Small Steps, Big Impact: Leah Stockley on Burnout, Psychological Safety & Systems Thinking

A rebel spirit in a pub kitchen. A curious mind in a software lab. A change leader inside global banks. Leah Stockley’s journey is anything but linear - and that’s exactly why it matters.

In this conversation, Leah and Keith unpack the real playbook for building momentum without burning out and for leading teams that challenge ideas, learn fast, and still leave the room as allies. From her early discovery of exploratory testing - which reintroduced creativity into highly regulated environments - to mastering systems thinking that sees organisations as living ecosystems, Leah shares how lasting change is built from context, not control.

They contrast two cultures: a psychologically safe “dream team” where robust debate sparks growth, and a blame-driven one where fear shuts learning down overnight - proving leadership climate is the invisible hand that shapes outcomes. Leah’s take on burnout is disarmingly practical: understand your daily recovery rate, build micro-boosts into your schedule, and celebrate small wins that recharge you when momentum fades. Her “glass-ball rule” reframes balance as intelligent triage - some priorities shatter if dropped, others bounce back. Knowing the difference is how you protect progress and yourself.

Together, they tackle the profit-first trap and explore companies that lead with people, planet, and progress - showing that sustainable performance follows when purpose drives profit. Leah also previews her forthcoming book, Momentum: Small Steps Lead to Big Impact, which distils 20 everyday leadership challenges into stories, organisational psychology insights, and next actions. Her upcoming online leadership academy creates a safe, on-demand space where managers can practice the human skills most corporate programmes forget - clarity, cadence, feedback, and environment design.

Come for the career twists; stay for the tools you can use tomorrow.
If you’re ready to lead with context, foster true psychological safety, and trade grand plans for smart, steady steps, this episode is your recharge for the week.

You can reach Leah here:

Website: https://www.letsflow.sg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahstockley

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that will leave you equipped with the tools to lead with confidence, overcome obstacles and unlock The Power Within

email us at: info@motivuscoaching.com

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Leah’s Unconventional Path

Keith 0:00

Welcome to the Power Within, the podcast that uncovers the real stories and strategies behind leadership and personal growth. I'm Keith Power, and in each episode I sit down with inspiring individuals who face challenges, built resilience, and discovered what it takes to lead with impact. Through their journeys, we'll explore the mindsets and tools that drive meaningful success. If you're ready to grow, lead, and unlock your true potential, you're in the right place. From chef to change leader, antique dealer to tech strategist, Leah Stockley has never taken the conventional path. And that's exactly what makes her story so powerful. Leah began her work working life in a pub kitchen and antique shops before discovering a passion for technology. In a software testing role, no less. Her journey took her from testing teams to driving global change at global banking giants, Barclays and Standard Chartered, where she redefined ways of working and led organizational transformation efforts at scale. Along the way, she earned a master's in organizational psychology and developed deep insights into leadership, burnout, and sustainable performance. Based in Singapore for the past one and a half decades, Leah is on a mission to help organizations reimagine success, not just by shareholder value, but by human impact. She's building an online leadership academy and has a forthcoming book, Momentum Small Steps Lead to Big Impact, which offers practical wisdom for today's overwhelmed leaders. In this episode, we unpack her story, her scars, and her strategy for creating real change from the inside out. Morning, Leah. Welcome to the Power Within.

Leah 2:16

Morning, Keith. Thank you for having me here.

Keith 2:19

Chef to corporate change maker. Take us back to the beginning. What drew you into leadership and how did your early roles shape your philosophy?

Leah 2:31

Yeah, great question. It sounds like a big leap when you say chef to corporate change. It's only looking back that I realize the common thread throughout all those roles. Chef, software testing, human-centered design, change. It was all people-centered.

Keith 2:46

Chef is leader, basically.

Leah 2:48

And as a leader as well, exactly. So it's very people-centred, all about providing a better experience for people. And that is a leadership role too. So I didn't intend or set out to be a leader, but actually at 14 years old, I was leading the kitchen. 14. Yeah. At weekends.

Keith 3:08

Child labour.

Early Work, First Leadership, And Tech Spark

Leah 3:09

Child labour. No, it was legitimate in the UK. We were allowed to do that. Uh in Singapore. I think that's not okay. But and I started as a cleaner and then I helped in the kitchen. And then I ended up running the kitchen at the weekends.

Keith 3:23

This was your parents' place then?

Leah 3:25

No, it was actually a friend of my parents' place. Yes. We weren't a wealthy family and we needed that money, or that gave me the money to have a bit of choice and freedom, save up for my first stereo. So, you know, I was incentivized to work.

Keith 3:39

Oh, it's awesome having your own money as a teenager, right?

Leah 3:42

Absolutely.

Keith 3:43

I started work at seven. My father was a milkman.

Leah 3:46

At seven? Yeah, okay.

Keith 3:48

But uh I remember crying from the cold sometimes, so it wasn't all brave stuff. So tell us then, you so you're a chef, a cleaner, uh, and everything by the sounds of it at 14. How did you move onward then? And how did you get so involved in IT basically?

