January 11, 2026 • 40 mins
After more than 20 years in senior HR and organisational development roles, a life-changing cancer diagnosis inspired Ros Cardinal to step out of corporate and into her true calling: transforming leaders and reshaping the way organisations handle change.
Ros is an award-winning executive coach, author of The Resilient Employee, and creator of the Women’s Leadership Archetypes model, now used worldwide to help women discover and embrace their authentic leadership strengths.
In this inspiring conversation, Ros shares her journey from “accidental HR” professional to leadership mentor, her research into women’s leadership styles, and why introverts and quiet achievers are uniquely positioned to lead with authenticity, courage, and wisdom.
Key Takeaways from this episode:
- Change begins at the top – organisational culture and transformation only last as long as leaders remain invested.
- Women in leadership still face barriers – from outdated expectations around work–life balance to systemic structures that don’t support those with families or outside commitments.
- Introverts can be powerful leaders – their thoughtful, measured approach often leads to deeper impact and stronger trust.
- Too much / not enough paradox – women in leadership are often labelled either too loud and bossy or not assertive enough, making self-trust and resilience vital.
- The Women’s Leadership Archetypes model – eight archetypes (four empowered, four shadow) that reveal both the strengths and challenges women experience in leadership.
- Trauma responses at work – patterns like overachieving, people-pleasing, or withdrawing often trace back to childhood conditioning; awareness allows leaders to interrupt these cycles.
- Energy management for introverts – pacing, picking your battles, and choosing when to speak up are essential to sustaining leadership presence.
- Creating psychologically safe workplaces – leaders must integrate humanity back into work, allowing people to bring their whole selves instead of leaving emotions at the door.
Connect with Ros Cardinal
Enjoyed the Episode?
- Leave a 5-star review to help more introverts discover the podcast
- Share it with someone who’s finding their voice
- Subscribe to The Visible Introvert Newsletter at https://serenalow.com.au
This episode was edited by Aura House Productions
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Serena Lo.
If you're used to hearing thatintroverts are shy, anxious,
antisocial, and lack goodcommunication and leadership
skills, then this podcast is foryou.
You're about to fall in lovewith a calm, introspective, and
profound person that you are.
Discover what's fun, unique, andpowerful about being an
(00:22):
introvert and how to make theelegant transition from quiet
achiever to quiet warrior inyour life and work, anytime you
want, in more ways than youimagined possible.
Welcome.
Hello and welcome.
Today's guest on the QuietWarrior Podcast is Ross
Cardinal.
(00:43):
After more than 20 years incorporate human resources and
organizational developmentroles, a successful battle with
cancer gave Ross the nudge totake her passion for
transforming leaders andimproving how individuals and
organizations cope with changein a new direction.
Leaving her senior corporaterole in 2012, Roz established
(01:04):
her consulting business, ShapingChange, to achieve her goals.
Roz is a solution andresults-oriented facilitator
with expertise spanningstrategic planning, leadership
development, organizationalculture, change management,
emotional intelligence, andemployee engagement.
She is also a talented andmulti-award-winning executive
(01:27):
and leadership coach withcoaching clients at executive
and senior levels in governmentagencies, private enterprise,
and the community sector.
Ross is the author of theResilient Employee and Creator
of the Women's LeadershipArchetypes Model, used worldwide
by women to discover how theycan better leverage their
natural strengths to lead withpurpose, authenticity, and
(01:51):
integrity.
Welcome, Ross, to the QuietWarrior Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
Thank you.
It's lovely to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Ross, I want to start by asking you about your
professional journey and whatled you to what you now do.
What was the problem that younoticed?
SPEAKER_01 (02:07):
Look, my I suppose I'll start back before I started
my business.
So I was a um started my careerin the Australian Public Service
when I was uh, I don't know, 17,18.
And it was kind of an accidentalcareer in terms of the fact
that, you know, I got to the topof the list for the public
service exams and they rang meand offered me a job, and you
just took whatever they wereoffering you at the time.
So they put me into what wascalled personnel back in those
(02:29):
days, which evolved into humanresources and then into people
and culture.
So um, even though that was anaccident, it turned out to be a
really fantastic move for mebecause it was an area that I
fell in love with and found thatum I just really I think that
the big thing for me was helpingpeople, helping people perform
better, helping leaders leadbetter, helping organizations do
things more effectively and andwith more humanity in it.
(02:51):
And that sort of led me over theyears to learning and
development, then organizationaldevelopment, and then finally
into my own business.
So it's um, like I said, it wasan accident at the beginning, it
was a happy accident.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
As many of the big life changes work out.
I think we always start with apersonal level and then we have
this ripple effect that goesoutwards that we want to spread
to others.
So, what were some of theproblems or barriers you noticed
around leadership that led youto start your business?
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
It's for me, I spent a lot of time in male-dominated
industries.
Uh, I spent the last 15 years ofmy career in the electricity
industry, which is verymale-dominated.
And um, we did some really greatwork there.
Um, I was looking after culturechange, amongst other things,
leadership development, culturechange.
We ran a really amazing culturechange program that ran for
(03:40):
about probably about five or sixyears.
It was at least five years.
And one of the things that Ireally loved about the program
was how life-changing it was forpeople.
So we did get people who, youknow, left the business and
started doing somethingcompletely different as a result
of the program.
So we had someone who was anaccountant who left to become a
doctor in, you know, she was inher mid-40s and just quit her
(04:01):
accounting career and went offand studied to become a doctor.
We had somebody in marketing whoquit to go off and uh start his
own business.
So we were getting stories likethat, which obviously the
organization wasn't thatthrilled about.
But for me, it was that beautyof watching people suddenly go,
you know what, this isn't what Ireally want to do.
I want to do somethingcompletely different.
But one of the things that Ifound over the time of running
the program is that it startedto lose traction because the
(04:23):
leaders lost interest in it.
It became just something thatsomething that just happened as
part of the organizational waywe do things, not something that
really stayed front of mind forthem.
And as soon as the leaders lostinterest in it, it really
started to stagnate.
So we were still getting peoplecoming through the program and
you know having these greatsuccess stories, but then it
wasn't bedding down back in thebusiness.
And for me, that was, I think,one of the key things that I've
(04:46):
really noticed in all of mycareer around culture change,
around any kind of change inorganizations, is it's only as
good as the attention thatleaders pay to it.
And that was really, you know,that was, I suppose, the reason
for starting my business andcalling it shaping change was
around this idea of how do we dochange better.
And of course, you know, cultureis part of that.
But that was the really the bigissue, I think, that I really
(05:07):
wanted to solve.
And that was what led me to toleave my job and start a
business was this idea thatwe've got to start doing this
differently, we've got to startdoing it better.
I'd almost run out of, I thinkI'd run out of steam in the
business I was working for.
It was that sort of sense ofstaying here isn't gonna make
any more of a difference.
I think the difference I wasgonna make was done, and it was
time to go on and make thatdifference somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
So it was about finding a new platform, a new
context for you to apply,something that you had become
very passionate about.
Can you talk to us about some ofthe barriers for women who are
advancing in leadership and howhave things changed over the
decades?
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
There's still a lot of issues that women face in
leadership roles.
Um, that was one of the bigcallus for me around getting me
to focus more in on what washappening for women in
particular, was the fact that mydaughter started work in
engineering and was experiencingthe same issues that I'd
experienced in my career.
And I sort of thought nothing'schanged in a generation.
And, you know, we did certainlymade some fairly big strides in
(06:05):
terms of women's representationin leadership over the years,
you know, probably a generationor two before that, you know,
there was this sense of youknow, women suddenly were
allowed to stay in the workforceonce they got married.
That was a really big thing.
Women actually weren't expectedto just leave work because they
had children, they were stayingat work, you know.
Certainly my generation didthat.
So we've made some really bigstrides.
It was almost like we sort ofstalled and things weren't
really changing that much forwomen.
(06:26):
And I was talking to women whowere coming to me for coaching,
and they were getting frustratedwith the system.
It's like I've got a lot to add.
I feel like, you know, I'mambitious, I want to do more
here, but I'm being held back bythe fact that my organization
really doesn't support womenwho've got families as an
example.
We say all the right things, butit doesn't flow through into
(06:47):
what we actually do.
And so I'm finding women weresaying things like, I'm finding
that you know, I've having tochoose between my career and my
family life, and I don't want todo that.
Is there a way we can actuallyhave both?
I remember MCing a conference,and one of the topics was around
work-life balance.
We had, you know, a couple ofmen and a couple of women who
were talking about what it meantto them.
And really the conclusion in theroom was that we can't have it
(07:09):
all.
And there was this almost likeyou could almost feel the air go
out of the room.
It's like this big deflationmoment where everyone, because
they were all sitting theregoing, they're going to tell us
the big secret, how we as womencan have it all.
And all of a sudden the answerwas you can't.
And so for women, the challengesare, you know, they've certainly
changed over the years.
Like we're no longer, like Isaid, having to leave work and
we got married, but it's adifferent set of challenges.
(07:29):
It's around how do women umbecome leaders, how do they
maintain that ambition and thatleadership drive when they're
being told that they, you know,I've got to choose between work
and family.
And the women who are sort ofgoing, well, actually, no, I'm
choosing my family, and theyhave big career breaks, or they
sort of hold back their careerbecause they feel like they
can't be leaders in theenvironment that we've created.
And for me, that's a really bigfrustration because we've
(07:51):
created a way of doing work thatdoesn't suit anybody who wants
to have a life, you know, whowants to have a family, who
wants to have hobbies, who wantsto have something else outside
of work, because we've created asystem where in order to be
successful, you've got to giveeverything to the job.
