Your Career Journey

Leading with Heart: How Emotional Intelligence Transforms Leadership. With Ann Pocock

• Emma Graham

Share episode

What does authentic leadership really look like, and how do we bring more of ourselves to the way we lead?

In this episode of Your Career Journey, I’m joined by Ann Pocock, founder of Kinetic Effect and former Corporate Marketing Communications Director, who shares her powerful transition from the corporate world to leadership coaching.

Ann and I talk about what it means to lead with emotional intelligence and curiosity. And why self-awareness and adaptability are now essential leadership skills, not nice-to-haves.

Ann shares her personal experiences with redundancy, the small but mighty “micro steps” that helped her move forward, and the lessons she’s learned about building a more human approach to leadership.

We also explore:

✨ How to navigate the shift from corporate life to self-employment
✨ Why emotionally intelligent leaders create safer, more productive workplaces
✨ How to embed a strengths-based approach into your team culture
✨ What it really takes to lead with authenticity and purpose

If you’re reflecting on your own leadership journey, or want to bring more heart and self-awareness into how you work. Then this conversation is a great place to start, with lots of insights, practical advice and suggestions for free resources and next steps.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:20 Career Journey and Transition
04:16 Facing Redundancy and Embracing Change
06:32 Building a Coaching Practice
10:51 Marketing and Self-Leadership
18:37 Holistic Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
25:01 The Intuition in Interview Processes
27:30 The Impact of Rapid Organisational Change
28:36 Managing Stress and Emotional Intelligence
32:38 The Importance of Authentic Leadership
38:24 Practical Steps for Personal Development
43:28 The Journey of Continuous Growth

To connect with Ann:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annpocock/
Website: kineticeffect.co 

Your host, Emma Graham, Career Coach and ex-recruiter, is here to help you with:

💡 Gain clarity on what’s important to you
💡 Confidently communicate your value
💡 Build a personal brand and a strong network
💡 Take a strategic approach to your next move
💡 Navigate the job market effectively
💡 Build career confidence with a repeatable success blueprint

🌐 Explore my coaching programs and free resources:
Website: https://www.egconsulting.au/
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmajgraham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmagrahamcareercoach/

🎁 Free Resources:
📄 CV Development Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/cv-advice
📄 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/linkedin-profile-guide

📅 Book Your FREE Career Strategy Discovery Call:
https://calendly.com/emmagrahamconsulting/discovery-call

Emma:

Hello and welcome to Your Career Journey, the podcast designed to be your compass through the twists and turns of career development. Today I'm joined by Anne Pocock, who went from corporate marketing director to leadership coach to talk about taking a more holistic approach to leadership with a focus on being more heart-centred, more emotionally intelligent, and more real. Join me to find out more. So I am joined today by Anne. Anne Pocock, welcome. Hello, hi Emma, good to see you again. Good to see you too. We're going to be talking today about leadership and leadership in a broader kind of holistic context as well, which I'm really interested to get into. But before we get into that, I'd love to understand a bit more about your career journey more broadly and how you got to where you are currently. Talk me through it. Tell me the story.

Ann:

Sure, Emma, thank you. Um, so I was formerly a marketing and communications director, and at the end of 2019, I stepped away from corporate life, and in 2020 I went out on my own and created my business Kinetic Effect, which at that time was a marketing strategy consultancy and exec leadership coaching business, and now it's primarily exec leadership coaching. And I work one-on-one with sort of mid-career senior execs on their leadership development, whether that's both self-leadership or leadership within an organizational context. And I also do team development work as well. With a background in positive psychology now, I weave that into all of my training and my coaching and with a strengths-based lens. And I'm really about helping leaders find more of themselves at work and um being able to, you know, weave that into showing up more meaningfully, purposefully, which is becoming more and more needed and desired right now. And so my background of having worked in marketing comms for many years means I understand deeply what it's like for them on the inside because I was there too. And I was always a coach as a leader, and didn't really have that role modeled frequently around me from other leaders, and so I kind of felt my way through it as a leader and self-taught in a way, and had a few mentors around, which was great. And so then in 2020, I formally trained in something I had been wanting to do for probably about 10 years, and so I I've I I've I loved every minute of it and have done many courses and programs now, and it's it's such a joy to be, you know, doing what is me, yeah, which I hope to help other people do in their work context as well.