Leah 4:07

How did I move on from that? I tried different jobs, and actually um I feel like I've had a lifetime of lucky opportunities, I guess being open to opportunities, seeing them and taking them. Yes. And someone I knew needed a PA and offered me that role. And I was a terrible PA, but what I was good at was, I think because I'd been serving coffee for so long, and they said, get me coffee. I'm like, surely my job has moved on from here. But I discovered technology. I'm gonna show my age. It was as Windows 95 got launched in the office. I remember well, and everyone else was baffled by it, and it just was really easy for me to do that.

Keith 4:50

I can still hear the ding of it loading up, can't you?

Leah 4:54

Yes, oh yeah, yeah, that came back to me. Yeah, so I discovered that I had this kind of natural affinity with technology. Move forward a year or so, and I saw an advert that said logical thinker wanted, no experience necessary, and it was for a local building society. Great company. It was, wasn't it? Yeah. I went for all the interviews, passed for flying colours, and it was a software testing role. And they realized in the town they couldn't hire people with software testing skills. I was in Bournemouth in the south coast of England, but you know, that that wasn't a I thought that was a retirement place. Well, yeah, but that's where I grew up, lucky enough to grow up. And so they couldn't hire, so they built. They they hired people with Michael, lights behind their eyes and trained us up to be the kind of software testers they needed. So it that was an example of great leadership, I think, set for me quite early on. Really find great people and invest in their growth.

Keith 5:49

And these days we're all separated out by AI and bots, basically. Yeah. So remote work. Where do you get the people like you these days when there is such a screening process that goes on? As you said, whoever thought of an advert and place in that, first of all, it was uh very flexible, knowing that they couldn't get exactly what they thought they wanted, they ended up getting something better though.

Leah 6:16

They did, and you know, that was a one of those dream teams. I've worked in a few in my life, but that was definitely one of them. And actually, about 60% of us all ended up moving up to London within a few years after that. Right. And all have done extremely well in their careers, and I think that base of having leaders investing in our growth was really key.

Keith 6:36

I was 18 when I went to London, and it is a shame parts of the UK, and this is probably true of other countries, of course, but to get past a certain level, you have to be drawn to the big lights, you know, the big city, usually the number one city London.

Leah 6:52

That is true, yeah. If you're in the corporate world, which I was stepping into at that point, so they gave me that block. But even when I got to London, I had, you know, I didn't have a degree, I hadn't gone to college.

Keith 7:03

Ditto.

Leah 7:04

So yeah, we had a similar start in life in that way.

Keith 7:07

We've had that discussion.

Leah 7:08

And I had that, not a battle, but a you know, that wasn't an easy conversation in a lot of interviews.

Keith 7:14

It was.

Leah 7:14

But I had the courage to say, I have this life experience, I might not have this certificate. I might not be using the language you're using, but you know, ask me the questions and I'll explain to you my experience and my thinking. And and if if that certificate matters, I'll go get the certificate. But what what matters is my experience, my work ethic.

Logical Thinker To Tester: Built Not Hired

Keith 7:33

I think we're similar. As long as we get the interview, we're fine. Yes. It's getting across the threshold. The screening. That's what the certificates, the degrees do to block you out, basically. Right. And I know a lot of uh listeners and viewers will be with first class honors degrees, master's degrees, etc. But in my experience, people who come from backgrounds like us where you have to claw and fight your way, are usually pretty darn successful. You have to polish us a little bit. We know that, right? Well, probably me. I can't speak for you.

Speaker 2 8:11

It's true.

Keith 8:13

So, and and where did that take you? So you're up to London by now. Uh in the big smoke, as we used to call it back in the day. I don't think they have any uh problems with the atmosphere and the environment there any longer. But the big smoke is what everyone said, Oh, you're going up the smoke. How did you find that? Did you go to London as a young person alone then?

Leah 8:33

I wasn't that young. I was late twenties when I moved up to London.

Keith 8:37

Okay. So you were a grown-up?

Leah 8:39

I was a grown-up, yes, by then. But to be fair, at 17 I moved to Greece and and lived there. So I I had this, you know, itchy feet, I guess.

Keith 8:48

I had had the What took you to Greece?

Leah 8:50

Just um summer. I again I needed money. I couldn't have the luxury of full-time education, so I needed to educate myself some way. I guess I did that in a worldview, and I went and lived on a Greek island for the summer for six months and worked over there.

Keith 9:05

Wow.

Leah 9:06

That was a great experience.

Keith 9:07

This won't come out for a month or two. Today is Friday. On Sunday, I'm flying to Greece. Yeah, amazing. I'm going to Crete doing some hiking and culture and a couple of days in Athens just to break it up before coming back. Because Europe's a long way from here, as you know.

Leah 9:21

Yes.

Keith 9:22

Amazing. So uh wow, uh you've just thrown a curveball at me there. And then how is the progression? And I know we've talked about this before, and and let's fast forward. There comes a point where everything is wonderful in a corporate career, everything's going well, you're in a dream team, and you wonder, like, can life get any better?

Leah 9:43

Yeah.

Keith 9:44

But inevitably in corporate life, something happens, or usually someone happens.

Leah 9:51

Yes.