You're expected to work insanehours, take on big
responsibilities, to beavailable 24-7, especially now
we've all got email, you know,on our phone, so it's there
(08:13):
24-7.
And so we've created this systemthat really doesn't work for
people in general.
I'm not just talking women, butjust people.
And that's my my big quest, Isuppose, at the moment is how do
we change the system?
You know, how do we actually allrecognise that this isn't
healthy?
It's not a, it's not a it, it'snot good for anybody, it's not
good for men who don't, youknow, there's men out there who
(08:34):
don't see their kids, you know,who work, they're at the very
top of organizations, you know,captains of industry, they never
see their families.
I had a man say to me a whileago that he the only time he saw
his kids was when they went ontheir annual holiday.
And he made sure their annualholiday was something really
special.
They went overseas and they didreally fantastic things, but
like they see their dad for fourweeks a year, which was just you
know, I it was heartbreaking,really, it really honestly was,
(08:56):
because I could see that eventhough he was making a choice,
it was coming at such a cost.
SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
I think what we are lacking is a holistic approach
to work.
So what is it that keeps peopleWell we s we keep having these
conversations, you know,publicly, and there's a lot of
acknowledgement, there's someawareness that things are not as
healthy as they should be, orwhat needs to be done or what
needs to happen for those forthat talk to flow through into
(09:29):
action.
SPEAKER_01 (09:31):
It's a really tricky one, and one of the things that
I found in having theseconversations with women first
and then some men is that when Italk to women about this, they
go, Oh God, that makes totalsense.
I would love it if we could, youknow, reframe the way that we
work.
Like I've had women say to me, Ijust love it.
I'd love to work in anenvironment where if my kids got
sick, not sick, sick, you know,really ill, but if they were,
(09:53):
you know, unwell and justcouldn't go to school, I could
bring them to work.
And there was this place where Icould put them where they could
just sort of, you know, watch TVor read a book quietly and I
could check on them.
I've had women say things like,I'd love to have a daycare
center really close to my workso I could just duck out and go
and breastfeed rather thanhaving to sit on the toilet in
the sit on the toilet in the inthe um disabled toilets and
express milk to give to my babywhen I get home.
(10:14):
And so women sort of talk aboutit as they'd love to have this
world where we could integrateall of life, you know, work,
family, etc.
But one of the things I found isthat the people in who the
people who can make thedifference are invested in the
way it currently is.
There's a degree of power in theway things are, there's a degree
of control in the way thingsare.
(10:35):
And certainly we've seen somecompanies make some really
dramatic changes during COVID,which some of them were amazing
changes.
I had a client organization whobasically didn't go back to the
office.
They said it's been working sowell for us with everyone
working remotely, we want tocontinue to do that.
So they downsized their officespace in Melbourne from, I think
they had five floors of thebuilding, they went down to two,
and they've got meeting roomsand hot desks because they said
(10:58):
it worked so well, you know,giving people that opportunity
to work into to work flexibly,work independently, you know,
have their kids with them, havetheir pets with them.
And they didn't see any sense ingoing back to the way it was
done before.
And that's but it's only a smallexample of it being done better
and being done differently.
And I certainly know, like,there's a wonderful woman leader
that I know who uh took over asmanaging director of a company
(11:19):
and again completely changed theway they did things.
And she was, you know, she saidwomen embraced it and loved it,
but she said with the men, shehad to push them out the door.
It was kind of like it's threeo'clock.
You said you had a soccer gameto go watch, what are you still
doing at work?
And then once they started torealize that they could work
like that and it was actuallyokay and it was actually working
really well, and they were beingreally productive, they started
embracing it as well.
(11:39):
So I think there's an element ofthe way we've always done
things, and there's also anelement of people in very senior
positions being very invested inthe way things currently work.
And I think those are the bigblockers that we have to
overcome.
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
We know that it takes years for systems to
change, and it's easier to workon one person at a time.
Do you think there's adifference in the way women lead
and the way men lead that mightcontribute to the way this
problem is being addressed?
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
Absolutely.
And I started asking thatquestion myself back in 2016
around is there a differencebetween how men and women lead?
And I ended up with 538 womenfrom around the world who
contributed to focus groups andinterviews and filled out
surveys for me and so on.
And out of that we've got a verydistinctly different model of
leadership for women.
(12:32):
So, what does it actually looklike?
So I asked them the question ofwhat does it look like when
you're at your best, when you'renot constrained by the
environment, you know, when youcan just be you.
And I spoke to women who owntheir own businesses and women
who'd set things up to work theway they want it to work.
And women's leadership, the Iguess the fundamental difference
is that women don't tend to behierarchical.
It tends to be very flatstructured and very um
collaborative.
(12:52):
I always look at it as men'sleadership, men's style of
leadership is being very thatsort of pyramid structure, that
traditional hierarchy, whereasyou go up the ladder, there are
fewer and fewer jobs.
Whereas women's leadership islike a Venn diagram, there's
lots of interconnection and veryflat structured.
That's one of the majordifferences that I found.
And um, we went on to release amodel and an assessment tool
back in 2018.
(13:13):
We've had over 10,000 women takethe assessment now in 98
countries we're up to.
So I've got this lovely databaseof women, women's leadership,
like what does it really looklike when it's at its best?
And there are certainly elementsthat are in common between the
two, you know, the masculinestyle and the feminine style,
but it's expressed differently.
So one of the things I found isthat when it comes to power and
(13:34):
status, when you look at the waywomen lead, it tends to be very
much about power for the good ofthe collective as opposed to
personal power.
Certainly women can do thepersonal power, you know, don't
get me wrong, because wecertainly found some aspects of
women's leadership that werequite negative.
But in terms of things likethat, um the underlying
motivation is the same, but theway that it comes out is quite
different.
So, for example, you know, thecompetitiveness of a male
(13:55):
structured format versus thecollaboration of a woman's
format.
There and the real thing thatcame out of it though is that
both types are equally valuableand both types deserve to be
heard.
And research has shown us fairlyrecently that organizations with
an equal representation of menand women at the senior
executive table and on the boardhave better financial
performance than the industriesthan companies who don't.
(14:17):
So there's actually evidencethere to show that these
companies are performing better.
So this isn't an either or, thisis a both.
How do we get both voicesequally valued?
How do we get women's leadershipvalued in a way that women can
be themselves authenticallywithout being told that what
they're doing is wrong?
And that was the challenge Ifind for women in senior roles
is they're quite often told thatthey're either too much or not
enough.
You know, they're tooaggressive, too bossy, too loud,
(14:38):
too outspoken, or not assertiveenough.
Um they're not, you know, notseen as leadership material
necessarily.
And so that's the big issue hereis how do we come up with a
system where both types ofleadership are valued equally,
not seen as a because there'smore men in the room than women,
that the male um style ofleadership is dominant.
SPEAKER_00 (14:58):
You mentioned women not being enough.
And I think a large proportionof our listeners who are
introverts and quiet achieverswill be nodding their heads and
very excited about what you'resaying.
Can you talk to us about howbeing a quieter person, as well
as a person in leadership, aswell as a woman?
(15:19):
How how do all those thingsintersect?
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
Women, um, I'll start with the quiet piece
first.
Certainly, introverts can beincredible leaders.
And when you look at a lot ofthe really great leaders of
throughout history, a lot ofthem have in fact been
introverts.
And there is a strongcorrelation between introversion
and effective leadership becauseof the fact that introverts
think before they speak, so theyform their ideas fully before
(15:43):
they come out with them.
You know, they've quitethoughtful and measured in their
ideas, they tend to speak whenthey have something really
important to say as opposed tofilling the void with noise.
And I don't mean this to be acriticism of extroversion, it's
just you know one of the thingsthat happens.
So introverts can be incrediblyeffective leaders, but one of
the things about being a womanin leadership is this too much
or not enough.
And women are often seen as notassertive enough.
(16:04):
And so the woman starts to bewhat she would think is
assertive in order to be heard,but it ends up being labelled
too loud and too bossy becausewhen she starts to take up
space, it starts to becomeuncomfortable for the people
around her.
So in coaching women inleadership roles, that's one of
the most common things thatcomes up is how do I get my
voice heard?
How do I stop being spoken overin meet in meetings?
How do I um put forward an ideathat people accept rather than
(16:27):
sort of brushing me aside andthen you know a man will say the
same thing five minutes laterand they think it's the greatest
thing they've ever heard?
And so a lot of that is about umfor women in leadership, about
finding the right time to speakup and having the right words to
say at the right moment.
So it's often about, you know,scripting.
It can be around, like, forexample, want to being spoken
over or being having a man taketheir idea.
(16:49):
An easy script for that is tosay something like, you know,
hey Jim, isn't it great we're onthe same page with this idea?
It's fabulous you're building onwhat I started.
Let's get together outside ofthe meeting and flesh this out
so we can bring it back as abusiness case.
And that's a really clear,assertive way of you know,
putting your mark on it andsaying, actually, that was my
idea, without being seen asyou're whinging or whining or
making a fuss.
(17:09):
So a lot of women find that whenthat happens to them, they often
shut down because of the sheeraudacity of it.
You know, they're gobsmacked byI just said that a few minutes
ago, and everyone just brushedit off as if it wasn't
important, and now all of asudden they're thinking it's
this amazing idea.
So part of that um working withwomen leaders is about that, you
know, it's almost like expectthe unexpected, that sort of
(17:30):
stuff is going to happen to youand being prepared with the
right words at the right time.
So there's definitely a spacefor women leaders, and there's
definitely a space forintroverted women leaders.
Um, we see that we can even seethem on the world stage.
I'm very introverted.
You know, in fact, I, you know,when I did when I first did
Myers Briggs a long, long timeago, I actually scored, you
know, zero for extroversion.
