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recent years as businesses realize the direct impact that leadership can have on the overall culture and performance Here are just a few reasons why executive coaching is critical to workplace culture and performance: Improved Performance: A key responsibilities of executives is to manage the performance of their teams Executive coaching is critical to workplace culture and performance because it helps leaders develop the skills they need to communicate effectively, make better decisions, manage performance more effectively

CULTURE and the Curated Conversationalists

No matter the leadership role, there's always a significant focus on "getting others on board". We see it everywhere: P&L changes, new strategies, mergers, acquisitions, and new technology. While we may talk about leading change, inspiring, or motivating, what we're really discussing is how well we influence others. But let's be clear about the word influence. For some, it can carry an ethical dilemma. Here, we're talking about influencing for good, with positive intentions that serve and improve our communities. And when leaders struggle to influence, the top three reasons are consistently the same: Relationships are always at the top Trust is a close second, or lack of Authority/expertise follows next People will "get on board" with people they like, align with and feel united with. This means that before you can influence you must invest effort and energy into building genuine well intended relationships (and it doesn't mean being an extrovert). Your title and authority are not enough, I know this from experience. Three ways to build influence. Tip 1: Proactively invest in building relationships and connections. Actively develop relationships with people across the business, not just within your direct teams or division. This requires energy and effort to also nurture these connections, be genuine, well intended and generous, and don't allow your title, calendar or sense of importance limit your behaviour. Tip 2: Offer support to those outside of your direct accountability. If you believe you can help, give it freely without expecting anything in return. I once had a senior leader offer to check-in over coffee, inviting me to share my challenges. I was met with advice, mentoring and organisational insights. This one-off turned into regular advice and mentoring that I welcomed. As a result, when they needed something, I couldn't wait to repay their help in spades! "People naturally reciprocate, so be generous with your support and make it a way of life." And if you're on the receiving end of this kind of generosity, my motto is to "pay it forward". Whatever elevates your experience in the workplace, your career, your aspirations, find someone to pay it forward with. Tip 3: Share your knowledge Share your knowledge and expertise generously. Support others, both inside and outside your direct accountability to build their own skills. Look for opportunities to mentor or coach others, and share your learnings. Doing this may build your authority in a specific area, without needing a formal title, whilst also building your reputation and strengthening your personal brand. Tip 4: Bank credits in your Trust bank with others Act and behave always with integrity and honesty. Be transparent, follow through on all your promises (so only promise what you can deliver) and be consistent in how you show up in the workplace. These small, yet powerful acts builds your Trust Bank with others. Also consider that trust is a journey not a destination, so acting like this in bursts, or for a period of time, will likely diminish Trust faster than you can build it. These tips shouldn't be one-off actions. I prefer to see it as ways of working, a way of life. Done without expecting any return and always in service of the greater good. Influencing others has been woven into our leadership programs, and is a key module in our emerging leaders program, Rise-UP. Reach out to discover more.

I am a change maker, an initiator, a start-her-upper, a risk-taker, a higher performer, a leader in my Whilst I have spent most of my career in corporate, my leadership journey has invited me to 👉 initiate reform   👉 Be comfortable that your people will outgrow your capabilities 👉 Deal with under performance productively

We've all had moments where, despite our best intentions, we've inadvertently disempowered others. It may stem from a desire to "fix" things quickly because of time constraints or resource pressures, and often is mixed with our own narrative of solving it all. We might jump in with a solution or decide it's easier to do it ourselves, it will take less time. Leadership isn't just about what we do, it's how we use and share power, shifting our internal narrative so those around us RISE. It requires a deliberate, conscious approach. Empowerment at its heart is a deliberate act of delegating decision-making . It's entrusting our team with the autonomy needed to act and grow. When we empower our people, we are investing our time in them, and indirectly displaying our belief in them and confidence in ourselves. Empowered teams are confident, capable, and accountable, creating a ripple effect on the teams capacity and achievements, leading to higher engagement and thriving. When Leaders intentionally lift those around us, everything rises. Empowerment isn't a single action but a continuous thread woven into every act of leadership. It's about building others up to achieve better outcomes for everyone. Here's what an empowered workplace looks like: Support, not solutions:  time and space for people to explore and find their own answers. Power with, not power over:  Building accountability collectively Delegate:  Delegating responsibilities with appropriate support, including new opportunities, not just passing off tasks or the opposite, micromanaging. RiseUP:  Challenge and stretch others beyond their comfort zones. Clear communication:  We ensure everyone has the necessary context, information, and a shared understanding of goals, fostering transparency and trust. A strengths-based approach:  Recognize and value the unique skills and talents each person brings to the team and encourage their passions and interests. Delegation is often the biggest hurdle for leaders, they struggle with this, claiming they have time pressures or fear a drop in standards. Overcoming this requires a mindset shift to see delegation as a pathway to building the team's capacity, which ultimately, positively impacts our resource pressures. Instead of avoiding delegation, try these strategies; Delegate in stages  and include check-ins with micro-milestones. Be clear  about what's being delegated and why. Share all relevant information  and provide context. Coach and provide mentors  to your team member. Empowerment is a continuous journey and dynamic due to the changing nature of our teams. By being intentional with our actions and embracing a culture of shared power, we drive better outcomes for our entire community. To find out more information about how we can help your Leaders build the skills needed to empower others, reach out. Our workplace culture and leadership programs incorporate empowerment strategies for all levels of leadership.