Keith 9:51

What was your someone or something that happened?

Leah 9:54

See, later in life there's a less positive one, but there was a really positive change for me. So I was about 12 years into my career. By that time, I was here in Singapore. I was a senior test manager, so I felt, you know, I'm doing well. I'm getting to the top of my game. People would come to me for advice. I felt like I was a bit of an expert. But at that time, I was starting to see that the way that we were working wasn't working as well as it should. And that there seemed to be this shift away from software testing as a creative science, I would say, when I started doing it, towards it being so precise we had to write everything down before we did it. And it didn't allow this opportunity for creativity and learning that you need, especially because this was at the time when mobile phones and browsers and what you know, the way customers interacted with software became so complex. We discovered a new way, I discovered and tried to bring in a new way of doing testing that gave us more freedom, but obviously had to meet the regulatory constraints, okay. So that's the background.

Keith 11:00

So you're in a finance environment. I was in a finance environment. And the regulatory. Yes.

Leah 11:05

And so my boss at the time was very supportive, and he found a world expert in exploratory testing. That's what this was called. A gentleman named James Buck, and he brought him over from America to teach us, I thought, exploratory testing. What he actually taught me was the power of learning. And I thought I was done with learning. I left school at 16. You know, I I didn't connect the importance of learning, I didn't go on to university. So I'd forgotten how to learn. Well, I certainly wasn't doing it consciously. And he taught me the power of learn something new every day. And that became my mantra. It was about 12. 12 years into my career. So suddenly from thinking I was an expert, I went to, oh, this guy's an expert, a true expert, a global leader, but he doesn't call himself that. He believes that he has to learn every day to build, and that there's always so much more to learn. And that just blew my world wide open, honestly.

Keith 12:05

It's really good seeing someone who you uh respect and admire, know they're great, and yet they don't show that outwardly, that instead they have this drive to keep learning, to keep getting better. And that's why they're the best, right?

Leah 12:21

Exactly. That's that's what struck me, I think. And what I didn't know then, but I know now, is he was like a modern-day Socrates and he was very interested in Socrates and the way that he works, um, this kind of constant search for more and more inspiration. It's telling me I need to go on holiday.

Moving To London: Credentials vs. Capability

Keith 12:39

Uh there's always a a million reasons to go on holiday.

Leah 12:44

The other irony about James Buck is he was the is the son of Richard Buck, and I don't know if you know him, but he wrote the book Jonathan Livingston's Seagull. Have a check out that book, it takes maybe half an hour to read. And my mum used to read it to me when I was a little girl. It's about a seagull who wants to fly higher, and all the other seagulls tell him he can't. That's not what seagulls do. And he just did, and he moved on and he went on and on, and it's a really inspiring book.

Keith 13:12

It's a lot better than the Icara story, then. Yes. Move to the sun and burnt.

Leah 13:17

Yes, much more positive. But yeah, it's really funny that someone that inspired me when I was younger and then I got re-inspired by his son. So that kind of felt very life's like that though, isn't it?

Keith 13:27

Yes. You know, you have these things and you it connects later on. It comes a full stop, a tough time. Usually it's uh redundancy, it's reorganization, it's an once wear, not very nice person takes over. What what for you?

Leah 13:45

So there was a big change for me. So a yet again, new company was in my dream team, dream job. We were helping people discover new ways of working, better ways of working together. Um because from what I saw, we have really great people working really hard and just not getting results. And it typically, from what I could see, fell down because the old ways of mapping out things and pretending everything was perfect and following a plan wasn't working for us anymore. So we were driving a huge culture change around that and making good progress. And then the whole focus of the company shifted because the shareholders were not happy with the returns and they demanded some more short-term financial indicators and that changed the entire company. And so many of the people I've been working with chose to leave at that point. Uh, I chose to stick around because I wanted to learn and because I had a belief that you could do both. This isn't an either-or, it's a polarity, it's an and and it will move up and down the scale. So I stayed to try to learn. Unfortunately, the people who thrive in an environment like that I've discovered have very different values to me. And so as hard as I tried and stayed, so I could be the advocate for people, for better ways of getting things done, which is what drives me. There was just no appetite for it. And the more I spoke up for this, the more I was devalued, ostracised. And the people around me that were my support connection were leaving one by one or silencing one by one, and and so it just became untenable in the end. For everyone, I think. And that thankfully, luckily for me, resulted in a redundancy because it was clear to everyone that this wasn't going to be or they can become very welcome.

Keith 15:48

This it wasn't a jump, it was an evolution.

Speaker 2 15:52

Yes.

Keith 15:52

Basically, with as you said, certain points where opportunities come and you're brave enough to take them. So anyone who sits in that chair I speak to who talks about luck, I have to slap that down. You're not lucky. You're not. You make your luck, and more importantly, you make those choices, you make those decisions. And especially when it comes to tough things like redundancy, you can just wallow and let the ground swallow you up, or you can just reinvent yourself, which is basically what you did, right?

Leah 16:23

Yes, absolutely.

Keith 16:24

Tell us of the reinvention, the rebirth.