And um, but I speak up becauseit's become important.
(17:51):
It's one of those things wherepeople often say to me, you
know, how come you can get upand speak on stage and how come
you can facilitate conferenceswith thousands of people?
And it's just I the work is soimportant that I've had to learn
to speak up.
But it's not something that'sever, it's not something that
comes naturally to me.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
I think that's a good important, very, very
important point to highlight topeople that are listening, that
just because you're notnaturally wired a certain way
doesn't mean that you can'tlearn the skill or that you
can't allow the purpose and themeaning of what you're doing to
become more important.
I think sometimes we doourselves a disservice in the
(18:27):
way we hold ourselves back atthe slightest um confrontation
or pushback or discomfort.
And I think if we hang in there,if we keep working on, you know,
regulating ourselvesemotionally, um, putting
ourselves out in thoseuncomfortable situations and
slowly building that muscle andthat courage, I think it's more
(18:48):
courage than confidence actuallythat we need.
It it actually helps.
It actually helps to tie it tosomething emotionally that's
bigger than ourselves.
So when we look at ourselves, wethink, well, you know, who am I
too?
But then when we realize by notspeaking up that we are robbing,
potentially robbing someone elseof airtime or you know, some
(19:10):
something in a spotlight thatneeds to be amplified, then that
becomes greater, more importantthan what we are personally
inconvenienced by.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
Absolutely.
And that's the thing is that weneed to um, and certainly that's
what happened for me is this theneed to get the message out to
actually have an impact to helpother people was bigger than my
need for introversion.
And, you know, becauseintroversion is about energy.
It's one of those things whereif I've spent a day facilitating
or a couple of daysfacilitating, when I come home,
um when I walk in the door, Isay to my husband, don't talk to
(19:41):
me, you know.
And he's gotten used to that.
He's gotten used to the factthat I'll walk in the door and
he'll I'll just need to go awayand sit and do something in my
little cone of silence for awhile to get my energy back.
And I've learned to sort of pacemy work around my energy level.
So if I facilitate it for twodays, I won't book anything else
for the rest of that weekbecause I know I'm just not
going to have the energy to dothat.
So A lot of this um energymanagement piece for
(20:02):
introversion is really importanttoo.
And it can be if you're workingin a difficult situation, like
say you're in a leadership roleand you are finding that you may
be the only woman on theexecutive and you're you're
struggling to sort of have aspace.
It's often about picking yourbattles because as an introvert,
you only have the you only havea finite amount of energy to
extrovert to be out there in theworld.
(20:23):
And it's picking the things thatare going to be the most
impactful rather than fightingevery battle.
And that's again something Iquite often work with women
leaders on is around you've gotto really pick your battles as
choose the battle to win thewar, not kind of going to battle
over everything that you see.
SPEAKER_00 (20:35):
So it's your passion.
Yes, that makes a lot of sensebecause we have finite energy
and we want to be quitediscerning about where we place
that energy and what we use iton.
Now that you mentioned energyand and you know, battles and
picking your battles and war andall that, talk to us about your
women's leadership archetypesmodel.
(20:56):
What is an archetype and howdoes this play out in the
leadership sense?
SPEAKER_01 (21:01):
So an archetype is just simply a pattern of
behaviour.
So um Jungian archetypes arevery well known.
And if we talk about somethinglike the hero, or we talk about
somebody being a princess, youknow, people have a mental
picture of what that actuallylooks like.
And so that's what an archetypeactually is: is a pattern of
behavior where you give it alabel and people then know what
it means.
In terms of the work that I did,we end up with eight archetypes.
(21:23):
So we've got four empoweredarchetypes and four shadow
archetypes that happen we're notat our best.
So I'll run through them reallyquite quickly, but it's if you
can imagine a model shape like adiamond shape.
And at the very top of thediamond, we've got the sovereign
archetype, and that isrepresented, it's a
representation of women at ourabsolute best.
So we know distilled the whatdoes women's leadership look
like.
This is about self-leadership.
(21:44):
So it's about being empowered,being self-actualised, being the
best you can be, choosingpassion and choosing purpose.
And so women who represent thatsort of sovereign archetype are
very um purposeful, they live bytheir values, they're very clear
about what they um stand for andwhat they will will and won't
do.
They've got incredibly strongboundaries.
They often look to other peoplelike they're extremely brave
(22:07):
because they do a lot of thingsthat other people don't do
because fear doesn't hold themback.
They will, you know, take on newchallenges, they'll do new
things, they have quiteinteresting lives because they
they just do things that otherpeople probably wouldn't think
of doing.
You know, if they take theydon't say no to things, it's
just they take on the challenge.
And it is that sense of beingself-actualised, being you know,
choosing to be our very best inevery moment.
You know, how do I how do I bethe very best I can be in this
(22:28):
moment?
And then underneath that, thenext layer down, we've got three
other archetypes, which arealmost like situational
leadership styles.
Now, women do have um tendenciesto, you know, one or more of
them, but in general, the ideais if you can use all three of
these, it's like the right styleat the right time with the right
people for the right reasons.
And if we start over on theleft-hand side, we've got the
warrior archetype, and she isvery goal-driven.
(22:51):
So the warrior is about settinggoals, delivering, she's um
working very hard, she'sachieving things, but it comes
from a space of joy, not a spaceof trying to prove herself.
She does it because it justfeels good.
She's motivated by achieving.
She loves the feeling of youknow getting something really
big and tangible done.
So when we need to achievesomething or get something done
in our lives, that's thearchetype we lean into.
How do we actually focus in onthat?
(23:11):
What would a warrior do rightnow?
How would she set the goal?
And then we've got our wisewoman archetype, which is about
women and power.
And I said earlier that women'spower is very much about uh
power for the collective, powerfor the collective good.
But a wise woman, what one ofthe things I found is that
women's power quite often comesfrom knowledge.
Women are powerful because theyknow something, they're an
expert in something.
(23:33):
So when you think back to, youknow, prior to the Industrial
Revolution, women who led intheir communities were often the
healers or the midwives, valuedfrom their not for their
knowledge.
And that's what really camethrough is that women being
valued for their knowledge.
So the wise woman archetype is alifelong learner.
She she's always learning andcollecting new knowledge, but
she also disseminates it toother people.
(23:54):
She's like a conduit forknowledge.
So she's happy to mentor, grow,support, develop.
Um, you know, she's happy toshare the knowledge with
everybody because the idea isthat she's not threatened by the
idea somebody might know morethan her or learn more than her.
It's just lovely, she just wantsto see people grow.
And then we've got the tribebuilder archetype, which is
about women and buildingcollectives, so bringing people
(24:15):
together and forming teams andforming communities.
And a tribe builder has got thatlovely energy of just she just
loves people and wants to bewith them.
She wants to see people thriveand be their best.
So she brings people together,like I said, and creates this
wonderful community feeling.
And so you can see again thateach of these three archetypes
are things that you could use indifferent situations.
And then beneath those are thefour shadow archetypes, which is
(24:36):
what happens when we're notdoing well.
And the warrior archetype turnsinto the tyrant, which is where
the need to achieve becomes anoverwhelming drive.
It's like I, if I'm nothyper-achieving, I feel like I'm
not valuable.
So the woman's always looking todo more, to be more, to be
delivering more.
And so she drives herself reallyhard, she drives her team really
hard if she's got a team.
Um, often you see perfectionismsits there, imposter syndrome
(24:59):
sits there, this feeling of I'mnot doing enough and I'm never
going to be enough.
And the trouble withperfectionism is that you can
never be perfect, so you'llalways feel like you're failing.
And so there's a real sense ofurgency in the tyrant space.
It's always really urgentenergy.
Everything's got to happen nowand quickly, even when things
aren't urgent, it gets turnedinto an urgent task.
And then the wise woman turnsinto the lone wolf, which is
that lovely sense of sharingknowledge becomes I've got to
(25:21):
hoard the knowledge in order tobe powerful.
So I'm not going to share, I'mnot going to delegate, I'm not
going to tell you what I'mdoing.
I'm going to keep the knowledge,you know, hoarded within me.
Because if I'm the only personwho knows how to do this, then I
can't be replaced.
And the lone wolf needs to feelin control, you know, what's
going on.
I need to control everybody andeverything in my sphere.
So when I'm in control, I feelsafe.
(25:42):
But if I lose control, I startto not feel safe.
The tribe builder archetypeturns into the um the martyr,
and that's about people pleasingand sacrificing self in order to
be liked.
And so you get that sense inorganizations and in leadership
of women who are just supernice.
They're too nice.
They're offering to do thingsthat are outside of their job
description, they're kind ofbending over backwards to make
(26:02):
everybody happy.
They're the ones who organisemorning tea all the time, and
then they're the ones who packthe dishwasher afterwards and
you know, pack everything up andthrow everything away, and
nobody says thank you.
That sort of space of um, youknow, really feeling taken
advantage of at some time, youknow, in some times because um
boundaries are really weak.
It's this sense if I say no topeople, they won't like me, so I
need to keep them happy.
(26:23):
And then right down the bottomof the dime, we've got a hermit
archetype, which is likewithdrawing into a hermit cave.
It really is that sense ofprocrastination, putting things
off, avoiding things.
I don't want to be involved inthat, I don't want to see
people, you know, whatever,whatever that the focus is, but
they'll really withdraw from theworld.
And I had a um, I was talking tothis about a woman, talking to a
woman about this recently.
(26:43):
She's one of my accreditedpractitioners in the model, and
she said to me, I really get asense of when I'm in the hermit.
She said, I really know whatit's like.
