Mid-career leader with a spinal lesion:
“I can’t ask for adjustments. I’m just grateful to have been given this opportunity. I can’t afford to be seen as ungrateful.”

New graduate living with neurodiversity:
“I should be grateful to have a job at all. I can’t ask for more support.”

Sadly, these are real comments from real coaching conversations.

Early career me, grappling with how to manage my career with vision impairment:
“Don’t ask for help. Don’t express your needs. Don’t admit your self-doubt. Work harder. Be better than they expect. Better than everyone else. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Above all, be grateful for the chance.”

Gratitude is a powerful practice. It can increase positivity, engagement and performance. But gratitude becomes unhelpful when it turns into obligation.
When we believe we must repay an opportunity by staying silent about our needs, gratitude can fuel perfectionism, fear of failure, and a reluctance to seek support. It can keep talented people playing small and prevent them from reaching their full potential.

We can be grateful for the opportunities we’ve been given AND still ask for what we need.
We can appreciate the support we’ve received AND still expect reasonable adjustments.
We can value our role AND still advocate for our success.
The two are not mutually exclusive.

Having spent much of my own career learning this lesson, I know how exhausting it can be to carry these thoughts alone.

If you’re finding yourself working harder, staying quieter, or asking less of others than you need because you feel you should simply be grateful for the opportunity, coaching can provide a safe space to explore a different way forward. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to talk.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

We talk a lot about burnout in the social sector, and rightly so, it’s a real thing. Encouragingly, I’m hearing more leaders embrace the idea of “white space” – intentionally blocking out diary time for reflection, blue sky thinking, planning and self care. This isn’t a luxury it’s a necessity.

Recently, I heard from an NFP CEO, ten years into their tenure, who was encouraged by their Board to take a full three-month sabbatical, with no calls, no emails, and no contact. Yikes!

For both the CEO and the Board, this wasn’t just a good idea, it was a leap of faith. Would the organisation cope? Would the wheels fall off? Would the CEO even come back?

And for the CEO, how do you suddenly sit still after a decade of constant, passion driven activity?

Fast forward three months. The CEO has returned clearer, calmer, and more intentional. With the benefit of distance, they’ve reflected deeply on their leadership style, shifting from reactive and frenetic to focused and considered. They also recognised just how close they were to burnout, and are now setting (and role modelling) healthier boundaries.

The ripple effects have been just as powerful:
• The Deputy stepped up, building capability and confidence
• The executive team stretched into new leadership territory
• The Board gained fresh perspective, identifying both gaps and opportunities.

This wasn’t just time away. It was development, succession planning, cultural reset, all in one bold move, which took courage, wisdom and trust.

But it does make you wonder if we’re unintentionally rewarding leaders for running themselves into the ground, rather than designing roles that are truly sustainable?

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

As we (rightly) strengthen regulatory and governance frameworks to ensure safety and quality of care, we also need leaders who are agile, adaptable, forward-thinking and deeply committed to helping people not just stay safe, but truly thrive.

In my work with leaders I can see that that’s a big ask.

The tension between compliance and innovation, risk management and human-centred care, short-term pressures and long-term reform is becoming increasingly difficult for one CEO, Executive or Board Chair to hold alone.

Perhaps this speaks to the growing importance of diversity in leadership teams. Not just diversity of background, but diversity of thinking, experience and perspective. And equally, the importance of creating leadership cultures with enough trust and psychological safety for those perspectives to genuinely be heard.

I’ve spent much of my career in and around disability services organisations, and I’m now heavily immersed in the aged care sector – both professionally as a coach, and personally through the people I love.

I want the leaders of these organisations to keep me and my loved ones safe and well. But I also want them to keep learning, adapting and improving so service recipients experience dignity, choice and genuinely high-quality outcomes.

Understanding the tension is an important first step in managing it.
And perhaps one of the greatest risks for the sector right now is expecting leaders to carry that complexity without enough support themselves.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

On this particular day, I was struck by the clear and pristine beauty of Middleton Beach, while just across the peninsula, much of our South Australian coast is struggling under a toxic algal bloom.
It got me thinking about the different workplace cultures I encounter through my coaching work. Some are clear, positive, and energising, with a healthy, forward rhythm like the Middleton’s waves. Others feel murky, stagnant, and even unsafe, much like parts of our Gulf at the moment.

So, what can you do if you’re a leader trying to make a positive impact within a toxic workplace?

