📰 Front Page Leadership - Lessons about leaders burning out from the Hawthorn Football Club saga

How do you navigate difficult conversations as a leader while maintaining your integrity and character? This episode of Front Page Leadership shines a light on the personal toll leadership can take, as we discuss the recent resignation of Hawthorn Football Club CEO Justin Reeves and the challenges leaders face when making tough decisions. We emphasise the importance of being a leader with integrity, good intentions, strong values, and a focus on caring for people, all while understanding that not everyone will agree with your decisions.

Through personal anecdotes and stories, we explore the necessity of having a respectful relationship between managers and team members, and how crucial it is to separate the decision from the character of the leader who made it. We share strategies and skills needed to make difficult decisions and take a stand without feeling the need to please everyone. Join us for this insightful conversation about the challenges leaders face and how to navigate them with courage and integrity, and learn how to communicate your decisions in a way you can be proud of.

******************************************************
Want to check out how Authentic your organisation is? Take our free online Authentimeter Assessment tool here

You can find full shownotes for this episode and more here

Visit our website The Real Learning Experience

Follow us on instagram or Linked In

Got a question for the Podcast? You can drop us a voice message via instagram or email us at: theculturenerds@reallearning.com.au

Thanks to our Podcasting producer, Josh at Deadset Podcasting for all his work behind the scenes.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

This content is primarily designed as a podcast. This transcript is AI generated and imperfect (proof that AI isn't ready to replace us all just yet!).

Kirralea: Before we get into today's episode, we want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the elders, past, present and emerging. 

Hello listeners, and welcome back to a format of our podcast that we haven't done for a little while, but I'm really excited to be recording an episode of Front Page Leadership. With me I have my co-host, Simon Thiessen. Welcome, Simon. 

Simon: Hello, Kirralea, and yes, it's a member of the Authenticity Transforming Workplace Culture family of podcasts and a format that you get very excited about. 

Kirralea: Yes, i love recording these ones because I think we have a lot of listeners that will be aware of what's happening in the news, and I think for us to be able to relate that back to leadership lessons is a great concept. 

Simon: Yes. So, as a departure from the norm, i normally get a message from you at sort of nine o'clock at night that you've noticed something in the news you want to record a podcast about. I initiated this one so I might read the article and I look I'm not going to do it justice the same way you do, Kirralea, with the research you do so, but I'm just going to go through it. Give give our listeners an overview. It's related to the Hawthorne Chief Executive, justin Reeves, who quit the club in the last 48 hours. He was the CEO and for our non-football focused listeners, hawthorne is an AFL football club, an AFL football club that's been going through quite a bit of controversy lately, that are having a very, very poor season of performance. 

Kirralea: They did win by 127 points on the weekend. 

Simon: Yeah, and look, my description there was only partly inspired by the fact that Kirralea supports Hawthorne and partly inspired just by the fact that it's been diabolical. So, no, they've had a poor season, probably an expected one, but they're dealing with a bunch of other issues and for our listeners I just want to clarify something This is not about the issues they're facing. We're not expressing an opinion here about whether those issues are right, wrong, indifferent. I will express a very quick opinion and I'll acknowledge that this is actually part of the problem that led the CEO to resign. It appears to me that the issues have not been handled well by the club, and that's all I'm qualified to say, because and I'm barely qualified to say that because I have no inside knowledge, but of course, everyone's got an opinion- It pains me to agree with you, by the way. 

Kirralea: It pains me to agree with you, by the way. 

Simon: Yeah, it appears to me and you know personally, privately, I've probably got stronger opinions than that, but it's they're uneducated. I don't know, I'm only reading what we see in the media. So I think what's happened to Justin Reeves as a leader happens to so many leaders out there at some level that we become the magnet for everything that's going wrong. It becomes so personal, it wears us down. So he said that he is taking he's cited the personal toll in the wake of a very difficult period for the club. 

They talked about how he's worked really hard to establish some foundations etc. And thinks it's the right time to hand over. But in the essence, at the, at the heart of this, it's a leader who got to a point where it was too much and we see that every day in our work. We see leaders hit that point every day in our work and we see leaders on that pathway every day in our work and I really wanted to talk about that dynamic rather than the specific issues at Hawthorne. It was really. This was just the catalyst that made me think of this. 

Kirralea: And when we look around, it's not just at Hawthorne that this problem with leaders feeling like they need to step away. 