Emma:

Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that transition, because I think often, and it's been true for me as well, like in hindsight, it sounds quite simple, you know. Oh, I I transitioned into working for myself and doing this and and stepping away from you know, something that at that point you've put, I don't know, 15, 20 years into. Talk me through that. Like, what's going on in your head as that's happening? What are you saying to yourself? Like, what are the questions that you're asking yourself? Really interested to understand a bit more about that.

Ann:

Great question. And and you knew me back then as well when I was involved in culture as well. So you you you know about the journey. I it wasn't linear, I'm not going to sugarcoat that. And it took a long time. They never are it took a long time to come to my own party. And when I arrived, my family, friends, mentors, even you said like, oh, hallelujah, you've you've finally made it. We've been here for a while. Um, so I I say to anyone that's embarking, embarking on big transformation, because that's what it was, it was in life and in work, um, that it's all about the micro steps and the micro actions, and just treating as much of it as you can as an experiment and being curious, and that seems to sort of lighten the load about the intensity you feel about the change. So for me, I got a redundancy at the end of 2019, and I wasn't surprised that it came about, but it happened a bit more quickly than I would have liked. And fortunately, I didn't have to rush into what was next, and so I was the same thing had happened to me in 2017, 2016. So it wasn't my first rodeo, unfortunately, or fortunately, I guess, is both both sides to that situation when I stepped away. I did a bit of freelancing and consulting at that time as well. So I'd kind of tried it out a little bit. So then at the end of 2019, I didn't rush into anything, and I had a few jobs in the pipeline, either things that were advertised publicly or a couple of conversations going with other organizations where they were maybe going to create something with me and uh you know, just some casual freelancing. Then 2020 happened, and we all know how that went for the next couple of years.

Emma:

Small, small spanner in the works, small spanner of the world breaking, literally.

Ann:

Yeah, I'm hard to believe that was five years ago. Yeah. We were in the trenches of it, definitely now. Certainly were, and so as crap as that was, like the jobs dried up, the conversations slowed down, that worried me. And then the jobs that did continue, I seemed to keep getting in the last two for the jobs, and big jobs too, you know. And and at first I was taking that a bit hard, like what's wrong with me? Why can't I make it? Why aren't I enough? All of that kind of self-talk that I coach people through now.

Emma:

Yeah.

Ann:

Part one of the thing, one of the many things on the list of things that people come to work through. And once that happened a few times, I started to get the memo that it's not meant for me. Like there was so much uncertainty in the world at that time that it wasn't only me, but it wasn't meant to be for me. So that gave me a bit of a gift of time as well to finally go out and do some study formally in organizational exec leadership coaching. And so I studied a number of courses, particularly through IECL, which is a really well-known coaching training organization, and studied positive psychology at uni while I was doing some marketing consulting and building up my coaching practice. So I had people who I was so grateful, so lucky, so grateful that people were happy to jump in and be paid guinea pigs, essentially. Yeah. Paying guinea pigs. Yeah. Yeah. And so then as the year went on, I just found I was doing it more and more. And some really trusted people in my life said to me, Why don't you formalise this? And I'd long been saying, no, no, that's not for me, that's for other people. Um, I think I'm just gonna get another big gig and do that for a while, and maybe I'll do it after. And then I go back to my initial point to my long monologue here, where I said that it's about curiosity, being experimenting, just my action by action, and action builds confidence. You know, Adam Grant talks about this all the time, and sure enough, I got to the point where I went, Well, I'm actually already doing this, so let's do it. And one of the big things that really helped me is not only the learning and the experimentation and just the trying it on, was having people in my network who were a couple or a few steps ahead of me to for me to lean on. Um, and there were other solopreneurs, other coaches, or just building my network so that I had that vibration, I suppose, around me. So sure enough, that was 2020, and I've had a few cycles even now of what my business is in that time. Probably not outwardly really obvious to anybody that checks out my website or my LinkedIn, but to me, it's definitely been you know, game-changing because of how I've run it, who I work with, what I charge, what I offer, all of those kind of things have cycled around. And I'm in one of those kind of big change seasons for myself again now. So yeah, long-winded way to answer that question, but it is a long-winded process for people.