1. Reset expectations around behaviour and accountability:
   Be clear about what good looks like. Involve your people in defining the standards and hold everyone, including leaders, accountable.
2. Model the behaviours you want to see:
   Demonstrate respect, openness, and integrity. Have the courage to call out toxic behaviours, even when they appear in your peers or those above you.
3. Ramp up your self-care:
   Toxic environments can take a toll. Prioritise exercise, rest, and positive social connections outside of work. Without strong self-care, it’s easy to become part of the problem.
4. Focus on what you can influence:
   Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and stay clear about the difference. Influence grows from clarity, not frustration.
5. Know when to move on:
   If the culture has reached a point of no return, look outward. Find your own “patch of coast” – the environment that allows you to thrive and lead in alignment with your values. Sometimes, it’s just across the peninsula.

Even in toxic waters, renewal is possible. But it starts with courageous leadership and a clear commitment to creating safer, healthier currents.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

An effective leader

• Understands the capacity and potential of their reports, and supports them to challenge themselves to grow and learn without feeling like they’ve been thrown in the deep end without a life jacket.
• Understands and promotes the value of a strong feedback culture, providing clear, kind and actionable feedback without shaming, blaming or humiliating people for mistakes
• Is clear about expectations, and holds people to account for agreed deliverables and behaviours, whilst providing the required coaching and support to enable people to meet those agreements.
• Can express feelings and emotions to aid understanding and trust in a style, tone and setting that is not intimidating or provocative
• Seeks support from their Manager, People and Culture team or external coach to navigate what can be very nuanced and sensitive scenarios.

What other examples can you think of? I’d love to hear about your experiences?

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

Change projects are essentially about people. A successful change depends on getting people on board. But this takes us into the murky area of psychosocial risk. Should we stop initiating change because of the risk? Absolutely not. Whether you’re a leader or a senior technical expert, a core part of your role is to find new ways to create value for your organisation. If you stagnate, you don’t survive.
To keep people psychologically safe during change, I believe we need to support them in two distinct domains which I’ve named Change Agility and Change Stability.

1. Change Agility
This involves building the capacity to adapt and engage. It includes three key activities:
a) Context – Help people understand why the change is needed, framed within the organisation’s strategy.
b) Conversations – Create opportunities for one-on-one or small-group discussions. People don’t resist change because they’re change-resistant—they resist when they can’t make sense of the change within their personal frame of reference. Encourage questions and dialogue to help people align their mindset with the proposed change.
c) Contribution – Give people the opportunity to contribute. They might help design solutions to the challenge driving the change or shape how the change strategy is implemented. Involvement builds ownership.

2. Change Stability
This focuses on giving people psychological anchors during change. It includes three key activities:
d) Familiarity – Highlight what’s staying the same: familiar processes, systems, people, or routines. These act as a tether in unfamiliar waters.
e) Alignment – Reinforce how the change supports the organisation’s purpose, and how each person’s work continues to contribute to that purpose.
f) Grounding – Anchor the change in the organisation’s values. Not only should the outcome of the change align with the values—but the process of change should also consistently reflect them.

Managing change safely means recognising and addressing psychosocial risk. By supporting both agility and stability, I believe we can create the conditions for people to not just survive change, but engage, adapt, and thrive.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

Emotional intelligence is not about stifling or hiding emotions, always being positive, or needing to be more emotional.  It’s about using emotion productively –  recognising, understanding and working with emotions in ourselves and others, so we can

• Interact more effectively
• deal with disagreement constructively
• pro-actively handle stress and change
• read and navigate the dynamics of an organisational or team culture
• manage through complexity and make difficult decisions
• show up authentically
• build and maintain trust.

All of these behaviours help us to increase our performance and achieve more positive results. There is indeed strong evidence that high levels of emotional intelligence in the workplace can lead to:

• Better physical and mental health
• Improved workplace relationships
• Coping better with high demands and stress
• Increased levels of engagement and discretionary effort
• Reductions in employee turnover and absenteeism
• Prevention of psychological injury
• Increased creativity and innovation
• More effective leadership.

So how do we build emotional intelligence? A good place to start is working on our self-awareness to get better at recognising emotion, in the moment,  in ourselves and others. To build self-awareness, practice paying attention to these four things:

1. Emotion is a biological reaction, and is first triggered in the body, so we can start to notice emotion by being aware of physiological changes or body sensations – are we holding our breath, where do we feel tightness, how intense is that tightness, how far does it extend, how long does it last?
2. Next tune in to our self-talk – what are we thinking, what words and phrases are we saying to ourselves that give us a clue as to how we’re feeling?
3. Notice what we’re saying – listen to our language, the labels we are assigning, and to the tone and volume of our voice
4. Pay attention to our behaviour – both what we’re doing, and what we feel like doing.

