170. Lead Courageously Through Change with Leah Mether

💭 How do we lead through change with love, kindness, and compassion? 

In this episode of The Leadership Project, Leah Mether is an expert in helping leaders navigate change. She dives deep into the challenges and strategies of leading through disruption. Leah shares insights from her books, "Soft is the New Hard" and "Steer Through the Storm," and discusses how empathy, clarity, and accountability play crucial roles in effective leadership. Leah's practical 5C framework—Create Clarity, Connect with Curiosity, Challenge with Candor, Coach with Compassion, Commit with Consistency—offers invaluable tools for leaders facing change. Plus, Leah shares personal anecdotes and actionable advice for leaders at every level. 

Tune in to learn how to steer your team with courage, compassion, and consistency, even through the most turbulent times.

00:00 Introduction
08:18 Leadership
20:15 Navigating Change and Employee Responses
35:58 Leading Through Change
43:51 Leadership Behaviors for Challenging Times
52:36 Effective Leadership Through Communication and Consistency
59:31 Leading With Consistency Through Change

🌐 Connect with Leah:
• Website: https://www.leahmether.com.au/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahmetherspeaker/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leahmetherspeaker/

📚 You can purchase Leah's books at Amazon:
• Steer Through the Storm: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9J4FR6Z/
• Soft Is The New Hard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NTT7WZW/

Book Mentioned:
• 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Change is scary, change is hard. Change is emotional. As leaders, we're sometimes driving change, and other times, change is thrust upon us, and we get stuck in the middle, leading and managing a change that may have been forced upon us. In today's episode of The Leadership Project, I'm joined by Leah Mether, a deep expert in change, and she shares with us the five C's of leading courageously through change. Please take note, get your pen and paper out. There's many nuggets of gold in today's conversation. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Leah Mether. Leah is an expert in helping leaders lead through change, and that topic is going to come up multiple times in today's discussion. She's also the author of two wonderful books, Soft Is The New Hard, how to communicate effectively under pressure, which was published back in 2019 and her second book, which is going to be the focus of today. And for those watching on the video, I'm holding it up, the second book is about Steer Through The Storm, and it's about leading through change, and that will be the predominant focus of what we go through today, but without any further ado. Leah, I would love it if you said hello to our audience, and I'd love to know a little bit about your background that made you focus and prioritize your work around this concept of leading through change.

Leah Mether: 1:34

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mick. And thank you to everyone who's listening to the podcast. How I came to this topic? So, my first book as you mentioned, came out in 2019 which was all about, you know, and that play on words Soft Is The New Hard. That play on the idea of soft skills, skills like communication and emotional intelligence that were a really long time were dismissed as the fluffy extra, you know, the easy things that are nice to have but not essential. And the premise of that book is actually these skills are really challenging. They're the hardest part. And that was equipping leaders with a particular focus on communication. So that came out in 2019 and I was running some workshops around the content from that book. And I live in a part of the state of Victoria, here in Australia, South East of Victoria, in a region called Gippsland. And I love the region that I live in. And one of the industries that is predominant in this region is the power industry, so and particularly the coal fire power industry. Now, obviously, these days, we're transitioning out of coal for very good reason. We're moving to cleaner energy. But for the last, you know, 5060, years or so, this region has powered the state of Victoria, 90% of the state, and I was working with leaders in the power industry in 2019 after the book came out, and I had a leader come up to me, a sort of middle manager leader, and say, Leah, have you got anything on leading? He actually framed it as leading change, but he said, but it's not my change. It's not my change, and I'm not necessarily on board with this particular change, but geez, I've got to bring my people along, and I've got to sell it to my people and get it over the line. He said he'd looked around and the stuff he'd seen on change was all about leading the change itself, or being the creator of the change. And he said, I'm finding that there's nothing really out there for me on leading through change. And it sparked in my head straight away, because, you know, I had the lens on at that point of, you know, this is my region. I work with a lot of these industries. They're transitioning. They've got closure dates, some of them, wouldn't it be great to do something, and it feeds in with the soft skills part really well. So I had the idea for it then, and then covid hit. So covid hit out of the blue, and I'd already had this gem and of an idea. And, you know, the start of the idea of leading through change, and I'd started developing the framework covid hits. And suddenly, everyone around the world, every leader around the world, is thrust into change and uncertainty like we've never seen or experienced before, and we saw the responses. Some leaders coped with that as well as they could, and were able to balance an empathetic and accountable approach and still get results. Some people went straight to dictator mode, or, as I like to call it, steamroller mode. Some leaders share their responsibility altogether. And you know, kind of went, Well, geez, this is a global emergency, which, of course, it was, let me just leave it to our politicians, or leave it to everyone else to steer this, and I don't have to do anything. So it was really those two big. Events the industry transition at a local level, and then covid hitting and me seeing this very varied response from leaders and going, there is clearly a gap here, and it's well intentioned leaders who didn't necessarily have the skills or a framework for how to support their people through really challenging times, and that's how the book came about.

Mick Spiers: 5:22

Yeah, wonderful Leah and you bring up some really interesting points here. I mean, this concept of leading through change, you could be in the industry that's being disrupted. It might be being disrupted by a competitor and you need to change, or you're not going to exist anymore. It could be a complete industry that's being disrupted, or it could be a global pandemic, like you said, right? So not everything is in our control. Sometimes we like to think so, but that is not the case. And in an ideal world, we would be leading change. We would be leading change, but sometimes the change is thrust upon us by external forces, and we have to cope with it. So let's start with that. All right, tell me more about the middle,

Leah Mether: 6:03

Yeah. So, the middle you know, yes, sometimes it's a big change, and we might be the CEO, and we've still got no control, because it is a global pandemic, or a government decision, for example, to transition out of coal, or maybe you work for a government agency and you didn't get funding, so you know it's not there anymore, and now you've got to cope with the fact that you don't have your programs funded. So there can be that sort of level. But there's also the people, leaders in the middle who sometimes can fall into the trap, or the mistake of thinking that because I'm not the big boss, because I'm not the person driving the change, the leading through change is something that other people do. It's something that the people at the top do. Or if you're in a big organization, there might even be a team, a change team, a change management team, driving the change. And it can be really easy to go, oh. So yet they communicate the change. It all lies with them. But my argument in this book is, if you are a people leader and there is change happening in your organization or in the world that impacts your team, you have a responsibility to steer your people through it the best way possible. It's not optional, because this is a base of leadership. Leadership's about people. Management's about tasks, but leadership's about people. And if you are going to be a leader in a true sense of the word, you have to care about your people. And if change is impacting them, you have that responsibility to steer them through.