Leah 16:26

I came out of that redundancy confused about who I was or what I did. Honestly, that last 18 months really lowered my confidence and my belief in the value that I could bring. And so I completed my master's in org psychology. So did that make me an org psychologist? I'd been leading design thinking, um was I that, but I wasn't really an expert in it. What was I? I didn't I came out really confused.

Keith 16:56

So when when you completed your masters, I'm really interested in this one on a personal level. Having left school at 16, uh, perhaps feeling not quite there. How did you feel? Was it the great euphoric feeling afterwards, or did you take it in your stride, or what? How did you feel once you got your master's, you got that certificate?

Leah 17:21

Yeah, great question. I'm not sure I've dug deeply into that either. I felt there was definitely a sense of accomplishment or and a belief in myself because as you said, we've always navigated through and done well and worked harder, but but there's then always that nagging doubt of am I capable of this or not? So yes, I am capable and capable of doing it whilst raising two young children and keeping a full-time job, thanks also to my amazing husband. Yes, a sense of I can do this. So that felt good.

Keith 17:54

It was all inward stuff.

Leah 17:56

But it was very inward, yeah. And it I don't value certificates for the sake of it. So I mean, it was the learning, it was such an impactful journey to help me understand why things happen. Like I could see what was happening and I could see connections, but now I deeply understood why people and work and companies and what connects them and what causes the issues.

Rethinking Testing: Creativity, Constraints, Learning

Keith 18:21

I had this deeper level of understanding behind that, which is I'm no psychologist, however, it does sound and feel to me like if you haven't reflected on that enough for yourself, pat yourself on the back, take the moment, you know, as I said, you just that sense of accomplishment, and then you moved on.

Leah 18:43

And partly because I was burnt out at that point.

Keith 18:47

Yeah, right.

Leah 18:47

Which I ironically only understood because my last module was on burnout. And as I was studying it, I went, oh.

Keith 18:56

It's become quite an area for you now, isn't it? Right? That's your focus.

Leah 19:00

Because I didn't know I was in it until I studied it. And then as I was reading all the papers and all the signs, I was like, oh, this really sounds familiar.

Keith 19:09

Depression, all of these things, you don't know it when you're in it, you're in the funk of it, right?

Leah 19:13

And it's the importance of awareness and education. You know, the more people hear about it and understand it, because they feel like scary words.

Keith 19:21

Yeah.

Leah 19:22

And too, you know, we're not, it's not okay to admit that's where we are, especially in a corporate world.

Keith 19:27

Did you feel the shackles fall off once you're out of the corporate world a bit then?

Leah 19:33

Hugely. Um so I was always a bit of a rebel, I suppose. Bournemouth girl. Yeah. Never felt like I fully fitted in this corporate mould, but felt I belonged there because of that. Like I was there to shake it up a little bit. I was okay to disrupt respectfully and in a human way.

Keith 19:52

We have more parallels than I even thought, you and I. Rebels in the corporate world. That sounds like a book, doesn't it?

Leah 19:59

Well, there's corporate rebels who do great work.

Keith 20:01

Okay.

Leah 20:02

Helping us see different ways of running companies.

Keith 20:05

So you talked about helping transform global testing practices at some of the world's biggest banks. What did that experience teach you about leading change in complex systems and environments?

Leah 20:22

You hit the nail on the head. It's systems. Um, and when I first started, I thought it was about the process. I was learning agile and you know, different ways of managing work. And I thought that bringing those to people would be the solution, teaching them a new way of doing things. And we tried that for a while, and that's when I realized the people aren't ready for this. Some people, yes, love it, but actually most people don't and are struggling to shift. And so I flipped quite the other way and focused on culture, mindset, skills, um, and that became my job globally, helping the bank discover these skills and mindset in support of the process. But through that, I also realized neither work without the other. And it is the system that you need to look at. So that's when I discovered the systems thinking way um of of looking at an organization and you're changing it. It's it's the environment, it's the technology, it's the policies and rules, it's the people, the skills, the it's the goals that you set. It's there's just there are many levers that need to be pulled.

Keith 21:32

Um it sounds a lot more of a creating creative environment than one would think. Yes. It's not, although you say systems and systematic, but it's a bit like the best chef, back to being a chef, choosing the right ingredients at the right time in the right way, in the right place, right?

Leah 21:50

Absolutely. And I believe everything is contextual. Maybe is one of my favorite answers, because you have to explore more, even as a chef, you know, the salt or the butter, these things might taste different today, and you it's about getting that balance right. It's not just using the same recipe blindly every time, because the ingredients are slightly different every time.

Keith 22:12

It's a little bit like we joked earlier about you controlling your frizzy hair compared to the UK. I don't have such an issue, so it is contextual. It is always right.

Leah 22:24

It's very true. But I think it's our way of thinking about change, especially, you know, in the 60s, I think, as a gentleman named Cotta, his change management plan was freeze, change, unfreeze. Yeah. And you know, thinking from a software perspective, when we released software once a year, that was okay.

Keith 22:43

Exactly what you used to do.

Leah 22:44

Yeah. But now people release software every ten minutes.

Keith 22:47

Yeah, yeah.

