Leading From The Edge Podcast

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | The Inner Leader

Reading time, 4 minutes

Using ChatGPT for leadership advice: what it misses

I asked ChatGPT how to handle a tricky conversation with someone in my team, and the advice was helpful. But it never asked me a single question about me, and if I didn't know better, I would have walked in quietly confident and completely blind. In this episode I share what AI got right for me, what it missed, and the story of a client who typed his problem in while he was angry. Then I share the one step to take before you act on any advice about your people.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: Watch on YouTube

Listen to this episode: Listen to the episode

Read the blog: Read the blog

Timestamps: 

0:00 – Quietly confident and completely blind

0:54 – What ChatGPT got right, and what it missed

2:05 – The client who typed it in angry

3:05 – No facts, just perceptions

4:03 – Start with you before you act on any advice

4:22 – What AI can't show you

🎓 Ready to go deeper? Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday, 19 October 2026 at 6:00am Sydney time EPISODE LENGTH: 4 minutes 59 seconds

THUMBNAIL: Using ChatGPT for leadership advice cover, Liz in her pink blazer with the line "Quietly confident. Completely blind."

Full transcript

A while back, I asked ChatGPT how to handle a situation with a team leader. And you know, the advice that I got was pretty helpful. It gave me simple steps, and it gave me also some really good questions to ask, and I thought, wow. But you know what? It never asked me a single question about me. So if I didn't know better, I would have walked into that meeting quietly confident and completely blind.

So last week I talked about asking instead of telling. This week is all about where do we all go for advice, and what that advice can't see. I'm going to share with you today what AI got right for me, what it missed, and the one step to take before you act on any advice about your people.

I asked AI how to have a difficult conversation with someone who was not open to feedback. They're very confident and quite self-assured. They're the type of personality that always tells but never asks.

What ChatGPT got right was the simple steps of the process during the conversation, and the questions to broach the subject. That part it got right.

What it missed was asking about me. My attitude going in, and what I'd been projecting in the previous interactions with this person. Had I gone in before in Parent mode or Adult mode? It didn't ask. It didn't know. What kind of rapport had I already built with the person, and how might they have felt after previous interactions that I had with them, based on how I was showing up? AI knew none of that. So it actually had half the story.

The real first step is actually reflecting on our own part, then asking the team members some questions to get their understanding before we jump in to start fixing things.

I want to share an example with you of a client who typed it in angry. So he'd taken feedback from a team member really personally, and he had painted a gloomier picture in the heat of the moment. While sitting with that raw emotion and a really bruised ego, he was on the keyboard typing away to AI to get some advice on what to do. And AI told him to start a heavy disciplinary process, based on the information that he put in. It validated his anger and his attitude, and it gave him more ammunition.

So he took the steps with that angry energy, and in the end it escalated to the team member going to HR and putting in a bullying claim against him. It was resolved over time, through some 1 to 1 coaching sessions with him and some support for the team member. But it could have been avoided with a coaching session first, to prepare him for who he was being going into the situation.

I want to share with you what AI can't see. So when it comes to human behaviour, there are no facts, there's just perceptions. Let me say that again. When it comes to human behaviour, there are no facts, there are just perceptions.

AI can't read our mindset, our beliefs or our filters. We all have blinkers on about our own behaviour. We see other people's behaviour based on our state in the moment, and we filter it through that. So our mindset feeds our confirmation bias, and that determines what information we share when we're plugging it into AI to get that advice.

So really interestingly, the research on self-awareness shows that people who report having very high self-awareness are actually the least likely to have high levels of it. And AI can only go off what we are feeding it. So the advice can be good. It's just working from our side of the story.

So before you act on any advice about someone in your team, start with you. Ask yourself what you've contributed and what attitude you were bringing in. Then ask them the questions first, before telling them what you think and your opinion.

You know, AI can give you really good general advice. What it can't do is show you your own patterns, and that's exactly what the Leadership Mirror is for. I designed it specifically for that purpose. It looks at how you lead under pressure, and it shows you where your pattern is. It's free, it takes about 5 minutes, and the link is below.

I'd also love you to share in the comments some examples, or where you've actually asked AI about a leadership question or a leadership problem, and what it missed in that situation.