She said, I have days when, likeeverybody does, when sometimes
you just need a rest and youjust want to lie on the couch
and watch, you know, watchmovies and eat biscuits or
something.
She said, I but that feels verydifferent to the hermit.
She said, When I'm in thehermit, she said, it's almost
(27:03):
like I can't help it.
I know I should be getting outof it.
I know I should be takingaction.
I know I should be dealing withwhatever it is that's out there,
but I just can't.
And that is the realdifferentiator is this feeling
of I can't deal with it versusI'm choosing not to.
You know, I'm just choosing tohave a do in a day versus I
can't get out of bed because thethe idea of getting out of bed
is too hard for me.
So that's kind of their model ina nutshell, I guess.
(27:24):
It's the very short version ofit.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
That's a very powerful model.
So thank you for sharing that,Ross.
I think those who lovearchetypes, or even those who
are curious about patterns ofbehavior, or who love stories,
love storytelling, who recognizethemselves or recognize someone
they know and work with in someof these archetypes.
And the interesting thing Ithink is, you know, with a
(27:47):
tyrant, with a lone wolf, with amartyr, I wonder if there is a
sense of a not enoughness that'sdriven by you mentioned safety.
I wonder if safety or the lackof safety is behind some of
these uh expressions, thesethese unhealthy expressions.
(28:08):
For instance, if I don't feelsafe to to give myself
permission to rest sometimes,then I will have I'll
overcompensate by driving myselfand my team too hard because
rest equals not beingproductive, rest equals
laziness, or rest is is makes mefeel guilty.
And that could also be due toour conditioning for some people
from childhood, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (28:30):
Totally.
All of these things come fromchildhood.
So um one of the things that wasreally interesting when I was
developing the model and pullingit all together was overlaying
other sorts of models to seewhere there are correlations.
And one of the things that wasreally interesting is the fact
that the four shadow archetypesactually correlate with the
threat responses in humans.
So we've got fight, flight,freeze, or fawn.
And the fight, the flightresponse is actually that
(28:51):
tyrant, like you said, that fearof if I stop, I'm failing.
If I'm not doing enough, I'mfailing.
So it's that sense of constantlybeing being on the move.
So delivering andover-delivering is being on the
move, which is really runningaway from whatever it is that's
that's you know, holding usback.
And the um fight is the lonewolf, which is she fights back,
she gets combative, she startswithholding data, she starts
being manipulative.
The um fawn response is ourmartyr.
(29:14):
You know, fawning is where youbasically try to be as nice as
possible to the people who arethreatening you so that they
won't hurt you.
And then the freeze response isthe hermit.
And all of these are learnedpatterns from our childhood.
It's uh it's the way that we dowith trauma when it comes down
to it.
These are trauma responses.
As very young children, we'velearned this way of dealing with
things that are threats in ourlives, and they play out for us
(29:34):
as adults as well.
You know, we learn to do thisbecause it's been something in
the past that's helped us besafe.
SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
So, does your work also involve working through
these trauma responses withclients?
SPEAKER_01 (29:45):
Yes, yeah.
And that's the thing is that umunless we actually engage with
what's happening beneath thesurface there, people will
always uh go there when thingsaren't going well.
And so a lot of the work aroundcoaching people into being, you
know, more empowered is aroundactually dealing with how does
this, how does this play out foryou and giving in people
developing ways of ofeffectively managing it because
(30:08):
we're never going to get rid ofthe sort of things that have
happened in our past, but it'sabout how do we deal with it
more effectively.
So, for example, if you know welook at the tyrant and that need
to run away, you know, that sortof need to be driven and to be
doing, you know, I've got to bedoing in order to feel like I'm
doing, you know, I'm um addingvalue.
Sometimes that's just about youknow, literally running away,
like going, doing some exercise,going for a run, getting up and
dancing, shaking it off.
(30:29):
You know, they've actually foundthat you know, shaking yourself
is actually a really good way ofsort of dissipating all of the
energy that goes with that.
Um, you know, if we look at youknow, cortisol and adrenaline,
if we look at it in animals, forexample, if an animal gets
attacked by a lion, it's allover and done in a few minutes.
It's either they're dead orthey're not, you know, but
they've actually used therunning away as being the thing
that's burnt off all of those,um, you know, all the chemicals.
(30:49):
And in humans, we don't havethat.
You know, something happensthat's stressful at work and
we're sitting at our desk and wedon't get up and go away or do
anything.
And so it plays out in terms ofI've got to work really hard in
order to sort of work off thatit's it's but it doesn't
actually work because we're notphysically moving.
And so just getting up andrunning around or you know,
dancing or shaking, just shakingour arms and legs can be a
really good way of actuallygetting rid of that energy.
(31:09):
So things like that we can teachpeople to do.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
It sounds to me that what you're saying is we
actually need to re-look at theway we work because it's
actually a very artificialsystem.
It's not designed to help usthrive.
If we are looking to nature asan example, we're actually doing
the very opposite.
We don't move enough, weinternalize, we don't express,
(31:34):
we hold back, we judgeourselves, we judge others
harshly, and we don't haveenough outlets to release, you
know, and so we get stagnant orwe get stuck or we get into
these mental loops that are youknow constantly negative,
perpetuating a negative messageeither about ourselves or about
other people.
(31:55):
We don't have something thatcomes in to interrupt that.
So, what can workplaces and whatcan lead us to differently or do
better to ensure that the systemis aligned in a more healthy way
so that everyone can thrive.
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
And look, this goes back um, you know, years,
generations really to when theindustrial revolution started,
where people left theirfamilies.
You know, prior to that weworked and lived together in
little communities.
We lived and worked in smallvillages where we knew
everybody, you know, and then westarted leaving our family, or
men did left their familiesbehind and went to work.
And so the system is veryartificial, like you said.
(32:34):
And a lot of it's been aroundthe um this idea that you you
don't bring your emotions towork, you don't bring your life
to work.
It's almost like when you get tothe door of work, you take off
your life and you hang it up ina locker and lock the door and
you don't pick it up again untilyou leave work.
And so we've created thisexpectation that we we park our
emotional state, we parkeverything at the door and we
(32:54):
just go in and focus on work.
And that's not how humans work.
We can't, it's all carried withus.
And when there's no outlet forthat in the workplace, where
there's no safe space to say,you know what, I just had a
really crappy morning.
Excuse me, but that yeah, thisyou know, that sort of sense the
morning hasn't been, it hasn'tgone well for me.
And you haven't had that outletwhere it's safe to do that.
So we bottle it all up, we kindof put the game face on, and
(33:16):
it's like I'm at work, I betterbe really super professional
right now.
And so we we've created thissystem where we don't allow
people to be human.
And look, I'm not saying this isevery workplace, some workplaces
are actually really good atthis, but there are lots that
aren't where you like I rememberbeing at um, you know, way back
in my early career, and thissort of sense that if women were
upset at all at work, they'd getyou know told, oh, it's you, you
(33:39):
know, that's just what women do,they're too emotional to be in
the workplace, or you know, theymust be on their period was a
big thing that we used to getbandied about.
And so women learnt to thatthere was shame in expressing
emotion.
We learnt that we needed tobottle it all up and again sort
of put on that game place andact like a man.
And we've created a systemthat's just not healthy for
people, and we do need to unpackthat, we do need to create more
(34:01):
um space for humanity in theworkplace, and certainly the
conversations more recentlyaround psychological safety are
wonderful because that's thekind of thing we need to be
talking about is how do wecreate spaces where it's
actually okay to be human, toyou know, bring your best self
to work.
But yeah, there's gonna be atime when you bring your worst
your worst self to work too.
And how do we deal with that?
How do we help people with umyou know, maybe it's coaches,
(34:23):
therapists, there'spractitioners out there who can
support people who areexperiencing trauma because
traumatized people bring traumato work and they cause trauma to
other people inadvertently.
You know, people aren't comingto work and going, I'm gonna
bring my trauma and smack youwith it, but it happens.
And the more we can sort offocus in on the negative side of
what it means to be human, thebetter off we'll be in terms of
thriving.
SPEAKER_00 (34:43):
You've reminded me that it's not just for us to
wait for the system to catch up.
I think on an individual level,on a peer-to-peer level, there
are things we can do to createthat kind of connection and
caring in the office space.
Because what you said wereearlier on was that we've lost
that sense of connection.
We used to function in villages,in communities.
(35:04):
Now we are sort of operating,you know, every man for himself
and every woman for herself.
But we're not we're not wiredthat way.
Certainly, women are are wiredto be a lot more collaborative
and to, you know, work acrossrather than hierarchically.
So on a individual level, whatcan people do differently to
start becoming more empowered inthe way they lead?
SPEAKER_01 (35:27):
As leaders, we can certainly have an impact on our
own team.
We maybe we can't impact thesystem, but we can have impacts
on our own local area.
It's that sort of think local,you know, think global, at local
thing of, you know, can weeducate ourselves better?
Can we learn to create safespaces for people?
Can we make it okay for peopleto talk about what's happening
in their lives genuinely?
Can we provide people with thesupport that they need?
(35:48):
Um, one of the interestingthings I remember reading a long
time ago, and I cannot rememberwho said it, but it was a they
were interviewing um a woman whowas an anthropologist, and they
said, at what time do you sortof consider, like how long ago
do you consider that we becamehuman?
Like what was the sign that webecame human?
And they were probably expectingher to talk about the when we
first started harnessing fire asa good example.
(36:09):
But she actually said, and itwas going back a really long
time, I don't, I'm not gonnaremember any of the details, so
I won't get it wrong.
But essentially she said thefirst sign of humanity was she
actually uncovered a skeletonthat had a fractured thigh bone
and that thigh bone had healed.