Leah 22:47

And customers' expectations are so different. And those models that once worked don't work anymore. And even with change, just because something worked somewhere doesn't mean it's going to work for a different person or a different team or a different company. It's always bring what you know and learn from that, but you have to understand the context that you're in. You need to listen to the system and listen to what's going on around you. And then you decide what the next best step is, with a vision in mind, but small steps towards.

Keith 23:23

This is really the critical success factor with everything else, that it's the team and what everyone brings. You don't have one answer, and the leader doesn't say this is the way you follow it. That's also 1960s thinking. It is really drawing the best out of everybody, creating some tension. Tension's not a bad thing. Yes. You know, when someone says, Oh, everyone gets on so well here, I think something wrong. There's got to be something wrong if everyone gets on all the time. You have to have a little bit of tension in a team, right?

Leah 23:57

Yes, exactly.

Keith 23:58

So I went on a no fisty cuffs, but no, no, exactly, not physical.

The Mentor Who Reignited Learning

Leah 24:02

Uh I went on a real journey with my team a few years ago to create, intentionally create psychological safety and and experiment. We were in a lovely position where we just got to experiment with these different ways of working so that we could then help scale it and teach other people. Our psychologically safe team looked very messy. We had a new team member join and she found it quite scary at first because there was a real challenge going on, but it was never personal, it was always about the work. And the minute the meeting was over, it was done. And it wasn't a horrible challenge, but to someone who wasn't yet fully integrated, it felt quite scary. Yeah, yeah. And it she we've talked about it since it took her time to recognize this was true psychological safety because it was about the work.

Keith 24:46

It's misused sometimes. I I hear the phrase psychological safety thrown around in the wrong way, in the wrong context again. And it is about having an environment where you feel you can say what you think if you see something wrong. The boss has just said something, but you think there's a flaw in that. Having that environment where you feel safe psychologically to be able to voice that out without being slapped down. Yeah. And and this is where you really gain from it. Because where I hear it, um, there's an accusation of it being woke thinking. It's the opposite of woke thinking. It's allowing you to express yourself, to say that and feel safe. Yes. Which the opposite of woke, I think.

Leah 25:30

Yeah, I agree. And not just whatever you feel like, but in service of the team goal and the work you're doing, it has a focus and a boundary. It's not just come in, say whatever you like, you know.

Keith 25:42

In these different teams, try to think of the extremes. The dream team is working well with psychological safety at its core, and the ones where there's not psychological safety and someone who thinks they know better. How did it feel to you about being in that team, being in a team meeting in those two different kinds of environments?

Leah 26:05

Yeah, day and night. And ironically, I was in the same team and experienced both because we had a great leader and a great team that we'd built. Felt great leader for me. And that person left, and a new leader came in that changed it overnight. So I literally sat in the same with the same team with the same team who gradually people from that team left but and were replaced with new ones. But that brought it home to me, what a difference it makes, because I literally sat in the seat and watched it change. Yeah, going from being able to challenge, know that my leader valued learning from me as much as I valued learning from him. I have a great example that we'd worked on a product for months with my team, showed him the first version, and he said, Take it down, bring it, it's not, it's not good enough. And I was horrified, you know, defending my team, feeling really bad. But very quickly he said, This is great. We would never have been able to see what to do without seeing this. But this isn't what we need. And then he pulled the whole team together and we sat in a room for two, three days. We swarmed on it as a group and fixed it and got it where we needed it to be, and then released it with pride. That's what taught me psychological safety. Wow. But that leader left and we moved into another team where everything was blame. If it's not perfect, it's your fault. If it's not perfect, it's your problem, not mine. Don't come to me with your problems. I only want you to make me look good, honestly. That was the big shift. He had nothing to learn from us. It was uh it was such a different experience.

Keith 27:44

And the cultural differences come into Asia as well. I'm well known for saying, I don't know. You know, I'm well known for that, but I know the shock when I first said that in Poland, my team, and when I first said it in China, because in both those countries the culture was that the leader knows everything, even if they don't, they listen to the leader. Yeah. So I used to think I was a breath of fresh air, but I really challenged them in some ways. They said, Who's this dumbass that they've sent? You know, he doesn't know anything. Whereas, like you, I want to be learning something every day. And the only way you learn is to admit you don't know something and ask questions and move on, right?

Leah 28:27

Exactly. And I think, you know, there's a point. I think it's excusable in that we all grow in our careers by being experts at something. You know, that's how you go from being a team member to your first leadership role. It's because you're good at what you do and people recognise and value that. And that's okay for a couple of levels. But once you get up to a level of leadership where you're leading a company or something broader, yeah, it's a lot thinner up there, right? Yeah, and you cannot be an expert at everything.

Keith 28:54

Yeah.

Leah 28:55

And the more you pretend to be, the more you're missing out on much better ideas, much better.

Keith 29:00

Everyone's smiling and nodding, but really they go in rolling their eyes, right?

Leah 29:04

And so that shift that you need to make as you make that step up to recognize your skill is in building a team with the right capability and the right and give them the vision and the environment where they can work together effectively. That's your role as a leader from that point onwards.

