Leading From The Edge Podcast

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Emotional intelligence in action

Reading time, 2 minutes

The truth about emotional intelligence at work

Last week named the skill nobody put on your job description. This episode is the close-up, four ordinary moments that reveal low emotional intelligence on a completely normal Tuesday. Listen to these as a mirror, not a scorecard, you might notice yourself in one, and that's the point.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/uOOyi6O7bLY

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/the-truth-about-emotional-intelligence-at-work

🎓 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]

Low emotional intelligence doesn't announce itself. Nobody stands up in a meeting and says, "I can't take feedback," or "I need to be right more than I need to be effective." It's smaller than that.

Last week was the big picture, the skill nobody put on your job description. This week it's the close-up, what it actually looks like on an ordinary Tuesday.

None of what I'm about to describe makes someone a bad leader. These are habits built under pressure, usually because they worked well enough, for long enough, that nobody questioned them. That's exactly why they're worth a second look now.

Listen to these as a mirror, not a scorecard. You might notice yourself in one. That's the point.

First, needing to be right in the room, instead of being able to sit with being wrong. This looks like defending a decision the second it's questioned, needing the last word, or quietly redirecting blame when something goes sideways. The alternative isn't weakness. It's a leader who can say, "I got that wrong," out loud, in front of their team, and it costs them nothing. It almost never does.

Second, explaining instead of listening when someone raises a concern. Someone brings you a problem, and the reflex is to justify, to give context, to make sure they understand your side before they've even finished stating theirs. It feels like clarity. It reads as not listening. The shift is small, a pause before the response, an actual question instead of an explanation.

Third, taking feedback as a personal attack. Feedback lands, and the body responds before the brain does, tightening up, going quiet, or over-explaining. Whatever's useful in that feedback gets lost in the discomfort of receiving it. High emotional intelligence doesn't mean feedback stops stinging. It means you can still hear it while it does.

Fourth, letting tension sit and curdle, instead of naming it early. Something's off in the room, and the instinct is to hope it resolves on its own. It rarely does. It just gets quieter and more corrosive. Naming it early, calmly, without drama, is one of the most understated moves in leadership.

So, a quick self-check, not a verdict. Which of those did you recognise? Not to feel bad about, just to notice. Awareness is the entire first move. You don't fix a pattern you can't see.

If one of those landed, The Leadership Mirror takes three minutes and shows you exactly what it's costing you. The links are below.

You got promoted on competence. That's not always what keeps you leading well. This episode names the one skill that quietly costs leaders their authority, and walks through two real leaders who hit the exact same wall, only one of whom actually shifted it.

Key takeaways:

- Competence gets you promoted, it rarely explains what happens after

- Emotional intelligence is measurable and learnable, not a personality trait, per Daniel Goleman's five components: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill

- Two leaders faced the same team problem, only the one who changed his own behaviour got a lasting result

- The shift comes down to three moves: pause, ask, then set expectations

- Noticing where your attention goes first is the entire first step 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.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/XV2BtHzwavI

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/the-leadership-skill-most-people-ignore

🎓 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 on Spotify, the audio version: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hbdf0kFgsuhDVNLnanQRc

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

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday, 3 August 2026 at 6:00am AEST
EPISODE LENGTH: 4 minutes 57 seconds
THUMBNAIL: The leadership skill most people ignore cover, not yet supplied

