The People Leaders Podcast

It’s always interesting chatting with other professionals in our field and this discussion with Amos Szeps is no different.  I learned some new turns of phrase that I know I’ll be using more in the future. Phrases such as: Empathy with edge; Disagree quickly but not personally; Choose meaningful problems and more. With 20 years of experience in leadership and leadership coaching under his belt, Am...

Leaders often have good intentions and great ideas, even great visions, for themselves but often they don’t succeed in bringing those intentions to fruition. This is not exclusive to leaders of course, but the result of a leader falling short of their potential, is that their team can often be affected as well. In this interview, with Jenna Holloway, Jan discusses the impact of limiting beliefs on...

One of the qualities that separates leaders from managers is self awareness.  A manager with low levels of self awareness is unlikely to bring out the best in themselves, let alone their team. Whereas a leader with high levels of self awareness, is going to naturally develop the skills needed to bring out the best in the people working with them. They will be more likely to display the humility, t...

We’re always looking for new ways to provide resources to leaders and are excited to share with you that the People Leaders Toolkit app is now live. Available on Apple and Android (and usable on desktop computers also), the toolkit is designed as a hip-pocket resource to help leaders with the challenges they face on a daily basis. We’ve got five tools in the toolkit already and at least another te...

One of the biggest mistakes we see in the leadership field is promoting someone above their natural level of leadership. For example, someone who is an outstanding performer on your sales team, might not necessarily excel as a sales manager. Yet many organisations promote based on technical performance rather than their people leadership potential. This shows up in the stats, with 60% of new leade...

New and emerging leaders are usually given the short straw when it comes to leadership development and training. They’re often thrust into a role based on technical achievement and/or attitude and aren’t given much in the way of training in people leadership. This is a huge mistake, because these are the people on the front line, the interface between the objectives of the organisation and ‘the wo...

New leaders have a tough job. Not only do they have the technical aspects of their role to master, but they also have to master the craft of leading people. One of the biggest mistakes we see organisations make when promoting someone from an operational to a leadership role, is that they don’t give them sufficient training in planning. They are so often given their objectives for the year and a te...

Purpose-driven organisations are more than just ‘nice places to work.’ They also tend to have higher market share and grow three times faster than organisations that are not purpose-driven. In this podcast Jan had a lively discussion with Lyndal Hughes, Managing Director of Q5 Australia, a consultancy that helps organisations ‘make change stick.’ Lyndal explained that their work centres around hel...

For leaders, setting personal and professional goals is common practice, especially at the beginning of the year, but, regrettably, not everyone gets to tick them off as done by the end of the year. There are two reasons for this: 1) because they don’t do a thorough review of the prior year before setting the goals, and 2) they get caught up in creating specific outcomes rather than setting intent...

Hardik Parekh, CEO and founder of Searce, believes that the potential of people, processes and technology working together has the ability to change the world. He is passionate about working with people who share this belief, and who have a desire to make work and life better. In this conversation, Hardik and Adrian Chu, country manager of Australia and New Zealand, discussed on the podcast how th...

Leadership is grounded in understanding human behaviour, and few people understand human behaviour quite like the tireless Dr John Demartini.  With 40 books under his belt and another ten on the way, Dr Demartini has studied human behaviour through the lens of almost all the great philosophers and teachers to come up with a contemporary approach that has helped thousands of people around the world...

One of our most popular downloadable leadership tools, Above the Line, Below the Line, is a must in any manager’s or organisation’s toolkit. The accountability framework can be used by teams and organisations to foster clear and cohesive ways of working.   The premise of the tool is that there are ‘above the line’ ways of operating, which are usually constructive, responsive and adopt a growth min...

When you start a new job role as a people leader, it can be difficult to know where to start. Many of us go in wanting to prove our worth as soon as possible but end up underperforming in the long run. That’s just one of the biggest mistakes people make in a new job role. There will always be challenges but it’s how you navigate them that’s important, so knowing what people tend to do wrong will h...