Keith 29:22

My main focus in my executive coaching is taking people as they've going up a level and knowing it's a different environment. You're not an individual contributor anymore. What matters more is getting the most out of the team, etc. What does your week look like these days post corporate life? You've written a book.

Leah 29:44

Writing, yes.

Keith 29:45

Not not done yet. Not done yet. I want to see the first draft. Give us a quick synopsis of the book then.

Culture Shifts, Shareholders, And Misaligned Values

Leah 29:51

Okay, the book you mentioned earlier, it's called Momentum. Small steps lead to big impact. I why did I write it? Because I see so many. Many leaders actually know what they should be doing and of course have areas where they're experts. But most of them don't know how to do what they need to do when they step up. How to set that vision and communicate that, how to create an environment where people work together effectively. Even how to demonstrate value, how to say what good looks like and demonstrate and measure the work that they're doing to get there. And if they can't do all those things, especially in a corporate environment, they're going to start suffering. So I surveyed lots of leaders and asked them what are the daily challenges you struggle with. Gave a list of 20 or 30.

Keith 30:41

So not big strategy stuff.

Leah 30:42

Not big strategy, very small. So actually the book is structured around 20 leadership challenges. Each chapter is a challenge. I tell some stories about that challenge. An example might be how do I prioritize all this work? Or how do I deal with a difficult team member? Various challenges like that. So I tell stories, I bring the org psych insights. Those stories are mine, ones I've seen or people I've worked with. They're real stories. Then I now have some org psych uh wisdom and insights that I didn't have before. So I kind of explain that simply and then provide some practical next steps. Like if you're experiencing this, try these.

Keith 31:25

When do you hope to complete the book?

Leah 31:27

I these things always take longer than you hope. I think that it will be out around the middle of next year. That's all.

Keith 31:34

Okay. I really want to have if I can get a first read, I'd love to do that. One one of the courses I put together uh I think would benefit from me reading that on nudge management. The small making small changes, small, and sometimes they're in language or in choices that you offer, but nudge, push, little by little. Yes. You know, we always want to read about the big strategy, but the reality is strategy fails once it hits the runway because of execution. And execution is about all the little things, right?

Leah 32:08

Absolutely. It's how do I learn? How do I take a step? Learn from that, do more or do something different constantly. Exactly, right.

Keith 32:17

You're also building an online leadership academy.

Leah 32:20

I am.

Keith 32:21

What's the gap that you're hoping to fill with that? And what can aspiring leaders expect to gain from this academy?

Leah 32:29

Great question. The gap I'm hoping to fill. So what I see in organizations, and I've found the data that backs this up, many big organizations realize leaders need more help. They run leadership programs with good intent, but really they miss the mark. Okay. And they're not dealing with the day-to-day problems that leaders are facing. So also in a lot of organizations, it's not safe for leaders to say they don't know or to ask for help. And I literally saw that in a meeting with the leader. Uh a leader I knew had a team coach because he was an incredible world-class expert on the process, but he wasn't very good at the people. He knew it mattered, so he was smart enough to hire someone in that did that bit for him. And he got hammered by the boss, like, You're the leader, this is what I pay you to do. Not accepting that actually you can't do it all. Recognize your weakness and you feel it. That's what inspired me. You know, maybe your company won't give you this, and maybe you're busy. And lots of people, Simon Sinek, Amy Edmondson with Psych Safety, you know, these people set this great bar of what good leadership looks like, which is important. But how do you take these small steps?

Keith 33:43

How do you get to that?

Leah 33:44

How do you get to it? So I wanted to create an academy, a safe space where a leader could go without having to tell anyone if they don't feel safe enough to do that, and find a place where they can get these new skills. And maybe find a community of people doing the same as well. So that's what mostly delivered online, is? Yeah, that is delivered online. And hey, I'm 18 months in, so I'm building this as I go. We've got some wait lists up right now because we want to see what courses really are in most in demand so that we can make sure that we target the right things first. And I would also hope to inspire coaches and give this as a coaching tool to coaches who are working with leaders or working with teams.

Speaker 2 34:29

Okay.

Leah 34:29

Um, so really I'm how do we democratize this knowledge? Yeah. I also work with C C CEOs and their teams to help guide them directly, but you know, I can't make the impact. I want to help a million people's lives be improved by this.

Keith 34:46

So if there's any way I can ever help, please let me know. And at the same time, I'll take give and take, right? I'll be learning, but I'm happy to, I don't know, present a 10-15 minute slot for you or something like that. Excellent. Uh happy to do that just to bring a different perspective across.

Leah 35:04

Yes, that would be amazing.

Keith 35:05

Can you tell us about the moment that you felt things were against you that wasn't going and you talked about burnout? How did you recognize that moment that time?

Leah 35:19

It was a really low period. I how did I recognize it? I was just numb. I was busy constantly, every second of every day. I was doing my masters, so that was keeping me going, I think. Oh, right. At the same time. But from a work perspective, I was just busy, busy, constantly busy, but not achieving anything. Like it, I just wasn't getting anywhere. And what I recognized is the more that happened, the less able I was to take action. I got really stuck. And I just kept felt like I was in a hamster wheel, just going round and round. And no matter what I felt like I was doing, I wasn't having any positive impact. Um, so yeah, that's not a fun place to be. At the same time, I felt trapped, trapped by my salary, trapped by the dreams and the goals that I had had in this role.

