team can trial some measures and get involved in identifying whether or how well they work it inspires creativity and engagement in the measures. It's important to avoid a blame mentality within the team. You should do a root cause analysis of both success and failure; it might be system or process that's not right. A lot of relationships and a lot of careers don't progress as they should because of misunderstandings. What's key for the team:

The complexity of our world just continues to grow. We have multiple challenges of very different kinds to make sense of and prioritise attention to. One thing that helps is being able to see a way through contradiction, so I was very pleased in this new episode of Leadership Amplified to speak with Ilka Fuerstenberger, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia about one contradiction that is regularly encountered by leaders. Leading through warmth while also driving for performance. This is a balancing act that is foremost in Ilka's mind as she leads her organisation. For her, establishing trust is the first thing she prioritises when she starts a new role. Strength and competence are not the priority in these early stages, instead her focus is on establishing a safe place, being approachable, listening and paying attention to the new team. Ilka says that when trust is established and not doubted it is so much easier to help people reach their goals. People need to know they won't be shot for making a mistake, and they should feel empowered to generate decisions; after all they're the ones who have the knowledge to get the right performance. The drive for performance also needs to sit within a context of a clear purpose. ‘What are we here to do?' As the leader, you need to live it, to ‘inhale it', to create energy for it, people need to see it ‘written in your face'. When it is so crystal clear, it's so much easier to drive performance. Perhaps Ilka's ability to work across contradictions comes from her family's approach to travel when she was young – prior to visiting a new culture, the challenge was to learn 100 words of their language. And that early experience contributed to her choice of career path – a combination of languages (she speaks 5!!) and economics that would give her the opportunity to work internationally, which she's done ever since. Ilka's advice for leading well:

In this latest episode of Leadership Amplified, listen in to Tim Drinkall's wisdom about careers, their weird but wonderful trajectories, and the value of career support. Tim should know, he's Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Metro Trains! While Tim has spent 25 years in various learning and organisation development roles, his career started on a surprisingly different trajectory – as a chef and then a Physical Education teacher. In our conversation Tim reflects on how the lessons learnt from these very different kinds of roles have stood him in good stead for the work he does now. And how his mentors helped and at times challenged him to learn and grow to make the most of his skills and capabilities – some he didn't even know he had or that even existed. He recalls one particularly influential mentor saying

As someone who's seen a lot of change in her life Sudha Sharma has some terrific advice for approaching it successfully. In Episode 38 of Leadership Amplified we have a powerful conversation about influencing others for change, and Sudha shares her very human-centered and pragmatic approach. She says that ‘in the corporate world where results matter, you can't achieve them if you don't take care of people.' She's focused on doing that, and helping other leaders do the same. She says ‘Post-COVD there is no playbook on how to deal with a team.' The old one doesn't work, but what takes its place? She says that influence is key to the leadership playbook moving forward. How leaders influence now needs to be adjusted – teams are looking for clarity because of course there's less of it. To hook into what's important to them - helping them to see more clearly - means identifying and articulating the why of change in clear and simple terms. She says that people are so much less concerned about the what than the why of change, but that most effort in organisations is spent on the what. Shifting the balance is a key way to shift engagement with and openness to change. Her three key pieces of advice for the new playbook are: Use the power of beautiful questions – using beautiful questions helps you to understand what others' concerns are and then to frame issues and change requirements in ways that will inspire them. Workload is a challenge, so you need to help people to PRIORITISE, making sure that people understand why we are doing - this is a way to help them focus their limited energy Communicate consistently with an emphasis on connection. Sudha reminds us that we actually remember very little of what others say and leaders need to take this into account. And repeat. Consistency and simplicity are key to getting the point across and making it stick. Leaders' intent really matters, as does how they show up and what they say and do. These basic things influence others more than we realise.

