THE COURAGE TO LEAD INTERVIEW SERIES

Robert Andersson - AUTHOR of: "Who makes a leader not What"

"This is the future of leadership, where actions speak louder than outputs and supporting our people (and looking after ourselves) is fundamental to success." Kristy Keltie, Manager of Organisational Change Management in the Public Sector

As an entrepreneur, Robert has been the founder of more than a dozen successful businesses across Australia and Europe.

As a youth Robert lived a very dark life moulded by the divorce of his parents and the death of his much loved grandfather. At this age he declared he wanted to become a millionaire compromising his morals and his ethics, no matter how rich he became.

The book and this interview is about Robert's search for a better self and going from the dark side to the light side.

Life is about creation not discovering.

In his business life, when he was living the dark side all he thought about was how can he control people.

When he decided to live life on the light side all he thought about was how can he empower people so they could thrive.

When you give people their own autonomy you have so much more time to be creative yourself.

The interview describes what happens next in Robert’s life.

Final thoughts:

Simon Sinek has written a book that Leading all starts with Why.

Robert has a different perspective if your who is on the dark side your why will be completely different to your who if you are on the light side.

Have integrity-simply put would you do something if someone was watching you

Add love and the flavour of love to everything you do

Listening makes you a great leader and a better person.

If you want a copy of Robert's book go to.

Rivenconsulting.Com.au

Ali specialises in leadership, teams, culture and workforce transformation. She is Adjunct Faculty at the Australian Graduate School of Management UNSW and a nationally accredited mediator.

She is the founder & CEO of Ality. Where she has designed personality assessments that identify your connection type and motivational drivers in relationships, teams and leadership.

Ali is the bestselling author of 3 books

Click or Clash? (2023),

Get Conscious: How to stop overthinking and come alive (2017) and

Collective Consciousness and Gender (2018).

Ali has a PhD from the Australian National University. Her thesis examined group behaviour (culture), social psychology and international law.

Some of the gems in this interview

The way leaders regulate themselves is picked up by others.

Where you go others will go.

If you are feeling joy, that joy can be transferred and shared across a whole team.

People who work in novel environments do better.

Since 2015 there has been a shift in was works in an organisation.

Culture is crucial to an organisation.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast- Peter Drucker.

How people feel work is essential to outcomes.

Productivity is linked to inclusion, having fun, being valued at work.

When we keep on getting culture wrong people leave, people are being bullied and people’s wellbeing declines.

Workplace culture needs to be coached as an ongoing process.

Flexibility in the workplace since Covid is one of the biggest changes for the industrial world.

Most important factor is belonging by safely connecting with others.

The best outcomes come from diversity.

Click or Clash explores how to navigate different connection types and different personalities with a QR code for a questionnaire that identifies what your own connection and personality type, at the start of the book as to what.

Do you want to listen to a story about a international leader who was at the peak of his game, then resigned from his high performing jobs against the wishes of his bosses, and at the same time filed for divorce?

This is a story about a leader who learns to let ego go and live their life in service of other people.

This is the story of Nick Jonsson Managing Director of EGN an executive support network where CEO Executives support each other through the things that keep them up at night.

Nick is also the author of the best selling book Executive Loneliness.

Leadership Gems in this interview

1.

If you have something on your mind that is troubling you write it down and make a list who you can approach to ask for help

2.

Be Vulnerable

3.

Talk about feelings first

Would you like to hear about a leader, who doesn’t consider themselves to be a leader?

Would you like to hear about a leader who has created a community where people have the trust to share their deepest fears and vulnerabilities, with each other, and at the same time genuinely support and celebrate the successes of each person within the community when they succeed in doing something they did not think they were capable of doing?

This is the story of Kelly Irving.

Kelly has created the Expert Author Academy which consists predominantly of people who have never written a non fiction book before but because of Kelly’s support and the community she has created, all of these people go on to become authors, sharing their stories to the world.

Some leadership gems throughout this interview

We learn through osmosis by doing it.

We have to get out of our comfort zone in order to push ourselves to ultimately better ourselves.

Kelly doesn’t have all the answers but is testing and trying things within the community all of the time. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

Success is an organic thing from working with people and listening to what their needs are.

Rather than strive for perfection why don’t we improve 1% every day.

Do you want to learn how to be a leader when the most confronting of crisis’s are occurring around you?

This is the interview for you.

Jamie Caldwell is the Director, Energy Operations Part of the NSW Treasury cluster in the Office of Energy and Climate Change,

Jamie has lived the blueprint for how to prepare for leading in a crisis across a wide and varied level of situations simply because he has created the experiences repeatedly where he has the skills to perform at a high level in any crisis.

Mix this with the anomaly that he left school at 15 years old, became a professional lifeguard Wollongong Beach and then put himself through a Private Paramedic Training course.

4 things about Leadership that Jamie has shared with us

We are all equal

Be inquisitive, don’t be afraid to open up doors

Establish, build and maintain good relationships

Be honest and be truthful build a good reputation

What is special about Jamie is he is exceptionally down to earth but he excels in the pinnacle of areas that challenge humanity in the 21st century, i.e. the frequency and scale of Emergencies we experience in our world today.

This next interview is simply amazing in its simplicity.

We are about to listen to how Jan Willett was the Director of Events for New South Wales from 2004 to 2021.