Transcript

You got here on competence. So why does it still feel like something's not landing with your team? I coach leaders on exactly this pattern, so let's get straight into it. Most leaders never separate being good at the work from being good at leading people. By the end of this, you'll know exactly if the gap is yours, and what it actually looks like to close it: the problem, the cost, the insight, and the one shift you can take away today. Here's the problem. Competence gets you promoted. It rarely explains what happens after. Once you're responsible for other people, the job stops being about how well you do the work. It becomes about how well you read and respond to what's happening around you, in the room, under pressure, mid-conflict. Most leaders never notice that shift has happened. So when things stall, they blame the team, the hiring, the communication. Sometimes it's one of those. Often it's a specific gap that no one's even checking for. So what is that gap? Emotional intelligence. And before you switch off, it's not the soft skill you've been thinking it is. Psychologist Daniel Goleman first applied this to business back in 1998, in a Harvard Business Review piece, after studying leadership inside nearly 200 companies. He broke it into five parts: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. It's measurable, it's learnable, and it's not a personality trait. Here's the cost when we're missing it. It doesn't show up on a scorecard. It shows up in whether your team brings you problems early, or hides them until they're too big to hide. Let me show you what that actually looks like in two real leaders. Two leaders came to me around the same time with what looked like the same issue: team members bringing personal stuff to work, distracted, underperforming, dragging the whole team down. Dean's response was to bring me in for one-to-one coaching with the team members themselves, so they could work through it and leave it at the door. Sensible on the surface, he treated it as if it was their issue to fix. Greg's response was different. He asked me to coach him instead. He understood that how his team was showing up was connected to how he was showing up for them, and that was his to shift, not theirs alone. Through the coaching, Greg changed two specific things. He started asking deeper questions before responding to a problem, instead of reacting to the surface of it. And he got clearer on setting expectations and ground rules after he understood what was actually going on, not before. He didn't have to force the shift in his team. Once they felt understood, and felt like he actually cared, their performance started improving on its own. Dean's team members felt supported in their individual sessions, but the culture around them never moved, because the one thing that needed to change, how Dean led, never did. Same starting problem. One leader changed his own behaviour. One outsourced the fix. Only one of them saw lasting results. So here's what actually made the difference, and it's not personality change. It's three things you can start doing this week: pause before you respond to a problem, instead of reacting to it. Ask genuine clarifying questions before you make a decision on what's going on. Then set expectations after you understand the real issue, not before. None of that requires becoming a different person. It requires noticing the gap between reacting and responding, and doing it on purpose. Two things worth being honest with yourself about, not to feel bad about, just to notice. When a team member's performance dips, where does your attention go first: what's wrong with them, or what's mine to adjust? And where in your leadership right now are you paying to fix someone else's behaviour, when the faster lever might be your own? If either of these landed, don't sit with it, go find out. The Leadership Mirror takes three minutes and shows you exactly where this might be costing you. The link's below.

Most burnout doesn't look like burnout from the outside. And if you're the kind of leader I work with, it probably doesn't feel like it either. You're still turning up, still getting things done, but somewhere underneath you're running very fast and no one can see it. In this episode I'm busting the workload myth, naming the two patterns I see draining leaders at every level, and giving you a clear, honest place to start.

Key takeaways:

- The exhaustion stays because the workload isn't the real problem. If it were, solving the workload would fix it.

- There's the work, and then there's the performance on top of the work. Performing calm, performing confidence, performing capability. Your nervous system knows the difference even when no one else does.

- The two patterns underneath the performance: unclear standards (the pressure always flows back to you) and carrying what belongs to others (you carry more, they grow less capable). - Neither pattern is a character flaw. They're patterns, and patterns can be identified, named, and changed.

- You can't fix what you haven't seen clearly. The Leadership Mirror gives you that honest picture in five minutes, free.

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

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/why-you-feel-exhausted-when-you-look-fine

🎓 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: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/start-here

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

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hbdf0kFgsuhDVNLnanQRc

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizmurrayedgeofpossibilities/

📩 [email protected]

Here's the clean version ready to paste:

Full episode transcript

Most burnout doesn't look like burnout from the outside. And if you're the kind of leader that I work with, it probably doesn't feel like burnout either. You're still turning up. You're still getting things done. But somewhere underneath all of that, you are running very fast and no one can see it. If that sounds familiar, then this video is for you.

I'm Liz Murray, executive leadership coach and founder of Edge of Possibilities. Welcome to Take 5 With Me.

Last year, 80% of Australian workers reported they're experiencing burnout. What that number doesn't tell you is how many of those people look completely fine from the outside. How many were managing up, managing sideways, holding everything together, and still turning up to every meeting looking like they had it all handled.

Most burnout doesn't look like burnout. And most of the advice out there completely misses why. So today I want to bust the common assumption I hear, name exactly what's going on, and give you a place to start. By the end of the video you'll know the real reason you're exhausted, and I promise you it's not what you think.

The most common thing I hear from leaders is this: if I could just get on top of everything, I would feel better. So they work harder, they delegate more, they optimise their calendar, they read the book about time management. And the exhaustion stays. That's a signal. Because if the workload were the real problem, then solving the workload would fix it. But it doesn't. So something else is going on.