Emma:

It's not linear and it's not one and done. Yeah, absolutely. And and that's why I think it's really important to talk about it because I think unless you've been through that, unless you've kind of been through that process, it's easy to assume from the outside that maybe it is simple and maybe it is linear and and and maybe it is about, you know, making one decision and then all these things suddenly change for you. So I think it's really important to to kind of tell that story, and very similar story for me as well of you know, you you make these some smaller changes, you try something, you see what happens, and you don't have to have it all figured out from the first step. Actually, it's probably quite impossible to have it all figured out from the first step. It can just be, well, what happens if I do this? Or, you know, what if I try something over here? And and then over time that that kind of builds and and solidifies. And the other thing, as you just said at the end, there is that that process is never done. And similar to you, I'm kind of going through this a bit at the moment of it's never done. It's never kind of this is the business, set it, forget it, and and just do it. It's kind of constantly evolving and moving as you do as an individual. I heard something years ago, and I've I've since forgotten where I heard it, but it's really stuck with me and it's very relevant to what we're just saying, and and that is that if you ever want to kind of supersise your own personal development, start your own business because that business is actually a vehicle for your own personal development. And I found that to be very true.

Ann:

Yeah, yeah, very much. I I actually also quite often coach other solopreneurs, so I don't actively market it, but I love it when it comes my way, and I always have a couple on the go at once, and it really lights me up. And they come to me with, can you help me with my marketing? So they're either been in it a little while and need to just hone their brand positioning or messaging, or are starting out and need to do that from scratch. So I help them with their non-visual identity, so their their their brand strategy from a um a narrative perspective, what's their positioning? Um, and I will advise them, I'll give them some tools and templates that they and then give them work with them on a brand blueprint and some messaging, and I'll also do some marketing coaching, basically, which is not like what leadership coaching is like as yourself. It's actually me giving them the how-tos in a way. But then in equal parts, they'll often have, or I should say they'll often have in equal parts sessions, which is around self-leadership, which is helping them navigate the relentless change and uncertainty and fear that comes up for them, the unknowns, and you know, this helps them with you know clarity, self-determination, agency, momentum, hope building, all the good things from positive psychology that I can weave in. So I'm not only helping them build their business practically and logistically, but I'm also helping them show up in the world and and leading themselves and others in the best way possible. Yeah, and I love doing that with them as well.

Emma:

I bet, yeah, and I think as well, having gone through that yourself and and continuing to go through that yourself, it gives you such a unique insight to it. Slight, slight tangent here, but you just touched on something which is something that's been in my mind for ages, and I just wanted to highlight it there. When you talk about the challenges of self-leadership, of having your own business and kind of starting to work for yourself. I've often thought that's one of the biggest challenges for people when they go through redundancy for the first time, is that they've never actually been responsible for their own time and their own activity in that way. I mean, of course, they are within a certain framework, but there is a framework. They they've never had to kind of go, okay, I've got this big empty day in front of me. What are the activities that are actually important? What are the activities that are going to move the needle for me? Because I think it's very easy to fill a day and feel like, oh, I filled my day, I'm I'm busy. But if you haven't filled the day with activities that are actually moving you in the right direction, then it's actually not helping you. And just as you sort of talked about self-leadership there, it just reminded me of that, and and something that's been in my mind for a long time. Because I think the two things are actually quite similar, and and the challenges of that, if you've never had to do that before, is really hard.

Ann:

Yeah, very much. And when people who are exploring going out on their own for the first time, they typically work as an independent contractor on a short-term contract, and that gives them a bit of a taste of that dynamic of where they're advising into the organization, unless they are brought in on a contract to be like an employee, yeah, versus coming in to consult on a discrete project of work. And that helps them feel their way a little bit, yeah, but not entirely because they they don't need to market themselves because they've already got the contract. They, you know, they might might be full-time for six months, for example, but they will need to, you know, manage their own tax and have an ABN and that kind of thing. But what that opportunity allows people to do is experiment with the subject matter that they might like to productize. So turning their IP and their their work experience into some kind of service and productizing it, and that's the tricky bit. So you either get a coach who can help you to do that or fumble your way through it. But there are freelance communities around online and in person everywhere that have like pretty guided processes of what to do. You know, I certainly did that starting out. I'm I'm part of one now that I know has a a new to gigging program that you do when you become a member and it has a gig matching component to it. So these contractors and coaches and consultants are all part of that, but the bigger part is the community that that brings, and then also the the the program that they have of like helping new freelancers, new giggers essentially. Yeah, that's called Workling, W-E-R-K-L-E-N-G. Yeah, it's a pretty cool group.