Transcript tidied for punctuation, capitalisation and paragraph breaks from the recording, wording kept as spoken.The self-awareness research mentioned is from Tasha Eurich's book Insight.

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leading the Team

Reading time, 4 minutes

Why the same conversation keeps coming back

"I've already told them." I hear that from leaders all the time, and what I'd love to know is what they asked. In this episode I share two stories about the conversation that keeps coming back: my own three months of dropping hints to a team member, and my client Graham, who was ready to give up on two of his managers. Then I share the shift from telling to asking that changed it for both of us, and the questions to take into your next conversation.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video:

https://youtu.be/GEGnQYmpRi4

Listen to this episode:

https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/podcasts/leading-from-the-edge-podcast/episodes/2149266266 

Read the blog:

 https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/why-the-same-conversation-keeps-coming-back 

Timestamps:

0:00 – "I've already told them"

0:45 – Three months of the same conversation

2:02 – Graham and his two managers

3:51 – Telling vs asking: Parent mode and Adult mode

4:29 – One thing to try before your next conversation

🎓 Ready to go deeper?

Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority.

👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday, 12 October 2026 at 6:00am Sydney time

EPISODE LENGTH: 5 minutes 13 seconds

THUMBNAIL: Why the same conversation keeps coming back cover, Liz with the line "I've already told them"

Full transcript

"I've already told them." That's what I hear from leaders all the time. And what I'd like to know is, what is it that you already asked them?

Last week we talked about the habits that we already know that we have. This week is the conversation that keeps coming back. Same person, the same issue, and a few weeks later you're all still saying the same thing over and again.

I'm going to share today what changed it for me, and share about a client of mine who was ready to give up on one or two of his managers. So I'm going to share two stories, and I'm also going to share with you the question that I ask before you have that conversation one more time.

So the first one is my story. I had a team member and they weren't pulling their weight. I was trying to work it all out. I didn't know if they didn't understand the commitment that they made to the role, I didn't understand if they didn't know what the role was, or if they just weren't interested in doing what was expected of them.

Over three months I had heaps of meetings with them. I kept dropping hints about what they needed to do and where to find the information that they needed, and I felt like I was really bending over backwards to help them. And it cost me dearly, because the work wasn't getting done. Everyone around them in their team was really paying for it, and they didn't seem to know or seem to care.

So call me a slow learner, but it wasn't until I stopped telling them what to do and started asking them questions that everything changed. So what I asked them was, what's your vision for this role, and what are your priorities?

Once I finally did that, what came out was that they were actually uncomfortable with what the role was asking of them. The training they'd been avoiding actually helped walk them through all of those exact steps. But they didn't know that, and neither did I, because I hadn't turned around and asked them the question.

I want to share a story with you about one of my clients. Let's call him Graham. So he kept calling me on his way home from work, and he was really frustrated. He had these same two managers who, three months in a row, he kept calling me because he had an issue with them, and it was unresolved. And interestingly, Graham was running the same pattern as me. He was telling them what to do, and they weren't listening to him.

And so he agreed to coaching, because he wanted to finally get rid of this frustration. It was really consuming him. So what was happening for Graham, as soon as he got to work he was so frustrated, he would walk into the office and start barking orders straight away. He was frustrated, tired and bossy, and he was micromanaging his team, and they were really feeling it.

I was so pleased that Graham finally agreed to sit down and have some coaching sessions with me. He started by just letting out his frustration. He was at tipping point, he was really frustrated and saying, "You know, I might as well just pack up and sell the business. This is too hard."

After we sat down for coaching, what he did differently was he started having regular scheduled catch ups with them, and asking them deeper questions to understand what was happening from their side, from their point of view. So now, as a result of that, they're all working as a team. Everyone's happier, they're more productive, everyone's getting everything done. But most importantly, Graham has got the time now and the headspace to get things done that are important to him, because he doesn't feel that pressure of having to micromanage everybody.

So what are the takeaways from all of this? It's all about telling versus asking. So telling is what I call Parent mode, where we're bossy, we're judging, we're making assumptions, and we're coming in with that fixed mindset, below the line. Asking is Adult mode, above the line, where we're curious and we have an open mind.

