This is my second newsletter of 2025, and I have been reflecting on the major change my wife, and I had over the Christmas and New Year period and the lessons for leadership hidden within.

Before I reveal those lessons, let me put the move into context. We lived in Pascoe Vale, a suburb 9 km north of Melbourne's central business district. We moved to Edithvale, a beachside suburb 28 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. 

We moved from a 3-level townhouse with four bedrooms to a one-level villa unit with 2.5 bedrooms (the 0.5 to be used as my office).

This was a sea change in every sense of the word.

There were many reasons for the move, but the driving one was the need to eliminate stairs from our home life. Herein lies the first lesson.

Wellbeing

We had the loveliest of neighbours in our block of 12 townhouses. Everyone was there for each other if anyone needed something. We always knew if we had left the garage door open, and there was always someone to help move furniture or take in a parcel.

We had 2 or 3 gatherings a year over drinks and pizza, and the neighbours all got together to throw us a leaving party! We have never had neighbours like those, and we doubt we ever will. We overlooked a reserve, which is a protected area for examples of Australian natural landscapes and native plants and animals. It incorporated a children’s playground. A 2-minute walk away was a wetland providing a habitat for a diversity of life, plants and animals.

Why would we move? Our well-being had to come first. My wife had two knee operations in 2024, and whilst I am relatively mobile, I am getting no younger, so our well-being was the main driver for the move. Our 3-level townhouse was not good for our well-being – we needed to be on one level.

Lesson

Make well-being your number one priority. However drastic the change may be for you to improve your well-being, you must do it. You are no good to anyone else if you are not being good to yourself.

Is it serving you?

The move from 3 floors and four bedrooms to 1 floor and 2.5 bedrooms meant considerable downsizing. Considerable is probably an understatement, and I should say “massive”.

Neither of us is a hoarder by nature, so that was a good start. We had to look in every room and ask the question, “Is it serving us?” “Have we used it recently?” “When was the last time we used it?”

We didn’t only have to ask, “Is it serving us today?” but also “Will it serve us in the new house?” That means, “Will we have room for it?”

The first round was easy enough, but with each round, it gets more difficult. Asking, “How many backpacks do I really need?” was not too hard, but asking, “Which pieces of furniture are we going to get rid of in order to fit into the new house?” was much harder. 

Then, it gets emotional. I will give you an example. I am a big Elvis fan and I had a large collection of records, books, magazines, and memorabilia I had collected over 30 years. It was boxed and had moved with me from the UK in 1998 and then moved with me from house to house in Australia, where most of it remained in the garage. I had to ask myself, “Am I going to move it again when there really is no space to store it?” It was the hardest decision I had to make, but in my heart, I knew what the answer had to be. It was time to let go. And so, I did.

It was not serving me. My memories were, but the physical paraphernalia was not.

Lesson

Let go of what is not serving you. For leaders, this means looking at your competencies and capabilities and asking if they are serving you today and tomorrow. If you read my newsletters and watch my videos, you will know I talk a lot about the need to learn-unlearn-relearn.

It was the American businessman and futurist Alvin Toffler who said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

As leaders, we must recognise and accept that the knowledge that has worked so far is no longer relevant or has limited value. We must eliminate it.

We must replace the knowledge we eliminate with new knowledge.

We have to remain open to new experiences and knowledge. Do not unlearn and relearn only to close the door again. Continually question and challenge what you know and ensure it is relevant and current. Keep learning to unlearn and relearn.

The hardest part of the learn, unlearn, relearn process is unlearn. Most people are familiar with learning, but unlearning is often a new concept. It is more than forgetting something you learned some time ago, like how to speak French. It is about making space for new ideas and perspectives. To do that, you must let go of ingrained ways of thinking and operating to make way for relearning.

You must let go of things that may have worked well for you in the past, challenge your long-held assumptions, and be open to changing your mindset. It is about the courage to change and the humility to admit that what you knew yesterday may no longer be relevant. Unlearning is a process of questioning the validity of what you believe in.

If it is not serving you, why are you carrying it around

Active listening

Active listening was key for us as a couple to truly hear what each of us thought as we worked through the downsizing process.

We had to make a conscious effort to not only hear the words being spoken but, more importantly, the complete message being communicated.

It is a human instinct to what to solve a problem for another person, but interrupting stops the other person from speaking and has a negative impact on the conversation.