Mick Spiers: 7:34

So, when you talk about this middle part here, I'm having this picture in my head of a tug of war, in fact, because you're actually going to be pulled in both directions. So, you're going to have this change that's been thrust upon you by external forces. It could be an executive management decision, or it could be a regulatory body that's decided a certain thing, or it could be a pandemic, like we said. But then you're also going to have people that are in your teams, that are in your sphere of influence, that have got questions that you may not even be able to answer, you don't know the answer. So you've got these people pulling you to them, saying, Help me here. I don't know what to do, and then you're also getting pulled in the other direction. So how do we balance that tug of war, Leah?

Leah Mether: 8:18

Yeah. it is really hard, and it's again. One of the reasons for writing this book, and I often acknowledge it when I am working with leaders, particularly if it's not with the senior leadership team. If you know, I often work across the levels of leadership in an organization, and when I'm working with these people in the middle, I say that outright, you've got the hardest job a lot of the time because you are so embedded with your team, that some leaders go too far that way, and they go fully into the Protect my team, so they start dissing the company message as well, and kind of forget that part of their gig is owning the message. And they go too far that way. Others go too far the other way. It's like, I'm a leader and I'm the boss, and we go into that bit of command and control. So I think the first thing to do is recognize it is hard, and it is a bit of a tug of war or a balance, and we won't always get it right, because we're human, and we will stuff it up sometimes, and that's okay, as long as we learn from it. But I think part of that is understanding what your role as a leader even is, and so I do find that I spend a bit of time speaking to a lot of leaders about that actually, just recognizing that you've got to have a foot in both camps. You've got to own the company message, not just because that is part of leadership, although that's part of it, but I actually tell a story in the book about one leader who got so embedded with his team to the point where he was dissing the change as well. And, you know, he was bagging it out to his team. And you know, this is rubbish and whatever. But then, of course, it came to crunch time where he had to have his team on board. They had to adopt the change. They had to go with it. And because he had bad mouthed the change so much with his team, when he sort of turned around and said, okay, but now, folks, we really do have to get on with it. We actually do have to do the change. Now his team went, nah, but we know we really don't have to, because you think it's rubbish too. So then he was in this awful position that he kind of created for himself, which was, oh no, but now I'm serious, oh now we actually do need to get on with it. So I think a big part of you know navigating the tension and balancing it is understanding what you know, not just how it impacts your people if you go too far, either way, but how it impacts you as a leader. You will often make your job harder if you go too far either way. Yeah,

Mick Spiers: 10:44

I'm loving this thought of what is your job? And yes, your job is to be there for your people and to create an environment where they can do their very best work absolutely but also your job is to represent the interests of the company, the strategic direction of the company, and to be that conduit to be able to make sure that that strategy is coming and hitting where the rubber hits the road. You're part of that conduit. And if you're not there, you're going to lose a big pocket of the company that is not on board with whatever that new strategy, or whatever that new change is, you're going to be the one that means that that part of the business doesn't come for the journey,

Leah Mether: 11:21

Yeah. And that's why I think so, a big part of leading through change is being able to balance and again, it's that duality empathy and accountability we do as leaders. We do need to care about our people. And I have had this conversation with a leader where he was quite an old school leader. And he said, Yeah. He almost said it flippantly. He said, Yeah, but what if you just don't care Leah, and I said, Well, you shouldn't be a leader. And I said it that bluntly. It is that simple. If you don't care about people, don't be a people leader, because that's what it's actually about. So you need to care and be empathetic to the feelings of your people. Again, I've had leaders say, but I don't do feelings. Feelings don't belong in the workplace. We just need people to get on with the change. My response to that is, well, that'd be great if humans weren't emotion driven beings, but the reality is, we are, and Brene Brown's got a great quote that to paraphrase, is we either invest time as leaders dealing with the feelings and concerns of our people, or it costs us a hell of a lot more time dealing with their problems, challenges, conflict, sick, leave, stress, leave, resignation. So some leaders say to me, I don't have time for the people bit. And I argue you don't have time to ignore the people bit, because then you'll end up in real trouble. So yes, we have to do the people in the empathy bit. But the reality is, we do still need people to do their job. We do still need them to show up and get on board and meet the business drivers and keep doing the work even while they're struggling and grappling with these changes, whatever they may be. So we need to be able to be empathetic and show people we care, so that we can hold them accountable. And you need both. If I go too far down the empathy, empathy only route, and don't hold people accountable, some people during change can get into some really poor and destructive behaviors or stop work altogether. That's not helpful. But if I go down the accountability route with no empathy and just say bad luck, get on with it. You've just got to do your job. Show up, you know, don't have time for this rubbish, human stuff. Well, then people will leave, or they won't do their best work for you, because they'll be so distracted by the impact of the change on them. So again, it's that duality of we need warmth and strength, empathy and accountability to be able to lead through change well.

Mick Spiers: 13:49

I love that as our first takeaway for the day, Leah. So, this balance between empathy and accountability, the warmth and strength, as you call it, we are responsible for the place where people are spending up to 1/3 of their life. So yes, we do need empathy and we need to understand where they're coming from, but we also have a business to run and where it's the collective success that makes everyone successful. So we do need to have our eye on that part as well. One of the things I want to bounce towards is that part one of your book is just called why. It's just called why? And you speak about leaders that may not even agree with the change, and they've got to get behind it. How does a leader that is not so sure about the change get to why themselves before they can convince others that this change is necessary? Surely they must have to convince themselves that it's necessary.

