160: Resilience With Boundaries, with Kathryn McEwen

What if compassion without boundaries is the very thing burning leaders out? We sit down with organizational psychologist and executive coach Kathryn McEwen to unpack resilience at work as a living system.

Kathryn leads the Working with Resilience Consortium and helped develop the Resilience at Work Toolkit, and she brings stories that reveal why good intentions often backfire—and how to course-correct.

We start with a reframing: resilience isn’t something you have or don’t. It’s a state shaped by resources like purpose, aligned values, strong relationships, and simple, consistent self-care. 

Then we dig into the messy middle of leadership: when optimism energizes people versus when it reads as tone-deaf, how a leader’s mood sets the room, and why calibrating ambition to the team’s bandwidth preserves morale.

If you’re leading through change, short on headcount, or trying to balance inclusion with consistency, this conversation offers practical language, mindset shifts, and boundary scripts you can use today. 

Kathryn McEwen is a speaker, organisational psychologist, executive coach and mediator with more than 35 years of consulting experience across all industry sectors. She has special expertise in workplace resilience, having authored three books on the topic and led the development of the R@W Toolkit. Kathryn has a strong evidence-base to her work as she collaborates with the University of South Australia through lecturing, student placements, applied research and membership of advisory committees. 

Website: Working with Resilience

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Chapters

• 0:00 Compassion And Performance
• 0:19 Meet Catherine And Her Work
• 2:59 Early Career Lessons On Respect
• 5:27 Defining Resilience As Resources
• 8:24 From Individual To Collective Resilience
• 11:01 Leader Optimism Versus Team Reality
• 14:18 Tone Deaf Moments And Self Awareness
• 16:55 Compassion Requires Boundaries
• 20:01 Inclusion, Equity, And Consistency
• 22:05 Authenticity Under Pressure From Above
• 24:58 The Weight On Middle Managers
• 27:00 Shift Focus To Collective Recovery

Transcript

Kathryn McEwen: 0:01

Compassionate leadership isn't only about humanity, it's also about performance. So it's about having the courage to have the difficult conversations. It's about being authentic as pressures coming down from you.

Manya Chylinski: 0:19

Hello, welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Kathryn McEwen. She leads the Working with Resilience Consortium in South Australia. She's an organizational psychologist, executive coach, and mediator, and led the development of the Resilience at Work Toolkit. We talked about resilience, no surprise. We talked about habits and routines. We talked about thinking about the collective versus thinking about what works for the individual. We had a really nice conversation. I think you're going to enjoy it. Kathryn, I'm so glad we've got this call scheduled finally.

Kathryn McEwen: 1:29

Reflecting on this, I think that for me, when I do fall out occasionally with people, I'm very unforgiving. So it probably would be unforgiving. And last year I was working with someone who I felt lacked integrity. They were saying one thing, doing something else, and people were being hurt, including me, in the aftermath. And you know, I just disconnect from that person and have nothing to do with them. So very unforgiving when I feel I've been let down and integrity's gone, particularly, and particularly if they're in a position of influence or leadership. Yeah. Out of my life.

Manya Chylinski: 2:10

Kathryn, it's like I answered the question hearing you say that. Right. I passed in. Um, absolutely. Uh well, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that answer because as you say, we don't want to think that we have enemies. And if not absolute enemies, we all have people that we have that we have somehow wronged in some way. So that we somehow just have a disconnect with. Okay, so we're here to talk about resilience. And um, I know that's something that's on on top of your mind as it is on mine. Everyone has had a moment, I think, in their life that changes how they think about leading or how they think about the need to take care of other people. What is one of those moments for you that you'd like to share with us?