Keith 36:15

I think you're trying to explain it, but you're holding back from the emotional side.

Redundancy, Burnout, And Rebuilding Identity

Leah 36:19

Okay. Well, I was numb. There was almost no emotion. That was the emotional.

Keith 36:26

It's a numbness. Yeah. How did you then move forward? There's got to be a recognition, and sometimes the recognition is a a breakdown or crying or screaming at people or whatever. What was it for you that that moment?

Leah 36:42

I didn't have that actually. I didn't have that big emotional burst. I think because I had a coach at the time. So I was working through this. I started with the coach 18 months before I left corporate, saying I wanted to figure out how to leave corporate.

Keith 36:59

You were ahead of the game.

Leah 37:01

And that was through my company, actually. There was an opportunity to have a coach. So that was how I how I got connected with the coach, but then I carried it on myself. I asked her to help me figure out what my purpose was because I just felt lost and I didn't know who I was or what I was here to do. And I at that point I wasn't getting it for my work anymore. I used to get it for my work.

Keith 37:21

Very high up in the organization in your career, and still you felt that though.

Leah 37:26

Yeah, because I think it was there. And then when the purpose of the organization changed, I was no longer lack of alignment.

Keith 37:34

Yeah.

Leah 37:35

And it took me 18 months to realise that my values were just being trashed. Um I only realized that once I'd left, that that was really the cause of it. But that was the crisis moment of why am I here? Okay, I'm still doing what I do each day to try to help people, but no one above me is valuing that right now. And so I'm not having any impact. And so that was really the burnout for me.

Keith 37:59

And that's the point. I think burnout looks different for different people. Again, it's contextual. It's you as a person, your personality, how you react. People react in different ways. So you can't uh describe it or imprescribe it very well. It happens in different ways to different people.

Leah 38:18

Yes, that's true. Right. I think the one thing I learned in my studies was something called daily recovery rate, which I think is a really powerful concept. I think it's a financial concept too, but that's not the one I'm talking about. It's about um every day you start the day, like imagine your phone battery. Yeah, you start charged up and you go to work and your battery naturally depletes. But if you achieve something, it's actually a charge in your battery. Okay. Yeah. So if you get a result, if you feel good about something you've done, it it recharges you. But if you go to work every day and feel blocked at every turn, nothing's charging your battery.

Keith 38:58

That's the hamster wheel.

Leah 38:59

Yes. Yeah, exactly. There's no recharge. And if that happens day after day after day, every day you start with a little bit less.

Speaker 2 39:07

Right.

Leah 39:08

And especially if you're working 10, 12, 15 hour days, you also don't have time outside of work to recharge your battery, which social connection or whatever it is that charges your battery. You don't have time. And if you don't have a way to recharge yourself, you will push into burnout. Like that's the psychological kind of process.

Keith 39:33

But it's not time management, it is also about managing your energy through the day. So putting in things in your diary that you know are going to lift you.

Speaker 2 39:43

Yes, exactly.

Keith 39:43

Because if you're just done a drudgery, it just, as you say, it just goes down and down and down. Whereas you say, okay, at 12 o'clock, I've allocated some time and go for a brisk walk.

Leah 39:53

Yes.

Keith 39:53

But put it in your diary. Yes. Give yourself permission to do that. Or you know that you've got something to do on your in tray, which is 10 minutes long and going to give you a boost, put that for two o'clock in the afternoon when you need the boost. This is a better way of time management. It's about how you prioritize yourself. And as you talked about, these little boosts again. It's like having a charger in your pocket, right?

Leah 40:20

Yes, exactly right.

Keith 40:21

In your view, then, why do some organizations, particularly in my experience, US companies, uh struggle to balance human well-being with performance? And what can we perhaps learn from more European models?

Leah 40:36

And actually, I've just spent a weekend in Vietnam at an incredibly inspiring conference with a lot of people, um, and gave me a view that Asia is doing, starting to do this well as well. There are companies who don't use profit as the primary measure of success. Um, and so there are a few now. So VTHM is the Vietnamese one I encountered this weekend. They value people, planet, and progress. And then they keep an eye on the profit because of course you have to be profitable, but it follows, it's not the driver. And I pushed and pushed, and I'm like, yeah, but somewhere you're reporting. Like, no, it isn't there at all. Uh, Patagonia, I know they're American, but they are a good example of a company that has done the same and is incredibly successful anyway, but are doing good things.

Keith 41:26

How's being provocative? I think the American. Exactly.

Leah 41:29

We have to give them. There's people there doing good things too. Lego is another fascinating example that I, when you mentioned European, I came home the other day and my son is looking, he's 11, and he's looking on the Lego website at jobs. He's like, I want to go and work for Lego. I'm like, oh, interesting. Are they as good as we say they are? Because they're everywhere. Yeah. And then I check Glassdoor and they have a 99% rating of employees that would recommend them as a company to work for. Isn't that amazing?