In this episode I speak with Lauren Jones  about how she helps technical experts transform into great people leaders. Lauren started her working life as an electrical engineer in petrochemical manufacturing and quickly moved into operations management. During that period, she developed important leadership skills heading an operations team, and the importance of quality assurance, health and safety, and environmental compliance became ingrained. One thing that she felt unable to do as a young leader was to step back and see the big picture – it's critical to understand the big picture, the various stakeholders and what they care about, and what your role in all that is. You need to know what people want from you to be successful. Developing a reflective practice allowed her to do this. Lauren now has her own consulting practice where she loves working with executives, business owners and leaders at all levels to help them improve their businesses. As Lauren experienced herself, moving from a technical role to a leadership role is often quite challenging, creating dilemmas and usually needing a shift in identity. Having the right kind of support to make this move, including the right training, is fundamental to enjoying the new and different set of expectations people leadership brings. Lauren says to help technical experts moving into leadership roles to succeed, the right systems and processes need to be in place. Her advice to get it right:

Much of my conversation with Chris Pearce centered around being flexible in your style and leading authentically. Chris started his career in the Army, then spent a number of years in leadership roles in transport organisations such as FedEx, Linfox and MaxiTrans, and is now with ecoDynamics as Group Fleet and Asset Manager. The connection between flexibility and authenticity is always an interesting one. With some coaching clients, there is a challenge about being flexible in your style VERSUS being authentic. How can you be both? If you're being your authentic self, who you truly are, shouldn't you be consistent; people should know what they're getting? Yes. And no. It's how you use various styles that is the key. As Chris reflected on various leadership experiences he'd had, from the military to corporate life, and the impact they'd had on both him, the team and its performance, one of the interesting distinctions he made was between a style, and how you use it. He contrasts two different leaders he experienced early in his career, who both used the command and control style. He noted a significant difference in his experience as one boss wielded the style with a high care factor, and another pushed hard but you could see he wasn't his genuine self. The first used the style for the team, the second used the style for control. The outcomes were quite different – with the first leader, there was better team cohesion, there was never any doubt that they would achieve their goals, the bonds became strong. This set the tone for Chris -  it's OK to be yourself as a leader, and that works better for your team. When you trust that they'll achieve the outcome, they are more likely to. His introduction to corporate life was ‘like walking into a circus without a ringmaster', as roles were so much less clear. This was his turn to create the clarity, to help the team to work towards a common goal, understanding the parts they played. Chris concludes our conversation with three pieces of advice for other leaders; keep learning, treat people as people, and have fun.

In this episode I speak with Kate about how leaders can create more focus and be more influential through the way they engage with complexity, and in particular, how they use questions. Kate is the creator of the CURLY APPROACH™ which uses question-based frameworks to create clarity out of complexity. She is the author of two books: ‘The Thrive Cycle: How to build a customer-driven, unstoppable organisation by activating its adaptive DNA' and ‘Curly Conversations for Teams'. I'm a huge advocate for questions, and the power of open questions in coaching, where they empower others and help unlock new options that create growth and change. I just loved Kate's approach to questions and her proposition that they are keys to your brain. She says they're pathways into what we know, and they help us to explore and discover the unknown. Questions are more powerful at helping to get buy-in to change, they can inspire people and help to create energy and momentum. That's gotta make life easier! Here are four keys to try:

This is part of the wisdom from my conversation with Louise Weine, CEO of National Association for Women in Operations and is fitting commentary for this International Women's Day's focus on embracing equity. Early in her career, Louise learned she needed to check her own leadership style and biases.  She worked hard to expand her own circle to have a much more diverse group of mentors, colleagues, volunteers and providers – she saw that she needed to stop going to the same type of people and getting the same answers. She says that a lot of leaders think they're inclusive until they're forced to self-reflect and realise that as human beings we fall into habits that can be exclusionary.  We discuss whether we should even be focusing in on women as a diversity target group. The danger in talking about inclusion more broadly is that you might not get to the heart of some fundamental issues that are related specifically to gender.  The positive for taking a broader view of inclusion overall is that it's far less divisive; it's a conversation that everyone's a part of. Louise says ‘We just want more human-centred workplaces where people consider things from a heartfelt human point of connection first.' Her suggestions for increasing inclusion put it within everyone's reach: Become comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Through discomfort comes growth. Small, incremental things done by more people make a bigger difference. Be kind and show empathy. What are you doing to Embrace Equity this 2023 International Women's Day?