In that role Jan was responsible for ensuring events such as Mardi Gras, City to Surf, Sydney Marathon, New Years Eve, Australia Day, The Invictus Games were organised and ran to such as successful level that the community did not know that Jan Willet and her team even existed.

I give a long introduction in the interview with Jan as I respect her professionalism and skills to a high degree as she is so modest and humble about the impact she has on others.

I won’t say much here except for some wonderful leadership gems.

When working with a group of people, find something that you respect.

With respect comes listening.

If you are chairing meetings with different groups of people have a definite objective, make sure the meeting is action orientated.

Human being crave certainty.

Create a safe place for people to be listened to and respected.

This interview is true leadership in action. Her final leadership gem says it all.

A good leader should be humble.

If you are humble you will listen.

Listening is the key to good leadership, not talking.

Our next guest on The Courage to Lead Interview Series is Paul Watson and Author of Lost and Found - why we need adventure.

He describes himself as the original nerd.

His story is beyond interesting.

Paul owned several large pharmacies in rural Victoria and they were very successful. He had the fast cars, the wealth, the house but he did not have a sustainable lifestyle.

Paul survived on minimal sleep, striving for more success in wealth and a thriving business model.

He lived off fast food and had an account at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. He was conservatively 20 kg overweight.

Paul made a decision to change this, which ended with him selling his businesses and eventually being a competitor in little known event called

The 6633 Arctic Ultra - a 583 kilometre unsupported solo race deep in the Arctic Circle.

This is his story.

We explore how Paul became this person. He attributes his journey to creating the discipline in himself to make high quality decisions.

His main message is he wants people to have a better story for themselves.

I really enjoyed this interview and there were a lot of laughs throughout, I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did.

I will leave you with a recap of some of the best messages from Paul.

Remember we are all dealing with human beings, who have feelings, hopes, dreams and emotions. We are a system.

If you develop better human beings, starting with ourselves, we will by design have a better world.

Matt is the co-founder and creator of wellbeing program The Change Room and author of the book with the same name : The Change Room.  

He is best known for his NRL coaching career, but it is his most recent endeavours that are having on impact outside the elite sporting arena and helping everyday people.

Combining both his qualifications (a Bachelor of Applied Science (Exercise and Sports Science), performance coaching experience and extensive research into wellbeing, Matt has created an excellent program which is changing hundreds of peoples’ lives for the better. 

His passion drives him to elevate the wellbeing of others so that they can lead their best lives.

Coming from a Solution Based Family, and with training as a School Teacher, Youth Worker and Sports Science background strap yourself in for an interview that covers so much.

A truly enlightening discussion about what works in leading people to see them truly grow.

There were so many quotable quotes throughout the interview but this one says it all

"You have to love something to truly perform at your best."

On 30th October 2019, Carlene was appointed NSW State Emergency Services (SES) Commissioner. Carlene leads the combat agency with legislated responsibility for storms, floods and tsunamis.

Literally 3 months later in March 2020, the world, New South Wales and the rest of Australia went into Lockdowns because of Covid 19. That meant that none of the 10,500 volunteers in the SES all over New South Wales could not meet or train together, it all had to be done over Zoom or similar.

Then New South Wales has had and continues to have the biggest flood events ever state-wide.

How do you prepare for that and deal with that, all the while leading a volunteer organisation of 10,500 talented and diversified people?

This interview tells that story.

Emma Doyle and Natalie Ashdown

What Makes a Great Coach?

Emma is a coach, mentor and keynote speaker who is sought after around the world.

She can help turn your motivation into action.

She is a former Division 1 US College Tennis Player and has represented Australia as a World Team Coach on 20 occasions.

Emma is deeply qualified to know What Makes a Great Coach because she asks the question of all her guests on The Coaching Podcast as the host of that show. She has interviewed over 500 expert sport and business coaches with over 30,000 downloads to date.

Emma is a TEDx speaker(Unleashing Female Potential) and her clients say she is the real life female version of Coach Ted Lasso.

Natalie is one of Australia’s most senior and experienced coaches and a recognised speaker and author.

She is one of the small group of coaches in the world to hold the International Coach Federation Master Certified Coach credential.

Natalie is the CEO of Open Door Coaching and her clients include among many, The Australian Defence Force.

Together Emma and Natalie authored and wrote What Makes a Great Coach with the goal of using lessons in Sport to translate to business and life in general including being a parent and a grandparent.

Calling upon Emma’s vast amount of data from her life’s experiences and over 500 interviews on The Coaching Podcast asking great coaches and elite athletes, what makes a great coach in 3 words or less. When these athletes include some of the most renowned number 1 current and former world champions the results become very interesting.

What is refreshing about their book What Makes a Great Coach, there are 10 Chapters, but they are not called Chapters they are called Practices. Both Emma and Natalie are all about action. The Practices can be read in any order, whatever you have going on in your life at that moment. That makes the book a life time resource.

These Practices are

Decision Making

Belief

Purpose

Passion

Energy

Empathy

Listening

Curiosity

Communication

Resilience

You will be blown away about how dynamic Emma and Natalie are together and I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did they are warm hearted, energetic leaders who seek to provide the environment for people to do their absolute best making them an ideal guest on The Courage to Lead Interview Series.