Unknown: 14:41

Yeah. We do right, and that might mean asking questions up the time to get the why for ourselves, because in a vacuum of information, we make up our own stories. Now, own stories can often be wildly inaccurate, and we see this during change a lot, but we can do it as leaders, too. You don't have. To agree with the change. You may not even like it, but if you understand why and the reason for it, that can help you get on board. You might be reluctant, or you might go, I don't think it's the right decision, but I understand for whatever reasons that have been well explained to me. Hopefully I understand the why myself, but this as leaders is where one of the concepts that I include in the book and speak about often in my workshops, is, if you're a leader, the importance of debate in private, unite in public. So if you're a leader, you actually have a responsibility to get that information yourself, and you are allowed, well, depending on your organization, of course, but you are allowed to challenge with respect and ask questions, or you should be in a good leadership team that should be encouraged and the time to debate and get more information and challenge a change and the ideas is in that privacy of a leadership team meeting, and to you might in that meeting, you know, really argue your case as to why you don't think it is the best change or the best way forward. But once you get that decision, if you again, it's that responsibility of being part of a leadership team, if the collective decision that comes out of that meeting, or the decision of the company is Yep, and we've heard you, and we get that. It's not the perfect solution, but we're going with this decision. You've got to unite. And the leadership team made the decision, not the other five people voted for this, and I thought it was rubbish, and you don't spread that around your organization, but I do think that it's on you, to an extent, to ask the questions as well. Yes, of course, ideally, you're working in a great leadership team where they've explained it well, but you've got to ask questions. And if in very rare hopefully it's rare cases, maybe not for some listeners, but if a change is so far out of alignment with your personal values, or who you are as a leader and as a human. And again, I talk about this in the book, you actually have to ask yourself a question at the start of a change, and that is, Are you in or are you out? Because you do need to be able to lead your people through it, and you don't have to love it to lead people through it. You just, you know, steering them through so they get through in the best shape possible. But it is a question that I don't think enough leaders ask themselves. To be frank, I think, you know, I worked with one leader in particular who comes to mind, and there was a big restructure announced at their organization, and about five years earlier, they'd been through a similar big restructure that had nearly broken them as a leader. It had gone really badly. It had been a really tough time, and they'd been in bad shape after that. And I was doing some one on one coaching with this person, and it was happening again, and they were saying, oh, gosh, I don't know if I can do it again. And, you know, have I got it in me? And I again explored with them? Well, do you even want to do it again? Are you up for it? And that's actually a really important conversation to have, because sometimes it might be, actually, no, I'm not. And knowing that in yourself, whether it's I'm tapping out that actually I need to look for a job elsewhere. For some people, it's really important, because to lead through change, you have to lead yourself first. You have to lead yourself before you lead others. And it does. It's hard, right? So you do have to be up for the challenge. It can be such a rewarding challenge. It can be the making of people as leaders, but it can be the breaking of you if you don't put some of that thought in at the start.

Mick Spiers: 18:45

Yeah. Really good, Leah. And so my takeaways here are debate in private, and then we're going to unite in public. And you may not even achieve 100% consensus at that table, but when you leave of that table, everyone needs to be committed, and that means that you might get curious, and you might ask questions. You might even put yourself in your team's shoes and go, Well, what do I think the team we're going to ask and ask those questions, and then part of your job is to sell the change to them, and it could be a bitter pill to swallow. It might be some of those industry changing ones of if we don't do this, we just won't exist anymore, right? Do we want jobs or do we not want jobs? But I also like that hard question that you're asking yourself is, am I in or am I out? Because if you're going to go and just disrupt the change and not get behind it, that's not going to help anyone, either. So you know a leader standing in front of their team and saying, I don't agree with any of this, but here we go, team that's not going to get you far. So are you in or are you out? Do I understand the why? And is it one of those situations of greater good? How am I going to sell it to my team? Debate it furiously at the leadership table, but then unite behind the message once we leave? Yeah, really good. All right. Next one I want to go through is change is scary. Change is scary. True. It's one of our biggest fears, changing the status quo. How do we deal now? Let's get back to empathy of our team. How do we deal with the emotional journey that our team are going to go through when there is a change that is necessary?

Leah Mether: 20:15

Yeah. Great question, and I think as a starting point, expect emotion. Don't be surprised by the fact that people have feelings about change, and getting some basic understanding of how humans react and respond to change can be really helpful, just at that base level to start with, because humans are really adaptable. We saw that during covid, we can adapt really well. However, our instinctive reaction to change, our primitive reaction to change, is and that amygdala, the primitive part of our brain, sees change as a potential threat. So, our instinctive reaction is to go, oh, potential threat. Fight, flight, freeze. That is our very first reaction. Our brains are wired for comfort and certainty. We like habits. We like patterns. You know, we conserve energy by, you know, finding easier ways to do things. So, when a change happens, and here's the thing which we've been talking about, some really big changes, interestingly, humans instinctively respond to small changes the same way they have big reactions to small changes. I often get teams to tell me share some examples of the small change that surprised you, the reaction of people. And people share things like, Oh, I moved a filing cabinet from one side of the office to the other, and it created, you know, this massive debate in the team or a big issue, someone moved a microwave out of a lunchroom. Well, didn't that set things off? The other thing I say is think about a time you've had positive change in your life and you've been surprised by your reaction to that. You know, positive change like maybe having a child or getting married or engaged and going, I want this, but then you have that crisis just before where you go, Oh, my goodness, is this the right thing? Even someone gave me an example of leaving a bad relationship and said I stayed for longer than I should have, even though I knew it was bad, because I knew it was bad change and the uncertainty of what it could look like if I left was scarier to me than staying in this bad relationship. And I share those as examples because I think it is important for us as leaders to go. So, expect the very first reaction to be that human, instinctive one where we have a bit of a freak out and we go and that potential threat, it's what we do next that's important, and how we steer people through that, but we've got to be ready and expect the emotional responses. There's some great work out there on common responses to change. They're actually really similar to the responses to grief, and it's often represented as what's known as the Kubler Ross change curve, which is the same basics of the stages of grief. Now it's not represented as a curve these days, because we recognize that the different stages are not linear. Some people, you know, it's the things listeners might be familiar with, whether it's denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, where some people go. And the new one that David Kessler added in 2020 which is finding meaning, there are still people in the power station that I work at, that I run training at, that has a closure date of 2028 who think it's not going to happen. There are still people in denial on there. So again, understanding that this is what we should expect to see helps you as a leader, be more prepared with how to respond. But if you don't have this base level understanding of how we work as humans, it can catch you by surprise. But when you have that understanding, you go, Okay, I know this is going to happen. I know my people are going to have feelings. Some people are going to resist it for a whole heap of different reasons, instead of getting upset myself and going, why are people doing this? Recognizing this is humans being humans. Now, how do I lead them through that?