When a leader tells me, "I've already told them," I say, "I'm hearing what you already told them. What I'd love to know is, what did you ask them?" Telling is Parent mode, below the line. Asking is Adult mode, above the line.

So in both of those stories I shared, the conversation kept coming back while we kept telling. It moved when we started asking.

So here's something to try this week. Think of the conversation that you feel like you keep having, and it's frustrating you. Before you have that conversation again, book the time and go in with a question rather than an instruction. Try the questions that worked for me: what's your vision for this role? What are your priorities right now?

If you've said "I already told them" this month, try asking instead. If you want to see which pattern is driving yours, take my Leadership Mirror. It's free, it only takes about 5 minutes max, and the link is below. Also share in the comments, what's the conversation that you keep having and getting stuck in a loop on?

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leading the Team

Reading time, 4 minutes

"I know I'm doing it, it's just what I always do." I hear that from experienced leaders all the time, smart people who've read all the books and can name their habit perfectly, and yet it still runs. In this episode I share two stories, my own early career spiral and my client Kara's, about why knowing a habit isn't the same as changing it, plus two questions I ask my clients and one thing to try before your next big call.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/Xi59Zb0QnCw

Listen to this episode: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/podcasts/leading-from-the-edge-podcast/episodes/2149262870 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/you-already-know-what-you-do

Timestamps:

0:00 – The habit you know but can't shift

0:47 – My early career spiral

1:36 – Kara and the feedback she avoided

2:48 – The 2 questions I ask my clients

3:03 – One thing to try before your next call

🎓 Ready to go deeper?

Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority.

👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

EPISODE LENGTH: 3 minutes 41 seconds

Full transcript

"I know I'm doing it. It's just what I always do."

I hear that from experienced leaders all the time. Really smart people, and people who have read all the books. They can name their habit perfectly, and yet they're still running it.

So if you already know what to do, why hasn't knowing it changed anything? That is exactly what we're here unpacking today. Because knowing your habit and seeing what drives it are two very different things.

In the next five minutes, I'm going to share with you two stories, two questions that I ask my clients that you might find helpful, and I'm going to share one thing to try before you make the next big call that you have to make.

Early in my career, I remember making a decision, and I was very excited about it. I set this huge plan in place and I presented it to my leadership team. I couldn't wait for their feedback. Then one of them pushed back with a completely different perspective.

I was shattered, and that's when my spiral started. I was questioning myself, thinking, is their idea better than mine? Will they follow through if it's my idea? And then I really started to think, am I even cut out for this?

The real issue was actually that I'd planned first, and then I started second guessing as soon as that feedback from them came in. So, over time, making the same mistake, I learnt it's important to gather your ideas first and then build the plan. It took me a long time to get there.

I have a client, her name's Kara, and she had a team member who just kept making the same mistake over and over. And Kara was giving feedback, giving subtle hints, making suggestions, but she never really got to the heart of it.

And the story that she was saying to herself was that they aren't ready to hear it yet. They've got too much on. It wouldn't be fair at this stage, with everything that's going on in their life.

The cost, though, is that it kept happening and happening, and the rest of her team started complaining about her team member.

The thing that was really driving it, though, underneath, was that she had a really bad boss who had given her feedback in a really hurtful way, and she didn't want her team member feeling that way too. In fact, she never wanted any of her team to feel the way that she felt with the way that her old team leader addressed issues.

Once Kara saw that, real and specific feedback became the thing that would actually help the situation. So Kara knew the habit. What changed it was seeing what was underneath it.

When a leader tells me, "I know I'm doing it, it's just that it's what I always do," I ask them two things. The first one is, what has it been costing you? And the second, what difference would it make to replace it now?

Before you make your next call, pause and ask yourself, "If I were leading from clarity and certainty, completely aligned with my vision, what would I do in this situation?"

Knowing your habit is where it starts. Seeing what drives it is what changes it.

If you want to find out which pattern is driving yours, take the Leadership Mirror. It looks at four areas of how you lead under pressure, and it shows you where your authority is quietly slipping. It's free, and the link is below.

Tell me in the comments: what's the habit you know you do, and you still do it anyway?