There's the work, and then there's the performance on top of the work. Performing calm instead of feeling it. Performing confidence instead of drawing on it. Performing capability instead of leading from it. I use the swan image a lot with my clients. Serene above the water, but feet going absolutely flat out underneath. The swan still gets where it's going. The performance works. Nobody sees the effort. But your nervous system knows the difference, even when no one else sees it. That performance layer, the consistent management of how you appear, is what's draining you. Not the decisions, not the meetings. The performance on top of them.

Underneath the performance there are almost always two specific patterns. The first is unclear standards. When expectations aren't held firmly, people fill the gap with their own interpretation, usually shaped by what they can get away with, not what's actually required. The pressure from that gap always flows back to the leader. The second is carrying what belongs to others. Every time you absorb a team member's discomfort, pick up their dropped ball, or rescue them before the natural consequence lands, you reinforce a dynamic that quietly drains everyone. You carry more, they grow less capable, and the gap widens.

I worked with a leader, I'll call him Merrick, who came to me because he genuinely didn't know what else to do. He was stretched really thin. His instinct, because he's a genuinely caring person, was to absorb more and take the pressure off. Except it wasn't working. The more he carried, the more they struggled. He wasn't sleeping. He was becoming reactive in moments he used to find manageable. When we sat with it properly, what became clear was that he had created a culture where his team didn't know what was truly expected of them, not through harshness, but through the opposite. He got clear on expectations. He started holding them consistently. He moved from rescuing to building his team's own capability. He's sleeping now and he's present. The whole team is performing. His workload didn't shrink dramatically. What shifted was the weight he was carrying that was never his to carry.

Neither of these patterns is a character flaw. They're patterns, and patterns can be identified, named, and changed. Which one shows up most in your leadership right now?

You can't fix a pattern you haven't seen clearly. Only 28% of Australian organisations invest in developing their leaders, which means most people carrying real responsibility are figuring this out on their own. You don't have to. The Leadership Mirror is a free five-minute self-assessment. It measures how you make decisions under pressure, how you hold up when things get hard, whether the standards you set are the ones you actually enforce, and whether you're carrying what's yours or absorbing what belongs to others. Your result places you in one of four bands and gives you specific, direct feedback. Not a personality type. A clear picture. The link is in the description.

If what I've described today is landing, the next step is The Leadership Mirror. It's free, it takes five minutes, and it will tell you something genuinely useful. I'll see you next week.

All month we've been circling one idea, authority isn't about how you look, it's about who you're being. In this final episode of the series, Liz ties it all together, the one distinction underneath everything talked about this month, the performing, the drifting, the exhaustion. If you recognised yourself in the loud one, the gone one, or the gripping one, this is exactly where it leads.

Key takeaways:

🎯 Ready to see where your own authority is really coming from?
Take The Leadership Mirror, a short quiz that shows you where your presence holds and where it's quietly drifting. Free, a couple of minutes, the most honest look in the mirror you'll get as a leader.
👉 Take The Leadership Mirror

Watch the video:Who are you being?
Read the blog: The real source of leadership authority

🎓 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 20 July 2026 at 6:00am AEST
EPISODE LENGTH: 2 minutes 45 seconds
THUMBNAIL: Stop Performing, Start Leading, the real shift

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Presence

Reading time, 2 minutes

The Cost Of Performing

When we lead from performance instead of presence, we don't just get tired, we drift, and we usually can't see it happening. In this episode, Liz breaks down the three ways that drift shows up, getting louder, going quiet, or gripping every detail, and explains why none of them are character flaws. They're what fear does to us under pressure. She also unpacks what it actually looks like to stay grounded when someone challenges you in front of the whole team.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/_Bdrej_w2Ac
Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/the-cost-of-performing-how-leaders-quietly-drift 

🎓 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 13 July 2026 at 6:00am AEST
EPISODE LENGTH: 3 minutes
THUMBNAIL: Loud, Gone, or Gripping cover, how leaders drift, which one are you

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development

Think about the most powerful person you've ever been in a room with. Not the loudest, the most powerful. Chances are, they were calm.

In this episode, Liz breaks down why calm isn't passivity or being switched off, it's the clearest signal that someone's authority is real. She explains the difference between performing presence and actually having it, why you can fake a confident posture for about ten minutes but you can't fake genuine calm under real pressure, and why building this matters more as a way of leading than as a technique for one hard meeting.