Kathryn McEwen: 3:04

Oh, well, I think there's probably been a lot, but um, fortunately, some of the significant ones I think were very early in my career, which is always helpful, isn't it? And um, I think um I can be very critical, you know. I'd like to think it's discerning, you know, I'm I'm quite hard to impress, and so I'm very evaluative. And so I think very early in my career, um, competence was really important. So if I had someone I was reporting to, someone in leadership, then if I didn't perceive them as competent in my terms, then I would write them off. And um, very early in the piece, um, I was uh uh an officer in the Army Reserve, and um and I felt some of the my senior officers were just hopeless, you know, and I would try to avoid saluting them and all sorts of ridiculous things. And someone said to me, you know, that you're not respecting, you know, you need to respect the rank, not the person. And that really, really held for me because they're there for a reason, they have strengths, they have their own competencies. And so what I need to do is to recognize that and recognize their status. And and so for me, you know, um respecting the chain of command or whatever you want to call it in an organization is really, really important. But beyond that, everyone has strengths and everyone has their value and not dismissing that. So I think that's been really important for me. And that was very early. Yeah, I was like 21 or something.

Manya Chylinski: 4:34

Well, what a great lesson to get early on that that everyone has value, and whether you see it or it aligns with what you've got going on may not be the the thing you're supposed to be paying attention to in that moment. So thank you for sharing that. And when I think about the topic of resilience, I realize that it's a word that I think about a lot. And I don't think other people necessarily think of the word resilience. If they're if they're outside of our world, I think um that might not be it might not be the term that comes to mind for people. And so I guess for some people it's kind of finding your footing, it's getting back to getting back to normal, I think is what a lot of people refer to it. But some people do that faster than others, and we know it's just because of the way that we all experience our lives. What have you seen that actually helps people build that resilience, find their footing, get back to whatever they want to describe as normal and recover and move forward?

Kathryn McEwen: 5:40

Yeah, so I think it's about having a number of resources. So I think of resilience not as something that's fixed, not as something that you are or you're not. It's very much a state that we're in at the moment. So, you know, today I could feel quite on top of things and quite resilient. Tomorrow or next week, I may not, depending on the context. So for me, um, it's about how do we um work out what is it that resources us? You know, what are the things that are going to allow us to be the best we can be with whatever's going on? And I think the more we invest in those things, and I'll give you some examples in a moment, the more we invest in those things, the less likely we're going to go quite into the dip that we might go. And we all go into dips, but it's actually about making sure that dip isn't too deep, if you like, and that we can come out. So, examples, you know, they're obvious, aren't they? But we don't necessarily have them at a conscious level. As you said, this word resilience, unless you think a lot about it, you don't really explore what this is. But I mean, I work in the workplace, you know, being an organizational psychologist, you know, my work has been what creates sustained resilience at work. So examples are really being really clear why you're there and the value you have and the purpose, and being aligned with what's important to you, your values, you know. So at a very core level, if you want to be resilient at work, unless you've got those, you're just going to be disengaged in a cool, you know, your soul will go. But then, of course, there's the other stuff that we know about around, you know, the people around us, the investment in significant relationships that we know are going to resource rather than deplete us. Um, our health, you know, um, our general self-care, um, the way in which we work with people. So, so it's very much for me around how do we actually recognize what's going to help us and how do we develop habits and routines about investing in those resources so we can be the best we can be in the system we're working. So it's very much the premise. And then and then, of course, that's individually, but we can also talk about what that looks like collectively as well. Because that's different.

Manya Chylinski: 8:02

Yeah, I'd be interested in your perspective. What does that look like collectively?

Kathryn McEwen: 8:06

Yeah, so um, so if you think about yourself in the workplace, you're not, you know, you're always in a team, aren't you? You're always with, you know, working with other people. And so if we pick up the purpose piece, okay, so all the values, you know, I can be really clear on what my value add is and what I stand for. If that's not aligned with the people I work with, it's going to create a lot of conflict. And so um, to be resilient collectively, and this isn't just at work, this is also in communities, of course, is that we have to be aligned on lots of things. We have to be aligned on what self-care looks like. Because if, you know, many of you've got your version of what that looks like, it might be yoga or whatever, uh, but we have a very different version, and you know, we don't think it's important for you to go lunchtime to yoga. It's about the culture, it's about what support looks like that we agree on, it's about, as I say, the purpose and the values. There's so many additional factors that give us like this mini micro, um, micro part of the system, if you like, that holds us and protects us as best it can to be the best we can be. So I think a lot of it is about being how do I be the best I can be individually? How do I be the best I can be as a team? And of course, leaders have a big impact too. So, what is the leader's role in nurturing that culture that enables us rather than detracting from it or sometimes destroying it? Yeah. So so many levels, and I like to think about each part of the system trying to align the resources we need and uh and whatever it is we need to be um being synchronous city on. Yeah, so it's complicated, isn't it?