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Drivers and Defaults

Reading time, 2 minutes

Rescuing instead of empowering

I used to think being available for every problem was the job. Turns out I wasn't lightening anyone's load, I was just carrying it for them instead of teaching them to carry it themselves. This episode is about the shift that changed that, and why it gives you your own energy back too.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/3lRUHBtBRF0
Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/rescuing-isnt-leading 

P.S. If this pattern's showing up for you, this month's free guide, Why momentum breaks down under pressure, covers 5 more like it and exactly where to catch each one: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/pl/2148850780

🎓 Ready to go deeper?
Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority.
👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:
🔗 Start Here, everything in one place
▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos
🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version
💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights
📩 [email protected]

Transcript

I used to pride myself on being there for my team — being responsive whenever they needed me.

If I could ease their load, I would. They were exceptional at what they did, and I wanted to support them in every single way that I could.

I genuinely wished there were more hours in the day so I could help them even more.

And I thought I was being helpful.

What I didn’t realise was that I wasn’t lightening their load. I was just taking on their problem and wishing for more time to carry it for them.

It was never about having enough time or not having enough time.

The real issue was that I was rescuing them.

I wasn’t empowering them to trust their own thinking.

And here’s the part that really gets me: my actual job was teaching people how to solve problems using their own critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Real teaching and learning.

And there I was, telling instead of asking. Solving instead of stepping back.

Doing the exact opposite of the thing I was meant to be building in them.

And it doesn’t stop at their problem.

Every time we rescue, we carry more of someone else’s burden as our own. We end up sitting under more pressure, not less, because our own projects have lost momentum while we were busy holding theirs.

From that place, you’re running on depleted energy.

And that’s the energy you bring to everyone and everything, without even realising it.

So here’s what changed it for me:

Handing a problem back isn’t handing someone a solution.

It’s a deeper question.

That’s it. That’s the whole shift.

And it’s not a loss for them either. It’s a win-win, because it gives them the opportunity to work out what actually fits for them, and it gives you the opportunity to hold your focus and energy for the work only you can do.

The old story in my head was that I needed to keep helping them so I could make it easier for them.

The new one is this:

When I trust them enough to think for themselves, they get the satisfaction of solving it — and I get to keep the momentum going on my own work.

That’s what being in adult mode actually looks like here.

Not doing more for people.

Believing they’re capable of more, and getting out of the way long enough to let them prove it to themselves.

And that’s the whole arc this month in one line: rescuing, demanding respect, missing your own default, letting the standard slip, and then carrying what was never yours.

All five of these come back to the same choice:

Are you leading from clarity, or running on a default?

If you want to see exactly where your own authority holds — and where it quietly drifts — that’s what the Leadership Mirror shows you in 10 minutes.

The link is below.

Where are you still rescuing instead of empowering?

Tell me in the comments. I really would love to know.

Over the last three weeks we've named three traps, rescuing, correcting and reacting, and they all come from the same root, a default taking over instead of you actually choosing how to lead. This week I'm answering the obvious question: if those are the traps, what's actually on the other side of them? What does leading from adult actually look like, in the exact same moments those traps show up?

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/0G91r1cOez0 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/adult-to-adult-leadership-what-it-looks-like 

Timestamps: 

0:00 – Three traps, one root: a default taking over

0:20 – The obvious question: what's on the other side?

0:35 – It's not a personality, it's a handful of repeatable choices

0:50 – Rescuing, flipped: asking instead of solving

1:10 – Correcting, flipped: checking the outcome, not rewriting the method

1:30 – Reacting, flipped: pause, one question, leave it open

1:50 – Why it works precisely because it isn't dramatic

2:05 – You'll still slip, so will I, the goal is just to notice faster

2:25 – Which trap is yours? The Leadership Mirror shows you

2:45 – The closing question

🎓 Ready to go deeper? Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected] 

Full transcript

Over the last three weeks, we've covered three traps. Rescuing, solving your team's problems for them because it feels good to have all the answers. Correcting, redoing their work for them because it feels good to be right. And reacting, needing to be right the moment you're challenged, because being questioned feels like being attacked. These are three different traps, but they all come from the same root. All three have a default taking over, instead of you actually choosing how to lead in that moment.

So today I want to answer the obvious question. If those are the traps, what's actually on the other side of them? What does it look like when a leader is operating from adult, not from one of those defaults?