When identifying emotions in others we don’t have the benefit of knowing directly about their body sensations or their self-talk (although we could ask them). But in addition to what they’re saying and doing, we also have the benefit of observing facial expression and body language to help us recognise and label an emotional experience. A shift in the person’s energy can also be a clue that they have experienced an emotional reaction.

Awareness in the moment alerts us to the presence of an emotion in ourselves and others. Having a comprehensive mental dictionary of emotions gives us the capacity to label that experience. We can then use that information to make a choice about how to respond more productively.

For example, when we recognise emotion in ourselves we’re able to regulate the way we express that emotion, shift our emotional state to one that is more productive and incorporate information from our feelings, together with facts and other information, into decisions.  When we recognise emotion in others, we can acknowledge the emotion with empathy, assist them where necessary to regulate how they are expressing the emotion, and use a broader range of  information to help us respond appropriately.

Emotional Intelligence skills can be learnt, by focusing on key behaviours you want to change and practising new responses over time. Like any behaviour change, it can be hard going to get started, but begin by recognising the value to you and the people around you in terms of improved performance and relationships. Then through self-awareness, feedback from others and observation of impact you will start to embed emotional intelligence for a thriving future.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

Making changes in my life often reminds me of the magnets. Sometimes a change feels effortless, and just sticks as soon as I take steps towards it. But more often than not I  feel like I’m in between the two wrong-way-around magnets, pushing up against something that I know I want, but not being able to move forward no matter how hard I try.

Many people come to coaching describing themselves as stuck  –  either they’re not able to make a change in a specific behaviour, or they just a describe a general sense of stuckness in work or life. Common scenarios are

• I’m stuck in a job I feel miserable in
• I’m overwhelmed but I have no control over the things overwhelming me
• I’m desperate to stop (habit x) but can’t seem to make any shifts
• My whole life is stuck in a rut.

Being stuck is a signal that the change we want or need to make is not so much about simple behaviours, but more about identifying and shifting some deeply held core beliefs that are driving those behaviours. Our core beliefs are like a computer’s operating system, and our behaviours are like the applications we use to get things done. Sometimes we can’t improve the application without downloading a whole new operating system. That takes self reflection, hard work and some discomfort, and is often where coaching can have the maximum impact.

If you’re stuck, here’s five steps to take – it’s my ABCDE of getting unstuck. If you’re leading or managing a staff member who seems stuck, you could work through these steps with them in a coaching conversation.

A: Acknowledge you’re stuck – what is the challenge you want to move forward on but don’t seem to be able to?

Eg I want to be able to delegate more….

B: Be honest – how are you not doing the thing you want to move towards? What are you doing instead?

Eg I don’t take time to coach my staff on new projects or tasks; it’s quicker and easier to do things myself….

C: Claim the Rewards – how do you benefit, or what do you gain from this approach?

Eg things always get done; tasks are done they way I want them to be done; I’m confident they’re done to a good standard; I feel good because my expertise is recognised and needed; I avoid feeling bad or being criticised for mistakes or poor work being done…

D: Discover the Downsides – what price are you paying for not following through on changing this approach?

Eg I’m overwhelmed with work; our team is not achieving our goals; I feel like I’m failing and others are judging me for that; my team members feel disempowered…

E: Equalise – Weigh up the short-term rewards and benefits (C) against the longer term downsides (D); What price are you paying for the rewards?

Take some time with this process, and be kind to yourself – the way you’ve been doing things has served you well until now. Your protective beliefs have kept you safe and secure, so acknowledge this, and at the same time acknowledge that getting unstuck means downloading a new operating system to support you to respond more effectively in a more complex environment.

If you need support in getting unstuck, please get in touch to talk about whether coaching is the right tool for you.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

All my face to face training has been cancelled
Coaching provides a deeper and more personal learning experience than many group training programs; the coaching agenda is set by the client based on what they need at the time, rather than a pre-set group learning agenda that may or may not be relevant to every participant.

I’m working from home, I’ll have to wait till I get back to the office for any development
Coaching sessions can be arranged at any time and from anywhere that suits you. If you have a private space, whether its at your home office, in your garden or walking along the beach, we can coach.