Mick Spiers: 24:17

I love it, Leah. And you know, the humans being humans and having a normal human reaction, and everyone's might be slightly different, but it's still a human reaction. I'd love to test a theory with you, and bear with me for a second as we go through this one. So, we touched on this before that our brains are hardwired to fear loss more than we appreciate gain, and that's a survival instinct. It's unfortunate, but it's true. We fear loss more than we appreciate gain, and when we talk about this, we usually jump to the conclusion that the loss is, I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my salary. You know, those very tangible things, my view is, for a lot of it, it's the loss of identity. So I'm going to use. Just your industry for a moment, the one that you've been doing a lot of work in. If I am Victoria's leading expert in conventional power stations, and forgive me for not knowing the industry that well, but let's just call it conventional. And my industry is being disrupted towards new and innovative power sources. Whatever that case may be, my identity is being challenged, and I don't know, at the end of this journey, will I still be Victoria's leading expert in power generation and distribution, or am I going to be back with my training wheels on? How does that sit with you?

Leah Mether: 25:35

It absolutely sits because essentially, what you're talking to is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? The basic Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. We're at the bottom. We've got our physiological needs, water, shelter, air. The next one up is around, and I, you know, do this from memory, so I may skip them or get the order on, but the next one is our safety needs. Employment sits there. So, for some people, if they're being made redundant or things like that, that is a base human need that is threatened. So yes, it might be that. The next one up is love and belonging. We and we're not talking romantic love necessarily. We saw a lot of people threatened at that level during covid Because their sense of connection and belonging was taken away from them. The next one up is esteem, and that's what you're talking to there. That's your identity, that sense of maybe pride in what you do. So, now I work across a heap of industries, you know, water, power, education, health, a whole heap, but the one that's experiencing the biggest change at the moment is power. Now a lot of these workers are in extremely well paid jobs, unskilled, well paid jobs, some of them, you know, they went straight out of high school as 17 year olds, into the power industry. They're on big bucks, and they've done this their whole life, and there was a real sense of pride in we power the state, you turn your light on, and that's because of the work we're doing here. Now, in the last few, you know, 1015, years already, that sense of esteem has been challenged because, you know, we've recognized that coal fired power is not good for the environment. We need to transition away from that. So it's already been threatened, but now going well, we're shifting entirely, and the skills that we need for these new industries are not necessarily the skills you've got. Some people are looking at this and going well, I'm going to retrain or I'm going to upskill in different areas, but there's a whole swag of people, particularly those people who they're too young to retire, but they're kind of mid 50s. They're the ones I'm really seeing getting threatened at that esteem level where they're going. I don't know what to do next, but I can't stop work. And then there's self actualization right at the top of the hierarchy of needs. And I think again, going back to the point you mentioned it earlier. Mick around, people are impacted by change in different ways. There is no one size fits all response. So one person might go, oh, well, I'll get another job. She'll be right because where they're at in their career or their mindset. Someone else might have a whopping great mortgage that they just took out. They're the sole bread winner, and they've got a young family, and they're going, oh my goodness, what do I do? Like we're in real trouble. Others might be going, it's okay. I'll do FIFO work, fly in, fly out. I'm at a stage where I'll do that. Others who are saying, No, I don't want to leave my family. I don't want to leave the region that I live in. Everyone's got different things going on in their personal lives. We've got different communication styles, different backgrounds, different stories, so the response will be really varied. And again, this is what I'm seeing across industries where I'm working with people who are dealing with change, whether it's that you didn't get funding, or you've got budget uncertainty or those big restructures, there's just not a one size fits all response. And I think again, that's an important part of this. There's not just one way of leading people through change. Our job as leaders is really tough. It's really hard, people are complex.

Mick Spiers: 29:16

Human beings are complex, and they're going to have different reactions. And we can't do a one size fits all for what's going to work for one member of your team is not going to work for the other member of the team, but you need to be there for all of them. You need to be there for all of them. Now, speaking of which, I want to come back to now, engaging people in the change and actually listening to them, right? So, there's a former guest on the show had a saying and said, it's not that people don't like change. They don't like being changed. So, how do we then start listening to the team? Because often, even with a disruptive change that's coming from the outside, many of the best ideas are going to come from the grassroots level of the organization. How do we make sure that there's a listening in the other direction as well, Leah?

Leah Mether: 30:00

Yeah. So, something that I speak about a lot is the importance of connecting with curiosity and getting really curious about what your team thinks about the change. What do they think about the change? What are their concerns? What are they worried about? The more you know and understand your team and their feelings and their fears and their concerns, the better you can lead them through the change that gives you vital information that you can then maybe take up the change to your management and go, here are the concerns that people have got. We need to make sure that we're ideally proactively ceding answers to these things in our communication, so that we're allaying their fears or giving them the information they need. I think the phrase that I use a lot that helps me so much personally in a lot of the conversations I have, is get curious, not furious. Get curious not furious. And what that does is help encourage us to listen, to actually see, to try to understand where someone's coming from. Now, some people might be listening, going, Oh yeah, but Leah, if I get curious and ask questions of my people, they're going to go on these wild rants about everything that's wrong with the change. One of the parts that's important to upskill in there as leaders is how to facilitate those conversations, well, how to put some parameters and boundaries on it. You know, I again work with training some leaders in an organization where there was a really unpopular change. And, you know, one of them said to me, some of the responses I'm getting from the team is just the whole thing's rubbish. And he goes, you know, gosh, what do I do with that? And I said, well, in the Listening there and the getting curious, you need more information than the whole thing's rubbish. And how I encouraged her to go back to the team and delve deeper into this was, you know, when someone says the whole thing is rubbish. It's going say more about that. No, so the whole thing's rubbish. I can't do anything with that for you. What is it in particular about the change that you think's rubbish? And help them drill down to what is it in particular? And I have, again, a great story around this where it was someone who was really resistant to it was some new surveillance cameras that were being brought in on a site, and they were really resistant, going, nah, it's rubbish. It's not going to work. And it looked like it was just defiance and resistance. And again, I worked with this leader to listen as a coach to ask questions with curiosity, not just listen and let them rant with nothing back, but also not trying to get in there and counter it and say, No, it's fine. It's going to be great. Really get curious. So they did that, and they said, you know, say more. What is it about this new system that you're, you know, so upset about what's going on here. And when the leader drilled down with this person, it turned out the reason they were resistant is because their current setup on the site didn't have capability to do what they wanted to do with these cameras. So when he was saying it's never going to work, he wasn't actually being resistant. He actually meant, with our current setup and the equipment we have, it's not going to deliver the outcomes. So, when the leader actually worked with this person to go. Ah, so what do we need? And he empowered this person and said, So, if you were going to do it, if we were going to do this, what would you recommend, like, you know, are you happy to do a bit of research about what you think could work? And this person went off and did that and said, you know, if we're going to bring in a new system, this is the sort of thing we need. And he had the work, and he said, This is the sort of thing we need to look at. And I recommend the leader went, awesome. Let me take that up the chain to the leadership team. He did. They went with the innovation and the idea that came from the ground floor. There were so many wins in this the leader showed that he listened to his people, that he trusted them, He empowered them. But also, when the leader went up the chain, if he had just gone to the senior leadership team and said, My People don't think it's going to work, the senior leadership team would have said, bad luck. We're doing it, and your people just need to get on board. But because this leader took that role of more of a coach, he got the answer from his person about really, why it wouldn't work, got them engaged in coming up with a solution, and could then go to the leadership team and say, Hey, yes, we need to do this work. Yes, it's really important. One of the things that's been pointed out is an out took them through the journey. Here's another alternative that gets us the result and everyone's happier. Again, this doesn't take a lot of time. It's just that intentionality of listening and coaching your people. And you know, for those leaders who do say to. I don't have time for that. Imagine how much time that would have cost that leader if he had have just pushed it through, put the system in. That failed cost them a whole heap of money. They then had to, you know, come up with a new idea that would have cost him a mountain of time and money that is far surpasses the conversation with that person.