Emma:

Right.

Ann:

Yeah. I I would say that's is the best thing is find other people who are doing it or get a coach to help you because mapping out your day can get pretty muddy like when you're not quite clear on what your priorities are if you don't have a clear, discrete contract to go to. And you're having to go out there and find the work yourself.

Emma:

And it's so easy to, you know, the rabbit holes are everywhere of something that might feel important and half a day goes by, and you think, did I really just spend four hours on whatever that that thing was? It's it's very easy to do. And it's something I see all the time actually with my clients that are have gone through redundancy and are trying to kind of figure that part of it out. I think there's a there's a lot of parallels there.

Ann:

Yeah, I've got a couple of coaching clients at the moment, and one of them is who have recently experienced redundancy, one of them for the second time, but one of these clients is wanting to go out on their own, and so they're they're they're looking to work out what the space is for them, yeah for sure.

Emma:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's actually a really good model. I've seen people do it really well, but I think exactly what you say it is that ironically, in in my space, because I work with marketers, but it is the marketing and the sales bit that people find hard because you're you're not marketing some some product or service like you were before. You're now marketing and selling yourself, which is a completely different catalog and feels very different. Yeah.

Ann:

Totally a concern. As does everyone, I think. Is don't start with your website. It is the biggest procrastination problem that you'll face is don't start with that. That will come initially. All you need is perhaps a PDF with what you can do for somebody, and it will always be just a series of discovery and curiosity conversations with people to find out what their needs are and their opportunities are. Next thing you know, you're putting a short proposal together, which is maybe something pretty in Canva or something in just in a Word document. That's all you need to start. Absolutely.

Emma:

But I mean it's very easy to overcomplicate, isn't it? Yep, definitely. And and definitely that can be one of those rabbit holes that I I mentioned that mentioned before. Previously, you mentioned, and I just want to get the wording right of how you said it, because I loved the way you said it. It was something around bringing more of yourself to work. Is is that how you said it? More of yourself into the into the leadership role. And it's really interesting because it's one of the main reasons that I wanted to have this conversation with you on the podcast. As you mentioned before, we've known each other for gosh, I don't know, 10 years or so. Probably quite quite a long time, probably more time than more time than we realise. And obviously followed your marketing journey and and your business journey. And I noticed something on LinkedIn a little while ago which really, really resonated with me, and recommend that everyone go and follow Anne on LinkedIn because her posts are fantastic. But there was something about the way that you were talking and the language that you were using around leadership that I hadn't personally seen before. And I don't know what necessarily the correct terminology for it is, but it felt much more holistic. There was, I think you would even openly kind of talk about energy, which is something again, I'm very interested in, so it really resonated with me. But I hadn't really seen anyone talk about leadership in that context before. And as I say, that was the main driver for wanting to have this conversation with you. So yeah, tell me, tell me a bit more and tell me how that fits into what I also love around what you said that bringing more of your such an overused word, but you know, quote unquote authentic self to work and not just being a corporate robot, but actually being a real a real human being.

Ann:

Yeah, yeah. I I love this topic. So it was always something that I felt like I was a bit of an odd one out the higher up I went at work because I am an expressive person, I am very self-aware, I am aware of others, and my emotional frequency, I believe our emotional frequency impacts others, and we need to keep that in check as leaders. It's not just about being a good leader cognitively or practically, it's about what are we embodying inside ourselves because that oozes out. Now, you may think, or people I'm talking to the audience here, may think that that's all fluffy and unnecessary, but I'm seeing it more and more and more now that people want more from their work, they want more meaning, they want it to feel more purposeful. There's this recent research that's dropped by Positive Psychology expert Michelle McQuaid and her team on quiet cracking, as they've they've labelled it. And one in three workers in Australia are experiencing burnout or on the verge of burnout and have expressed that they don't have, it's just slightly more than one in three actually, don't have an outlet. That's a huge number. Huge, huge. Yeah, and don't have an outlet to work on that. And the some of the biggest factors contributing to that are having appropriate psychosocial safety measures in place in the workplace, and so people feel unsafe with their psychosocial safety, and also another protective measure is around increasing emotional intelligence in the workplace. Now, emotional intelligence, you do need to merge feeling and thoughts for it to be applicable, and it can be learned. It's some people will have it more naturally than others, but if it's a growth area for you, great news, you can develop it. Okay. And there's tools to help you benchmark where you're at, and a coach can help you through that. But the if we add another deeper layer, we all feel something inside of us, right? And we often feel it before we know what it is. So let's put that together, let's provide, let's let's give people leaders platforms to be able to do that so that they're showing up more grounded and more purposefully because we're also starved of connection right now because of the rapid influx of even more technology than we've ever seen before, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon, right? Hybrid working or total remote working, and we're just experiencing so much disconnection, so we're actually craving being able to talk about how this is feeling for us, and there's there's also a big group of people, not just leaders, who feel something's a bit misaligned, it's a bit off, but aren't quite sure what. And by opening the dialogue and making these types of conversations safe about how you're feeling, what energy you're receiving or you're putting out, helps to make for more psychologically safe workplaces. It's not the only contributing factor, but it is definitely one of the contributing factors to it. So I'm very passionate about helping leaders be more heart-centered and human-centric in their leadership. Yeah. Does that answer that a little bit?

Emma:

Yeah, absolutely. And uh just as you were talking there, I was thinking about the is it Maya Angelou, the the kind of ubiquitous thing now around people forget what you say, but they remember how you made them feel. And I think it is so true. And particularly in that sort of leadership dynamic, I think over the course of a career, we've probably all experienced both sides of that. We've probably experienced someone where you're just like, well, they're kind of saying the right things, but this just feels really off, and I, you know, just don't like it, and you can't necessarily articulate why, but to your point, you you can feel it, and you just know something's not right. And the opposite, where you've experienced someone who I don't know, there is just that feeling of maybe it's that you feel like they've got your back or they're supporting you in a in a kind of a broader sense that they're you know wanting the best for you. Again, it's quite hard to articulate, but you know it when you feel it. And I think the same is true when people are going through an interview process and something that I say all the time, and I've experienced myself and had got hundreds of conversations with people who have done the same thing where they've tried to logic themselves out of how they were feeling. They felt something in an interview process, couldn't describe it, couldn't name it, couldn't articulate it, and as a result, kind of pushed it down and and used logic. But oh, it's a great brand, it's this, it's more money, it's the title that I whatever, but knew in their hearts. Exactly. But loses out of you, it'll be fine. But three months later, they're they're on the phone, and almost always, in fact, not even almost always, always they say something along the lines of I knew, I just didn't know what it was, and so I just went forward. And I think it's the same, it's the same thing, it's the not giving sufficient weight to how something makes you feel. And I think particularly, sorry to repeat myself, but particularly because you often can't articulate what that thing is. So, you know, maybe your partner or your friend or your recruiter is saying, Oh, how was it? You know, tell me about it, and you can't name the thing that isn't right, so you you perhaps kind of shy away from it. I I've been in that scenario myself, as I say, I've had hundreds of conversations along that along that same scenario.

Ann:

I I see it all the time, experienced it myself, and it'll either ooze out of you in some way or the other energetically in the interview, yeah, and you'll not get the job because they've sensed something. Yeah. And even they might not be able to articulate it, just other than they've just felt awkward that you know there was something performative about what you were doing. And then you get the job, you've managed to fake it enough in the interview process, you get the job, and then you get on the inside and the grass is not greener. And that's because that candidate hasn't listened to their inner compass. And we are we're experiencing this super cycle of change at the moment. Again, this comes out of this heart of change research by Michelle McQuaid. And these are multiple forces of change, not happening in a linear way, but they're interconnected and they're endless. And organizations, so that that that's on a macro level, so you know, globally, economically, geopolitically, etc. It's everything, isn't it? It's everything. Everything is heavy. And then within organizations, there's rapid change, we're all kind of just winging it because no one has the answers for how all of this tech and tools is actually going to help us operationalise our businesses properly. And there's a lot of uncertainty with that, and what's called these oh fud moments, which is fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And I hadn't heard that before. That's it. Yeah, yeah. So there's a futurist, Amy Webb, that talks about this. And as a result, our nervous systems are in overdrive, and high-functioning leaders operate like that all the time and are pretty good at pretty good at managing their stress. But rest assured, it catches up with us, and we are in, like I said, a super cycle of change that is exponential and unprecedented, and it's taking a toll on us. Sorry to be a downer about it, but that's the reality. So as a result, we go into control mode, and what that means is that we're constantly in our heads, we're wearing the weight of the world here, and it's like we're a head without a body. So if we're actually thinking and so energetically, that's Coming across as forced and panicked and worried, and you get it, right? And if we take moments, micro moments, these aren't big moments, it could be a single coaching session, it could just be doing a short visualization, getting outside, putting your feet in the grass, drinking more water, like there's big and small that you could do, but helping us bring us back down to our emotional centers to help us self-regulate. And that is one of the core characteristics of emotional intelligence and being able to optimize your emotional frequency, aka this energy, authentic self that we're talking about in a leadership setting.