This was one of the many pearls of wisdom from Sara Garcia in the latest episode of Leadership Amplified, together with:

I've had a few recent conversations with amazing leaders. You know the ones – you may well be one - who routinely go above and beyond, who trade-off weekend time to get the job done, who are just darn good people with a strong work ethic who don't want to let the side down. But who are on (if not over) the precipice of burnout. They're having to self-manage their emotions without adequate support from their organisations. Demands are off the scale, support is lip-service as best: relying on such people to be resilient enough to put up with this with no end in sight is crazy. So in conversation, when Michelle Bihary said ‘you can't out-resilience a toxic workplace' it was YES, you can't!! We've got to stop expecting that people can. Michelle's work is focused on providing professional supervision and support in the healthcare industry, where the need for it is so great. She's highly attuned to the bandwidth/energy/vitality required of health care professionals to do their work. Prior to COVID, she says that burnout was already a huge issue in the sector. Mental health was chronically underfunded - it was like giving a surgeon half the amount of time to do the surgery – mental health workers had half the time they needed to treat people. During COVID, that workforce became one that held the anxiety for so many in the community, plus of course they had their own concerns. Michelle reflects that it will take a long time for people to feel they have the space to restore and replenish as the demand for support and care has increased so much. She says that organisations need to provide ongoing support and permission to help people to maintain their wellbeing, they need to be taking responsibility and thinking more strategically about the environment that the workforce is operating in all day long. It's not just getting the job done that matters, it's how the job gets done.

Dr Michelle Evans is the Director of Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership at The University of Melbourne. Dilin Duwa runs programs, research projects and partnerships that strengthen indigenous focused business and leadership, and has just celebrated its 10th anniversary

Nick is Executive General Manager at Terrywhite Chemmart, and he reflected on his leadership journey and philosophy in our discussion for Leadership Amplified. Nick's sense of balance has been one of the hallmarks of his career, inspired by teachers, family and other business leaders. While at school he'd held leadership roles, for example as sports captain, but it was only as he was leaving school that one of his teachers called out his leadership ability. He was seen as a leader by his peers: she called out his role modelling, and this gave him a first sense of what leadership was, and that he could do it. When he reflected on the comments leadership began to take shape for him. Her comments encouraged a confidence to take on key leadership roles, coaching others and developing people. Nick says it took him a while to decide what he wanted to do with his career, he undertook study and worked in a wide range of different organisations, then fell into his retail career as a graduate with Aldi. From there, it has flourished. He subscribes to the KISS principle as his leadership theory, keeping it simple by focusing on engaging people to deliver results. This philosophy has served him well, particularly through the last several years of such rapid change. Nick tells the fabulous story of his parents running their own business and how that continues to inspire him COVID and its impact on retail pharmacy compelled Nick to evolve his leadership style to put more emphasis on people than ever: he says it's critical to focus on your people and build trust for what you are trying to achieve. ‘Leadership is not an individual sport, you need followers' To lead successfully you need to shift the source of your esteem from you to the team, says Nick. Seeing the team and the business get the results should be what it's all about.

This is how Marie-Claire Ross summarised our lively discussion about leadership and trust:

This is such a strong and clear philosophy that shines through the latest podcast conversation with Amanda McInery who is Head of Marketing at @Homely.com. ‘I actively sought out ways to better myself at every opportunity', says Amanda. Amanda created a roadmap of roles she'd like and identified the skills and knowledge that she needed to learn, and has actively pursued learning in every role she has had. ‘If there was something I didn't know, I immediately applied myself - empowered myself - to learn about it.' She says she identified the mentors that she wanted to surround herself with to help her build up the skills that she lacked. ‘I have a drive to always be better, and to better myself and learn all the time.' She says she's both impatient to achieve her goals, and enjoys the learning journey. She relates a recent experience where she was catapulted into a more senior role and describes it as creating a seismic shift in her career. It was incredibly terrifying as well as empowering, and while it also took a lot of hard work, she felt hugely supported and trusted by stakeholders around her. She had the empowerment and support to do really well. We also talk about the value of working in a scale-up environment and where and why an MBA has fitted into her development planning. It's fitting that we end our conversation with some suggestions for developing your leadership capability: Surround yourself with inspiration – there is something to learn from everyone around you Ask for help and advice from others – people love be asked to help Find role models and seek to emulate them Support people to be their best and do their best – and don't expect to be praised for it! Be real with yourself about what you can achieve – whether it's a weakness or an opportunity, be honest, take the ego out of it – actively, honestly focus on it and practice. It's just like learning to run a marathon, it takes practice.