Mick Spiers: 35:21

Let me share with you, Leah. What I'm taking away from that really powerful. I love this, get curious not furious. Absolutely wonderful phrase I'm going to borrow that, if that's okay. Love this, get curious, not furious. And then what I'm going to say is that fear of, oh, this is going to open up a pandora's box, and I don't have time. I would say, you don't have time not to. You don't have time not to. It's going to cost you much more in in the future if you don't stop and do this. And one of the powerful things then is when the team feel heard, when the team feel understood, then they're more likely to be receptive to the story.

Leah Mether: 35:57

Absolutely.

Mick Spiers: 35:58

So, you're now positioning to them to be part of the change, not the change has been forced upon them. And then the things that I'm hearing from you almost in three phases there, the get curious is to ask the question, but then you got into expansive and then specific questions tell me more about that. What would you say is the real challenge here? So, really kind of going expansive at that point. And then there was a subtle thing that I picked up from your Leah there, which was the ability from that point to reframe. So, once you've gotten the person to the point where they've explained with more clarity what the real challenge is for them, then you can reframe it to go, that's really interesting. You've told me now what we can't do, what can we do? And now you can reframe back out of the challenge. How does that sit with you?

Leah Mether: 36:46

Yeah, it sits beautifully. Because, again, the people aren't going to be open to the reframe if they don't feel heard. We all want to feel seen and heard. It is such a basic need. And you know that's what empathy is, right? It's curiosity and action. Essentially, it's trying to understand someone's concern and where they're coming from. It's acknowledging their feelings and emotions that sounds hard. I can see you're frustrated. I appreciate your upset. Tell me more about why you're feeling threatened by this change or this new way of doing things, and when people can share that and feel seen and heard, then you are able to maybe reframe them, or, you know, have that conversation around accountability and needing to get the job done if they feel seen and heard. But if you skip over that, that's where people get stuck. That's where they'll get louder, they'll get angrier and more resistant, because you're not listening to me. You're just trying to steamroll over the top of me. So let me get bigger and louder, or go the opposite way and disconnect altogether, because I'm not seen and heard. So again, those people listening, and I don't think it's the leaders that are listening to this. It's probably the ones that aren't, but the ones that say, similar to, I don't do feelings and emotions are empathy. It's this fluffy, you know, extra thing. It's it's not important. And, you know, again, to still, or borrow the words of Brene Brown, empathy is the number one trust building tool we've got, because it does help people feel seen and heard. So we've got to do it, It's essential.

Mick Spiers: 38:22

That statement you said you're just not listening to me. That statement's been said far too many times in this world, and that went that tells you something that the person does not feel heard. All right, now we have almost accidentally segued towards this, because we've touched on one of them in part two of your book. And audience, please listen up to this. This is where your practical tips are going to come up. You talk about five C's of steering through change and leading through change. So, tell us about the five C's. So creating clarity, let's start with that.

Leah Mether: 38:55

Yeah, let's start with that. So these five C's, you know, they're not necessarily a set and forget. It's not like I've ticked that box and I move on and don't come back to it. It's, you know, the way I represent it in the book is five C's in a wheel, because you got to keep repeating these things over and over again. But the first one create clarity. So many people try to spin the message, or they get really complex and oh, how can I say this in, you know, that jargony way during change, we've got to keep it as simple and plain speak and clear as possible, clear as kind. The more clarity we can give people, the better. And here's the thing, you can provide clarity even if things are uncertain. Because one of the challenges I get to create clarity is people or leaders saying, but I don't have all the answers. Leah, I don't know what's going on either. You can still provide a whole heap of clarity to your team. First off, you can help give them the information you do have, and a really simple framework for that listeners when you're communicating during uncertain times is sharing. Number one, here's what we. Know. Number two, here's what we're doing about it. Number three, here's what we don't know. And number four, here's how I'll let you know once we have those answers. That third point what we don't know. Leaders often skip that because they think I don't know the answer to that question. So I won't say anything about that, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the bit everyone's talking about is that bit that's the elephant in the room. So actually acknowledge, I know there's lots of questions about, for example, will there be any redundancies, or will there be whatever? I wish I had an answer for you, but the reality is, those decisions have not been made, yet my commitment to you, though, is to keep asking the question, and as soon as I've got that information to let you know. So again, people can trust you. It's not that you have the information and not sharing you. The other thing just here quickly is the clarity you can provide to your team around how you want to lead them through the change it might be, you know what? We don't have all the answers yet, but here's how I want us to navigate this change as a team. Here's what I want us to be known for as we go through this so you can there's still things you can provide clarity on, even if you don't have all the answers about the change itself. That's the first one, create clarity.