And she said, but what thatmeans is because the person
would have been completelyincapable of moving around and
doing anything for themselves,it meant that somebody looked
(36:31):
after them.
And she said that was the startof humanity.
And I just love that the factthat somebody was incapable of
doing things for themselves andthat somebody looked after them.
And that's I think the missinglink for us as leaders is how do
we ensure that the people aroundus are supported and healthy.
And we're getting a lot betterat it in organizations.
(36:51):
There's certainly a lot ofprograms that have been put in
place to support people, butthere's always more we can do.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And I think the other missing link is also to
make sure that we are payingattention to our own needs.
So we're not bringing our traumato work.
That we're doing the inner work,we're reaching out to the
coaches, the therapists, doingwhatever it takes to get more
movement in, to find creativeoutlets, to find ways we can
discharge some of that, youknow, nervous energy or you
(37:18):
know, some of the negativeemotions that come up in the
course of a day.
So, what is one thing you wouldlike our listeners to take away
from our conversation today?
SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
I think the big takeaway is that that
combination of looking afterself and looking after others.
It's about recognizing, and thisis an emotional intelligence
piece, is that the big bit isrecognizing we're in a negative
space.
So you might, you know, onceyou've heard about the
archetypes, for example, I getclients and I get my credit
practitioners who are talkingabout things like I didn't have
(37:49):
a great day today, I was verylone wolf, or I really felt
myself slipping to the tyrant,or I had a martyr day today.
But recognising being able toput language around it is really
important.
And then doing something aboutthat, because just because we've
experienced something that'screated an emotion for us
doesn't mean we need to takeaction on that.
It's enough to just recognisethe emotion and process it and
(38:09):
let it pass by.
So just say, for example, we getum just say we've got somebody
who's naturally tends to thesort of tyrant energy that's
sort of, you know, got to provemyself all the time.
And something happens at workwhere she feels um, you know,
devalued or that she hasn'tadded enough value.
Now that can be the trigger forher to descend tyrant to really
kind of drive herself evenharder, but recognizing that and
(38:30):
going, actually, that's not ahealthy pattern.
You know, I need to do somethingdifferent now.
And just because I feel like Ineed to do something doesn't
mean I have to actually doanything with this.
And that's the, I suppose, thediscernment point is recognizing
you don't have to take action onthe way that you feel.
SPEAKER_00 (38:44):
It sounds to me, well, what you're saying is
there needs to be thatself-awareness and then the
ability to interrupt your ownpattern, to almost be the
observer.
I think you notice this iscoming up again.
I've been through this before, Iknow what happens next, and I'm
going to do something right nowto interrupt that.
So that is that is extremelyuseful.
So thank you for that.
What is the best way for peopleto connect with you and work
(39:05):
with you, Ross?
SPEAKER_01 (39:07):
I'm on LinkedIn, is probably the main place you'll
find me on socials.
I do have presence on a lot ofother socials, but I don't tend
to spend a lot of time there.
Um, I've got two websites.
I've got my consulting business,which is shapeandchange.com.au,
and the women's leaderarchetypes have their own
website, which iswomen'sleaderarchetypes.com.au.
So you can find me at either ofthose places as well.
SPEAKER_00 (39:26):
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate you, Roz,for sharing your time and your
wisdom with us today, thesharing the women's archetypes
in leadership model andexplaining to us, you know, all
the all the ways in whichchildhood conditioning and our
environment can result in usunconsciously bringing our
(39:47):
trauma to work with us and howimportant it is to be self
aware, to take selfresponsibility, but at the same
time, too, for leaders to be tothink more holistically and
healthily about the way we arelooking after all of our
employees.
So, if you enjoyed today'sepisode, be sure to leave a
five-star rating and review tohelp the Quiet Warrior podcast
reach more introverts and quietachievers around the world.
(40:10):
And for recommended resources onhow to thrive as an introvert,
make sure you're subscribed tothe Visible Introvert newsletter
at Serenalo.com.au.
See you on the next episode.
I'm so grateful that you're heretoday.
If you found this contentvaluable, please share it on
your social media channels andsubscribe to the show on your
(40:31):
favorite listening platform.
Together we can help moreintroverts thrive.
To receive more upliftingcontent like this, connect with
me on Instagram at SerenaloQuiet Warrior Coach.
Thank you for sharing your timeand your energy with me.
See you on the next episode.
Hi, I'm Serena Lo.
If you're used to hearing thatintroverts are shy, anxious,
antisocial, and lack goodcommunication and leadership
skills, then this podcast is foryou.
You're about to fall in lovewith a calm, introspective, and
profound person that you are.
Discover what's fun, unique, andpowerful about being an
(00:22):
introvert and how to make theelegant transition from quiet
achiever to quiet warrior inyour life and work, anytime you
want, in more ways than youimagined possible.
Welcome.
Hello and welcome.
Today's guest on the QuietWarrior Podcast is Ross
Cardinal.
(00:43):
After more than 20 years incorporate human resources and
organizational developmentroles, a successful battle with
cancer gave Ross the nudge totake her passion for
transforming leaders andimproving how individuals and
organizations cope with changein a new direction.
Leaving her senior corporaterole in 2012, Roz established
(01:04):
her consulting business, ShapingChange, to achieve her goals.
Roz is a solution andresults-oriented facilitator
with expertise spanningstrategic planning, leadership
development, organizationalculture, change management,
emotional intelligence, andemployee engagement.
She is also a talented andmulti-award-winning executive
(01:27):
and leadership coach withcoaching clients at executive
and senior levels in governmentagencies, private enterprise,
and the community sector.
Ross is the author of theResilient Employee and Creator
of the Women's LeadershipArchetypes Model, used worldwide
by women to discover how theycan better leverage their
natural strengths to lead withpurpose, authenticity, and
(01:51):
integrity.
Welcome, Ross, to the QuietWarrior Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
Thank you.
It's lovely to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Ross, I want to start by asking you about your
professional journey and whatled you to what you now do.
What was the problem that younoticed?
SPEAKER_01 (02:07):
Look, my I suppose I'll start back before I started
my business.
So I was a um started my careerin the Australian Public Service
when I was uh, I don't know, 17,18.
And it was kind of an accidentalcareer in terms of the fact
that, you know, I got to the topof the list for the public
service exams and they rang meand offered me a job, and you
just took whatever they wereoffering you at the time.
So they put me into what wascalled personnel back in those
(02:29):
days, which evolved into humanresources and then into people
and culture.
So um, even though that was anaccident, it turned out to be a
really fantastic move for mebecause it was an area that I
fell in love with and found thatum I just really I think that
the big thing for me was helpingpeople, helping people perform
better, helping leaders leadbetter, helping organizations do
things more effectively and andwith more humanity in it.
(02:51):
And that sort of led me over theyears to learning and
development, then organizationaldevelopment, and then finally
into my own business.
So it's um, like I said, it wasan accident at the beginning, it
was a happy accident.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
As many of the big life changes work out.
I think we always start with apersonal level and then we have
this ripple effect that goesoutwards that we want to spread
to others.
So, what were some of theproblems or barriers you noticed
around leadership that led youto start your business?
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
It's for me, I spent a lot of time in male-dominated
industries.
Uh, I spent the last 15 years ofmy career in the electricity
industry, which is verymale-dominated.
And um, we did some really greatwork there.
Um, I was looking after culturechange, amongst other things,
leadership development, culturechange.
We ran a really amazing culturechange program that ran for
(03:40):
about probably about five or sixyears.
It was at least five years.
And one of the things that Ireally loved about the program
was how life-changing it was forpeople.
So we did get people who, youknow, left the business and
started doing somethingcompletely different as a result
of the program.
So we had someone who was anaccountant who left to become a
doctor in, you know, she was inher mid-40s and just quit her
(04:01):
accounting career and went offand studied to become a doctor.
We had somebody in marketing whoquit to go off and uh start his
own business.
So we were getting stories likethat, which obviously the
organization wasn't thatthrilled about.
But for me, it was that beautyof watching people suddenly go,
you know what, this isn't what Ireally want to do.
I want to do somethingcompletely different.
But one of the things that Ifound over the time of running
the program is that it startedto lose traction because the
(04:23):
leaders lost interest in it.
It became just something thatsomething that just happened as
part of the organizational waywe do things, not something that
really stayed front of mind forthem.
And as soon as the leaders lostinterest in it, it really
started to stagnate.
So we were still getting peoplecoming through the program and
you know having these greatsuccess stories, but then it
wasn't bedding down back in thebusiness.
And for me, that was, I think,one of the key things that I've
(04:46):
really noticed in all of mycareer around culture change,
around any kind of change inorganizations, is it's only as
good as the attention thatleaders pay to it.
And that was really, you know,that was, I suppose, the reason
for starting my business andcalling it shaping change was
around this idea of how do we dochange better.
And of course, you know, cultureis part of that.
But that was the really the bigissue, I think, that I really
(05:07):
wanted to solve.
And that was what led me to toleave my job and start a
business was this idea thatwe've got to start doing this
differently, we've got to startdoing it better.
I'd almost run out of, I thinkI'd run out of steam in the
business I was working for.
It was that sort of sense ofstaying here isn't gonna make
any more of a difference.
I think the difference I wasgonna make was done, and it was
time to go on and make thatdifference somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
So it was about finding a new platform, a new
context for you to apply,something that you had become
very passionate about.
Can you talk to us about some ofthe barriers for women who are
advancing in leadership and howhave things changed over the
decades?
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
There's still a lot of issues that women face in
leadership roles.
Um, that was one of the bigcallus for me around getting me
to focus more in on what washappening for women in
particular, was the fact that mydaughter started work in
engineering and was experiencingthe same issues that I'd
experienced in my career.