Simon: Even within the AFL world. 

Kirralea: Yeah, that's right. We're seeing it a lot and there is an underlying theme of the reasons why this is happening. 

Simon: When it happens in football, we see it, because each of those clubs has got thousands of supporters. 

Kirralea: Oh, and it's on the front page of the paper. That's right. So if it's happened as much as it has this week, how much does it happen every day that we have no idea about? 

Simon: Yeah, and where there aren't 15 different talk shows that focus on. You know, AFL, that this is news for them. It happens every day in so many organisations and it's unseen. And so for me, I've always been really conscious in my work with leaders and also as a leader, I've personally experienced this that I know I'm a person of integrity, i know I'm a person with good intentions, i know I'm a person who cares about other people. I know I'm a person with strong values. 

But when people don't like what you do as a leader, when people don't agree with a decision, when things don't go in people's favour, when things don't work for whatever reason and things sometimes don't work, as we've probably seen in the Hawthorne Football Club situation people don't criticise in those clinical terms Oh, i don't agree with that. What they do is they go straight at the leaders' integrity, at their values, at their ethics, at the fact about they question whether they care about people or not. And I think as leaders, we can cope with people not agreeing with our decisions. I think as leaders not all leaders we can cope with people criticising our process. We can cope with people suggesting that we could have done better, that something hasn't worked as well as intended. I think what really eats away at people is that personal stuff where our integrity, our values, our morals, the fact that we care about people is called into question. What do you think? 

Kirralea: And that sucks the life out of you, doesn't it, when that's what you are having to face. And I really like Dimmer, who's the coach that resigned at Richmond this week, who is another one of the coaches in the AFL. I really like him. 
I listened to his press conference and I read a little bit about it and it's sad to see someone with the life sucked out of them, isn't it? It's really sad. I listened to a comment that Craig McCray, who is another current coach in the AFL, and he said. He said you're constantly trying to find the right balance between the right energy to give your team group. 
You find the energy for your players, and then you get home and you're exhausted and your wife and family want you to find that energy too. And I just thought howthat happens to everyone. That happens to everyday life in general, let alone leaders that are coming to work. They're facing the everyday pressures. They're facing the people problems. On a good day, that's what's happening, let alone a challenging day when you might be, you know, up against budgets or short staffed. You know there's businesses aren't meeting ends meet, making a profit, like. Suddenly all these extra pressures start happening and everyone looks to the top. It's yourwe're the one that's got to fix this. It's your fault. You've made the decisions and it sucks the life out of you And you, justwhat do you have left when you get home? 

Simon: And people forget that a leader is a human as well. Absolutely, and I think that's the thing. What I'd love to do is share with our listeners two quick anecdotes and then some solutions, some strategies that they can use if they find themselves No, i'm going to take that back when they find themselves in this situation, because, as a leader, if you've not been in this situation yet, you will be, and I know a lot of our listeners are experiencing this right now, because we hear from them. We hear from them when we're in a training room. We hear from them when we get emails from our participants. So the first one I'd love to share with you is I was in a very senior role and It was a time of significant change, and there was a lady who headed up part of the organization and we needed to make some decisions, and they were not comfortable decisions. 

It didn't involve her or any of a team losing their job, but it did involve making decisions that were hard for them. They changed things that they held close to their heart and I'll never forget sitting in my office and she came in and sat with me and I told her about the decisions And she just looked at me and I often describe when I think about her. She didn't cry, she just leaked. It was like water just ran down her cheeks and she was genuinely sad. She was genuinely sad and I looked at her and the human being. I just wanted to stand up and put my arms around her. I wanted to give her a hug and I know that's not what you're doing in workplaces, but that's what I wanted to do because I'm a humanbeing. I wanted so desperately to say actually, let's not do that, because I could see how genuinely distressed she was about the decision that we made. But there was also another voice in my head, the leader, who said this is the right decision, even if it's a really unhappy, uncomfortable decision for some people. And if I don't have the courage to do this now, then I'm going to be having to do it again in three months or six months or nine months, and it's going to be worse and we will have done the wrong thing for a period of time. 

And it was sitting in that chair as both a human and as a leader And the lady that I'm talking about. We had a really good working relationship, we had really strong respect, we had a laugh together and we genuinely respected each other's abilities and perspectives. But as a human I was looking at her and as a leader I was looking at the situation and it's bloody hard. I was fortunate in that situation that she didn't. She was able to see past the leader and see the human because it was because of the relationship I already had with her. 