Mick Spiers: 41:20

Yeah, nicely. And Yeah, certainly, in a vacuum of information, people draw their own conclusions, so a null update is often better than no update. All right, so telling them, Hey, there's no further information today, but we're still working through it, and we're in this together. Yeah, all of those messages are really powerful. All right, so we've already touched on this one a little bit, but connect with curiosity, so we've touched on it more. What else can you say about connect with curiosity?

Leah Mether: 41:47

Yeah. So, this is again where that empathy piece comes in. So, you create the clarity and that does involve us doing a bit of telling, you know, sharing the message, doing a bit of telling. So that's why connect with curiosity is the second C's, because it's the importance of asking questions. Okay, so now I've provided some information. How's that sitting with people? What questions do you have? What concerns, what do you want to know? And this is the importance of really seeing your role as a leader, as needing to connect with your team, and putting that really strong empathy piece into play. Get curious. Why are people reacting that way? What can you learn from them? Get curious as well about your own reaction to the change and your own reaction to other people's emotions. Because it might be that you're getting really frustrated with certain people, and yes, maybe it's about their behavior, but maybe it's actually about you. Maybe you struggle with people who show that sort of emotion or have that sort of reaction, and this is why we have to think about how we're leading ourselves through the change as well. So yes, get curious with your people, but also get curious with yourself. One thing, I'm seeing a lot at the moment as when we're recording this, it's getting towards the end of the year, people are getting tired. End of 2023 I'm seeing a lot of people behaving in ways that aren't normal for them. They're tired. Their tolerance is shot. They're getting really snappy with people again, connecting with curiosity. Yourself there of going, Oh, I'm actually not at my best at the moment. My communication is not at its best at the moment. And understanding that that's a you issue, not another people issue, is a really important one there.

Mick Spiers: 43:31

That's a great reminder, Leah. And this noticing and naming your own emotions and getting curious about why. What is this emotion? Why this emotion? Why this emotion? Now? It can help you to be in a better space where you can help others through their own emotional journey. Yeah, really good. All right. Challenge with candor, third C's.

Unknown: 43:51

Yeah, and we touched on this a bit earlier, the importance of balancing warmth and strength and empathy and accountability. We do still need people to do their jobs, and the reason that connect with curiosity goes before challenge with candor is because if we've done that empathy piece really genuinely, it has to be genuine. People see through it. If it's not and really got curious, then we can hold people accountable to their behavior. Now the key here in challenge with candor, and I talk about challenging mindsets, challenging focus, challenging behavior. The best way to do this is proactively. Don't wait for people to behave poorly, to then hold them accountable, particularly if you know a change is happening, or there's a stressful period coming up, or something's going to be hard for your team, having the conversation proactively about what sort of behavior do we want to see through the change empathizing yet we know it's going to be hard, but how do we want to show up for each other? How do we want to be working as we're navigating this tricky time? It's going to get hard. We're going to get stressed. Okay? We're going to get stressed out. We might not be at our best. So, what are the core behaviors we need to remember to live by through this. And if you it's even more powerful if you do this as a team, rather than you as a leader dictating it to your team, if you do this as a team, and, you know, do this brainstorming and come up with maybe some core behaviors that you're going to remind each other and be accountable for during the change, then that gives you a lever to pull. As a leader, you can't hold people accountable if they're not clear on what they're being held accountable for. And this happens all the time. People say, Oh, I've got to call that person out on their poor behavior. And I say, cool. Did you let them know what good behavior looked like? And the number of people that go oh no, but they should just know it's like really, because are they a mind reader? Do they know what good performance and good behavior under pressure looks like? So, you've got to set that expectation and have that shared understanding so that you can hold people accountable but challenging mindset, challenging focus, you know, to draw on Stephen Covey's beautiful circles of influence model. That's an oldie, but it's a goodie. What can I control? What can I influence? What do I need to let go of? Because if we don't get that sort of focus during uncertainty and change, we can go down the rabbit warren of worrying about what could possibly happen, maybe if, but when, and we can go into the vortex of spending half of our days, not all our day, whinging and about the same things, and stressing and worrying, and we can't control it, and we can't influence it. So, we do need people to still do good work, and we do need to challenge them to keep focused, and particularly if you're in an industry where safety is an issue, we need people to go home safe. So, we have to set the expectation. But then, crucially, to everyone listening, we do have to hold people accountable for their behavior. That doesn't mean that we come down like a ton of bricks. One of the great frameworks I love is the what's okay, what's not okay, framework. People are allowed to feel emotions. You're allowed to be angry. There are no bad emotions. Emotions are just data. So what I think a lot of leaders fall into the trap of doing is they say things like, don't get angry. Oh, that's rubbish. Says who you're allowed to be angry, but it's how you express the anger that we have to hold people accountable for. So what I might say to you, Mick, is, you know, if you were angry at me in a meeting, how I might manage that afterwards is say, You know what? Mick, it's okay to be angry and frustrated right now, but what's not okay is to slam the table, roll your eyes out at me and storm out of the meeting, and what I'm doing there is separating the emotion from the behavior. I'm not telling you how to feel, but I'm holding you accountable for the behavior, and we have to do that if you as a leader, do not challenge with candor and have the frank conversations and hold people accountable. Behavior can get out of control under pressure, and that's no good for anyone.

Mick Spiers: 48:04

Yeah. Wonderful, Leah. So, what I'm taking away from that is, collectively as a team, deciding the behaviors that you want to be proud of in the organization. I'm going to say you probably need to role model those behaviors as well, and then we're going to get the behavior that we celebrate, that we reward and that we tolerate. And the tolerate bit is the bit where the candorous conversation comes in. And basically the challenge directly care personally, which is what you showed when you said that example, the care personally was, look, understand why you're angry, but it's not okay to blah, blah, blah, and insert the behavior. Yeah, really powerful. All right. Coach with compassion. Tell us the fourth C's, coach with compassion.