Melina and Suria at work in Halifax Street Our work with leaders, as well as ourselves, often centre's on strategies to effectively navigate challenging conversations, introducing our 5I's model as a tool to assist leaders engage in these dialogues productively. And no matter how prepared we feel going in, I've noticed, and experienced, that internal compass sometimes steering us away from difficult conversations, while at other times urging us to courageously lean in. This made me wonder if this hesitation is due to the individual, or the relationship climate? I’d like to suggest the latter! When challenging conversations are easy, I've observed a powerful combination of factors at work.   Alignment , going beyond the surface to establish a shared understanding of the why and how, common objectives and desired outcomes clarifying the what and where.  It means we operate from a unified perspective.  A collective approach. A deep sense of connection with a healthy respect and appreciation for each other's perspectives, expertise, beliefs and strengths. And implicit understanding that team success is prioritised over the individual, whilst valuing the individual.  Individual needs are considered within the broader context of the team's goals. A quiet and powerful acceptance that intentions are good , and individuals approach the dialogue with positive intent.  Essentially building goodwill among each other.   A genuine desire to appreciate what others contribute and a willingness to support their growth and development beyond their own expectations of success. There is acceptance that open robust transparent discussions are pathways to positive outcomes, which enhance trust and confidence.  Therefore leaving nothing unsaid and being clear with what we are communicating, rather than being ambiguous or or evasive, which are unhelpful approaches.   When hard conversations become exponentially more difficult, I witness, and experience disconnection, misalignment and misunderstandings. People drift away from collective understanding to individual agendas and selfless pursuit of excellence may be traded for selfish pursuit of success.  As this dynamic unfolds, judgement becomes rife giving rise to shame, which results in searching for the nearest exit to avoid uncomfortable interactions.  And, truth telling and candid dialogue are overshadowed by a tendency to skirt around issues, rely on inuendo and indirect references versus addressing the core of the matter at hand. So what’s the work of leaders? Apart from adopting tools like PeopleQ's 5I's to prepare for these dialogues, also consider creating the right relationship climate by; 🔢Getting on the same page with your team, what's important, whats the objective and why 🔢Cultivating and building a deep sense of connection 🔢Defining your purpose, and gaining clarity on your legacy to anchor to in these moments 🔢Adopt, and practice language that doesn't place others into a defensive state, amp up EQ + Trust 🔢Be open and fluid, supporting the growth of others. 🔢Practice communicating with clarity and avoid ambiguity Connect with us for a coffee chat on how we can support you build your approach for challenging conversations.

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Regular workplace culture check-ins and performance reviews are wonderful ways of collecting parts of

And is it worth the investment of time and money? I'm often asked what is executive coaching, as there are so many people these days that refer to themselves as a coach, so let's start with a definition. We view Executive Coaching as holding a safe space for someone to challenge themselves and their perspectives to build personal insights that lead to positive outcomes and behavioural change, that aligns with their goals and objectives. Executive coaching is a development pathway, it is anchored to a leaders goals, and at the center is a belief that the leader has the answers within them. You, the coach, are a guide. Understanding what it isn't also helps further define executive coaching - it's not advising, mentoring, consulting, telling, selling, training, managing, leading, educating, counselling. Whilst these are all necessary in any development pathway, a coaching relationship is one where your coach acts as a guide by being present, listening beyond the words and asking questions that guide you to positive behavioural change. The main role is to Listen and Ask. As executive coaching is a personalised form of development, and therefore targeted, it has greater buy-in and therefore change. Coaching is for the counterpart (or coachee). The spotlight is on them, not on the coach. An Executive coach will bring some structure. For example, you begin with a goal for the coaching, your one up and your organisation may be involved in this. There is a formal contract, there is structure to how often and how long, there is a measure at the start and later on which helps visualise the change, there is regular assessment of your coach! And regular check in with your one up to ensure the coaching is achieving it's desired outcome. There are many reasons why you would engage an executive coach and here are some questions you can ask yourself to see if this is a development pathway for you; Are you wanting to make a positive change at work? Do you want to grow your perspective? Do you prefer guidance rather than telling? Are you wanting to do more to engage your teams? Are you struggling with communication or conflict? Are you prepared to re-examine yourself and shift what is needed? Are you looking for ways to navigate your challenges? Do you want to challenge your thinking to grow your understanding? Have you experienced significant change recently? Has your motivation shifted as a result of this change? Do you find you are second guessing yourself ? Do you at times suffer from imposter syndrome? Are you finding that "being busy" has meant no time for professional/personal growth? Do you feel your development has stifled? Is your confidence waning? Do you like being held accountability? Are you finding it lonely in your new leadership role? Do you need a safe space to unpack challenges at work? If you answered YES to 7 or more of these questions, it's an opportunity to get in touch for a no obligation consultation. Mention this article, and we will also include an emotional intelligence and strengths profile with any coaching engagement. Melina is an IECL certified coach to the highest level, ICF member, Emotional Intelligence, Heartmath & Conversational Intelligence practitioner and spent two decades+ in senior leadership roles before starting PeopleQ to become an Executive Coach.

