Organizations are undergoing significant change and while there’s much to be gained, advances in technology, agile work practices, and flexible ways of working are challenging.
Despite millions spent on refining strategies and changing structures, performance gains – which are usually the point – remain out of reach. 85% of people globally are unhappy in their jobs and while 77% of leaders say they’re doing a great job at engaging their people, 88% of employees disagree. Worse yet, 67% of employees say they’d forgo a pay raise to see their leader fired.
The New Era of Leadership
We’re in a new era of leadership that demands the transformation of oneself to navigate disruption, lead with compassion, and deliver results while taking care of our health and wellbeing. Here are some startling statistics:
- The full-time gender pay gap is 17.3%, and a staggering 28.7% in gender ASX 200 organizations – – the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts it could take until 2186 to close the gap
- One-quarter of organizations have no key management personnel who are women
- Auto-immune disease is so prevalent among women that it’s been declared the tenth leading cause of death for all women
- One in five Australians have taken time off due to feeling mentally unwell.
- Untreated mental health is costing Australian workplaces $10.9 billion per year – $4.7m in absenteeism, $6.1bn in presenteeism[3] and $146m in compensation claims
- 1 in 3 women have been a victim of physical violence by an intimate partner
It’s far too easy to see this as someone else’s problem.
But the truth of it is, none of us are immune – whether you or someone you know, there’s not a single person who’s not struggling with stress, overwhelm, exhaustion, burn-out or breakdowns in their career, business relationships or health.
In 2011 after my third child, I was desperate to get back to work; but for the first time in my life I thought “I just can’t do this anymore”. I went part-time but within months I was frustrated. As a coach, I knew the best thing was to get myself a coach and start reinventing my life – from working on my values, strengths, life-journey, and purpose to going back to uni and developing a plan to change my career.
Then, on Tuesday 5th of March 2014, I got the news that a colleague and personal friend had died from suicide. It was one of those life-defining moments, where I realized good intentions, and having a plan was insufficient to living my life in alignment with my values.
One year later – with three kids, a mortgage and a husband who was struggling with his own business following the 2008 global financial crisis; I walked away from 23 years of a corporate career to start building a business and life that aligns with my values of living a compassionate and courageous life and having a positive impact on issues that are important to me – equality in wages, and living an empowered and egalitarian life.
With over 15 years in leadership, transformation and the power of storytelling to impact change, I started mentoring a group of women who, like myself were struggling with advancing in their careers while juggling their family and health with a desire to live a more meaningful life.
What I discovered was three universal challenges:
- A Confidence Gap. Women are lacking in confidence, specifically, lacking belief in one’s ability to perform at their best (driven a number of factors notwithstanding the high expectations they have on themselves);
- Human Connection. Fueled by the reduction in resources and the increasing use of technology, people are spending less time in communication with each other – less time providing the support and mentoring required to connect, develop and advance in our lives and in our performance at work.
- Emotional Agility. Women in, or in the pipeline for leadership, are the most time-poor of all generations. They are stressed, exhausted, and unfulfilled. They lack the energy and resources to invest in themselves and notwithstanding the lack of investment from their managers/companies to support their personal development; it’s having a massive impact on their career, relationships and health.
Thanks to the ground-breaking work of neuroscientists and psychologists, we have plenty of evidence of the numerous ways our beliefs (as defined by the stories we tell ourselves and others) affect not only our behaviors but our successes in this world.
Beliefs are powerful. And because they are powerful, we must learn to train our minds to observe them and question them.
About the Author
Kylee Stone is the CEO of The Performance Code, a coaching consultancy specializing in leadership transformation, resilience, and wellbeing. She’s an expert incongruence and a certified coach in the Neuroscience of Resilience. Her mission is to empower people to act in direct accordance with their vision, values, and goals – to ignite their passion, grow their influence, and amplify the impact they have in the world. Kylee is a speaker at the InnovateWork Australia virtual summit on May 28.