Leah Mether: 48:42

Yeah, Coach with compassion. So, when we spoke earlier about connect with curiosity, and there is a bit of crossover here, but connect with curiosity is often that curiosity we get with the team. Okay, we can do it at an individual level, but coach with compassion is taking it down to that next level, that more granular level, with individuals, and it's making the time to meet with people one on one during change or challenging times, not to talk about their tasks, not to talk about, you know, their workload, but to really check in on how they're traveling As a human, not to solve their problems, not to do it for them, not to be the rescuer. This is a coaching role, so what it is about doing is asking questions that prompt the person's insight to help them solve their own problems, and to give you some of that information that can be really valuable as a leader, to check in on how someone's traveling really and not just the people you're worried about. Something to keep in mind for leaders leading through change is the importance of checking in on your good performance, because if you give all your attention to the people who are struggling and the people who are really challenged by it, you might miss. The fact that one of your top performers is maybe halfway out the door and thinking about leaving and because you didn't check in on how they're going, and maybe there's opportunity in the change that they're interested in, but you never ask the question, you can be at risk of losing good people. Compassion is a bit different to empathy. Compassion is caring about the person trying to understand where they're coming from, but also trying to help again, not do it for them, but trying to help so that co piece of coaching and asking great questions and trying to support them to find their own answers, crucial, it might be that you discover through these conversations that someone in your team is not okay. Now, you don't have to be a psychologist, and you don't have to be a counselor. You have to be human, though, and it might be that there you've got an employee assistance program you can link them in with. It might be that you could recommend that, you know, have they considered seeing a GP. It's not you telling them what to do, it's asking those questions. You know, what have you thought about doing to manage your stress levels through this change? You know? What have you considered putting in place at work? What have you considered putting in place at home and just asking those prompting questions? What does success look like to you as you navigate this change, what do you want to be known for? How do you want to be communicated with through this? It's asking those great questions that help you to be able to lead this person. You know, coaching questions are so powerful anyway, but particularly during change. This is where people need that extra attention. Again, as we said at the start, if you think you don't have time to do this, you don't have time not to, because you'll lose touch with where people are at. And I've seen teams where there's been a mass exodus that has caught the leader completely unawares, and everyone's sitting there thinking, well, you should have seen this coming a mile off, but they got so focused on the tasks that they forgot about the people.

Mick Spiers: 52:01

What I'm hearing there earlier is another balancing act, the coaching versus the compassion and having it come together and always asking yourself the question. What is going to serve this person well right now? Is it to grab hold of the shovel and help them dig right now and sometimes, sometimes that is the case, or is it to empower them and give them some positive affirmations that they can solve it themselves. Is it to let them solve themselves so that they learn how to solve their own problems, but just asking yourself that questions, what is going to serve them best right now? How does that sit with you?

Leah Mether: 52:36

Really, well. And what I also would suggest there is yes, ask yourself that question. But if you really don't know the answer, ask them the question too. What do you need from me right now? How can I best support you through this? It comes up a lot, actually, in the number of leaders well intentioned who jump straight to problem solver mode. And someone in the conversation says, I'm actually really struggling at the moment, and they start sharing, and the leader said, Oh, well, have you tried X, Y and Z? Instead of saying, That sounds hard, what do you need from me right now? Do you just need me to listen? Do you want me to share my experience in a similar situation? Would you like some advice on what I think could be useful here and hand it over to them. You will be amazed, folks, how often the other person says, I've just needed someone to listen. I just needed to get that off my chest. And I've got to say for everyone listening, this is a good one for your personal relationships as well. Some of us as leaders jump into this role at home with our partners, and our partner comes home after a bad day and says, Oh, I had a shocker today. And you jump straight into well, did you try having a conversation with them? And then they get annoyed at you because they just wanted you to listen. So again, that coaching question, what do you need from me right now?

Mick Spiers: 53:56

Love it. That's great advice for our personal relationships as well, Leah. All right, commit with consistency. The fifth C's, tell us about that.

Leah Mether: 54:02

Yeah. The fifth C's, lucky last in the model, communicating change is not something you do once. It's not as one, God love him. Leader said to me, oh, but I told him in an email two weeks ago, and in his mind, tick, change communicated. We have to keep the drum when we're communicating change, when we're leading through change. Because and think about if you've ever, you know, hopefully not too many listeners have been in this position, but if you've ever got bad news, bad health news, perhaps in a doctor's appointment or a surprise, a shock, we don't hear everything. We hear the first bit of the conversation, and then we go on our own spiral about, oh my gosh, what does this mean for me? What does this mean for my family? Is, you know, what does it mean for my job? And if that's the only communication

Mick Spiers: 54:51

Yeah. Wonderful, Leah. I think that's a good one you get, you don't get the answers. So, it's making sure you keep committing to the drum on the change message. And look at doing it in different ways it might be. Be, there's the to bring to a head as well, with this role modeling as well. So initial delivery, but then you might have some of these coaching conversations, or Q and A sessions. It might be developing some great stories and doing storytelling around it. It might be, you know, newsletters, town halls. There's got a challenging question for you now, and here's a takeaway so many things you can do here, but it's seeing it as I've got to be consistent in my messaging. That doesn't mean that the information can't change over time, because new information might come to hand, but you've got to do it for everyone listening. So listen to this summary consistently. The other thing, when we talk about commit with consistency, we are not just talking about our communication, carefully, and then the final question coming to Leah, so we are talking about our own behavior. And you touched on it before. Mick around modeling the behavior we want to see in other people. One of the quickest ways to break trust when you are leading people through change is to tell everyone to do something we've got our five C's when we're going to lead courageously and then not do it yourself. Okay? So, oh, we've just got to remember to keep doing the work and keep being kind to each other through the change. And if you're out there not coping and through change. We've got our creating clarity. We're going to you're being really rude and abrupt to people, and you're stressed out to the max, and what you're modeling is the opposite of what you're telling people. That old cliche of actions speak louder than words is a cliche, because it's true. connect with curiosity, we're going to challenge with candor, Okay? So, you have to commit, as a leader, to being consistent in how you show up with the messaging you're putting out there, because you're modeling the behavior to your team. And I we're going to coach with compassion, and we're going to had a leader say to me, Leah, does this mean that as leaders, we're held to a higher standard? And my response was, yes, you are held to a higher standard. That's part of leadership, it commit with consistency. So, we're the ones that are role doesn't mean other people don't have to meet the standard as well. But if you are leading people, they are looking to you, you can't expect other people to be behaving in a particular way modeling what we're looking to see. That sounds really good, if you're not leading the way for them. So committing to consistency, yes, through your communication and messaging, keep the drum, keep the communication flowing, but also make sure that you're walking your talk is crucial. and that 5 C's model, I fell in love with it as soon as I read