I know I was guilty of interrupting when I thought I had a solution to a space challenge that was up for discussion. I was guilty of what Steven Covey said in his book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Successful People”, most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.

There were many occasions when we were both feeling the stress of the move, all that had to be done, and the hard decisions we had to make. It was easy to get frustrated and interrupt, which just says that my voice is more important, and I don't have the time to listen to what you have to say.

As voices got louder to be heard, one of us would intervene, saying, “We need to be kind to each other,” which meant “, We need to really listen to each other.”

Lesson

There is a massive impact if you are a leader and you cannot listen.

All the other skills you must possess to be a good leader rely on listening. These skills include empathy, providing direction, coaching and mentoring, and support and development.

We must practice active listening. This enables us to listen to obtain information, listen to understand, and listen to learn. If you practice active listening, it means you are making a conscious effort to not only hear the words being spoken but, more importantly, the complete message that is being communicated.

If you want someone to tell you how they are really feeling or share their ideas, they must know that you are genuinely interested.

There are many ways to do this.

·       Face the person who is talking to you.

·       Make eye contact.

·       Open up and relax. Do not create a barrier by crossing your arms or ankles or putting your hands in your pockets.

·       Nod to signal you are engaged, interested, and understanding. Nodding encourages the other person to keep talking.

·       As you are nodding, try simple utterances such as, “Ah ha” or “mmhmm” or “I see. This keeps the conversation moving.

·       Use facial expressions to reflect what is being said. Smile, frown, and raise your eyebrows as is fitting.

·       Lean in so they know you are listening.

·       Empathise by using the same facial expressions.

·       Ask questions without constantly interrupting. Ask permission to ask a question. This shows you are interested in what they are saying and you want to know more.

·       When the other person finishes speaking, reflect and use your own words to summarise what they have said so they know you were listening.

Empathy

One of the most important things we had to do was to be empathetic to each other. I needed my wife to understand how I felt about departing with my Elvis collection. I need to understand how she felt about reducing her Tarot collection.

It is often said that empathy means walking a mile in another person’s shoes. I do not believe that. Walking a mile in my wife’s shoes would not help me understand how she was feeling. I needed to understand how she felt walking in her shoes. Empathy is the ability to recognise and understand what others are feeling. Not how you would feel in their situation.

Lesson

Leaders must have true and authentic empathetic conversations with employees and determine the best way to address their needs whilst achieving business outcomes. 

Empathy is the ability to recognise and understand what others are feeling. Furthermore, it involves understanding the underlying reasons for another person’s behaviour.

It is not sympathy. Sympathy is more one-directional – you feel sad for what someone else is experiencing, but you have little comprehension of what that feels like.

It cannot be a buzzword. It must be a cultural principle.

Everyone must recognise that emotional transformation is an ongoing journey. Everyone must work on themselves to deepen their self-awareness so they can manage their own emotions and help others navigate theirs.

We must enable everyone to better learn and demonstrate empathy.

Adaptive

Since making the move, we have had to adapt daily. The way we used to occupy the kitchen has had to change, as we have less room to manoeuvre around each other. We have had to adapt to the beach life rather than suburban life. That was not such a hard change to make! We have had to adapt a different way of parking our cars in the garage.

Having made such a drastic change means that being adaptive is of the utmost importance. Each day, we come across situations that require us to do things differently and adopt different approaches.

We have embraced being adaptive as we knew that if we didn’t, we would start to see the changes in accommodation as restrictive rather than a new adventure. We would see problems rather than opportunities.

We have had to weigh up different perspectives to come up with decisions. We have had to admit when we didn’t get something right and try something different. We embraced those setbacks as opportunities. We have challenged the way we have done things in the past as they are not going to work in our new environment.

Lesson

Leaders must be adaptive. The world is constantly changing, and the speed of change is increasing, meaning that adaption is necessary for survival, not only for the individual but also for the team and the organisation. Organisations with adaptive leaders are better prepared to pivot constantly, fail fast and move on.

Adaptive leaders will try new strategies to improve companies through change. They empower those around them to innovate and experiment, even if this results in occasional setbacks.

Summary

We are so happy with the decision we have made and are loving the beach life. We had to work at a fantastic result through active listening, empathy, unlearning and relearning, and adaptability.

Leaders will be successful when they do the same.