I’m Zoomed out – please, no more staring at little people on a screen!
Me too. It’s draining physically and mentally if you’re trying to run group meetings or participate in on-line learning all day. One on one coaching can be done via any video call platform that works for you, using your favourite portable device, and means you’re just focusing in on one other person. Not such a strain on the eyes or brain – or ditch the camera completely and just use the audio, tapping into deep listening skills.

I’m completely pre-occupied in keeping the business afloat, I don’t have time for development
This is exactly the time for development; there is no road map to guide us through a pandemic, so we need the skills to lead, manage and work within a completely uncertain and rapidly changing world. We also need resilience more than ever coaching can help maintain both performance and well-being even during a crisis.

I’m overwhelmed with challenges
It can be hard to work out what to do and in what order during a crisis, we’re so busy reacting to the next challenge, everyone is expecting things from us, we’re constantly second guessing, and may be plagued with self-doubt. Now is the time to get some support to help plan, prioritise and get back on the front foot.

Work has slowed right down, I’m finding it hard to know how to productively use my time
This is a great opportunity to use the time to focus on your own personal, professional and career development; identify some development goals, grab yourself a coach and use the time to develop your capability.

I’ve been stood down temporarily while the business gets back on its feet
This is a difficult time socially and emotionally, our self-worth can take a battering, and it can be easy to lose hope and motivation; working with a coach at this time can help to formulate some achievable goals and provide the support and motivation you need to get back on track.

I’m desperately missing human connection
Coaching, apart from all its other benefits, offers deep and genuine engagement with another human being. Coaching validates our sense of who we are, nourishes the soul and satisfies our need for authentic human connection. Who wants some of that?

What are you waiting for? Now is your opportunity. Now is the time!

For a confidential conversation about how coaching can support you right now, Contact Jo

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

Why does this matter? High work engagement is linked to higher productivity and improved organisational performance. Gallup’s 2018 survey found a rate of only 34% engagement, and these figures have been pretty consistent since we’ve been measuring it. That’s a pretty grim and costly scenario for both workers and organisations. Imagine if your fancy new iphone only worked properly 34% of the time!

At its heart engagement is about the relationship between the employee and the employer, and like any healthy, productive and sustainable relationship, I believe that both the worker and the organisation have a responsibility to understand, manage and build engagement.

As a worker:

• Reconnect with why you do what you do – what was the reason you got into this work, why was that important, what do you need to do to re-kindle that purpose?
• Set yourself some goals for development – can you take on a new project, learn a new skill, stretch yourself in some way so you feel like your continuing to grow and learn?
• Get connected – if you’re becoming disengaged, chances are you feel isolated or unsupported, so who can you ask for help, who can you collaborate with, what can you do to build stronger relationships with your team, your clients, your external stakeholders or even those outside of work?
• Monitor your engagement, if your commitment, energy or interest drops for more than a short period of time, get some support from your manager, your EAP or an external coach.

As a manager

• Take a real interest in your staff – care about them as people, find out what drives them, and look for ways that work can meet their needs as well as well as the needs of the organisation
• Help your staff to grow – teach them, mentor them, help them identify and achieve learning and development goals that give them a sense of progress
• Give constant feedback – reinforce what they’re doing well, recognise improvement, acknowledge accomplishment, celebrate success
• Aim to make yourself redundant – maybe not literally, but figuratively! If your staff have the skills, motivation, tools and confidence to do the work that’s needed, they’re more satisfied and you’re now free to focus on the bigger picture
• Learn to coach – using a coaching style of leadership rather than an authoritative, coercive or telling style empowers staff to try, to experiment, to learn by doing, to take responsibility, to be accountable and to drive their own success

And if you’re part of the leadership team

• Your people management policies, processes and systems must be robust – that means the way the organisation recruits, employs, supports, develops, rewards, manages, and exits your people must be fair, transparent, aligned to organisational strategy and grounded in contemporary best practice
• Devote the time and resources needed to develop your managers to be outstanding people leaders
• Ensure employees have a voice – how do they give feedback, input ideas, get involved, raise concerns and be part of the growth and success of the organisation?
• Shine a light on organisational integrity – this is about organisational reputation and credibility; it’s how you’re perceived internally by your staff, and externally by your clients, your stakeholders and the public; and its foundation rests in the values and behaviours of the senior leaders and the culture they create.

I’m not sure we need large and complicated engagement surveys any more – I think we know enough to be able to identify disengagement when we see it, and to do what’s needed to turn it around. HR might take responsibility for driving the initiatives, but it’s the buy-in from the leadership team, the managers and the staff across the organisation that will drive the success of an organisational engagement strategy. What part will you play?

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au