And I sort of thought nothing'schanged in a generation.
And, you know, we did certainlymade some fairly big strides in
(06:05):
terms of women's representationin leadership over the years,
you know, probably a generationor two before that, you know,
there was this sense of youknow, women suddenly were
allowed to stay in the workforceonce they got married.
That was a really big thing.
Women actually weren't expectedto just leave work because they
had children, they were stayingat work, you know.
Certainly my generation didthat.
So we've made some really bigstrides.
It was almost like we sort ofstalled and things weren't
really changing that much forwomen.
(06:26):
And I was talking to women whowere coming to me for coaching,
and they were getting frustratedwith the system.
It's like I've got a lot to add.
I feel like, you know, I'mambitious, I want to do more
here, but I'm being held back bythe fact that my organization
really doesn't support womenwho've got families as an
example.
We say all the right things, butit doesn't flow through into
(06:47):
what we actually do.
And so I'm finding women weresaying things like, I'm finding
that you know, I've having tochoose between my career and my
family life, and I don't want todo that.
Is there a way we can actuallyhave both?
I remember MCing a conference,and one of the topics was around
work-life balance.
We had, you know, a couple ofmen and a couple of women who
were talking about what it meantto them.
And really the conclusion in theroom was that we can't have it
(07:09):
all.
And there was this almost likeyou could almost feel the air go
out of the room.
It's like this big deflationmoment where everyone, because
they were all sitting theregoing, they're going to tell us
the big secret, how we as womencan have it all.
And all of a sudden the answerwas you can't.
And so for women, the challengesare, you know, they've certainly
changed over the years.
Like we're no longer, like Isaid, having to leave work and
we got married, but it's adifferent set of challenges.
(07:29):
It's around how do women umbecome leaders, how do they
maintain that ambition and thatleadership drive when they're
being told that they, you know,I've got to choose between work
and family.
And the women who are sort ofgoing, well, actually, no, I'm
choosing my family, and theyhave big career breaks, or they
sort of hold back their careerbecause they feel like they
can't be leaders in theenvironment that we've created.
And for me, that's a really bigfrustration because we've
(07:51):
created a way of doing work thatdoesn't suit anybody who wants
to have a life, you know, whowants to have a family, who
wants to have hobbies, who wantsto have something else outside
of work, because we've created asystem where in order to be
successful, you've got to giveeverything to the job.
You're expected to work insanehours, take on big
responsibilities, to beavailable 24-7, especially now
we've all got email, you know,on our phone, so it's there
(08:13):
24-7.
And so we've created this systemthat really doesn't work for
people in general.
I'm not just talking women, butjust people.
And that's my my big quest, Isuppose, at the moment is how do
we change the system?
You know, how do we actually allrecognise that this isn't
healthy?
It's not a, it's not a it, it'snot good for anybody, it's not
good for men who don't, youknow, there's men out there who
(08:34):
don't see their kids, you know,who work, they're at the very
top of organizations, you know,captains of industry, they never
see their families.
I had a man say to me a whileago that he the only time he saw
his kids was when they went ontheir annual holiday.
And he made sure their annualholiday was something really
special.
They went overseas and they didreally fantastic things, but
like they see their dad for fourweeks a year, which was just you
know, I it was heartbreaking,really, it really honestly was,
(08:56):
because I could see that eventhough he was making a choice,
it was coming at such a cost.
SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
I think what we are lacking is a holistic approach
to work.
So what is it that keeps peopleWell we s we keep having these
conversations, you know,publicly, and there's a lot of
acknowledgement, there's someawareness that things are not as
healthy as they should be, orwhat needs to be done or what
needs to happen for those forthat talk to flow through into
(09:29):
action.
SPEAKER_01 (09:31):
It's a really tricky one, and one of the things that
I found in having theseconversations with women first
and then some men is that when Italk to women about this, they
go, Oh God, that makes totalsense.
I would love it if we could, youknow, reframe the way that we
work.
Like I've had women say to me, Ijust love it.
I'd love to work in anenvironment where if my kids got
sick, not sick, sick, you know,really ill, but if they were,
(09:53):
you know, unwell and justcouldn't go to school, I could
bring them to work.
And there was this place where Icould put them where they could
just sort of, you know, watch TVor read a book quietly and I
could check on them.
I've had women say things like,I'd love to have a daycare
center really close to my workso I could just duck out and go
and breastfeed rather thanhaving to sit on the toilet in
the sit on the toilet in the inthe um disabled toilets and
express milk to give to my babywhen I get home.
(10:14):
And so women sort of talk aboutit as they'd love to have this
world where we could integrateall of life, you know, work,
family, etc.
But one of the things I found isthat the people in who the
people who can make thedifference are invested in the
way it currently is.
There's a degree of power in theway things are, there's a degree
of control in the way thingsare.
(10:35):
And certainly we've seen somecompanies make some really
dramatic changes during COVID,which some of them were amazing
changes.
I had a client organization whobasically didn't go back to the
office.
They said it's been working sowell for us with everyone
working remotely, we want tocontinue to do that.
So they downsized their officespace in Melbourne from, I think
they had five floors of thebuilding, they went down to two,
and they've got meeting roomsand hot desks because they said
(10:58):
it worked so well, you know,giving people that opportunity
to work into to work flexibly,work independently, you know,
have their kids with them, havetheir pets with them.
And they didn't see any sense ingoing back to the way it was
done before.
And that's but it's only a smallexample of it being done better
and being done differently.
And I certainly know, like,there's a wonderful woman leader
that I know who uh took over asmanaging director of a company
(11:19):
and again completely changed theway they did things.
And she was, you know, she saidwomen embraced it and loved it,
but she said with the men, shehad to push them out the door.
It was kind of like it's threeo'clock.
You said you had a soccer gameto go watch, what are you still
doing at work?
And then once they started torealize that they could work
like that and it was actuallyokay and it was actually working
really well, and they were beingreally productive, they started
embracing it as well.
(11:39):
So I think there's an element ofthe way we've always done
things, and there's also anelement of people in very senior
positions being very invested inthe way things currently work.
And I think those are the bigblockers that we have to
overcome.
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
We know that it takes years for systems to
change, and it's easier to workon one person at a time.
Do you think there's adifference in the way women lead
and the way men lead that mightcontribute to the way this
problem is being addressed?
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
Absolutely.
And I started asking thatquestion myself back in 2016
around is there a differencebetween how men and women lead?
And I ended up with 538 womenfrom around the world who
contributed to focus groups andinterviews and filled out
surveys for me and so on.
And out of that we've got a verydistinctly different model of
leadership for women.
(12:32):
So, what does it actually looklike?
So I asked them the question ofwhat does it look like when
you're at your best, when you'renot constrained by the
environment, you know, when youcan just be you.
And I spoke to women who owntheir own businesses and women
who'd set things up to work theway they want it to work.
And women's leadership, the Iguess the fundamental difference
is that women don't tend to behierarchical.
It tends to be very flatstructured and very um
collaborative.
(12:52):
I always look at it as men'sleadership, men's style of
leadership is being very thatsort of pyramid structure, that
traditional hierarchy, whereasyou go up the ladder, there are
fewer and fewer jobs.
Whereas women's leadership islike a Venn diagram, there's
lots of interconnection and veryflat structured.
That's one of the majordifferences that I found.
And um, we went on to release amodel and an assessment tool
back in 2018.
(13:13):
We've had over 10,000 women takethe assessment now in 98
countries we're up to.
So I've got this lovely databaseof women, women's leadership,
like what does it really looklike when it's at its best?
And there are certainly elementsthat are in common between the
two, you know, the masculinestyle and the feminine style,
but it's expressed differently.
So one of the things I found isthat when it comes to power and
(13:34):
status, when you look at the waywomen lead, it tends to be very
much about power for the good ofthe collective as opposed to
personal power.
Certainly women can do thepersonal power, you know, don't
get me wrong, because wecertainly found some aspects of
women's leadership that werequite negative.
But in terms of things likethat, um the underlying
motivation is the same, but theway that it comes out is quite
different.
So, for example, you know, thecompetitiveness of a male
(13:55):
structured format versus thecollaboration of a woman's
format.
There and the real thing thatcame out of it though is that
both types are equally valuableand both types deserve to be
heard.
And research has shown us fairlyrecently that organizations with
an equal representation of menand women at the senior
executive table and on the boardhave better financial
performance than the industriesthan companies who don't.
(14:17):
So there's actually evidencethere to show that these
companies are performing better.
So this isn't an either or, thisis a both.
How do we get both voicesequally valued?
How do we get women's leadershipvalued in a way that women can
be themselves authenticallywithout being told that what
they're doing is wrong?
And that was the challenge Ifind for women in senior roles
is they're quite often told thatthey're either too much or not
enough.
You know, they're tooaggressive, too bossy, too loud,
(14:38):
too outspoken, or not assertiveenough.
Um they're not, you know, notseen as leadership material
necessarily.
And so that's the big issue hereis how do we come up with a
system where both types ofleadership are valued equally,
not seen as a because there'smore men in the room than women,
that the male um style ofleadership is dominant.
SPEAKER_00 (14:58):
You mentioned women not being enough.
And I think a large proportionof our listeners who are
introverts and quiet achieverswill be nodding their heads and
very excited about what you'resaying.
Can you talk to us about howbeing a quieter person, as well
as a person in leadership, aswell as a woman?
(15:19):
How how do all those thingsintersect?
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
Women, um, I'll start with the quiet piece
first.
Certainly, introverts can beincredible leaders.
And when you look at a lot ofthe really great leaders of
throughout history, a lot ofthem have in fact been
introverts.