Emma:

And I think you are seeing it more and more. And I've noticed it even just among, you know, friendship group. I see it on LinkedIn in the type of posts people are writing. Certainly in my kind of broader network, I'm hearing more and more people talk about that. And not always using the the burnout word, but certainly there's a sense of kind of overwhelm or low energy, something's off, I'm not quite sure what it is, I don't really feel myself. You know, all of all of those types of phrases. And on the one hand, to your earlier point, it's great that people are being more open about that because then you, you know, you don't just think, oh, it's just me. I think the only person that feels like that. It's it's clear that there's a lot more people that feel like that. Being seen as a sign of weakness, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, true, yeah. But then I think the flip side of that is that you start to realize actually what a big issue it is, and and to your your one in three stat, like, yeah, uh even just in my own kind of uh small part of the world, I I can see that that is spot on. I see that in my own my own networks and and my own my own groups.

Ann:

Definitely. There's definitely more talk and more forums about it, which is wonderful to see, but we've got a way to go still. And unfortunately, organizations are in a difficult spot right now where they're needing to be financially very prudent. There's a lot of right sizing or downsizing going on, there's a lot of technological transformation, process improvement, so it's really focused on you know, profit and process side of business, and the people side has been deprioritized in the last couple of years, and I'm confident that that will come back because I mean it it has to. In January this year, the World Economic Forum dropped its future of work or future of jobs report, and there's this really great quadrant of what jobs are in focus now, and then the top right is what jobs will be more in focus, and there's equal parts tech and people-centric skills, human-centred skills. So that the tech and the AI won't be able to do that for us, not in the whole way. So it's it's a skill that you will need to learn as a leader to stay relevant and connected. And we have more and more multi-generational workplaces, and the younger generations need this. That that's what they you know, it's part of their core DNA. And so, you know, I work with some leaders at the older, more senior end as well, and they're talking about what do I need to do to feel better about what I do every day? Because it's like, is this it? Like I've reached a point where you know, I I, you know, I'm not sure if this is enough for me. I I've got the good job, I've got the title, I've got pretty good salary, all of that. But then they also go, I need to future-proof myself to be able to stay at this level. How do I stay relevant? Yeah, and this will be one of the ways to do that, is to grow your intelligence and become more aware of self and others.

Emma:

It's something that I suppose in a slightly different context, but something that I've been saying over the last probably six months as well, as more of this kind of AI conversation comes through, and primarily speaking with marketers, and you know, what does that mean for me? And you know, the short answer is none of us actually know. We're we're all kind of making our best guesses at this stage, and it's it's not a space that I have any particular expertise in, but logically, as you say, that there are things that AI will not be able to do, and and they are those more human things, they are genuine creative thinking, not just synthesizing all the thinking that's already out there, genuine innovation and and leadership. And you know, even if the robots take over a lot of functions, there are still going to be people there. There are there is gonna need to be someone who is leading and and you know, steering strategy and all of those things. I I don't see that that will go away.

Ann:

We are human beings, not human doings, and we focus on the doing all the time. All the time. So let's bring more of the being into the workplace setting. And something I I I tend to say is let's build safety and comfortability in talking a bit more about our feelings at work. Now, I do not mean that being a therapy session, like there's a spectrum here of you know what is appropriate, but I I feel really passionately that, and I I see it working when it happens, that the benefits at a macro level in the organization around um staff retention, productivity, leadership, succession, development, you you get it. It makes it is beneficial to the workplace and then also to the teams and the individuals because they can be more connected to themselves and each other by by learning these skills and creating a shared forum or a shared language around what the emotional culture of the organization is.