What not to do Part 1 Employee engagement and culture survey tools are a great way to invite and collate feedback from your employees in a meaningful way. The insights generated from this collection of data is useful not only to quickly gauge team and employee sentiment but also to empower leaders and organisations to identify where and how they can improve. The more transparent and action oriented the engagement tool, the better the outcomes, given transparency builds trust and actions naturally propel us forward. Whilst these tools are a game changer to how we design, measure and manage workplace culture, there are some potential pitfalls that leaders need to be aware of. Even the very best leaders can easily become caught up in one or more of these challenging scenarios. The good news is that with a bit of troubleshooting and practice, we can overcome pitfalls. Feedback that disappears into the metaverse This is the most common and detrimental pitfall. There is nothing worse than asking for feedback and for the organisation and leader to never make mention of the survey or results again. Without the right follow up to discuss results, you can be sure to erode trust. Employees naturally perceive the organisation and leader don’t take workplace culture improvement seriously. This also applies to inconsistent engagement with your culture tool by leaders. The end result? Overtime response rates drop, productivity may also drop and you may even notice an increase in staff turnover. Missed opportunity: The aim of most culture tools is to promote productive and focused team conversations. These discussions generate new questions, insights and ideas. It’s predicted that bringing teams together regularly to brainstorm enhances the sense of connection, improving engagement and morale. Practice: scheduling team meetings in advance as a show of commitment to prioritise, share and follow up on feedback as a way to build trust and team rituals. Score tunnel vision Setting goals and utilising your culture tool as a mechanism to measure your progress is a great way to help you and your team stay on track and drive continuous improvement. While culture and engagement tools are designed for leaders to pay close attention to survey scores, it can sometimes cause leaders to have tunnel vision which in turn can create some unintended behaviours. Missed opportunity: If you’re focused on simply attaining a particular score then you are at risk of missing the point of employee engagement. Culture tools should encourage leaders, teams and organisations to think deeply about what the team wants to achieve together and how they will get there. Practice: Nurture what’s in your control by prioritising productive team conversations. Through productive and genuine conversations and follow through on actions, scores will naturally follow. Hopefully we’ve given you some ideas that you can implement today ! And if a culture tool is on your list of ideas, speak to us about PQfactor, our thriving cultures tool powered by Teamgage! Look out for part 2 coming your way soon!

Hands down my favourite subject was economics. I was fascinated by opportunity cost and those unseen yet powerful forces like Adam Smith’s invisible hand; a metaphor describing a free market economy. Later on I noticed unseen forces alive at work, this time in the context of culture. I was part of both dysfunctional and thriving teams and often team members were unchanged. I wanted to understand how this could be? And if we could experience moments of thriving together, how we could find a way to sustain this ideal? Or at least create the momentum needed to move towards it. So as many leaders do, I asked my teams the big sweeping question about how they’re feeling at work and combined this with intuition and productivity to predict where culture might sit on a spectrum of terrible to amazing. But this was always a guess influenced by one’s perspective. And a single perspective is almost always flawed given we see the world as we are and not for what it is, unless you’ve mastered the art of holding many perspectives at once? In more recent times, as the world increasingly digitizes, we’ve asked teams to convert their responses into a rating using anonymous survey tools. How good is that!? Leaders and organisations now have the opportunity to use technology to collect feedback which allows for a more objective and accurate view of team culture rather than rely on intuition alone ! Contemporary leaders will love that those previously elusive elements of culture are finally brought into plain sight and quantified. These tools and their results now even feature more prominently in board reporting as well as elevating employer brand and that’s a positive, given how widely culture is talked about in the public arena without any data to back it up. Now you’ve got the data to back it up! Employee engagement and survey tools have the best of intentions; they simply are not all created equal. Many tools boast multiple functions from allowing you to customise questions and even integrating reward systems. This is great, but make no mistake; the work to achieve and maintain a thriving culture does not come from the tool or a recognition platform, it comes when leaders and teams take shared responsibility and work together to create change. The moral of this story? The tool alone is not the answer, it's how leaders are supported to work with their teams and the tool to enact change. Creating space for team members to have continuous deeper conversations, checking in, sharing new ideas, discussing challenges, celebrating wins and driving actionable change is what will move the dialler on employee engagement and workplace culture. Taking action goes a long way towards the pursuit of a thriving culture. The tool is just that, a tool. And whilst it’s now best practice to have a people measure in place; the real gift is feedback and guidance as to where leaders should focus their energy to achieve a thriving workplace culture. The outcome: a much more inspired workplace. Assess your workplace culture with our complimentary assessment tool or better still check out our culture tool PQfactor, powered by Teamgage and let us support your journey from good to great. Contact us today and let's schedule a coffee meeting. suria@peopleq.com.au

their authenticity compromised in certain conversations, particularly when they relate to conflict or performance