Grow Your Influence

Can you believe it’s 5 years since we first headed into those unprecedented lockdowns, restrictions and work from home orders? In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee are exploring a report recently released by Gallup called: The Post Pandemic Workplace – The Experiment Continues. The report explores Gallups work in measuring how peoples lives and work changed over the past 5 years. The data is draw...

We’ve all had that feeling when someone behaves badly: maybe if I just leave it, they will sort themselves out/the problem will just go away… In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee talk about an example of a client who knew they needed to deal with a toxic person in their team but had been avoiding the issue.  As soon as they decided to deal with the person, they felt so much better about them...

In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee answer a question that has come in from a listener: “how do I deal with being promoted when a colleague thought the promotion was theirs, and is resentful of me securing the role?” We love to receive and answer your questions – and this was a great one to dive into. In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee Discuss, at a broad level, how to handle being promoted a...

In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee recap our Summer Series of interviews and share their highlights and biggest take aways. One of the key themes we identified across all of our guests was the importance of values-based businesses, and how values impact hiring, leading and managing staff. We are both seeing the increasing desire, especially among younger generations, to join workplaces that ali...

In our sixth Summer Series interview Juliet is talking with Darren Taylor, Managing Director at Taylor & Grace, one of Melbourne’s leading brand strategy firms which is on a mission to help all Australian businesses, regardless of size, stage, structure or sector to amplify their impact by leveraging their brand. Darren is an award-winning brand strategist, keynote speaker, author of the book,...

Today in the next of our Summer Series interviews, Kristy-Lee is talking with Nicole Turnbull from Neon Shed about Psychosocial Safety at work. Nicole is the Founder and  Chief Courage Officer  at Neon Shed, which brings light to the dark sides of work. She works with businesses to eliminate psychosocial hazards at work and ignite courage in leaders and teams by giving them the tool...

In this, the fourth in our Summer Series, Juliet is talking with Ed Ross, one of the Founders of Trade Mutt and This Is A Conversation Starter (TIACS).  In case you haven’t heard of them, Trade Mutt designs outlandish work shirts and other useful and colourful things for tradies and people on the land.  Their products are designed to get people talking about mental health and to normalis...

Natalie MacDonald led the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) through a period of dramatic change between 2021 and 2024 and in the third of our Summer Series interviews Juliet talked with Natalie prior to her retirement about some of these challenges and the opportunities they present for the CFA. Prior to the CFA Natalie was Vice-President (Strategy & Development) at La Trobe University fo...

Today in the second of our Summer Series interviews, Kristy-Lee is talking with Mel Rosenthal of 52 Conversations on having the important conversations that matter.    Mel is a Professional Certified Coach, accredited by the International Coaching Federation and an Australian Institute of Company Directors graduate (GAICD).  She holds a Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honours) from the Universit...

Today in the first of our Summer Series interviews, Juliet is talking with Di Geddes, the Founder and Managing Director of Exceptional Care For You. In 2021 Di created a business where she was determined that her values would shine through in everything she and her team do. Explosive growth over the past few years has been driven solely by word of mouth as she and her team put these values into ac...

Today on the Grow Your Influence Podcast Juliet and Kristy-Lee are discussing the importance of effective induction and onboarding programs. So often when we have a new team member joining us, we do the bare minimum. Point them to their desk and set them to work. Or worse, as we share, we’ve both seen examples where desks and computers were not even set up for new starters and they had to do it th...

Today on the Grow Your Influence Podcast Juliet and Kristy-Lee are discussing how leaders and managers can help set young people up for success in their first job. Do you remember when your secured your first ‘real’ job? You may have completed your studies, sat through interviews and assessments, and finally received an offer for your dream job. Or maybe you weren’t sure where your career was head...

Today on the Grow Your Influence Podcast we are picking up on a theme Juliet and Kristy-Lee have been coming across recently– that is the feeling of uncertainty that so many leaders are currently feeling. It can be difficult to know how to lead effectively when we don’t have clarity about the future, and it feels as though things could change on any given day. In this episode we discuss the reason...

Today on the Grow Your Influence Podcast we are getting super practical and talking about one of the most important leadership responsibilities – conducting Performance Reviews with our teams. Let’s face it – we’ve all participated in reviews in one way or another that have not been particularly effective. Historically they have been long, drawn out, anxiety inducing discussions for all involved....

We’ve all met them at some stage in our lives. Those people whose responses seems a little odd and whose behaviour can be completely ‘off’ sometimes. Those people who can look you in the eye and lie, who manipulate situations to suit themselves. The classic definition is ‘psychopath, but, as David Gillespie tells us, Hollywood has pretty much hijacked that term so we often call them sociopaths or...

Ugh, conflict at work! Itmakes everything more difficult and can see you and your teamwalking on eggshells, spending time and energy worrying about the situation. What weknow is that your team will be watching you to see how you handle it so just ignoring it andhoping the issue will resolve itself and people will sort themselves out is not a solution. In this episode, Juliet and Kristy-Lee discuss...

At the time of recording this episode, we are in the midst of yet another round of legislative updates which employers are required to come to terms with. In fact, the last 2 years have seen the most significant changes in Industrial Relations legislation in Australia in more than 10 years. For employers, business owners, managers and leaders, this can easily become overwhelming to manage. In this...

Remuneration packages often include non-cash benefits and, increasingly, we are hearing that these aren’t hitting the mark with teams. So often these are included in packages because the person including the benefits is interested in them. And we can be a bit scared of checking in with the team about what would be motivating for them in case they ask for more money or we create expectations we can...

This time of the year can often herald performance reviews and expectations of pay rises, which may not be possible in the current climate. As leaders, we need to explain the context and manage expectations around what is a very personal and often difficult topic for our staff. There are plenty of non-monetary motivators we can offer our team when extra cash isn’t possible, and in today’s episode...

We are hearing A LOT about how tough things are getting and, for our teams, the concerns about job security are real. When work is quiet, people can lose motivation as they focus on the cost of living pressures and inward on self-preservation. There are clear steps leaders can take to bring their teams through a downturn and in today’s episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee discuss how to deal with the anx...

With the run-up to the end of the financial year for many in Australia, and the recent intense cold that tells us Winter is really here, you may be finding that both you and your team are running low on motivation.      This isn’t uncommon but this year the layering of the global economic and political situations and the fact that fewer of us seem to be taking holidays and travelling to sunnier cl...

Welcome to the Grow Your Influence podcast. In today’s episode of Grow Your Influence, Kristy-Lee and Juliet are talking about something that they truly believe every leader needs to hear about–the promises we make to our people. In this episode, Juliet and Kristy-Lee discuss the impact it has on our teams when we don’t follow through on the promises we make, and how this has a damaging effect on...

Welcome to the Grow Your Influence podcast.    In this episode of the podcast Juliet and Kristy-Lee are tackling the tricky situation we may find ourselves in at some stage in our leadership journey, and that is when we are being undermined by our 2IC, the leader below us who also has influence over our people and is a leader within the organisation.    In our discussion we talk about the signs th...

Welcome to the Grow Your Influence podcast. It is not uncommon to find ‘teams’ that are actually more a group of individuals working together but focusing on their own silos. In today’s episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee are discussing the difference between the two and how we can build a team if we realise we don’t actually have one. When you have a group of high-performing individuals who are used to...

Welcome to the Grow Your Influence podcast. In today’s episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee are discussing the concept of leading yourself. In leadership circles, we talk a lot about leading others effectively, but we give little if any thought to leading ourselves. Yet the truth is, just like putting on your own oxygen mask first, you do need to start with leading yourself effectively. Today we discuss...