Manya Chylinski: 9:55

It is, it is well, it's complicated because people are complicated. And you mentioned, so for example, if if yoga is really important to me, and that's something I need to do at lunch break or something, and that isn't something that seems important to you, or you don't understand why it's important to me, there can be this disconnect. And I think that all of us people, but here we're thinking of leaders in an organization, can mean really well. They can, they can absolutely want to help, but still make things harder for people. So, what have you seen that gets in the way of that kind of progress or that kind of understanding, even with the good intentions?

Kathryn McEwen: 10:41

Yeah, so I mean, I think a good example would be optimism and self-care from the leaders. As a leader, you know, I need to be the best I can be. So I would be investing in the way I see the world, my mindset, how I'm looking after myself. However, if that is actually disconnected from my team, it can cause problems. Now, so optimism is a really good example. So, many, we might have just recruited you as our leader because you've got this amazing vision and all these fantastic ideas, and you know, we really want you to shake us up, you know, shake this organization up. But you start and you're very positive and you're very optimistic and you're talking all this stuff up, but you haven't taken the time to find out the reality. And we're in a situation where we're exhausted, we, you know, you're our fourth lead or whatever. So, again, what's good for you in terms of the optimism, the positivity might be a bit too much for us. So having to align that you might have um, you might be a marathon or something, you know. So you so you you know you might be full on into working, you know, 12 hours a day and all that sort of stuff. So again, it's about what do you do to help yourself, but how do you might be mindful of what that might look like for your team? So it's it's really hard for leaders because I think particularly middle management leaders, they're so much under pressure themselves with expectations above, and then trying to manage the team and also fill the gaps when people are off, which very few people seem to have all their team at work at any one stage these days. So you constantly fill in the gap, managing up, managing yourself.

Manya Chylinski: 12:22

Right. And and you mentioned something that I think about a lot too, which is being mindful of how something looks to the team. I think it can be really easy for all of us, frankly, at whatever level. But I think it it hits a little harder if it's a manager or a leader to say something that is really just unfortunately tone-deaf for other people's reality. Is it even possible to avoid that?

Kathryn McEwen: 12:51

Probably not. I mean, it involves a lot of self-awareness. A lot of this stuff does, doesn't it really? But you know, you may have no idea. I mean, if we think about the flip side of optimism, so if we have so if so again, if I'm the leader this time and I'm in a I'm not in a good place at the moment, you know, I might have things going on at home, I might have my manager who's expecting me to do things that I think are unrealistic, and I might be in a very low, pessimistic, you know, not myself. And so because I am the leader, as you said, because you're a leader, you have a big impact. So if I'm tuning up like that, my team are thinking, well, what hope is there for us? But I might be unaware of the fact that I'm actually not myself, you know, they are, but not. Yeah. So again, you know, the tone, as you say, you know, it's it sets the tone for the whole team. That inability, if I have it, of not being able to see how I'm showing up from other people's views.

Manya Chylinski: 13:48

It's so fascinating to me how we all interact with everybody socially in any aspect, but then in the workplace, it feels like we have these expectations that we don't always train people to deal with.

Kathryn McEwen: 14:07

Well, because the difference, of course, is at work is we also have to perform. Okay, so it's not just about relationships, it's also about performance. This is why I think it's you know, a good example would be we the leaders now expected to be caring and compassionate and empathetic. And absolutely, yes. However, compassionate leadership isn't only about humanity, it's also about performance. So it's about having the courage to have the difficult conversations, it's about being authentic as pressures coming down from you. Um, once we start to talk workplace, it's really different because of that accountability piece that we wouldn't have if it was about our family.

Manya Chylinski: 15:04

Yeah, if that makes sense. That does make sense.

Kathryn McEwen: 15:13

Yeah.

Manya Chylinski: 15:14

I think that really changes the the dynamic.

Kathryn McEwen: 15:19

May I can give you an example if you want?

Manya Chylinski: 15:21

Yeah, that'd be great.