That's one of the take-outs from my conversation with Simon Duke,  Infrastructure & Capital Projects Manager, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. One of the first leadership lessons Simon had to learn was to listen very acutely, and with sincerity, to the community he was in. He had to listen really well to be able to understand small nuances that made the difference between success and failure. He had to listen to survive. In what was a challenging start to his leadership career, Simon turned challenge into opportunity, and created a firm, values-based platform for his future leadership approach. It helped him to not just prioritise purpose and community, but also to increase his own flexibility and adaptability. From a young age, Simon had a sense of wanting to serve a bigger purpose, and as his career has continued, that has developed into what we might now call the servant leader philosophy. In his leadership roles he is keen to understand how best he can serve. He knows that others too want to be part of something bigger than themselves. His fundamental belief is that for people to thrive leaders need to give them power, to share and align their power. He says to his teams: ‘I want to solve it with you.' Aligning people to the why is critical to be able to move things forward ‘we're not here for you or me, we're here for our community'.  

Annie Lacombe is Engineering Manager at Boeing. She says that one of the leadership lessons she has learned is this: there is enough for everyone. Her mindset of abundance is an important part of her philosophy of leading: it means her focus is not on herself, but on how she can help others. Her philosophy is based on generosity and ego-awareness, yes, but also on self-fullness and personal integrity. Annie began her career as a chemical engineer in Canada, then working in a FIFO role in New Caledonia before moving to Australia in 2009. She loves cultural differences and working with diverse teams, as she strongly believes that it makes it more interesting. In this episode of Leadership Amplified, we talk about Annie's work and leadership experiences, including some of the cultural challenges she faced along the way. She says ‘In difficult situations we tend to focus on ourselves, we think it's about us, but we put too much emphasis on ourselves, rather than on the situation. We need to be able to step away and come back with fresh eyes, otherwise we get too emotionally hooked.' Her leadership approach has strengthened through these, as well as the positive experiences she's had along the way. She believes she has the power to bring diversity into the traditionally non-diverse areas she's worked – she is passionate about bringing women into trade roles and giving them access to well-paid roles. She says ‘People can feel your support and interest in them. They come to work to do their best and as leader, you have to empower them.'

In our conversation Peter maps out his leadership journey from ‘always knowing he wanted to be something more than just a finance person' which is how he started his career, to being CEO of a listed company, thriving in our turbulent times. Peter had the opportunity to take an overseas posting early, and that elevated his career. During that time he had a lot of access to senior managers and was able to learn what made them tick. He also received a great deal of support from them, and that helped him to broaden his skillset, and in particular, to be able to learn to adapt to other cultures. He says, ‘The world is really different and you need to be able to adapt and change your approach.' These postings ‘forced' him to change himself, and that helped him as his career progressed. We discuss the challenges of too many competing demands, and how to manage them. Peter's approach is to be as available as possible to his people – if someone reaches out to him, they're doing it for a reason and it shouldn't be a debate as to whether they get his time – he fits everything else in around that. We also talked inclusion, and how Peter places priority on making sure there is an environment where people are comfortable to voice their opinion and be listened to. Increasing diversity and inclusion is obviously the right thing to do for business, again, this shouldn't be a debate.

