Grow to Great: Recent Episodes
Jackie Kennedy - LeadMe Academy
A podcast helping you level up in leadership and personal development. Featuring top thought leaders in various industries, you'll gain knowledge, insights and practical advice for you and your team.
LeadMe is an online coaching and learning programme creating leaders at every level. Learn more at www.leadme.academy.
How often do you check in with yourself? Dr. Dorrian Aiken would argue that this should be done daily, as a deep understanding of self is the first step toward great leadership. In this episode, we explore how to better know the perspectives we carry with us, the role of emotional intelligence and active listening, and the value of consciousness and connectedness in companies.
Dr. Aiken is a lecturer in Leadership Development and Neuroleadership, a Doctor of Philosophy and a qualified coach. Her passion and skills help clients live into their own ‘best self’ and to free themselves from self-doubt, fear of feature and that little voice that sometimes whispers ‘imposter’.
In the episode, Dr. Aiken touches on insightful frameworks, resources and simple practices to check-in and invest in for personal development. Here is a suggested reading list for further learning:
- Spiral Dynamics, mastering values, leadership and change. Beck, Don & Cowan, Christopher.
- The Promise that Changes Everything: I will not interrupt you. Kline, Nancy.
- How the way we talk can change the way we work: seven languages for transformation. Kegan, R. and Lahey, L.
- Conversational Intelligence: How great leaders build trust and get extraordinary results. Glaser, J.
- A guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the next stage of human consciousness. Laloux, F.
- The Brief History of Everything. Wilber, Ken.
- The Theory of Everything. Wilber, Ken.
Vertical Leadership Development Part 1. Petrie, N https://14226776-c20f-46a2-bcd6-85cefe57153f.filesusr.com/ugd/a8b141_65db299b1e274cdc84e3de48016b9862.pdf.
Mechell Chetty’s philosophy is that every individual is a leader. And instead of nurturing this innate quality, many companies erode it by focusing on managing instead of leading. She shares how her 3Ps of Potential, Purpose and Performance and her 3Cs of Capacity, Curiosity and Care can help bring out the best leader in each individual. In this Grow to Great interview, you will learn more about the shift in leadership paradigms and how they impact your, your team and your organisation. Mechell also provides two simple and effective exercises that can help you identify your passion and stop doing the things that are not adding value to your greater purpose.
With 25 years of experience in the HR profession, Mechell Chetty is an end-to-end business leader with a passion for unleashing the potential in others. She worked for the respected Purpose Driven Organisation, Unilever for 23 of these years and is currently Head of HR Africa Region for Maersk logistics company. When she isn’t mobilising teams, you can find her out hiking and cycling. Follow Mechell on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mechell-chetty-a1384024/
Learn more about the LeadMe leadership and wellbeing programme at www.leadme.academy
Culture in many companies is viewed as “this is the way we do things around here” but as Justin Bodill points out in this Grow to Great interview, culture comes from tangible inputs that need to be intentionally crafted and built through behaviour. Culture forms through the doing. In this episode, you will learn practical strategies and skills as a leader to create culture in your company, and to keep it alive and evolve it - both when everything seems to be going well and most especially when it is not.
Justin Bodill works as a Learning and Development Programme Manager for a large retail company. He has spent the last 15 years in the corporate world of Learning and Development, holds an Honours Degree in Organisational Psychology from the University of Cape Town and is a qualified Coach. He has a passion for individual and team development, leadership and culture work in business and in sport. Follow Justin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbodill/details/experience/
Learn more about the LeadMe leadership and wellbeing programme at www.leadme.academy
In this episode, a few of the LeadMe coaches share their top tips and strategies for engaging in coaching conversations to empower and motivate your team as a manager. While you listen to these coaching tips, we invite you to put your ego aside along with any feelings you have that you should know everything as a team manager. If you want to learn more coaching and communication skills to exercise within your team, visit our website: www.leadme.academy or email us at connect@leadme.academy
A few years ago, Kathy Mann was a business owner and managing director, an ultramarathon runner, and a busy mother and wife. Then she experienced burnout and developed a stress-induced autoimmune disease from living a life that was not aligned to her talents and strengths. In this episode, Kathy shares her experience of burnout and her research on the impact of stress. As she reminds us, “You can’t serve others if you aren’t okay yourself.” You will learn what the initial signs of burnout may look like for you and come away with daily tips and habits to lower your stress levels, along with seven principles for self-preservation. If you’ve experienced burnout or feel on the verge of it now, this is an episode for you.
Follow Kathy Mann on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamannwriter/
Buy Kathy’s books, Avoiding Burnout and Harnessing Stress here: https://kathymann.co.za
Four of our basic human needs include belonging, feeling competent in what we do, contributing comfortably in the world around us, and having the ability to challenge the status quo. When these needs are met in workplaces, psychological safety is present and there are higher levels of trust in teams, leading to better innovation and decision making. In this episode, we chat with Dr. Mavis Mazhura about the three levels of psychological safety - individual, team and organisation and what we can do at each level to ensure those four needs are met and avoid a toxic culture. As a leader, you will learn the importance of gaining greater self-awareness - uncovering your baggage, values, unmet needs and habits driving your behaviour and interactions with others. As Dr. Mazhura described, “Emotions buried alive, never die.”