Kathryn McEwen: 15:23

Yeah. So um I do quite a bit of coaching, and so um I was working with um a manager, the senior manager the other day, who is she has a very diverse group and she's a very caring, empathetic manager. But a lot of the team, you know, as as most teams now, you know, people have personal things, there's something going on. So with every single team member, there's either a diversity that she's wanting to be inclusive with, or a personal situation that's going on. And she said, I am just exhausted from caring. I cannot care anymore. So here we are as someone who we would say, gosh, she's a manager I want to work for, you know. But again, so so what's gone wrong for her is she's just given permission, let people do it, been caring about it, and not put any boundaries or negotiation around that. And then once that's let go, it's really hard to pull back. So if you're accommodating and you're accommodating and accommodating, the only person who then fills the gap is her with more work, filling in, and then of course the team being cheesed off. Because we also have to, whenever I help you with something and I let you off some of your performance, it's going to be actually carried by others in the team because there's never any slack anymore. So I'm also in a position of everyone complaining to me, Marnie's not doing this and mommy's not doing that. It's yeah, it's all very well to say care and empathy, but if the manager's not able to hold that performance expectation in an equitable way, then they're in trouble.

Manya Chylinski: 17:09

Absolutely. And you said a word that I really appreciate, which is boundaries. I had a conversation with a leader who had someone on their team going through something difficult. They gave them personal time off, not from any bank of anything, just it's the right thing to do. We need to give you time off. They didn't put any structure to that. And now they were finding that they wanted the person to come back or wanted to find out when the person was coming back, but they were afraid to ask them because they'd never talked about it. And so we had that conversation about first of all, how do you deal with this one? But how do you prevent that in the future? Which is you you do those boundaries. And we had I had to remind her that having boundaries, especially in this kind of relationship, is compassionate because that employee was probably trying to figure out what to do and didn't know what to do.

Kathryn McEwen: 18:36

Yeah, you're right. It's a negotiation, you know. So I say, Manya, I'm quite happy for you to take, you know, the week off because of whatever it is that's going on. How do you think we can best manage the workload that that will create for the team? And how do we review, you know, so it's right from the beginning, I'm I'm talking about if I let you, this is the bigger picture here, what's your accountability for the your colleagues to make sure that's front and center. Another example of the boundaries, which I'm seeing quite a bit again, and I've had a couple of people this week, is we're wanting to value diversity. And so I'm finding that managers who are managing, say, neurodiversity or or a different culture or something that's um you know different to what they've experienced maybe in the team. So they're wanting to be inclusive, they almost go too far. Uh-huh. Yeah, and and again, no boundaries. And so what happens is the rest, this is this is just this week. So the rest of the team now are getting really cheesed off because they actually see it's favorable treatment that this person's getting beyond what their diversity, disability, whatever it is, might require. Yeah, so um, so really interesting. And again, the manager's good intentions, yeah. Yeah.

Manya Chylinski: 19:58

Yes. And that's it's interesting because you know, I've had guests on the podcast where we talk about toxic workplaces and we talk about bullies in the workplace. And that's it, those, that's a different conversation. Because here we're mostly talking about people who mean well and are trying to do well and are still hitting some walls or or or putting themselves in a position where their staff thinks they're giving somebody favor when that wasn't the intention. The intention was to be accommodating and understanding.

Kathryn McEwen: 20:30

Equity and consistency are critical parts of leadership. Yeah. So we're straight away seeing that equity and consistency dissipate into favoritism. Yeah, it's really, really tricky. And I think, you know, I mean, I do work occasionally with people who probably could be, you know, described as bullying, but I think the majority of people want to do the right thing, the majority should manage us. The other thing that is I'm seeing that's really interesting as well. So the other day I had someone who is, I think, doing a fabulous team job with their teams. Lots of change going on with this team. They've been very consultative, they've been very caring, they've been very helpful, they've kept those sort of goals, you know, really, really up there. But they were sent for coaching because they needed to demonstrate more leadership, which I thought was fascinating. But it was they were seeing this person was too caring and not directive enough. So again, how do you keep your authenticity and good leadership, but manage that perception? So we just worked on how she might change the way in which she turned up at meetings and some of the language she might use and how she might report back, but certainly not shift any of the way in which she was consultative and co-creating and all of those things, you know. So you we've got this sometimes, um, you know, people above us are saying, you know, be more directive, be more firm, whatever. You know, that's what leadership is. And you know, how do you manage that and still be authentic? You know, so many pressures are managed. I mean, I don't few people want to be a manager these days.