Key takeaways:

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/cZr8Igi2rGg
Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog

Coming up next week: What happens when you lead from performance instead of presence, and what it quietly costs 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]

Transcript

Think about the most powerful person you've ever been in a room with. Not the loudest, the most powerful. I'd put money on it that they were calm. Not switched off, not passive, calm.

There was a stillness to them. They didn't rush to fill the silences. They didn't get rattled when someone pushed back. And they didn't need to win the moment. And somehow, that made them the most commanding person there.

That's not a coincidence. Calm is the tell. It's the clearest signal that someone's authority is real.

Here's why. When you're performing presence, you're under pressure the whole time. You're monitoring how you're coming across. So the moment someone goes sideways, someone challenges you, a decision gets questioned, the room turns, you feel it spike. You get louder or faster or defensive, and the performance cracks.

But when your authority comes from who you're being, there's nothing to defend. You're not holding up a front, so there's nothing to protect. Someone can challenge you, and you stay steady, because their reaction isn't a threat to your sense of who you are.

That's the part people can really feel. That steadiness. They can't always name it, but they trust it. We are wired to trust the calm person, because calm signals that someone is in control of themselves. And if you're in control of yourself, they can rely on you when it really matters.

Here's the thing you can't get around. You can't fake this one. You can fake a confident posture. You can fake a steady voice for about ten minutes. But genuine calm under real pressure comes from the inside. It comes from who you're being, not what you're doing.

Which is exactly why it's worth building this not as a technique, but as a way of leading people.

Next week, we're going to look at what happens when you don't, when you lead from performance instead of presence, and what it quietly costs you.

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development

Reading time, 3 minutes

Most of what we've been taught about executive presence is wrong. We're told it's about how we show up. Stand tall, speak with conviction, hold the room, look the part. So we do all of it. And we feel like a fraud the entire time we're doing it.

In this episode I unpack the difference between performing presence and actually having it, why the performing is what's quietly exhausting so many genuinely capable leaders, and the one question that changes how you lead: who are you being when you walk into the room?

This is the first of a four-part July series on leadership presence. Authority isn't about how you look. It's about who you're being.

In this episode:

00:00 The executive presence myth

00:30 Why performing presence feels like fraud

01:10 Performed presence vs real presence

01:45 The question to sit with this month Want to see where your own authority might be drifting?

Take the Leadership Mirror, a free five-minute quiz that reflects back where your presence is really coming from.

https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Most of what we've been taught about executive presence is completely wrong. We've been told it's about how we show up. We need to stand tall, we need to speak with conviction, and we've got to hold that room. We need to look the part. So we do all of it. We manage our posture, we manage our tone, and the words we choose. The face we make when someone challenges us in a meeting. And it all works, sort of. People think we've got it all together. But here's what no one tells us. If presence is something that we're performing, we feel like a fraud the entire time that we're doing it. Some part of us knows that it isn't real. We're managing the optics and hoping that nobody looks too closely. That is exhausting. And it's why so many genuinely capable leaders sit in their cars after a big meeting completely depleted, wondering why something that they're apparently good at takes so much out of them. It's because performing presence and having presence are two completely different things. Real presence isn't something we project outward. It's something people feel from you. And you can't fake what people feel. They clock it in seconds. The leader who's performing authority and the leader who actually has it can say the exact same words, and the room responds completely differently. So the question isn't how do I look more authoritative. That's the trap. That's what keeps us managing the surface. The real question, the one we're going to sit with this month, across the month of July, is this. Who are you being when you walk into the room? Because authority isn't about how you look. It's about who you're being. And that changes everything about how you lead. This month I'm going to show you what real leadership presence actually looks like. Not the performance, the real thing. The kind that's calm, that doesn't need to prove itself, and that people trust without being able to explain why. Stay with me. Next week, we'll get to the heart of it.

🎓 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
📩 l[email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday 30 June 2026 at 6:00am AEST
EPISODE LENGTH: 2 minutes 19 seconds
THUMBNAIL: Week 1 cover, the truth about executive presence nobody tells you

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development

Reading time, 5 minutes

June 30 is almost here. And if you're like most leaders, you're probably heads down right now, finalising budgets, closing out performance reviews, getting through the list.

But before you cross the line into a new financial year, I want to ask you something most leaders never stop long enough to answer. Not did we hit the numbers, but who were you as a leader this year, and are you proud of it. Because your budget resets on 1 July. Your leadership patterns don't.