It's quieter than you think. It's not a personality. It's not confidence or charisma, or having it all figured out. It's a handful of small, repeatable choices, made in the exact same moments the traps show up.

Someone brings you a problem. Instead of solving it for them, you ask what they've already tried, and what they think the right move is. You're still fully present, you're just not doing their thinking for them anymore.

Someone's work isn't done your way. Instead of rewriting it, you check the outcome against the standard that you actually said out loud. If the outcome's right, you let the method be theirs.

Someone challenges you in front of the room. Instead of getting defensive, you pause. You ask one question. And you let the conversation stay open a moment longer than what feels comfortable.

None of that's dramatic, that's exactly why it works. Leading from adult doesn't announce itself, it just quietly stops the pattern before it even starts.

And here's what I want you to hear really clearly. You will still slip, I still do. The goal was never to rescue, it was never to correct, and it was never to react again. The goal is just to notice faster, to catch ourselves a little earlier each time, and then choose again. That's the whole practice. It's not about perfection, it's just a shorter gap between the default and the choice.

Now, if you've watched all three of these, and you're wondering which one you slip into most under pressure, that's exactly what the Leadership Mirror is. It's designed to show you. It's free, it takes five minutes, where your own authority holds and where it quietly drifts away. The link's below if you'd like to take it.

So, of the three we've been covering this month, rescuing, correcting, and reacting, which one's yours? I genuinely would love to know. Tell me in the comments.

The leadership trap that looks like passion

Someone once told me I was one of the most passionate people they'd worked with. I took it as a compliment for years, until I noticed what they were actually describing was how fast I reacted the moment I was challenged. This week I'm looking at the third trap in the September series, the one that doesn't look like a flaw at all, it looks like commitment, and what it actually costs you when your team learns which topics aren't safe to raise.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/EuCWJ-zQ9z0 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/respond-instead-of-react-under-pressure 

🎓 Ready to go deeper?

Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

 Full transcript

Someone once told me that I was one of the most passionate people they had worked with. I took it as a compliment for years. It took me a long time to notice that what they were actually describing was how quickly I reacted when I was challenged. My voice got a bit louder, my explanation got a bit longer, and I needed the room to see I was right before we could move on to the next thing.

That is the third trap in this series, and it's the hardest one to catch, because it doesn't look like a flaw. It looks like commitment. Weeks one and two were both about doing too much: rescuing, then correcting. This one's different. This one is about reacting instead of leading.

Psychologically, this is the Child default that you hear me talking about. Not childish, just the part of us that takes things personally and needs to be seen as right, especially when we're under pressure.

Here's what it actually looks like in a leader. Someone challenges a decision, and instead of getting curious, we get defensive. We start justifying before we've even heard the challenge. Someone raises a problem and it lands as criticism of us, not information about the work. We explain our reasoning at length when a simple question would have done, because somewhere underneath it, we need them to agree that we were right.

And here's the thing about authority: it doesn't collapse all at once, it drifts, and it drifts fastest exactly in this moment, the moment someone's watching to see how we handle it when we're challenged.

There are three signs we know we're in it. See if any of these feel familiar for you. The first one: you feel your chest tighten before you've even heard the whole point. You're already forming the defence while the other person is still talking. Or meetings start to feel like something to manage, not something to think in.

Here's the cost. Your team learns fast which topics are safe to raise with you and which ones aren't, and the hard truths, the ones we actually need to hear, quietly stop reaching us at all.

So what does it look like to lead from a calm place under exactly the same pressure? It starts with simply a pause, not a performance of calm, an actual half second before we respond. In that half second, we just need to ask one question instead of giving one answer. What makes you say that? Tell me more. What are you seeing that I'm missing, or that I'm not seeing?

That single move does two things. It buys us space to actually think, and it tells the other person the conversation is still open, it's not already decided. Separate the person from the problem, out loud if you need to. This isn't about whether I'm right, it's about whether we're getting this right.

You don't have to stop caring to do this well. Passion was never the problem. Reacting from it, instead of leading through it, was.

So, have you been getting caught in this one too? Not rescuing, not correcting, but needing to be right the moment you're challenged?