My guest Mark Butler is an accredited clinical psychotherapist with 14 years' experience in the field. He focuses on mindset and mental wellbeing at work, mentoring people through adverse issues around workplace burnout, stress, anxiety and related unhealthy coping strategies. Mark understands burnout and executive exhaustion so well because he's been there and those experiences inform his work with individuals, teams and organisations. He's keen to develop sustainable and effective work practices, and we spent some discussing both the importance of this as the focus for burnout management, as well some practices. It was lovely chatting with Mark about how he came to his current role as a thought leader in mental health and wellbeing at work, as well as discussing his advice on burnout and how to reduce it. His analogy that most organisational responses to burnout are more like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff waiting for things to happen than the fence around the top of the cliff will, unfortunately, ring true to too many. To fix burnout we have to: Focus on the organisation, its people, systems and processes – we need to look at the dance as well as the dancers. Leaders need to know what to look for and how to respond, but don't need to ‘treat' - 70% of improvement comes from support and a safe space. Provide reasonable autonomy over work, as well as a sense of purpose in it. Get the foundations right - sleep, diet and exercise.   Using the canary in the coalmine analogy, Mark asks ‘what's your carbon monoxide, what makes your workplace toxic?' The usual answer is stress/workload, it's never about being a strong-enough canary. Each person needs to have their own canary: it's about identifying when you're reaching YOUR point of overwhelm. That makes sense. Unfortunately, he also says, ‘

In the first of 2022's episodes of Leadership Amplified, I speak with Paul Axup, CFO at Programmed, about his leadership story and in particular why diversity of thought and the importance of enabling expression of different views sits at the heart of his leadership. Paul is a Senior Finance Executive with 25 years' international experience in complex listed and private environments. He has strong financial and operational skills with proven leadership developed across a range of senior leadership roles at Programmed, Aurecon and Lendlease, and which was founded on 12 years at PwC as a trusted advisor to key clients. Paul has a successful track record in driving transformation and growth, and led key digital, finance and business transformations while at Aurecon and Lendlease. He has a proven ability to quickly transition into new roles and new sectors. He is enthusiastic about building high performing teams and strong business partnering models, with a leadership style that is open and collaborative. Despite the heavy hitting CV, Paul's approach is truly humble as he shares early experiences with family and business leaders who taught him that having a diversity of views and multiple options always leads to a stronger strategy. As he says ‘A group of amazing, diverse people, melding their views together leads to a stronger strategy' and it is through this kind of collaboration that the impossible becomes possible. When team members are encouraged to express their views, they feel valued and it boosts morale. He says that a ‘no politics' approach leads to an empowering workplace. He's also passionate about: ✔️ avoiding the typical pigeon-holing of finance people ✔️ elevating the importance of questions ✔️ giving people information first-hand ✔️ challenging thinking ✔️ having multiple mentors – they should be as diverse as the team is Have a listen in, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

These were the final words in my recent conversation with Supriya Iyer, Supply Director, Global Networking Supply Chain & Commercial Operations at Google in California. We had a very wide-ranging discussion, from Supriya's first experience of leadership – being thrown in at the deep end as a brand new graduate to lead a team – to her latest - handling the current complexities of global supply chains, and identifying how they will affect leadership and strategy in the next couple of years. It was encouraging to get an inside view on psychological safety at Google too. Good to know that their leadership development includes a focus on it, and leaders get rated on the safety climate they create.  Supriya's leadership approach, to focus on trust and constructive conflict, draws on that first leadership experience and how she approached it, as well as her experience working in 3 different countries. For her, leadership is about humility, belonging, creating a climate where people will speak up and feel safe to do so. Helping people achieve their dreams. With a global workforce and people working in different time-zones, everyone's needs are different. Supriya says it is like a family gathering around the table and not everyone gets on with everyone, so you need to create space, listen, ask questions openly and help people to feel safe.

And, given that the rulebook went out of the window with the onset of COVID, learning to live with ambiguity helps too! This some of the wisdom you'll glean from listening in to the chat that Grant Enders and I recently had about his leadership story. Grant is CEO of 3DMedTech, an exciting start-up focused on developing and commercialising patient matched medical devices at scale, leveraging advanced manufacturing. It was the first Australian company to develop and patent swabs for testing Covid, resulting in multiple contracts with various health agencies. He identifies 4 key things that he has done in his CEO role to help the organisation to grow – create clarity, remove roadblocks, generate energy, deliver & celebrate.