In this episode I share a personal story about the year I arrived at EOFY carrying the exact same pattern I'd promised myself I would change, and four questions every leader should sit with honestly before crossing into FY27.

In this episode:

00:00 The question most leaders never ask at EOFY

01:00 My own EOFY story, the year nothing had changed

02:30 The patterns that don't reset on 1 July

03:45 The EOFY leadership audit, four questions to sit with

05:00 Why I built the Authority Drift Index for this exact moment The four audit questions: Did you hold your standards consistently, or did you let things slide when the timing felt wrong? Did you make clear decisions and stand by them, or did you second guess yourself and keep revisiting? Did you invest in your people, or did you manage their output? When pressure hit, did you lead from the front, or did you react, withdraw, or become someone your team didn't recognise? Your team deserves the best version of you in

FY27. So do you.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

June 30 is almost here, and if you're like most leaders I know, you're probably heads down right now. Finalising budgets. Closing out performance reviews. Getting through the list. But before you cross the line into a new financial year, I want to ask you something that most leaders never stop long enough to answer. And it's not, did we hit the numbers. But who were you as a leader this year, and are you proud of it. Because your budget resets on July 1st, but your leadership patterns don't. About five years into my leadership career, my team had tripled in size. The spreadsheet lines had grown. The wages and operational costs were pretty significant. And if I'm honest, the figures were starting to scare me a little, even though I'd always been proactive with planning and everything was tracking pretty well. I still felt heavy, and I felt really overwhelmed. I felt a bit out of my depth if I'm honest, in a way that I'd never felt before. When I sat down with my coach to work through it, I was surprised to find that it had nothing to do with the budget at all. The figures were fine. There was no financial reason for what I was feeling. The real culprit was the date. I'd set an intention at the start of the financial year to do extra check in meetings with a team member who was underperforming. Not just the formal performance improvement plan meetings, I genuinely wanted to provide more support. I wanted to ask better questions and help them understand what was expected and give them every opportunity to improve. But the busyness of the day to day had swallowed that intention whole. And now here I was at the end of their PIP, at the end of the financial year, with every end of financial year pressure piling in all at once, realising I hadn't followed through on what I'd told myself I would do. I'd let them down, and my actions had not been congruent with what my intentions were. The heaviest part wasn't the workload. It was this. I had been busy doing exactly the same thing as the year before, and the one small pattern that I had wanted to change and embed, the one thing that could have made a real difference to that person, had slipped again for another six months. This is what it feels like when your leadership drifts and you don't notice it at the end of the year. Here's the truth about the new financial year that nobody says out loud. July 1 feels like a fresh start. New goals, new targets, clean slate. But if your patterns come with you across that line, unless you deliberately choose to leave them behind, the standard you let slide in February, it will still be waiting for you in July the next year. The conversation you kept avoiding, it'll still be there. And the team member that you kept meaning to invest more time in, they'll still be there feeling the gap. A new financial year doesn't reset your leadership. Only you can do that. And the only way to do it is to get honest right now, before you cross that line, about what you actually ran this year. Not what you intended, not what you planned, but what you actually did, consistently, under pressure, when it was inconvenient. Because that is the truth in your leadership financial year 2026, and it's the foundation you're building for your financial year in 2027, whether you examine it or not. The end of financial year leadership audit. I want to give you four questions to sit with before June 30th. Be honest, no one's watching. The first one, did you hold your standards consistently, or did you let things slide when the timing felt wrong? Think about the moments you told yourself it wasn't the right time to have that conversation. Add them up, this is your drift score on standards. The second is, did you make clear decisions and stand by them, or did you second guess yourself and keep revisiting? Your team watches how you decide more than what you decide. Inconsistency here costs you authority faster than almost anything else. And the third, did you invest in your people, or did you manage their output? There's a difference between checking metrics and genuinely understanding what your team members need to grow. Which one did you do more of this year? The fourth, when pressure hit, and it always hits, did you lead from the front, or did you react? Did you withdraw, or did you become someone your team didn't quite recognise? Pressure reveals that pattern. What did your score reveal? Sit with those four questions honestly, because the answers are your leadership audit, and they will tell you more about where you stand than any performance review ever could. You know, I spent years arriving at end of financial year carrying the same patterns I had promised myself I'd change. Not because I didn't care, and not because I wasn't trying, but because I didn't have a clear enough picture exactly of where my authority was, where it was strong and where it was needing some work. I was working on everything generally, instead of focusing on the specific things that would have made me the best leader possible. That's what the Authority Drift Index gives you. If you haven't taken it yet, this is your moment, right now, before the new financial year starts, before you carry on the same patterns across the line for another twelve months. It's free, it takes five minutes to do, and it'll show you exactly where to focus your leadership energy in the 2027 financial year. The link is below, or just type drift in the comments and I'll send it straight to you. Your team deserves the best version of you in the 2027 financial year, and so do you. I'll see you on the other side.