Leah Mether: 57:04

My top tip on where to begin, is this folks start by it. Leah, but how do people start? If someone's listening to this show and they're going, I want to do everything that Leah just said, but I don't know where to begin. asking yourself the question, what do I want to be known for as a leader? What do I want people to say about me when I'm not in the room as I lead through this change? And this is a very personal question. This is not Oh, let me throw the words I think I'm meant to say up on a pretty page and stick it on a poster. This is connecting really deeply with who you are and what you want to be known for, because this almost becomes your north star and your touchstone, because it is going to get hard for you personally as a leader if you're navigating change and if you don't get clear on how you want to show up and the sort of leader you want to be, it's really easy under pressure to get blown off course and to behave in ways that are not aligned with who you want to be. And I want to just quickly share a personal story on this of where I've used this to get through and lead myself through change, not just in a work environment, but in my personal life. And there'll be many listeners who like me have navigated a marriage, separation and divorce. Big change, right? Big change with potential for high conflict. When I was navigating that I was actually writing this book. So the reason I know the strategies in this book work Steer Through The Storm is because I put them into practice in a personal space as I wrote this book and I was navigating a marriage separation. And at the start of that process, I took my own advice, and I asked myself that question. I went, this is going to be hard, potential for high conflict. How do I want to lead my family, including my ex husband and my kids, through this storm of change? And I came up with, I want to lead through this change, I want to be known for navigating this period with nothing but love, kindness and compassion. Now, listeners, those are easy words to say. They are hard to do through something as tough as a marriage separation, but I got really clear on this isn't about other people. This isn't about how other people are behaving or what's coming back at me. This is about me and the sort of person I want to be, and I want to be able to hand on heart at the end of this period, say I'm comfortable that I handled that with love, kindness and compassion. Now, did that mean I always wanted to behave like that? Did it mean that sometimes I didn't want to have event and a rant to of course, I'm human, but because I got so crystal clear on that's who I wanted to be, it guided my behavior. It meant that if I wanted to have a vent, for example, that I would do that safely with a safe person in private, maybe one of my sisters and I would have that conversation to get that off my chest, so that when I showed up for my kids and my ex husband and my family, I could model the love, kindness and compassion that I wanted to show for those listening, whether it's personal challenge and change or professional challenge and change, you have to get clear on that, and You can hear the passion I speak with about this, because it really I got the words right for me. And when you get the words right for you, when you really connect in with what you want to be known for, that becomes a very, very powerful tool for keeping you in line with the sort of leader you want to be.

Mick Spiers: 1:01:20

There were two really powerful things I picked up there, Leah. One is the obvious one, which is, what do I want to be known for? How do I want people to experience me? What's it like to be led by me? All of those type of questions. But I also picked up something else there, which is, you had self compassion, that you're human being too, and you had a coping mechanism, which was, you know, the ability to vent to your sister who's just going to listen to you absolutely, really powerful advice and a great way to finish the show. So we've got our five C's, but we've also got an actionable thing to think about, an immediate action to think about, what do we want to be known for and have that govern the way that we lead through change? Really love it, Leah. So, let's go now to our four questions that we ask all of our cascades. So this is our Rapid Round. What's the one thing you know now? Leah Mether, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Leah Mether: 1:02:11

Oh, this is an easy one for me. That there's no such thing as perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. I refer to myself these days as a recovering perfectionist. For a really long time, I thought it was a good thing about myself, and it helped me achieve great marks at school. It helped me, you know, get really far in lots of areas. It also made me sick. It held me back in lots of ways, because if you can't be perfect, you won't try certain things that challenge you. You procrastinate a lot. That's still something I bash up against now sometimes. So, yeah. 20 year old me needed to know that there is no such thing as perfect and Done is better than perfect and helping getting over that has been what's allowed me to write two books and do the work that I do now, and my top business value that I live by is, these days,nhave a crack.

Mick Spiers: 1:03:03

Love it. All right, what's your favorite book?

Unknown: 1:03:06

This is such a hard question. I knew it was coming up. So what I'm going to go with is, rather than favorite books, I'm a voracious reader, there's so many. I'm going to go with the most impactful book recently, which for me, and I've got it here beside me, and maybe some listeners have read it is 4000 weeks by Oliver Berkman. And what it's about is the fact that, if we live till we're 80 folks, we get 4000 weeks. Terrifying, right? 4000 weeks, is it? The subheading is time management for mortals. And essentially the premise of that book is there will never be enough time to do all the things you want to so actually take that pressure off. And what we have to focus on as leaders is getting ruthless about what we say yes and what we say no to. We cannot do it all. You will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you still won't get it all done. You've got 4000 weeks. What are you going to put in them?

Mick Spiers: 1:04:02

That's very humbling and scary, but I love it. Yeah, well done. What's your favorite quote?

Leah Mether: 1:04:07

Oh, my favorite quote, I'm going to go with Maya Angelou, success is loving life and daring to live it. I am a quote person. I do love quotes, but that is one that I absolutely live by "Success is loving life and daring to live it."

Mick Spiers: 1:04:22

I love it Leah, that's really powerful. And finally, how do people find you? There's going to be people that are listening to this. They might be trying to lead through change themselves right now, and they need help. They might want to read your books. How do people find you and take advantage of your services or buy your books?

Unknown: 1:04:37

Yeah. So people can find me, If you plug my name Lea Mether into Google, my website, my social channels, will come up. So leahmether.com.au is the website. There's also a YouTube channel, and one of the things I've been doing for many years now is a weekly segment called Ask Leah, where people send me their questions and I record a quick video. With some advice, So whether it's YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook or my website, you can find a whole heap of free content on there. Or, of course, the books are available through my website. Or you know, all the online bookstores out there as well.

Mick Spiers: 1:05:12

All right. Brilliant, Leah. This has been a And there is, there are audio book versions of both books, if people are listening to the podcast and they prefer to listen to consume their content. You can find them on your major audio platforms as well. wonderful conversation, I feel richer for having it. For sure, You really got me to stop and think and reflect on leading through change. Not just leading change, but leading through change gave us some wonderful, actionable insights and takeaways. Thank you so much for the gift of your time and your wisdom and insights today.

Unknown: 1:05:48

Thanks so much, Mick. And thank you everyone for listening.

Mick Spiers: 1:05:51

You've been listening to The Leadership Project in the next episode, I'm joined by Scott Mautz. You may know Scott from multiple linkedIn learning sessions, he has facilitated in our discussion. He shares with us what it takes to be a mentally strong leader. You do not want to miss this. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.