'As a leader you need your people - because it‘s about them, not the work.' Just some of the wise words from Dr Charmaine Gittleson. Charmaine is a non-executive director in the biotechnology sector. She is a member of the boards of Antisense Therapeutics; George Health and Bayon Therapeutics and she also consults in Clinical Development strategies. Charmaine has extensive global experience as a pharmaceutical physician and enterprise leader; her final corporate role was as Chief Medical Officer for CSL Behring. As Charmaine reflected back on her early leadership influences, she noted that what was most formative for her was what spoke to her values. Her two key values are respect for others and care for one another. Initially she let go of a lot of her creative, intuitive self, but refound it in her strategic work. She reflects on her recent career move onto boards and has some good advice for others, particularly women, wanting to make that transition: identify your transferable skills (you have them!), put your hand up, develop your financial acuity, and develop your ‘how would the CEO think about the organisation' mindset.  

This was one of Sarah Fortuna's reflections during our recent Leadership Amplified discussion. We've heard this before - Sarah's early reflections on leading left her feeling that leadership wasn't for her. Early in her career saw a lot of unhealthy practices, what she saw was unappealing, she couldn't see the kind of role models she wanted to emulate. Thankfully that changed. She worked with leaders who were challenging and amazing, and she understood how hard, and thoughtful, leadership is. ‘Leadership is a full body contact sport.' Leadership most makes sense to Sarah when leaders care about the world, the community, and show responsibility to others. It's not an individual pursuit. As part of the Atlantic Fellows for Social Impact program, she's learned that there are other ways of leading. It's possible to breathe in a space where there isn't just one way of doing things.  Indigenous leadership is collective responsibility for the community, and a sense of who you are beyond the role - that appeals to her. ‘Go in with open mind, it's not all about you but finding your place in the team.' She sees her future challenge as keeping the sense of openness, curiosity & spirit that she felt when younger.

This was one part of a fascinating discussion with the wonderful Julie Bale, CIO at EnergyAustralia in the latest episode of Leadership Amplified. Julie is an influential CIO with over 25 years' experience working globally in Financial Services, Telecommunications and Utilities. Like many of us, Julie's earlier experiences of leadership taught her how she DIDN'T want to lead. In her leadership roles, she's focused on deliberately building a diverse team – gender, experience, industry, personality – the outcomes achieved are the richer for it. To get from diversity to cohesion starts with a safe environment. Part of the magic of the diversity is having open, direct and honest conversations with the team - the team is not afraid to have direct conversations back. All views and experiences are valid. → No topic is off the table. Result? A culture that's really quite special. A well functioning & cohesive IT leadership team creates a very symbolic message for the organisation.  As Chair of their Diversity Council Julie sees there's a real opportunity to identify people's hidden abilities by listening to and recognising everyone for who they are, and welcoming the richness that their life experiences bring.

Human connection is a part of Amalie Smith's leadership mindset. In Episode 17 of Leadership Amplified, Amalie shares her views on the particular challenges that dispersed teams face. Amalie is Head of Network Delivery at Essential Energy and in this episode she generously shares her unconventional career history, and her approach to leading operational teams. She's also candid in sharing the lessons she has been learning given the trifecta of the pandemic, bushfires and floods that have hit the business in the past 18 months. That's a lot of crises to contend with. Central to her focus has been how to keep a close connection with her team, how to ensure they feel empowered, how to read their cues and sense their moods. Remaining inclusive when there are so many distractions is something she is working actively to continue. For her, leadership is about being curious about people, observing the way they act and behave. And making sure they know you have their back. This is just some of the wisdom from another exceptional leader. Listen in for more.

In the latest episode of #Leadership Amplified, I speak with the wonderful Professor Erica Wilson, Pro Vice Chancellor (Academic Innovation) at Southern Cross University, about her leadership journey. Erica began her academic career researching the constraints faced by Australian women solo travellers and the empowerment they find through their journeys. That has led her to see leadership, and her own leadership career, as a lifelong journey with many different turns and destinations. As things shift and change, growth occurs. Each new leg is challenging, as well as exciting and inspiring. She speaks openly about needing to rewrite her own leadership story, to turn around the idea that she was an accidental leader. Her hard work, the skills, the support she had from others who saw what she was capable of even when she didn't feel ready definitely weren't an accident! It's through claiming her ambition, visibility and voice that she wants to inspire other women in academia to see that what's possible for them.

