Wise words from former US First Lady Michelle Obama. During Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, she said:

“When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is: “When they go low, we go high.”

I was reading Chris Westfall’s thought-provoking article, “ Bullying Is Back: How Hard-Line Leadership is Crushing Morale, “ when those words came to mind.

In his article, Chris highlights that leadership strategies involving coercion and emphasising punishment are on the rise.

Chris refers to lessons from our childhood about bullying and their ongoing relevance in the workplace. This prompted me to reflect on how to apply those lessons to' go high when they go low.”

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A few weeks ago, my newsletter explored the financial ramifications of overlooking employee experience within our organisations. The figures were more than significant.

I outlined how feedback on employee experience can be gathered beyond the annual or biannual survey.

I also referenced the key drivers of employee experience as determined by Qualtrics and explored the drivers of trust, authority and empowerment. This week, I want to look at work-life balance, recognition, and growth and development.

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You cannot afford to ignore the cost of employee disengagement. There are two key drivers of the employee experience (EX). TRUST.trust must permeate every part of the organisation and be an integral part of company culture. Leaders and managers must take deliberate action to demonstrate trust through their words and behaviours, but those actions must penetrate every aspect of the organisation. Trust must be a value lived by everyone.

AUTHORITY AND EMPOWERMENT. Everyone must feel they have the appropriate freedom to exercise their judgment and do their jobs to the best of their ability. Everyone must have autonomy at work - a widely recognised driver of positive employee attitudes. When employees are genuinely given authority and empowerment, they feel trusted.

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I doubt I would find one person who would disagree that employee engagement is a key driver of organisational success.

When employees are engaged, they are motivated and committed to the organisation. Productivity and profitability increase.

So, why are organisations struggling to improve the EX?

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Having now written five books (8 if you include the three small business books for Bookboon), people are surprised when I call myself an accidental author. But that is how it all started.

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You will embark on a journey of learning, unlearning, and relearning. I liken your leadership journey to the hero’s journey. 

The hero’s journey is a classic story structure derived from Joseph Campbell’s monomyth from his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero goes on a quest to achieve a goal and must overcome obstacles and fears before embarking on the return journey home.

There are three stages to the hero’s journey:

·       Separation: the hero leaves the familiar world behind

·       Initiation: the hero learns to navigate the unfamiliar world

·       Return: the hero returns to the familiar world

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Successful organisations will have leaders who can proficiently navigate the shifting terrain while enabling their people to navigate their changing direction successfully.

As a leader, you must be The Visionary, inspiring others and painting the vision of the future and what it will look like for the individual and team.

You must be The Sherpa, helping the team reach their destination, overcoming obstacles, and ensuring no one gets lost.

You must be The Seer, constantly observing what is happening around you and within your team. You are intuitive and can sense when intervention is necessary. You lead with empathy. 

You are The Coach who plans and enacts strategies for the team to achieve goals. You motivate and develop high-performing teams.

You must be The Valiant, brave and courageous, transparent and vulnerable, authentic and trustworthy, and dependable.

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“Technological change, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts and the green transition – individually and in combination – are among the major drivers expected to shape and transform the global labour market by 2030.”

The most critical skills selected by surveyed organisations were:

1.     Analytical thinking

2.     Resilience, flexibility and agility

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This is my second newsletter of 2025, and I have been reflecting on the house move I made 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.

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Unbossing became a workplace trend in 2024. Unbossing is the practice of thinning out middle management layers.

Some bodies of thought, such as McKinsey, say that flattening an organisation’s structure minimises micromanagement and allows for closer collaboration between employees and senior leadership.

Others place the practice firmly in the basket of cost-cutting. Whatever the reason, it has impacts if not done correctly. I am a big fan of decentralisation, but it should not just be a matter of laying off managers and allowing those who remain to pick up the workload.

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Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 highlights the decline in mental well-being.

Many of us have been raising awareness of workplace stress levels and its impact on employee mental health. We even made this video three years ago.

Despite many interventions and solutions on the table, employee mental well-being is declining.

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Nirit Cohen, writing for Forbes, was the inspiration for this newsletter. In part, her article, “Why Amazon’s CEO Is Right About RTO – For All The Wrong Reasons”, echoes what I have been speaking and writing about recently and the core of my latest book “Be REMARKABLE! Learn to Unlearn: The New Leadership Mindset.”

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I dislike the term hybrid. It is binary.  It is the office or somewhere else which is generally home.

Future work models should not be binary. They should allow employees to work where they want, when they want, and how they want. This may or may not include the traditional office.

The employees, their team, and their leader must decide when it makes sense to co-locate, which could be in the office or a coworking space. At all other times, I locate myself where I do my best work, whether in a café, library, home office, hired workspace, etc. It is not a binary solution.

A future working model must provide employees autonomy and flexibility to choose where they work.

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A few weeks ago, my newsletter was about Giving Feedback. I planned to follow up with this newsletter, but I got interrupted by the mixed messages being sent out by PwC. So, we are now back on track, and I want to explore why we, particularly leaders, must ask for feedback.

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Last month (September 2024), PwC UK mandated employees to return to the office or be with clients 60% of the time (up from 40% currently). Their attendance will be tracked to check adherence to the new rules. Reviews of the data pertaining to each individual employee will take place every month.

In the same month, PwC released the PwC’s 2024 Workforce Radar Report. The report states that return-to-office mandates have, in many cases, failed. It says that flexibility is about providing an employee experience that’s as right for employees as it is for the organisation.

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“Feedback is the breakfast of champions” is a quote by Ken Blanchard, author, consultant, and speaker.

I love this quote because, as we all know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. As the name suggests, it breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes your supply of glucose to boost your energy levels and alertness.

The same applies to your organisation. Without feedback, it will starve. It cannot learn, change, improve, adapt or evolve.

Feedback is not an option – it is a necessity – at every level of the organisation. It is how you build great people, great teams, and a great business.

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According to Harvard Business Publishing, five foundational capabilities are important for all people managers, but especially for those in frontline leader roles. They formulated the five based on insights from authors, leaders, and researchers. 

1. Develops others

2. Leads teams that deliver

3. Leads authentically

4. Communicates for influence and impact

5. Champions inclusion

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I will unpack the last five of the qualities in the hope that you may be galvanised into buying the book to dive in deeper, or at least acknowledge that you must learn-unlearn- relearn. You must let go of things that may have worked well for you in the past. You must 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.

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My eighth book was inspired by my observation of many leaders, from novice to veteran, who firmly believed that what stood them in good stead as leaders yesterday would continue to do so tomorrow. There was a dangerous lack of comprehension that when the world around you changes, you must change too. Otherwise, you become irrelevant.

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PwC have released the key findings from their 2024 trust survey.

93% of business executives agree that building and maintaining trust improves the bottom line.

This is trust from both consumers and employees.

We often think of the moral case for building trust – but there is a real business case, too.

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