And there is a strongcorrelation between introversion
and effective leadership becauseof the fact that introverts
think before they speak, so theyform their ideas fully before
(15:43):
they come out with them.
You know, they've quitethoughtful and measured in their
ideas, they tend to speak whenthey have something really
important to say as opposed tofilling the void with noise.
And I don't mean this to be acriticism of extroversion, it's
just you know one of the thingsthat happens.
So introverts can be incrediblyeffective leaders, but one of
the things about being a womanin leadership is this too much
or not enough.
And women are often seen as notassertive enough.
(16:04):
And so the woman starts to bewhat she would think is
assertive in order to be heard,but it ends up being labelled
too loud and too bossy becausewhen she starts to take up
space, it starts to becomeuncomfortable for the people
around her.
So in coaching women inleadership roles, that's one of
the most common things thatcomes up is how do I get my
voice heard?
How do I stop being spoken overin meet in meetings?
How do I um put forward an ideathat people accept rather than
(16:27):
sort of brushing me aside andthen you know a man will say the
same thing five minutes laterand they think it's the greatest
thing they've ever heard?
And so a lot of that is about umfor women in leadership, about
finding the right time to speakup and having the right words to
say at the right moment.
So it's often about, you know,scripting.
It can be around, like, forexample, want to being spoken
over or being having a man taketheir idea.
(16:49):
An easy script for that is tosay something like, you know,
hey Jim, isn't it great we're onthe same page with this idea?
It's fabulous you're building onwhat I started.
Let's get together outside ofthe meeting and flesh this out
so we can bring it back as abusiness case.
And that's a really clear,assertive way of you know,
putting your mark on it andsaying, actually, that was my
idea, without being seen asyou're whinging or whining or
making a fuss.
(17:09):
So a lot of women find that whenthat happens to them, they often
shut down because of the sheeraudacity of it.
You know, they're gobsmacked byI just said that a few minutes
ago, and everyone just brushedit off as if it wasn't
important, and now all of asudden they're thinking it's
this amazing idea.
So part of that um working withwomen leaders is about that, you
know, it's almost like expectthe unexpected, that sort of
(17:30):
stuff is going to happen to youand being prepared with the
right words at the right time.
So there's definitely a spacefor women leaders, and there's
definitely a space forintroverted women leaders.
Um, we see that we can even seethem on the world stage.
I'm very introverted.
You know, in fact, I, you know,when I did when I first did
Myers Briggs a long, long timeago, I actually scored, you
know, zero for extroversion.
And um, but I speak up becauseit's become important.
(17:51):
It's one of those things wherepeople often say to me, you
know, how come you can get upand speak on stage and how come
you can facilitate conferenceswith thousands of people?
And it's just I the work is soimportant that I've had to learn
to speak up.
But it's not something that'sever, it's not something that
comes naturally to me.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
I think that's a good important, very, very
important point to highlight topeople that are listening, that
just because you're notnaturally wired a certain way
doesn't mean that you can'tlearn the skill or that you
can't allow the purpose and themeaning of what you're doing to
become more important.
I think sometimes we doourselves a disservice in the
(18:27):
way we hold ourselves back atthe slightest um confrontation
or pushback or discomfort.
And I think if we hang in there,if we keep working on, you know,
regulating ourselvesemotionally, um, putting
ourselves out in thoseuncomfortable situations and
slowly building that muscle andthat courage, I think it's more
(18:48):
courage than confidence actuallythat we need.
It it actually helps.
It actually helps to tie it tosomething emotionally that's
bigger than ourselves.
So when we look at ourselves, wethink, well, you know, who am I
too?
But then when we realize by notspeaking up that we are robbing,
potentially robbing someone elseof airtime or you know, some
(19:10):
something in a spotlight thatneeds to be amplified, then that
becomes greater, more importantthan what we are personally
inconvenienced by.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
Absolutely.
And that's the thing is that weneed to um, and certainly that's
what happened for me is this theneed to get the message out to
actually have an impact to helpother people was bigger than my
need for introversion.
And, you know, becauseintroversion is about energy.
It's one of those things whereif I've spent a day facilitating
or a couple of daysfacilitating, when I come home,
um when I walk in the door, Isay to my husband, don't talk to
(19:41):
me, you know.
And he's gotten used to that.
He's gotten used to the factthat I'll walk in the door and
he'll I'll just need to go awayand sit and do something in my
little cone of silence for awhile to get my energy back.
And I've learned to sort of pacemy work around my energy level.
So if I facilitate it for twodays, I won't book anything else
for the rest of that weekbecause I know I'm just not
going to have the energy to dothat.
So A lot of this um energymanagement piece for
(20:02):
introversion is really importanttoo.
And it can be if you're workingin a difficult situation, like
say you're in a leadership roleand you are finding that you may
be the only woman on theexecutive and you're you're
struggling to sort of have aspace.
It's often about picking yourbattles because as an introvert,
you only have the you only havea finite amount of energy to
extrovert to be out there in theworld.
(20:23):
And it's picking the things thatare going to be the most
impactful rather than fightingevery battle.
And that's again something Iquite often work with women
leaders on is around you've gotto really pick your battles as
choose the battle to win thewar, not kind of going to battle
over everything that you see.
SPEAKER_00 (20:35):
So it's your passion.
Yes, that makes a lot of sensebecause we have finite energy
and we want to be quitediscerning about where we place
that energy and what we use iton.
Now that you mentioned energyand and you know, battles and
picking your battles and war andall that, talk to us about your
women's leadership archetypesmodel.
(20:56):
What is an archetype and howdoes this play out in the
leadership sense?
SPEAKER_01 (21:01):
So an archetype is just simply a pattern of
behaviour.
So um Jungian archetypes arevery well known.
And if we talk about somethinglike the hero, or we talk about
somebody being a princess, youknow, people have a mental
picture of what that actuallylooks like.
And so that's what an archetypeactually is: is a pattern of
behavior where you give it alabel and people then know what
it means.
In terms of the work that I did,we end up with eight archetypes.
(21:23):
So we've got four empoweredarchetypes and four shadow
archetypes that happen we're notat our best.
So I'll run through them reallyquite quickly, but it's if you
can imagine a model shape like adiamond shape.
And at the very top of thediamond, we've got the sovereign
archetype, and that isrepresented, it's a
representation of women at ourabsolute best.
So we know distilled the whatdoes women's leadership look
like.
This is about self-leadership.
(21:44):
So it's about being empowered,being self-actualised, being the
best you can be, choosingpassion and choosing purpose.
And so women who represent thatsort of sovereign archetype are
very um purposeful, they live bytheir values, they're very clear
about what they um stand for andwhat they will will and won't
do.
They've got incredibly strongboundaries.
They often look to other peoplelike they're extremely brave
(22:07):
because they do a lot of thingsthat other people don't do
because fear doesn't hold themback.
They will, you know, take on newchallenges, they'll do new
things, they have quiteinteresting lives because they
they just do things that otherpeople probably wouldn't think
of doing.
You know, if they take theydon't say no to things, it's
just they take on the challenge.
And it is that sense of beingself-actualised, being you know,
choosing to be our very best inevery moment.
You know, how do I how do I bethe very best I can be in this
(22:28):
moment?
And then underneath that, thenext layer down, we've got three
other archetypes, which arealmost like situational
leadership styles.
Now, women do have um tendenciesto, you know, one or more of
them, but in general, the ideais if you can use all three of
these, it's like the right styleat the right time with the right
people for the right reasons.
And if we start over on theleft-hand side, we've got the
warrior archetype, and she isvery goal-driven.
(22:51):
So the warrior is about settinggoals, delivering, she's um
working very hard, she'sachieving things, but it comes
from a space of joy, not a spaceof trying to prove herself.
She does it because it justfeels good.
She's motivated by achieving.
She loves the feeling of youknow getting something really
big and tangible done.
So when we need to achievesomething or get something done
in our lives, that's thearchetype we lean into.
How do we actually focus in onthat?
(23:11):
What would a warrior do rightnow?
How would she set the goal?
And then we've got our wisewoman archetype, which is about
women and power.
And I said earlier that women'spower is very much about uh
power for the collective, powerfor the collective good.
But a wise woman, what one ofthe things I found is that
women's power quite often comesfrom knowledge.
Women are powerful because theyknow something, they're an
expert in something.
(23:33):
So when you think back to, youknow, prior to the Industrial
Revolution, women who led intheir communities were often the
healers or the midwives, valuedfrom their not for their
knowledge.
And that's what really camethrough is that women being
valued for their knowledge.
So the wise woman archetype is alifelong learner.
She she's always learning andcollecting new knowledge, but
she also disseminates it toother people.
(23:54):
She's like a conduit forknowledge.
So she's happy to mentor, grow,support, develop.
Um, you know, she's happy toshare the knowledge with
everybody because the idea isthat she's not threatened by the
idea somebody might know morethan her or learn more than her.
It's just lovely, she just wantsto see people grow.
And then we've got the tribebuilder archetype, which is
about women and buildingcollectives, so bringing people
(24:15):
together and forming teams andforming communities.
And a tribe builder has got thatlovely energy of just she just
loves people and wants to bewith them.
She wants to see people thriveand be their best.
So she brings people together,like I said, and creates this
wonderful community feeling.
And so you can see again thateach of these three archetypes
are things that you could use indifferent situations.
And then beneath those are thefour shadow archetypes, which is
(24:36):
what happens when we're notdoing well.
And the warrior archetype turnsinto the tyrant, which is where
the need to achieve becomes anoverwhelming drive.
It's like I, if I'm nothyper-achieving, I feel like I'm
not valuable.
So the woman's always looking todo more, to be more, to be
delivering more.