#ChooseToChallenge with compassion and empathy was the focus of my #IWD2021 speech for the Resource Industry Network. In this podcast, I reprise the speech, to share my thoughts on the critical value of compassion and empathy in gender inclusion work. So grateful to have the chance to speak with 500++ women, men and future leaders for their wonderful lunch celebrating the day. I've been reflecting a lot on the relationship between gender equality and challenge, and reckon it's time for a change-up. It's time to approach the challenges we face with greater compassion and empathy to increase our hope for the future. We need to make it easier for everyone to be part of the conversation. My key focus in the podcast was on how we can do just that:

Create a ripple effect - help others achieve heights they never thought they could This was one of many inspiring messages from Karen Brown in the latest episode. In our conversation, Karen shares her leadership journey, from school years, as a member of the QLD Firebirds netball team, to her choice of pharmacy as a career, then on to her successes as a Managing Partner of 2 TerryWhite Chemmart pharmacies. And there's more…. She's been recognised through a number of awards: in January, she received a Small Business Person of the Year Award as part of the Australia Day Awards, being recognised for her leadership, entrepreneurship and dedication to the community. She credits part of her success to her belief that people want to belong to something bigger than themselves; for her, community engagement has been a priority and is a big part of success of her pharmacies. ‘Be where your feet are' is one of her mantras, and particularly useful with pharmacy on the frontline of the response to COVID. She says ‘During COVID we couldn't look too far ahead, we needed to be in the moment. COVID was pharmacy's time to shine - we did that and were respected and loved for it.'

What better way to get back into the podcasting groove for 2021 (finally

Be #courageous and get out of your comfort zone has been Angela William's call to action, particularly during this #COVID-19 year. Angela is General Manager at Ventia Pty Ltd, leading a portfolio of projects in excess of $250m. Earlier this year she led the incident management team for the organisation (then Broadspectrum). In this podcast episode, Angela talks about how she grew her career from her commerce speciality into a broader operational role taking on P&L responsibilities. When given the responsibility of leading the IMT she was clear she wanted to lead in a very #inclusive way, despite the tense environment; she wanted to ensure that people could 'be themselves'. She outlines how she structured to get the right team, ensured there was no ambiguity in getting the right tools to work with, and set up a feedback loop so that there was an organised rhythm to the team's work. Given they deliver essential services, safety was paramount, and well-managed. Angela discusses the phases of the IMT responses: ✔️ Respond ✔️ Sustain ✔️ Re-imagine and how each required a different kind of response from her as the leader. We finish up the conversation with Angela's advice to seek out 'non-obvious' career moves, and how to do it.

To do that you need to know what makes you tick. Great leaders know themselves inside out, according to @Erin Wild. Critically she says, you need to push into the uncomfortable situations, to know what stresses you, to be prepared to experience the discomfort. This helps to challenge your thinking and you learn to trust yourself. And it's equally important to be able to remain calm, to validate yourself, to be able to flip on your positive self-talk. Feedback is something to welcome. But you also need to be able to filter it - don't rely on it to validate yourself. Erin is an experienced engineer working in Upstream Oil and Gas Operations, with an energy for leadership in Maintenance Operations, Strategic Business Planning and Well Integrity Operations. She's worked for @Exxon Mobil since graduation. Her roles have included Integrity and Maintenance Supervisor, Planning Manager, Wellwork and Drilling Strategy Manager, Subsurface Engineering Supervisor. She's worked in Equatorial Guinea, Houston, Malaysia and Australia in onshore and offshore drilling operations.

Delighted to share a conversation with Duncan Phillips, CEO at TerryWhite Chemmart.   One highlight of the conversation is Duncan's story of their advisory group response to #COVID-19. The initial feeling in the group, that included people with 30++ years' experience in the industry, was fear. Duncan realised that had to be addressed first, so they started with vulnerability, not action. They shared their fears and concerns. That cleared the room of uncertainties. The response was heartfelt - it changed things up. It helped them create a practical response that gave them a real competitive advantage. Their response to COVID has helped their wider culture and their sense of #purpose as a business. There is now much more 'sharing of what we do and how important everyone in the business is'. 'We've created more richness and purpose.' Duncan says that it's far more gratifying when a business initiative is landed by 100s of people, rather than achieving a small win for yourself. It's longer lasting and the benefits are much bigger. His advice to aspiring #leaders is that there's a lot you can do without the title - don't wait for a title, step up and lead.  