Emma:

Yeah, and I think as well at the end of the day, it I'd say authenticity is such an overused word, and I think it's been used so much that it's almost now got not a negative connotation, but there's a bit of a oh yeah that comes along, that comes along with it. But just uh a realness of of you know, it doesn't just need to be this like facade of just realness of I I actually don't know what what that is gonna look like, but let's let's sit down and let's talk through that. Oh my gosh, I love that. Let's say I don't know more often at work.

Ann:

I I think that is a lot, it's such a good point, Emma.

Emma:

Like, yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think it's a bit of, I don't know, is it conditioning that that we're all just meant to kind of oh I've I've got all the answers, I know everything. I I'm a leader, so I couldn't possibly say that. Yeah, but it's so interesting, isn't it? That actually the complete reverse is true from an energetic level, because as the person on the receiving end, again, you might not be able to articulate it, but you you feel it, you feel that that is completely disingenuous as opposed to someone just saying, Yeah, I actually not sure how that is gonna look. Let's let's figure it out together.

Ann:

Let's let's exactly say let's find it out together, and that's so motivating and empowering for your people to to hear that um because we all are just people at the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think we we have that commonality, so yeah, it it's it's so interesting. It's simple in context but complex in practice, in execution, yeah, yeah.

Emma:

I think that's the thing, isn't it? That the the concept is is so simple of we are all just people, let's cut the bullshit and and actually just relate to to each other in that way, which super simple to say that, super simple to kind of conceptualize that, but then the the the real world kind of practicality of that is is obviously a lot more obviously a lot more nuanced. But yeah, if someone's listening to this and I hope they are thinking this, thinking, wow, you know, this is so interesting, like this really resonates with me. I I want to kind of explore more about this, I want to learn more. What what are the first steps? What would you suggest to someone that they do? You know, are there particular sources of information that you think are really useful? What steps can someone take?

Ann:

The simplest thing you can do, basic place to start, is to take a strengths-based approach. So if you don't know what your strengths are, and there's lots of tools that you can use, that's a really great way to get a little bit more data about yourself. So, what do you enjoy doing? What makes you feel good, what lats you up? And if you can do more of that, then that is going to help you feel better and perform better. But you can use those strengths or those understanding of your strengths to spot what other people may or may not have themselves. And if you're interpreting, well, they're speaking in this way or they're performing in X way, and I'm doing it in this way, and it's feeling a bit off, like we're at odds with each other, there's some kind of tension, then you can go, well, maybe that's because my strength is in overdrive and they don't have that strength in the same way that I do. So we've got a mismatch going on. So that's a really basic thing you can do, and there's free tools available for you to do that, or you can get a strengths-based coach to do that. So, this is about getting more data on yourself, and there's emotional intelligence assessment tools that you can do as well, which can tell you, you know, how you are to some of the main factors, which are things like self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, so the relationships, your decision-making ability, and your stress management. They're sort of the core components of you know the two or three main emotional intelligence assessments globally, and you can see where you are and see where your growth areas are. Perhaps you're in an organization where they're willing to do that for everybody, and you can look at it at a team level as well. And it's I I come back to my very earlier point at the beginning, it's being a little bit more curious about what you care about and finding ways to have a little bit more of that at work, and then if you're leading people, asking them the same thing, and then giving them some opportunities to have some more of that as well, and sure enough, you'll be talking about how that makes you feel as well. So the conversations should be really developmental, both from a practical and a um a motivation and emotional intelligence perspective, and they're probably the simplest ways to start, and then you can do bigger pieces of work where you have one-on-one coaching or you you develop team programs where you create your own shared emotional culture charter where you do, like I said, the team assessments, for example. It's just bit by bit creating spaces where people can talk about their experiences, but ground ground zero is usually coming from a strengths-based lens. Yeah.

Emma:

Great, thank you. The other thing that I think is really useful about that is that and it's one of the things, one of the plus sides of technology and the way that the internet has developed, that there is so much self-learning that's available to you. There is a lot of you know free stuff out there that you can access, and awesome if if someone is able to either personally work with a coach or or their company is is going to fund that. But if that's not possible, and and obviously that's not gonna be possible for everyone, there's still so much that you can do. It just takes the drive from the individual to actually go out there and and find it.