Manya Chylinski: 22:09

No one wants to be a school principal or a absolutely, and I see why. And it's it is work and it is an extra layer of thought for a lot of people to make sure that you are being inclusive and equitable and compassionate and still setting the boundaries and still having the productivity. And I can see people feeling I can see that it's frustrating. And I I know that talking about it, so many people want that, but it is, you know, they want to be that kind of leader, but it it just takes work in addition to what they're already doing.

Kathryn McEwen: 22:47

Yeah, and it's exhausting. I mean, just hearing you say all that back to me, I felt exhausted just listening. My goodness, you know, this is what we're doing. So when we say, you know, there's never enough resources to do what you want to do. So, you know, the manager's got the job and then all this other stuff on top of that, and then quite often change coming on top. So absolutely, yeah, exhausting.

Manya Chylinski: 23:11

And the CEO and the CFO are saying, and we need you to be this productive, and now we need you to be more productive. Oh, and and these people left, and so we need you to be more productive with fewer people. So it's a wonder anything gets done, frankly, sometimes.

Kathryn McEwen: 23:26

Yeah. And I think the difference between the first line leadership and the more senior is you're the one who's going in and actually doing the work and plugging the holes, you know. So you're the one who might be answering the phone, standing at the candle, whatever it might look like, because there's no one else to provide the service. Whereas if you're the CEO, you're you're you you tend not to be having to do that.

Manya Chylinski: 23:50

Yeah, exactly. So as we're thinking about this concept of resilience, is there resilience and leadership sort of together? Is there a question that you think we still aren't asking?

Kathryn McEwen: 24:05

Yeah, um again, again with the workplace um hat-on, Manya. I um I think we we focus too much on um what we personally need to do. Okay, so you know, there's been a huge amount in the last few years around, you know, um investing in ourselves and our self-care and our networks, et cetera, et cetera. And I think we need to be focusing more on what collective looks like. What does collective, you know? So I alluded earlier on that what we need to do collectively is different from what we need to do personally. And if you think, and I know you've been, you've had personal experience in you know, community disaster. I mean, if you think about communities where there has been a disaster, and of course, you know, like the states, we have, you know, drought and flood and you know, all those sorts of things, you know, if you actually look at what communities do to recover, we can learn a lot around the importance of the collective in in recovery. And so I see in the workplaces, even now, you know, I'm trying to talk about the importance of collective, not just within teams, but across teams, we still seem to navigate back somehow into individual accountability for their own resilience. And sometimes it's never enough because there's only so much you can do on your own. Yeah, so that would be, I think there's still a it's still enough, not enough focus on that, I don't think.

Manya Chylinski: 25:28

Okay, okay. Well, thank you for that. Well, we are just getting up to the end of our time. And I'm, you know, when you're thinking about the future and the work that you do, what gives you hope that we're going to be able to do this differently?

Kathryn McEwen: 25:42

Well, I think that we are innately, we are innately resilient. And um, I'm hoping that through hardship the growth will will emerge and continue and and for that to become normalized, you know, growth to be normalized. I think um that when things go wrong, that's our best learning rather than it being a negative thing.

Manya Chylinski: 26:05

And um, yeah, so I think Kathryn, before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and what you do and how they can reach you?

Kathryn McEwen: 26:16

Yeah, so I have a special interest, as you would have gathered, in um resilience at work. And so um, you know, our business working with resilience has developed measures of resilience so you can assess your individual team and leader resilience and um lots of resources that go with that. And we have um global community of people who um use our work, so you can pick up a resilience at work practitioner in lots of countries now and uh and and get their um their wisdom and their support.

Manya Chylinski: 26:49

So yeah, so that's uh well and we'll put links to all of that in the show notes so to make it easier for people to find you. And Kathryn, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Kathryn McEwen: 27:01

My pleasure. Thank you.

Manya Chylinski: 27:03

Thanks, and thanks to our listeners. We will catch you on the next episode.