🎯 Take the quiz here → 👉https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz 

🎓 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:

 ▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos 

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version 

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights 

📸 Instagram 

🌐 www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au 

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday 22 June 2026 at 6:00am AEST

EPISODE LENGTH: 6 minutes 37 seconds

THUMBNAIL: Week 4 cover, your budget resets, your patterns don't

Early in my leadership career I was obsessed with getting better. Every workshop, every book, every minute in the car spent listening to the biggest names in leadership. I was ticking every box. And I still couldn't understand why the people side of leadership wasn't getting any easier. In this episode I'm sharing why that was, and introducing something I built to solve exactly that problem.

In this episode:

00:00 The tapes in the car, my obsession with getting better

01:15 The uncomfortable truth about feedback and ego

02:30 Why I built the Authority Drift Index

03:45 The four pillars it measures

04:45 What I want you to feel when you get your result

05:45 It's live today, here's how to access it

The four pillars:

Decision Discipline, how clearly and consistently you make and stand by your decisions

Pressure Behaviour, how you show up when things get hard and the stakes are high

Standards Enforcement, how consistently you hold the line on what matters, even when it's uncomfortable

Responsibility Boundaries, whether you're holding your team accountable for their outcomes or quietly carrying the weight yourself

It's my birthday week, and the Authority Drift Index is live today.

It's free, it takes five minutes, and it's the most useful thing I've put out this year.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Early in my leadership career I was obsessed with getting better. Every leadership workshop I could find, I was there. Every book, I read it. Every minute in the car, I had a tape on, and later a CD. Peter Drucker, Jack Canfield, John Maxwell, Stephen Covey, Daniel Goleman.

I was ticking every box, doing all the things that great leaders do. And I still couldn't understand why the people side of leadership wasn't getting any easier. I knew what to do in the moment, but afterward I would feel tired and drained, like something important was still missing. And I couldn't find the answer in any of the books I was reading.

Today I want to tell you why, and introduce something I built to solve exactly that problem.

Here is the uncomfortable truth I eventually had to face. When you are the leader, your team is not always going to tell you where you're missing the mark. Not because they don't see it, but because the dynamic between a leader and their team makes that kind of honesty very rare. And even when the feedback does come through, our ego steps in. Our ego puts a veil over what we're hearing, to protect us from feeling hurt or feeling uncomfortable. We take from feedback only what we are ready and willing to hear in that moment.

I know this because I lived it. I was doing all the right things on paper, but I was filtering out the very information that would have helped me grow faster.

And here's what I've learnt from over two decades of leading teams and coaching leaders. This is not a weakness, it's a deeply human response. The problem is that it keeps us circling, second guessing ourselves, feeling like we're not quite enough, without being able to name exactly what needs to change.

I spent years looking for something that could cut through all of that noise. A tool that could ask the deeper questions, in a space where a leader feels comfortable enough to answer honestly. And I couldn't find it. So I've built it.

The Authority Drift Index came from everything I know about what actually shifts leadership. Not the theory, not the beautiful frameworks, but the moment a leader sits in a quiet space, away from the pressure and the noise, and genuinely reflects on their own thought patterns. That's what great coaching does. It creates a comfortable space that asks the questions that cut through our ego's defences. And in that space, that's where the real understanding happens. That's where a leader sees their own behaviour through a different set of filters and gets a deeper picture of their strengths and of their stretches.

The Authority Drift Index is that experience, in five minutes, for free. It measures your leadership authority across four pillars.

Decision Discipline, how clearly and consistently you make, and stand by, your decisions.

Pressure Behaviour, how you show up when things get hard and the stakes are really high.

Standards Enforcement, how consistently you hold the line on what really matters, even when it's uncomfortable.

And Responsibility Boundaries, whether you're holding your team accountable for their outcomes, or quietly carrying the weight yourself.