Ann:

Yeah. The the first place to start is get on the VIA website and do the values in action strengths assessment or strengths profile. I would do those. They're relatively simple enough, particularly the VIA one to interpret yourself. There are free versions, you won't get the full information. And then there's the more corporatized one like Gallup or Clifton Strengths Finders, but I I don't find that that one looks at you as holistically as the other two. Yeah. And we're we're talking about a whole person here, not necessarily it's called strengths, but Gallup tends to be more of a set of skills rather than values and strengths. And there's free values assessments as well. I was remiss in mentioning that. Um, and you can search for free online values assessments and and and assess what you think your values are. And gosh, if there's a a misalignment in to your values to what you're experiencing in the workplace, well, there's your answer.

Emma:

Um every day.

Ann:

Yeah, you are, it's it and it's going to take its toll and it chips away at us, and this is what I said it causes us to come out of our body and go into our head and and our nervous systems uh dysregulate.

Emma:

Yeah. Final question, and it's always the final question here, and that is what do you know now that you wish you knew then?

Ann:

You can't logic your way out of misalignment. Yes. That's a great one. Yeah. It's not just in your head.

Emma:

I'm I'm laughing because it resonates. Yeah. Doesn't it?

Ann:

Yeah. Yeah, you you can't you can't projectize your your journey to alignment, you know. There's definitely stepping stones, but so there's not an end point. And another thing I say is goals need to be adaptable. Like, oh, I was so trained, it was embedded that goals were smart needed to be smart, and sometimes they do, sure. But I really feel when it comes to your development, even as a leader and personally, that if you are being adaptable along the way and bringing in those things that you learn to work towards the intention that you have, the goal that you have, you're gonna be far better placed to have sustained, to create sustainable change, positive change than if you go, I'm gonna achieve X in this time. And when you get there, it's usually never what we thought it was going to be like. And that's because we've beelined our way, we've stayed in our head along the way, and we've not looked at the cues and the data that we've been gathering or and the curveballs that we've experienced along the way, because that's the beauty of it. I was gonna say that's the beauty of the journey, but I'm like so naffed to hear that.

Emma:

But it's true, it's true. I it's literally as you were saying that, I was thinking in my head, you know, it's the journey, not the destination, but it it is hence the name of the podcast. It is so true, and I did that for God's 20 years of just you know, goal, check, goal, check, and it was just like a series of tick boxes, and you're surprised when you check them off, and yeah, you don't know.

Ann:

Well, because at work we need results, because they don't get a pass, you do the task, you perform the task, it has a needs to have a positive effect on the organization. So we do tend to try and make it linear, but as we've talked about today, there's many goals and intentions of leaders today, or there should be, that are not just about the organizational performance and its bottom line. Yeah, and and and those working towards those goals is not always linear.

Emma:

Yeah. Thank you so much, Anne. Really appreciate you taking the time to to chat with me and and how as I said before, have this type of conversation and and kind of shine a light, I was gonna say, it's perhaps a bit cliche, but on these types of topics and and and highlight actually how integral and and how important they are to everything, not just work, but everything. Yeah. For for people that have enjoyed what you've got to say and and they want to follow along or or get in touch, what's what's the best way for them to do that? Where should they go?

Ann:

Cool. If you want to get a bit of a flavor of me, then check out my LinkedIn content and follow me there, or you can screw it. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I enjoy doing it. I kind of try and speak about the real, real realities of work and being a leader. So there's a few truth bombs in there, and try to be a bit cheeky and um you know, poke at it a bit sometimes, or come via my website, kinetic effect.co, and I'd be happy to have a chat with you, even if it's just to share experiences and get to know each other. So yeah, I I invite uh anybody to create space to talk about this stuff if they want.

Emma:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Anne. Appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. It's good to be back on it. Very welcome. Before you go, I've got a quick favour to ask. If you enjoyed this episode or something in it resonated with you, I'd love it if you could leave a quick review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to help more people find the show, and I love to hear what's landing with you. Just scroll down in the app, tap a star rating, and if you've got 30 seconds, leave a few words too. Thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it.

Head Shot

Emma Graham

Host