Keith 41:56

That is amazing.

Leah 41:57

And no one can deny how successful they are in a traditional sense right now, but that's not their focus, actually. Their focus is always this is a family business. We care for our people, we grow our people, and they will help us build a great business.

Keith 42:11

And learning is a big thing for Lego. Learning is the organization.

Leah 42:15

What is the challenge? It is using profit as your only success measure. Stakeholder returns, shareholder returns, sorry.

Systems Thinking And Context Over Recipes

Keith 42:24

I was being a little bit provocative, as I said, but having worked for European multinationals and American multinationals, I felt the difference. So perhaps the industries that I was in was different, but this quarterly result, the profit, the end of the quarter, that last few days squeezing every drop of blood out, and it just destroys people, literally destroys them.

Leah 42:49

And it means we can't have a long-term view. So there was a company I actually spoke to the chairman of a company and said, we have this incredibly inspiring long-term vision, but we're not making any progress towards it. And people are so focused on the short term. And they went and looked at their scorecard, annual scorecard, and realized there was nothing in it about the long-term.

Keith 43:12

Right.

Leah 43:13

So no one was doing any work on the long-term vision because they were only being measured on what they could show the shareholders quarter by quarter.

Keith 43:20

And I don't want to get political here, but if you look at steady environments, political environments, Singapore, China, as the examples, everything is about long-term planning. Yes, they do not have such a pressure of being kicked out to the next election that matters. And shareholders can also, as they did with your company, put pressure on when it's not going their way. But giving an organization, any kind of organization, the freedom and latitude, the focus on the future, to focus on people, profit will follow consistently over a long period of time.

Leah 43:56

Yes. And we have all the data to back that up.

Keith 43:58

Yeah.

Leah 43:59

You know what we don't have is, and you're helping right now to to change it, is enough conversations and stories about how this works and how it's the right thing to do. And I have a big dream that we will, I can't do it by myself, but I will be part of the movement that goes and changes this shareholder view because they're damaging their own profits as well. You know, they're not winning either. And I think that's the really important driver for me is no one is winning in the current world that we're in, maybe, maybe short term. But not everyone will ever shift to caring about the long term and their children, they just care about their bank balance. Fine, we may never change them, but there's enough of us that do believe differently. We just don't know how to do it. So the more of us that keep talking about that and keep inspiring, keep showing that a different way is possible.

Keith 44:53

There are inspiring shareholders as well. And if you had the two opposites, and I know I worked indirectly for one of them, so I won't say which. On the one hand, you have Karl Ikan, known as a corporate raider, after profit, etc. And the other one, Warren Buffett, a long-term thinking of him. When you look at the returns of him versus these corporate raider types, it's consistently, consistently good over decades.

Speaker 2 45:27

Yes.

Keith 45:27

And now his plan is how do I now give that for the good of society? So that leaves you with hope when there's people like that who are investors and shareholders, right? Everyone looks up to So we just need a few more of them. And you do your bit.

Leah 45:42

More data, we all do our bit, you know. Study that showed the top 100 US companies to work for consistently earn at least 2% above their peers of other companies, and shareholders consistently mark them lower because of the fact that they're in the top 100. You know, the system is actively working against them right now, and that's what's got to change.

Keith 46:05

I could easily stray into politics and I'm going to avoid that. Assiduously avoid that. You touched on earlier, you've worked, studied, and parented all at once. What have you learned about sustaining momentum without burning out?

Leah 46:22

Yeah, that was such a key experience. And at the time, I heard the story of the glass balls, and this is what helped me get through. There is no one right answer or perfect moment. As we talked earlier, everything is contextual. Yeah. And the only way to see through that balance is to be making decisions day by day, hour by hour, if you have to. So you're juggling all these things, but which of those balls at any moment is glass? And don't drop that one. Right, right. So that could be your family in that moment, it could be your job in that moment. If you only focus on one, the others will suffer. You need to juggle, but but be very aware.

Keith 47:06

But the fact that they're glass means is irreparable.

Leah 47:09

Exactly. When you drop it, there's a key. There's a long-term damage, as opposed to if I drop that one now, yeah, I've dropped it, but I can pick it up tomorrow and it's going to be okay. That's such a key. That was such a key to releasing my fear of not being able to do everything every day.

Keith 47:28

Yeah, I just uh wrote an article, a blog. Again, it's a book I recommend so often, and I reread it again for this Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Yes. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant book. It's old, but still relevant. Like you were saying earlier, some management thinking and leadership thinking is so dated, dinosaur. Like this is not this as relevant today as it is. I try to ask every guest on the power within this final question. What's the mantra, mindset, or message you return to when times are tough?

Leah 48:04

It is definitely actually the one I chose for my book. It's small steps lead to big impact.

Keith 48:10

Oh. There you go. Small steps lead to big impact. Yeah. Let's leave it there, Leah. We now know where your power within comes from. And uh I know there's some lessons in there for people to draw out of it. Thinking long term, uh, concentrating on the important stuff, and I'll remember the glass balls. Thanks, Leah.

Leah 48:32

Thank you, Keith.