So often in that circumstance, what would be attacked? So something that already I found quite emotionally challenging, she would have in other circumstances may have attacked my integrity. My values suggest that I just didn't care, etc. So not me am I dealing with a situation that is emotionally really challenging, but I'm also having to deal with my integrity being attacked. That's bloody hard for a leader. That's that's. That's just so hard for a leader. And and which only when we recognize there's a human behind the leader or a human with the leader, that we start to have a little bit of empathy for that. But so often in organizations that doesn't happen, and I Believe that's what has happened at Hawthorne. Did the, did the leader get the some of this wrong? probably, and probably the leadership group as a whole. But the human that sits with that leader is Has just got to a point where they can't do this anymore. 

Kirralea And there's also so many layers to this, like, in particular, hawthorne. His sons are senior football or at Hawthorne, so you know the toll that, that the layers that then comes down. It makes it even more important to remember that people are human and we need to remember that. And a lot of the time we see And I talk about this because it has been in the the media this week, but you know when Elsta Clarkson, who coach North Melbourne, has taken leave, the people around him had no idea the people around him had no idea who was struggling because he's so isolating when Damien Hardwick announced it, the The general manager of the football club there, they are best mates. 

I had no idea that this is where it was. Like you know, often we feel like these leaders are 10 foot tall and bulletproof And they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders and front up every day And we have no idea the turmoil that's going on inside absolutely and that's even more so. 

Simon: We should remember There the human being that sits behind and that's actually one of my tips is is don't try and carry it alone. You've got to have somewhere and and as the the other footballer you mentioned, other coach you mentioned You've got to go home and your family then wants you to have some energy as well. So you need to have some strategies and sometimes that's that vulnerability and it's being able to sit with someone, follow and so, just to finish off that story, there are a couple of important follow-throughs. One was you know the way I dealt with that as a leader. As I sat, i had a very trusted group of people around me there and I sat with them and told them that how hard I'd found it and and I was just vulnerable with them and I Didn't need them to fix it, but there's the very fact that I'd shared with them the how the human felt about that helped me, help me just get it all back together and then move on and be okay, not just brush it over. 

The other funny sort of follow-through on that one is the next morning that lady and I were the first two to arrive at a meeting. So we're sitting in the meeting room together, first two to arrive, and obviously it was just slightly awkward and I looked at her and said Are we okay? And she said no, but we will be. And I have great admiration for her for that honesty, but also for being, for being able to say I just got to get through this. Yet and she followed up. She said I just don't like you very much right now, but I will. I will like you again because I know It's not you as a person, it's it's the leader that needed to make that decision. And she said I know as a person, you care about me and care. Yeah, that's a rare, rare example that someone will do that. So she actually helped me through that process and I was able to move on quite healthily from that. 

 But so often you don't have a team member that does that. They just lash out, they just question your integrity. They don't stop and separate out the two. They don't try and see that bigger picture. If I was in Simon's shoes, would I need to do that same thing? Which leads me to my second anecdote. it am I rabbiting on too much, kirely, or am I free to carry on? 

Kirralea: Absolutely

Simon: This was another circumstance. I had a a manager that reported directly to me and one of someone made a complaint about that manager to me, and So my first step was to Speak to the manager and say, look, i've had this complaint. No, i'm going to need to investigate it. And we did those things, i think, really, really well. We were really. We put our arms around people and cared for people in the process, but we also had a very transparent, non-nose process. So I went about investigating this and I spoke to the manager, heard, heard some some of their perspective etc. And and you And some of what transpired later, they didn't tell me And it really it wasn't they were holding something back. It just they, just it didn't, they didn't think to mention it, and you will see why that's important in a minute. Then I went to speak to the person who had made the complaint and got them to tell me what had happened And what this manager had said to the team member was I think you really need to consider whether this is the sector you want to work in. 