In this short and sweet bonus episode Jan and Michelle pose two key questions to ask yourself and reflect on: How do you want to communicate? What impact do you want to have? ===== Useful Links: Explore our brand new Above-the-Line Leaders' Toolkit - https://peopleleaders.com.au/above-the-line-thinking/ Join our next Leadership Essentials Program - https://peopleleaders.com.au/leadership-esse...

We are all naturally biased when we make decisions, so it’s vitally important to set up procedures in the workplace that minimise their effect. On this episode we speak to Arthur Woods: a social entrepreneur, bestselling author and champion of equality in the workplace. Arthur is the co-founder of Mathison: a venture-backed tech platform that enables employers to stay on track with their diversity...

One in five Australians are challenged with their mental health. Pretty much every leader is going to have to guide people who are suffering, and yet historically, the focus of leadership and management has been on professional performance rather than state of mind.  Our guest this week, Sophie Aghdami, has been through her own mental battles and come out the other side to become an addiction reco...

Many, many years ago we read ‘Walking the Talk,’ a book by Carolyn Taylor, which was our first introduction to the concept of above-the-line and below-the-line thinking. Since that time we’ve incorporated the principles of this style of thinking into almost everything that we do. We built the model into many of our programs and have done countless workshops purely on the subject. The simplicity of...

The agile work environments of today pose a big challenge… are leaders really leaders anymore? Our esteemed guest, Dr Ben Ritter, has noticed a trend of leaders not feeling like they deserve to be there.  The speed with which leaders can rise to the top, mobile/remote working and the fluidity of organisational structures have all contributed to a totally different kind of leader, so we’re going to...

What a pleasure it was to speak to a genuine thought leader on the latest People Leaders podcast. Beverly Kaye is an internationally renowned expert in career development, employee engagement and employee retention. She’s written multiple books (the last one sold over 800,000 copies) and, just for good measure, she has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Talent Developmen...

We all experience insecurities at some point in our lives. Some people suffer from insecurities such as social anxiety, nervousness, past traumas, recent experiences of failure or rejection, loneliness, negative beliefs about yourself, perfectionism, and so on. These insecurities can have a huge impact on your life, relationships, personality, and work, among other things. But what if you could us...

Promoting and maintaining diversity, equity, and inclusion in a hybrid environment is challenging for leaders, especially during this time of COVID-19. To find ways out of this issue, we have Robin Rosenberg to discuss and share some tips on how to promote and maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion in an organisation.  She is CEO and Founder of Live in Their World, a company built to improve wo...

In this episode we speak to the inspirational Melanie Weller: a professional voice coach who can tell you exactly what you need to do to project yourself in the best possible way. Melanie works with voice professionals and non-voice professionals alike. Whoever you are, you’re going to need this advice! Her clinical specialty is the vagus nerve, so we talk about how important this can be to your o...

Recruitment is one of the biggest headaches in business, but it really doesn’t need to be. We speak to CEO and co-founder of Resume Sieve, Michael Yinger, about how you can automate the recruitment process and get really clever with the algorithms. Once you’ve got the right tools, as Michael says, you can “take the drudgery out of the recruitment process.” What’s more, the very same thinking can h...

We absolutely love it when people take a deep dive into the art of leadership. Susan Basterfield and Travis Marsh have certainly done that as co-authors of an inspiring new book called ‘Lead Together’. They’ve done some extensive research into many aspects of leadership, most notably the transformative power of ‘empathetic leadership’, and why leadership climates fail. Susan and Travis have over 5...

As a people leader it’s useful to have a strong toolkit of good frameworks; shortcuts for certain ways of operating. We get a lot of feedback from people about the resources we share and how helpful they are, so we’re sharing a new one with you: the Johari Window. Episode Highlights: When was it developed, who developed it and what actually is the Johari Window?  Why was the Johari Window invented...