Your result puts you in one of four bands, and each band gives you specific, honest feedback on what you're doing well, and exactly where the drift is happening. Not generic leadership advice. Your pattern, your next move.

I want to tell you what I actually built this for. Not the quiz mechanics, not the score. The feeling that I want you to have when you read your result. I want to save you from the time we all spend circling around with those thoughts in our head. The second guessing, the self doubt, the quiet feeling of not being quite enough, that so many leaders carry around with them, often completely invisibly.

When you finish the Authority Drift Index, I want you to feel two things. The first thing I want you to feel is clarity. Not a vague sense of something that needs to change, but a specific understanding of what's actually going on in your leadership right now. Named, clear, and actionable.

And the second thing I want you to feel is seen. I want you to read your result and feel recognised in what you're doing really well. Because most leaders are doing more right than they realise, and they deserve to know that.

This is your opportunity to sit in a comfortable space, away from the pressure of the role, and take an honest look at what might be going on. Not to judge yourself, but to understand yourself. Because understanding your patterns gives you the power to change them. And changing them is how you become the version of yourself that leads in the best way possible.

It's my birthday week, and I can't think of a better way to mark it than by giving you something I genuinely wish I'd had earlier in my leadership journey.

The Authority Drift Index is live today. It's free, it takes five minutes, and it will tell you more about where your leadership authority stands right now than most leaders learn in a year of workshops and books.

Here's how to access it.

Click the link below in this video, take the quiz, read your result honestly, and then decide what you want to do about it.

If your result shows that there's work for you to do, I have some options to support you, from a thirty minute debrief with me personally, through to a deeper intensive for leaders who are ready to really recalibrate their authority from the ground up.

Let's start with the quiz. https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz 

It's free.

You can type drift in the comments and I'll send it straight to you, or click on the link below right now.

I'll see you in the results.

🎯 Take the quiz here → 👉https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz 

🎓 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:

 ▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube, weekly leadership videos 

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify, the audio version 

💼 LinkedIn, weekly newsletter and insights 

📸 Instagram 

🌐 www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au 

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday 15 June 2026 at 6:00am AEST EPISODE LENGTH: 6 minutes 28 seconds THUMBNAIL: Birthday week launch thumbnail, ADI cover

Most leaders don't find out their authority is drifting until the damage is already done. Not because they aren't showing up. Not because they don't care. Because authority drift is silent and by the time you feel it, your team has already felt it for a while.

In this episode I share my own story of drifting so far into doing mode that I stopped leading, and a client story about a leader who kept losing great people without understanding why, until two of his most senior team members threatened to quit.

In this episode:

00:00 What authority drift is and why it's silent

01:30 Why your team won't tell you it's happening

02:30 My own authority drift story

03:45 The client story, what it actually costs 05:15 The four areas where drift shows up first

06:45 What to pay attention to this week

The four areas to watch:

1. Decision Discipline, are you making clear decisions and standing by them?

2. Pressure Behaviour, how do you show up when things get hard?

3. Standards Enforcement, are you consistent or does it depend on your mood?

4. Responsibility Boundaries, are you holding your team accountable or carrying their work?

Your challenge this week: don't look at your own behaviour. Look at your team's response to you. Their behaviour is a mirror of your leadership. And if you don't love what you're seeing, that's not a team problem. That's a leadership signal worth paying attention to.

Something is coming next week that will help you measure exactly where your authority stands right now across all four of those areas. It's free, it takes five minutes, and the clarity it gives you lasts a lot longer than that. Stay close.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Here's something no one tells us about losing our authority as a leader. It doesn't happen loudly. There's no meeting where someone tells us. There's no email. There's not even a formal complaint. It happens really quietly and gradually. And by the time we feel it, our team has already felt it for a while.

That is authority drift. And this week I want to talk about what it is actually costing you, because most leaders don't find out until the damage is already done.

The leaders I work with who are experiencing authority drift are almost never aware that it's happening. They're showing up. They're working really hard. They genuinely care about their team. But something is quietly shifting underneath the surface. The team stops bringing them ideas. High performers just start going through the motions. And the energy in the team changes, subtly but unmistakably.

And here's the thing that makes authority drift so dangerous. Your team won't tell you. Think about it. Who's going to walk into their boss's office and say I don't think you're leading us as well as you could be? Nobody. Because that's not how teams work. So the drift just continues. And the leader keeps showing up, working hard, genuinely caring, completely unaware that the gap between where they are and where they want the team to be is growing wider every week.