It was a people-based services And the manager said to the individual I'm not sure your heart's in this. You sometimes just seem to turn up and go through the motions And that doesn't work in this sector. I think you really need to examine it. It's a pretty tough thing to say to someone, but maybe it was the feedback they needed. And even as this team member recounted the conversation to me, they recounted the conversation in a it was, it was held in a very respectful way And both of them agreed on that. It was just that this team member didn't like that message. So I then said okay, well, just run through the conversation with me. And she told me what she'd said to the manager And I stopped her and said just just take me through that again, because I was shocked by how brutal what she'd said to the manager had been, how disrespectful, how abrupt, how she'd attacked this manager's integrity and basically, motivations. And she told me again without blinking. And I stopped her and said did you really say that? And she said yeah. I said that's really brutal. How do you think she felt about that? And this team member? I'll never forget her response because she looked me straight in the eye and said yeah, but she's a manager And it just. I had to sit back for a second and I said but you understand, she's a human being as well, and it was. Look, it was a very respectful conversation I had with this lady, but it was quite a poignant one because I think it was the first time she'd actually taken those blinkers off. She was so occupied in her world and where she saw things that she saw. 

Oh, my manager has this responsibility to talk to me appropriately, but it wasn't a mutual obligation. In fact, when I don't like something my manager does, i can lash out at them and attack their integrity, et cetera, and for me, that was a really vital lesson as a leader. It was a vital reminder that people will do that and that I have to, as a leader, but also as someone who works with leaders, help them recognize that that is feedback that someone's not happy with the decision, but it's actually not accurate feedback about our characters and our virtues, et cetera. In fact, that hasn't even entered their mind. And to be able to separate out those two and say what I need to take from this is that they're unhappy and see if there's something I can do to resolve that. But what I don't need to take is the fact that this is an observation on my character And, as I say, the bit that shocked me when I spoke to the manager initially, she didn't even mention the way the team member had spoken to her, because it was almost as though in her mind it was normalized as well that you can speak to. 

You have a very high standard, which I totally agree with, when you're speaking to a team member, but maybe those standards are not the same, in reverse, that it's almost acceptable to be a little bit more brutal in our observations, in the things we say about our managers And, as a leader, knowing that actually almost liberated me. It helped me say you know what I know, that's a thing, i know that will happen, and so I'm going to work really hard to separate the two. 

Kirralea: So, Simon, if we've got leaders that are listening right now, who are feeling like they're possibly on this path, or maybe already there, what would your advice be to them? 

Simon: If they're on the pathway there, then act now And look I'm going to try and keep this short and punchy but develop a trusted circle, because that's your safety zone where you can be vulnerable, you can talk about these things and often by talking about them, you process them and you walk away. Okay, Don't be like the examples that you gave earlier, where no one around them knew. And I think we have to try and develop that circle beyond home as well, because Sometimes it means we end up and as one of our recent interviews said Tim Devonport he tried to deal with this stuff. He'd actually ring his wife from the car in the driveway so that when he walked through the front door, home was home. And so I think we've got to have something that doesn't then spill into our home life because it becomes all-encompassing. 

 I think we've got to be prepared to say I'm not going to please people all the time. In fact, i'm going to stop judging myself based on whether I've made people happy. I'm going to judge myself on whether I did the right thing and did I do it the right way. So did I make a decision that might have been really uncomfortable, maybe not popular, but I made it because it was the right decision, and did I communicate it in a way that I can hold my head high. I'm proud of that. 

 That'd be the two really big things. 

One is it's how we perceive the feedback, i think. 
The third one, then, is really around hearing what people say, but recognizing that some people don't have the skills to disapprove of a decision without attacking the human being, and separate those two out and just let go of the attack because it's not real, it's not fact. 

 The fact is they're unhappy, the fact is they don't like the decision, but it's not a fact that you've got no values or you don't care about people. So that's my advice to people who might find themselves on the path there, because, to be honest, the only advice I can give people who've reached the end of the path as the examples that inspired this episode is it's probably time to go. If you're at that point and you literally can't do it, you at least need some space and potentially, with the benefit of space, you'll recognize that the journey that you're on is done and that you'll go and start another journey, and you'll do that as a healthier, more robust human being and someone who's hopefully developed skills not to get there again, but at the very least have the courage to put your hand up and say I need some space, like Alistair Clarkson did. 

Kirralea: Yeah, and the others that are followed. 

Simon: Yeah. So again, just want to emphasize there's obviously some things that have gone wrong at many levels in this whole process. This episode is not about that. This is about the human beings that sit behind that and how, as leaders, we can have strategies that might help us work through things better. 

Simon: Well, Simon, thank you for that, and I look forward to our next From Page Leadership episode. 

Simon: Which is not far away. actually, No, it isn't? 

Kirralea: They are going to be more frequent now, which will be good. 

Simon: In the meantime, Stay Authentic.