Phil says that giving time to team members is always important, more so in our COVID-19 environment. There should be a deliberate, intentional focus on investing time in team members, it's not something that's incidental. A genuine, open and honest conversation should buoy both the team member and the leader. Such a delight to be sharing Phil's insights in the conversation, and with you here in the podcast. In this episode, we discuss Phil's: Leadership journey, the challenges he faced and what helped him to be successful Personal leadership insights about how he and his team have adapted to the COVID-19 challenges we are experiencing How the covid crisis is changing leadership. Phil Turnbull is Executive General Manager, Motoring and Mobility for RACV where he is responsible for the businesses of Emergency Roadside Assistance, Motor Insurance, and other motoring products and services.

Such an enjoyable conversation with SA's Commissioner for Public Employment Erma Ranieri!   Erma and I worked together some time ago and it was fabulous to reconnect in this conversation: it was enlightening and inspiring to hear how Erma is using her role to promote gender equality.   In the conversation we talk about the value of:   TOP LEVEL commitment

Susan Ratcliff candidly shares some of the challenges she experienced early in her career and reflected on how they grounded her later leadership career and success. Sue's story of grappling with own vulnerability, and why she values it - both the vulnerability and the grappling! -  so much is a wonderfully personal and candid account.

Enjoy this wonderful conversation with the very talented Brooke Young, as we discuss the importance of purpose to your leadership, the value of making leadership an invitation, and the importance of practising your leadership skills and attributes. It's important to continue to cultivate and learn new skills; discomfort is a great catalyst for learning. Women can be reluctant to ask for support from others: Brooke's advice is to take on the attitude that 'I deserve to be helped', and to be prepared to own what you are good at. I've known and worked with Brooke for over a decade and she's a generous supporter of women and talent. She is an innovative and engaging leader with over 25 years' experience across higher education, management consulting and the not-for-profit sectors.

A thoroughly enjoyable interview with Karen Faehndrich, CEO of Audrey Page and Associates, where we discuss 'lifeshakes' and 'lifequakes' plus much more. Careers are being upended and the future is daunting; Karen's advice and reflections as a leader and expert in career management (and so much more) is timely. She openly shares the impact of COVID-19 on her, some of her brilliant - and challenging - career experiences, and insights into the future of work and careers.

One of the breakthroughs of the last decade has been better understanding of the impact of unconscious bias on decision-making. In this episode I outline what bias is, how unconscious bias works, and how gender bias affects the way we think about leadership. 'We like to think that our mind is like an impartial judge in search of the truth, but it is more like an attorney searching for evidence to support her case.' Anthony Greenwald

In this episode, I discuss the value of champions to increasing gender inclusion. This is one of the important areas I cover in Beat Gender Bias: How to play a better part in a more inclusive world. ‘It's about the legacy you leave and diversity is a key part of that. …. If I leave with the right diversity in place, then it's a job well done.' Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas I discuss the value of champions, male champions in particular. Whether or not you are a champion, you can help to increase the number of supporters and champions and in this episode I share tactics for doing so. For more about the book, and to download whitepapers and webinar recordings go to www.karenmorley.com.au. 

At the launch of Beat Gender Bias, I was joined by Nick Marinelli, former CEO of Fulton Hogan Australia, who provides one of the stories I share in the book, and Lesley Williams, publisher extraordinaire and Director Major Street Publishing. Dan Hillier, General Manager at Terry White Chemmart was MC. I outline what led me to write the book and what is in it. Nick speaks about the gender diversity journey at Fulton Hogan and his tips for success, and Lesley Williams highlights the book's practical focus. Enjoy the video replay!

In this podcast, I introduce you to my forthcoming book Beat Gender Bias: How to play a better part in a more inclusive world. ‘There's no greater gift than thinking that you had some impact on the world, for the better.' Gloria Steinem I outline the reasons why I am so motivated to increase inclusion. I share one of the key activities I use in my training to help leaders become more aware of the impact of bias. For more about the book, and to download whitepapers and webinar recordings go to www.karenmorley.com.au.