This episode will give you practical tips and advice for including psychological safety into your wellbeing strategy, both for yourself and your company.
Dr. Mavis Mazhura is an international Behavioural Science and Performance Specialist, a Leadership and Adult Development Psychologist, and an Organisational Development consultant and practitioner with expertise in human dynamics in organizations. She is also the author of multiple books and the cofounder of Training B2B CC. Follow Dr. Mavis Mazhura on Linkedin.
Beer is often a male-dominated industry, but on the African continent it was historically, and still is in many areas, a trade run by women. In this episode, Apiwe (Tolokazi) Nxusani-Mawela, a South African brewmaster and the first black female to own and operate a brewing company in the country shares her entrepreneurial journey and why her passion drives her forward in this industry. We discuss the importance of values in leadership, focusing on what you can control and being so good they can’t ignore you!
Apiwe (Tolokazi) Nxusani-Mawela is an enthusiastic brewmaster born and raised in Butterworth, a small village in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. She is a woman of many firsts. She founded Brewsters Craft in 2015, which is the first black female-owned and operated brewing company in South Africa. In 2018 she became the youngest and first black female chairperson of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in the Africa Section. In 2019 she became the founding chairperson of the Beer Association of South Africa. And in 2020, Tolokazi launched her own beer and cider brand, Tolokazi Craft Beer. Follow her on Linkedin.
Being an entrepreneur requires you to learn, unlearn and relearn over and over. In this episode, we chat with Robert Paddock on the lessons he’s learned while building multiple businesses. From the startup phase to scaling up, you’ll gain practical advice from one of our most successful entrepreneurs in South Africa on everything from how the tough times can be viewed as an invitation to explore and understand yourself more, the importance of communication and critical conversations to build organisational culture, and why you should expose your humanity as a leader to connect with your team.
Robert Paddock is the Co-founder of GetSmarter, an online education company that has educated over 200,000 working professionals from 154 countries around the world. In 2019, Rob founded and is currently CEO of Valenture Institute, which offers fully-supported online high school programmes and pre-college certificates. Follow him on Linkedin or at: https://www.robertpaddock.co.za
Two years into the pandemic and remote work, and we are continually learning how best to navigate the various work models adopted by companies. From creating a sense of belonging and community among teams to setting up better technology and providing in-office perks, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. In this episode, we talk with Sarah Rice on reimagining culture in a hybrid work model and how best to lead, manage and retain your people right now when they aren’t in one place.
Sarah Rice is the Chief People Officer at Skyanmo in Cape Town, South Africa. Skynamo is a leading field sales tracking platform helping businesses increase their revenue and hit their targets. Before turning her focus to people, work cultures and supporting teams, Sarah spent 20 years in public relations and communications in the South African technology environment. She worked with numerous clients in various company sizes and gained an understanding of the intricacies and nuances that come with working with people. Follow Sarah Rice on Linkedin.
Sleep affects our entire wellbeing no matter what age we are at. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Sarah McKay, Australian-based neuroscientist and educator on why you need to stop and prioritise your sleep today. She shares the science behind our shut eye, what happens to us if we don’t sleep well (it’s far more detrimental than just being grumpy!) and tips on how to get a good night’s rest.
Dr. Sarah McKay is director of The Neuroscience Academy and author of The Women's Brain Book: the neuroscience of health, hormones and happiness. You can follow her at: https://drsarahmckay.com
Quicket went from its highest performing month on record in February 2020 to a 90% drop by April 2020. In this episode we talk with James Tagg, a founder and director at Quicket, about the many challenges and pivots the company has tackled in the ticketing and events industry during the pandemic. When it comes to leadership during uncertain times, James says, “it’s about having vision and courage, for yourself and for your team.”
Founded in 2011 based on the need for a self-managed ticketing system, Quicket is now running in over 35 countries providing people with the ability to create their own events and sell tickets online quickly. Even with the pandemic, the mission remains undeterred at Quicket - to create a single, unified, pan-African (and beyond!) ticketing platform that empowers people to connect and host amazing experiences wherever they are. Start your event today at www.quicket.com
One in every four people will struggle with a mental health concern in their life (WHO). In this episode we talk with Navlika Ratangee, clinical psychologist and director at ICAS, on normalising mental health in the workplace.
We discuss how leaders have a critical role in creating a culture of care and an environment for employees to thrive, the cumulative effect stress and anxiety has on us, and why we need to destigmatise discussions of mental health in order to prevent burnout and breakdowns. One of our favourite reminders from Navlika, "We need to be kind to each other."
Learn more from Navlika in her new book, Improving Mental Health in the Workplace, available here at kr.co.za/product/mental-health-in-the-workplace/ and through Exclusive Books soon.