I used to think I was holding a high standard. I was actually just correcting everything before anyone else got the chance to. This week I'm looking at the flip side of last week's rescuing trap: the critical, controlling default that feels like leadership but is really about control, and what it costs your team when you rewrite instead of ask.

Key takeaways:

Correcting everyone's work feels good because it feels like being right, but it's the same default as rescuing, just wearing a different disguise This trap is harder to spot than rescuing because it doesn't feel like control, it feels like protecting the standard

Three signs you're in it: you rewrite instead of ask, feedback turns into a redo instead of a conversation, and people check with you before they act on things they shouldn't need to check The real cost isn't your time, it's your team's confidence, and you end up doing everyone's job behind them as well

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/GYNwgk_zZJ0 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/how-to-hold-high-standards-without-micromanaging-your-team 

🎓 Ready to go deeper? Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz: 

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place 

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos 

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version 

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights 

📩 [email protected]

Transcript: Are you clarifying or correcting?

I used to think that I was holding a high standard, really. I was just correcting everything before anyone else got the chance to. A report would land on my desk and I'd rewrite half of it before it even went out. Or we'd be in a meeting and someone would make a call, and then I'd quietly override it ten minutes later.

I told myself it was about quality, and maintaining high quality and high standards, about doing things properly. But here's what I didn't want to admit: it wasn't about the standard. It was all about control. And that's the trap I want to talk about today, because it's the flip side of what we covered last week.

Last week was about rescuing, answering everyone's questions for them because it just felt good to have all the answers, and I felt like as a leader that was what was required. This week it's the other side of that coin: correcting everyone's work for them because it feels good to be right, and it feels like as a leader we should be right.

Psychologically they're both the same default. Last week was the soft, rescuing parent. This week is the critical, controlling parent. Sometimes we can be a bit of both. And this is a much harder trap to see yourself in, because it doesn't feel like control, it feels like leadership.

You tell yourself that you're protecting the standard. You tell yourself this team just doesn't see the detail that you see. Meanwhile, what's actually happening is your team stops bringing you their best thinking. They start bringing you the safest version of the work instead, the version least likely to get picked apart. They stop taking initiative, because initiative gets corrected, and correction, even well meant, feels like failure.

So here's three signs that you're in it. See if any of these land with you. You rewrite instead of ask. Feedback turns into a redo, not a conversation. And people check with you before they act on things they shouldn't need to check.

Over time you end up with a team that waits. Waits for your sign off, waits for your version, waits to be told exactly how instead of being trusted with what. And you end up exhausted, because now you're not just leading, you're doing everyone's job behind them as well. That's the real cost, not just your time. Their confidence.

So what does it look like to hold genuinely high standards without controlling every single step? It starts with a shift in what you're actually correcting. Stop correcting the method. Start clarifying the outcome. Tell your team exactly what good looks like, the actual standard, in plain language, before the work starts, not after, when it's already done and it feels like a personal failure to fix it. Then let them find their own way there.

If the outcome is wrong, it's a real coaching conversation. If the method's just different to yours, that's not a mistake, that's someone else's way of getting to the same place. Ask yourself, before you touch someone's work: is this actually wrong, or is it just not how I would have done it? Those are two very different problems, and only one of them is yours to fix.

You know, the leaders I respect most hold an incredibly high bar. But they hold it on the outcome, not on the method, and their teams know exactly where that bar is, because it's being said out loud, not just corrected into existence way after the fact.

So have you been getting caught in this one too? Not rescuing this time, but correcting, holding the standard so tightly that no one else ever gets a chance to meet it their own way.

The leadership trap that looks like kindness

Your team's great, the culture's warm, so why are you the one running on empty? This week Liz breaks down a pattern she sees constantly in coaching, and admits she's fallen into it herself: rescuing your team instead of leading them, and not realising it, because rescuing looks so much like care.

Take the Leadership Mirror to see exactly where this might be costing you → https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz. This month there's also a free companion resource, Why Momentum Breaks Down Under Pressure, on the resources page.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/ayK-bkTk8MA 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/how-to-stop-rescuing-your-team-instead-of-leading-them 

🎓 Ready to go deeper?

Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/joinus-2c00a25f-6b1e-43de-9f69-9caa21b5ecbc

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/start-here

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos: https://www.youtube.com/@lizmurray_Leadership

🎧 Leading From The Edge the audio version: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/podcasts/leading-from-the-edge-podcast/episodes/2149248049 

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizmurrayedgeofpossibilities/

📩 [email protected]

Full transcript

Your team's great, the culture's warm, so why is it that you're the one that's running on empty? I coach leaders on exactly this pattern, so let's jump straight into it. The leaders who burn out the fastest are often the ones with the best teams and the best culture, not the worst. Now, that should sound wrong. By the end of this you'll know if this is yours, and what it actually looks like to close it: the problem, the cost, the insight, and one shift that you can take away today.

So here's the problem. Rescuing feels responsible. It isn't, it's safe. Stepping in and fixing something for someone means that you never have to have the harder conversation. You never have to sit in the discomfort of watching them struggle through their own work. Most leaders never clock that this is what's happening, it just feels like you're being a good, available leader. I certainly have fallen into that trap in the past myself.

So what does that actually cost you? Well, the more that you rescue, the more that you keep the other person dependent on you rescuing them. They stop stretching because you'll catch them anyway. You've built more work for the future version of you, and called it help. This isn't a discipline gap, it isn't a time management problem, it's a pattern running underneath your calendar.

Let me show you what it actually looked like for one of my clients. Kylie came to me feeling really burnt out, and she couldn't work out why. Her team were fantastic, they worked really hard, and the culture in her office was genuinely wonderful. On paper there was nothing wrong.

Here's what we uncovered though. Whenever a team member came to her with a problem, she did everything she could to help, bending over backwards every single time, because she really loved her team and she genuinely wanted to support them all. But what she missed was that rescuing them meant that she wasn't supporting them. She was wearing herself thin trying to give them everything that she possibly could, and it was actually disempowering them from making decisions for themselves. Once she understood that, and yeah, it took a moment for her to see it as anything other than caring.

The shift was this: her role wasn't to solve the problem for them, it was to empower them to solve it for themselves, and to paint the bigger picture so they actually understood what they were all working toward. It freed up her time, and it gave her team real opportunities to show initiative and to use their own thinking.

The culture was already great, and that's what made this so easy to miss. She wasn't failing as a leader, she was just doing too much of the right looking thing. But once she started empowering instead of rescuing, and sharing the vision instead of just the fix, things went to a whole new level, not just for her but for her whole team.

So here's what exactly made the difference, and it's not doing more, it's doing less of the wrong thing on purpose. Notice the urge to jump in and fix it before they've had a real go themselves. Ask what they think the next move might be before you offer yours. And talk about the destination or the vision, not just today's fix, so they can start navigating their way there themselves. None of that means caring less. It means noticing the difference between rescuing and leading, and choosing on purpose.

Two things worth being honest with yourself about, not to feel bad about but just so that you notice. When someone brings you a problem, do you solve it for them or help them solve it for themselves? And where are you carrying decisions right now that were never yours to carry?

If either of those landed, don't sit with it, go find out. The Leadership Mirror takes three minutes and shows you exactly what this might be costing you. The link's below.

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Exceptional Leadership

Reading time, 2 minutes

The pillar that makes every other leadership skill work

This is the reveal we've been building to all month. Pillar 5 of the Exceptional Leader Framework: head and heart integration, the pillar that decides whether every other leadership skill you build actually lands. IQ and EQ aren't competing, and this episode covers why.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: 

https://youtu.be/6QbEepQvFrc

 Read the blog: 

https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/how-to-lead-with-both-iq-and-eq-not-one-instead-of-the-other

🎓 Ready to go deeper? Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

Full transcript

Three weeks ago, we talked about the skill most people ignore. Two weeks ago, the specific moments it shows up in. Last week, the one habit that actually shifts it in the room.

This month has had a name the whole time. Let's say it.

Everything so far has been pillar 5 of the Exceptional Leader Framework, head and heart integration. I call it the payoff pillar, because it decides whether every other leadership skill you build actually lands.

The framework's got five pillars in total. The leadership line, ownership over blame. Drivers and defaults, leading from the adult, not the reactive default. The ego spectrum, grounded presence, neither walked over nor steamrolling. The boundary code, delegation, accountability, the hard conversations. And this one, head and heart integration, where IQ and EQ stop competing and start working as one system.