And I lived this myself. I had a clear vision. I knew exactly how I wanted things done and what outcomes I wanted us all to achieve. And I thought the best way to support my team was to get in there with them. Roll up my sleeves. Show them I wasn't going to ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. So I did, every day, hands on right alongside them. And then at night after my three little boys went to bed, I'd finally sit down and do my actual leadership work.

I was really exhausted and I genuinely couldn't see where I could stop. It took one of my colleagues pointing out my calendar issues, which was her very diplomatic way of telling me I was doing too much, and then a coach asking me the right questions, before I could finally see what was happening. I had drifted so far into doing mode that I wasn't leading anymore. And the most confronting part, I hadn't even considered that my team might not have found my level of involvement helpful. Who was going to tell me? I was the boss.

I want to share a client story with you because it illustrates the real cost of authority drift in a way that most leaders don't see coming. This leader did everything right at the start. He had a clear vision and mission. He recruited people who were a genuine passion fit for the work. Invested in proper onboarding processes. And took time to clarify processes and expectations. And for the first five months or so it worked really beautifully. The new team members were engaged, enthusiastic, and would bring their own ideas and initiative to the role all the time.

And then something would shift. The initiative from the team members would drop off. People would start waiting to be told what to do rather than bring their own thinking. And the spark that made them a great fit would quietly fade.

He assumed he was slipping in recruitment. He started letting people go when they became too reliant on him. He restructured and changed direction and tried again. And the pattern kept repeating.

What was actually happening was this. The onboarding was strong but the ongoing support wasn't. The one to one meetings had become a really quick tick the box focused purely on the metrics. There was no quality feedback on what was going well. And no questions to understand what his team members were actually experiencing. There was no space for them to share their ideas or bring their creativity to the role. He had become fixated on the gaps and calling them out. And he had stopped seeing what his people had to offer. He had become a reactive micromanager without even realising it.

It wasn't until two of his most senior team members threatened to leave that he reached out for coaching. And what we uncovered together was this. He had lost their respect because he wasn't respecting what they had to offer. They didn't feel valued. And when people don't feel valued, they stop bringing their best. That's what authority drift costs. Not just engagement, not just performance. It costs you the trust and respect of the people you are responsible for leading.

So how do you know if your authority is drifting? There are four areas I look at when I'm working with a leader on this. And next week I'm going to show you a tool that measures exactly where you stand across all four. But for now here's what to pay attention to.

The first thing is your decisions. Are you making them clearly and standing by them, or are you second guessing yourself, revisiting decisions, or avoiding making decisions at all? The second is how you behave when you're under pressure. When things get really hard, do you head to the front to take the lead, or do you withdraw and become someone your team doesn't really recognise? The third is the standards you hold. Are you consistent, or are there standards you enforce sometimes and let others slide depending on your mood or the situation? And the fourth is where responsibility sits. Are you holding your team accountable for their own outcomes, or are you carrying their work, solving their problems, and wondering why nothing changes?

These four areas are where authority either builds or it erodes. And most leaders have at least one where the drift is already happening. The question is whether you're paying attention to it.

Here's what I want you to do this week. Don't look at your own behaviour. Look at your team's response to you. Because your team is always giving you data about your leadership. The way they engage in meetings. Whether they bring you problems or solve them themselves. Whether they do the minimum or bring their best thinking. Their behaviour is a mirror of your leadership. And if you don't love what you're seeing, that's not a team problem. That's a leadership signal worth paying attention to.

Next week I'm launching something that's going to help you name exactly where your authority stands right now across all four of those areas I just mentioned. It's free, it takes five minutes, and the clarity it gives you lasts a lot longer than that. So stay close, subscribe so you don't miss it. And if this landed for you today, share it with a leader in your world who needs to hear it. I'll see you in the next one.

🎓 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:

▶️ Take 5 With Me on YouTube — weekly leadership videos

🎧 Leading From The Edge on Spotify — the audio version

💼 LinkedIn — weekly newsletter and insights

📸 Instagram

🌐 www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au

📩 [email protected]

PUBLISH DATE: Monday 9 June 2026 at 6:00am AEST

EPISODE LENGTH: 7 minutes 25 seconds

THUMBNAIL: Your Authority Is Drifting And You Don't Know It, optimised under 500kb