Your head space, your IQ, is strategic, analytical, data driven. Structured, goal focused, realistic about what can actually be achieved. Genuinely excellent at solving problems.

Your heart space, your EQ, is empathetic, listens actively, builds relationships and trust. Genuinely excellent at getting people to want to move with you.

Neither one is the upgraded version of the other. Leadership at its best runs on both at once.

Run purely on head space, and you'll solve the problem, but you won't get people stepping outside their comfort zone to help you solve the next one. Run purely on heart space, without structure underneath it, and warmth starts to read as unreliable.

Feedback's the clearest example. A lot of leaders think feedback has to be harsh to be taken seriously. It doesn't. When your genuine intent is for someone to understand and improve, how you deliver it changes completely, without losing an ounce of clarity.

One thing worth being precise about, because it gets misunderstood constantly. This isn't about absorbing everyone else's feelings as your own. That's not empathy, that's losing your own boundary. Real empathy means you've done the work on your own emotions first, so you can hold space for someone moving through theirs, without taking their feelings on for them.

Remember Greg, from week one, the leader who took the coaching himself instead of outsourcing the fix. He was already running head and heart integration, he just didn't have a name for it. He held the structure, clear expectations, ground rules, and led with genuine understanding of what his team was going through. Both, together. Not one instead of the other. That's what changed his culture.

This is one pillar of five. If naming this gap in yourself over the past three weeks has been useful, the rest of the framework lives inside Be Exceptional.

Start with The Leadership Mirror, three minutes, see exactly where you're already strong, and where the next pillar for you might be. Link's below.

You already know the theory, listen more, react less. It's easy to nod along to that in a workshop, and completely different when someone's frustrated in front of you, maybe even accusing you of something that isn't fair. This week Liz breaks down the one habit that actually holds up in that moment, three steps, and the meeting that taught her why the pause is harder than it sounds.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/zmZhmQJHEls

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/the-eq-habit-that-actually-changes-how-people-respond-to-you

🎓 Ready to go deeper?

Be Exceptional is Liz's signature leadership course for leaders who are ready to stop over-functioning and start leading with clarity and authority. 👉 Join here

Connect with Liz:

🔗 Start Here, everything in one place

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights

📩 [email protected]

Full Transcript

You already know the theory. Listen more and react less. It's easy to nod along with that in a workshop, completely different when someone's in front of you, frustrated, maybe even accusing you of something that isn't fair, and every part of you wants to correct the record right now.

This week isn't more awareness. It's the one habit that actually holds up in that moment. Here's the habit in three steps.

Notice the urge to justify. That lightning feeling, the need to explain yourself immediately, that's the signal, not the instruction.

Ask a clarifying question instead. Not to buy time, to actually find out what they think is happening.

And respond with what they actually said, not what you assumed they meant. Most defensiveness is a reaction to an imagined accusation, not the real one.

Simple to describe, genuinely hard to do in the moment. Let me show you what I mean.

I remember a meeting where someone was throwing accusations around, not really seeing the bigger picture, and honestly not doing their own job as part of it either. I felt myself getting really angry, the urge to stop them and clarify my position and get my point across was enormous. But I knew I needed to stop, take a breath and ask questions instead.

Here's the part that was genuinely hard. Doing that meant accepting I may not get my perspective heard at all. Not in that moment. That stung, but it also wasn't the point. That's the lesson that changed how I lead.

Your job in the room isn't to have your perspective heard. It's to be clear about the bigger picture you're building toward. And when someone brings you a problem, your job is to understand where they're coming from first. That's the point you move forward from, not the point where you've successfully explained yourself.

I haven't met a leader who's perfect at this, me included. It's a lifelong skill, not a box that you tick once.

But once you understand the weight of the pause, and what asking instead of explaining actually does to a conversation, it changes how people respond to you. Not because you've said less, because you've understood more before you speak.

Next time you feel the pull to defend your point of view before you've understood theirs, that's the moment, not before it, not after it, right there.

If you want a clearer read on where this pattern shows up for you, the Leadership Mirror takes three minutes, link below.