And so she drives herself reallyhard, she drives her team really
hard if she's got a team.
Um, often you see perfectionismsits there, imposter syndrome
(24:59):
sits there, this feeling of I'mnot doing enough and I'm never
going to be enough.
And the trouble withperfectionism is that you can
never be perfect, so you'llalways feel like you're failing.
And so there's a real sense ofurgency in the tyrant space.
It's always really urgentenergy.
Everything's got to happen nowand quickly, even when things
aren't urgent, it gets turnedinto an urgent task.
And then the wise woman turnsinto the lone wolf, which is
that lovely sense of sharingknowledge becomes I've got to
(25:21):
hoard the knowledge in order tobe powerful.
So I'm not going to share, I'mnot going to delegate, I'm not
going to tell you what I'mdoing.
I'm going to keep the knowledge,you know, hoarded within me.
Because if I'm the only personwho knows how to do this, then I
can't be replaced.
And the lone wolf needs to feelin control, you know, what's
going on.
I need to control everybody andeverything in my sphere.
So when I'm in control, I feelsafe.
(25:42):
But if I lose control, I startto not feel safe.
The tribe builder archetypeturns into the um the martyr,
and that's about people pleasingand sacrificing self in order to
be liked.
And so you get that sense inorganizations and in leadership
of women who are just supernice.
They're too nice.
They're offering to do thingsthat are outside of their job
description, they're kind ofbending over backwards to make
(26:02):
everybody happy.
They're the ones who organisemorning tea all the time, and
then they're the ones who packthe dishwasher afterwards and
you know, pack everything up andthrow everything away, and
nobody says thank you.
That sort of space of um, youknow, really feeling taken
advantage of at some time, youknow, in some times because um
boundaries are really weak.
It's this sense if I say no topeople, they won't like me, so I
need to keep them happy.
(26:23):
And then right down the bottomof the dime, we've got a hermit
archetype, which is likewithdrawing into a hermit cave.
It really is that sense ofprocrastination, putting things
off, avoiding things.
I don't want to be involved inthat, I don't want to see
people, you know, whatever,whatever that the focus is, but
they'll really withdraw from theworld.
And I had a um, I was talking tothis about a woman, talking to a
woman about this recently.
(26:43):
She's one of my accreditedpractitioners in the model, and
she said to me, I really get asense of when I'm in the hermit.
She said, I really know whatit's like.
She said, I have days when, likeeverybody does, when sometimes
you just need a rest and youjust want to lie on the couch
and watch, you know, watchmovies and eat biscuits or
something.
She said, I but that feels verydifferent to the hermit.
She said, When I'm in thehermit, she said, it's almost
(27:03):
like I can't help it.
I know I should be getting outof it.
I know I should be takingaction.
I know I should be dealing withwhatever it is that's out there,
but I just can't.
And that is the realdifferentiator is this feeling
of I can't deal with it versusI'm choosing not to.
You know, I'm just choosing tohave a do in a day versus I
can't get out of bed because thethe idea of getting out of bed
is too hard for me.
So that's kind of their model ina nutshell, I guess.
(27:24):
It's the very short version ofit.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
That's a very powerful model.
So thank you for sharing that,Ross.
I think those who lovearchetypes, or even those who
are curious about patterns ofbehavior, or who love stories,
love storytelling, who recognizethemselves or recognize someone
they know and work with in someof these archetypes.
And the interesting thing Ithink is, you know, with a
(27:47):
tyrant, with a lone wolf, with amartyr, I wonder if there is a
sense of a not enoughness that'sdriven by you mentioned safety.
I wonder if safety or the lackof safety is behind some of
these uh expressions, thesethese unhealthy expressions.
(28:08):
For instance, if I don't feelsafe to to give myself
permission to rest sometimes,then I will have I'll
overcompensate by driving myselfand my team too hard because
rest equals not beingproductive, rest equals
laziness, or rest is is makes mefeel guilty.
And that could also be due toour conditioning for some people
from childhood, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (28:30):
Totally.
All of these things come fromchildhood.
So um one of the things that wasreally interesting when I was
developing the model and pullingit all together was overlaying
other sorts of models to seewhere there are correlations.
And one of the things that wasreally interesting is the fact
that the four shadow archetypesactually correlate with the
threat responses in humans.
So we've got fight, flight,freeze, or fawn.
And the fight, the flightresponse is actually that
(28:51):
tyrant, like you said, that fearof if I stop, I'm failing.
If I'm not doing enough, I'mfailing.
So it's that sense of constantlybeing being on the move.
So delivering andover-delivering is being on the
move, which is really runningaway from whatever it is that's
that's you know, holding usback.
And the um fight is the lonewolf, which is she fights back,
she gets combative, she startswithholding data, she starts
being manipulative.
The um fawn response is ourmartyr.
(29:14):
You know, fawning is where youbasically try to be as nice as
possible to the people who arethreatening you so that they
won't hurt you.
And then the freeze response isthe hermit.
And all of these are learnedpatterns from our childhood.
It's uh it's the way that we dowith trauma when it comes down
to it.
These are trauma responses.
As very young children, we'velearned this way of dealing with
things that are threats in ourlives, and they play out for us
(29:34):
as adults as well.
You know, we learn to do thisbecause it's been something in
the past that's helped us besafe.
SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
So, does your work also involve working through
these trauma responses withclients?
SPEAKER_01 (29:45):
Yes, yeah.
And that's the thing is that umunless we actually engage with
what's happening beneath thesurface there, people will
always uh go there when thingsaren't going well.
And so a lot of the work aroundcoaching people into being, you
know, more empowered is aroundactually dealing with how does
this, how does this play out foryou and giving in people
developing ways of ofeffectively managing it because
(30:08):
we're never going to get rid ofthe sort of things that have
happened in our past, but it'sabout how do we deal with it
more effectively.
So, for example, if you know welook at the tyrant and that need
to run away, you know, that sortof need to be driven and to be
doing, you know, I've got to bedoing in order to feel like I'm
doing, you know, I'm um addingvalue.
Sometimes that's just about youknow, literally running away,
like going, doing some exercise,going for a run, getting up and
dancing, shaking it off.
(30:29):
You know, they've actually foundthat you know, shaking yourself
is actually a really good way ofsort of dissipating all of the
energy that goes with that.
Um, you know, if we look at youknow, cortisol and adrenaline,
if we look at it in animals, forexample, if an animal gets
attacked by a lion, it's allover and done in a few minutes.
It's either they're dead orthey're not, you know, but
they've actually used therunning away as being the thing
that's burnt off all of those,um, you know, all the chemicals.
(30:49):
And in humans, we don't havethat.
You know, something happensthat's stressful at work and
we're sitting at our desk and wedon't get up and go away or do
anything.
And so it plays out in terms ofI've got to work really hard in
order to sort of work off thatit's it's but it doesn't
actually work because we're notphysically moving.
And so just getting up andrunning around or you know,
dancing or shaking, just shakingour arms and legs can be a
really good way of actuallygetting rid of that energy.
(31:09):
So things like that we can teachpeople to do.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
It sounds to me that what you're saying is we
actually need to re-look at theway we work because it's
actually a very artificialsystem.
It's not designed to help usthrive.
If we are looking to nature asan example, we're actually doing
the very opposite.
We don't move enough, weinternalize, we don't express,
(31:34):
we hold back, we judgeourselves, we judge others
harshly, and we don't haveenough outlets to release, you
know, and so we get stagnant orwe get stuck or we get into
these mental loops that are youknow constantly negative,
perpetuating a negative messageeither about ourselves or about
other people.
(31:55):
We don't have something thatcomes in to interrupt that.
So, what can workplaces and whatcan lead us to differently or do
better to ensure that the systemis aligned in a more healthy way
so that everyone can thrive.
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
And look, this goes back um, you know, years,
generations really to when theindustrial revolution started,
where people left theirfamilies.
You know, prior to that weworked and lived together in
little communities.
We lived and worked in smallvillages where we knew
everybody, you know, and then westarted leaving our family, or
men did left their familiesbehind and went to work.
And so the system is veryartificial, like you said.
(32:34):
And a lot of it's been aroundthe um this idea that you you
don't bring your emotions towork, you don't bring your life
to work.
It's almost like when you get tothe door of work, you take off
your life and you hang it up ina locker and lock the door and
you don't pick it up again untilyou leave work.
And so we've created thisexpectation that we we park our
emotional state, we parkeverything at the door and we
(32:54):
just go in and focus on work.
And that's not how humans work.
We can't, it's all carried withus.
And when there's no outlet forthat in the workplace, where
there's no safe space to say,you know what, I just had a
really crappy morning.
Excuse me, but that yeah, thisyou know, that sort of sense the
morning hasn't been, it hasn'tgone well for me.
And you haven't had that outletwhere it's safe to do that.
So we bottle it all up, we kindof put the game face on, and
(33:16):
it's like I'm at work, I betterbe really super professional
right now.
And so we we've created thissystem where we don't allow
people to be human.
And look, I'm not saying this isevery workplace, some workplaces
are actually really good atthis, but there are lots that
aren't where you like I rememberbeing at um, you know, way back
in my early career, and thissort of sense that if women were
upset at all at work, they'd getyou know told, oh, it's you, you
(33:39):
know, that's just what women do,they're too emotional to be in
the workplace, or you know, theymust be on their period was a
big thing that we used to getbandied about.
And so women learnt to thatthere was shame in expressing
emotion.
We learnt that we needed tobottle it all up and again sort
of put on that game place andact like a man.
And we've created a systemthat's just not healthy for
people, and we do need to unpackthat, we do need to create more
(34:01):
um space for humanity in theworkplace, and certainly the
conversations more recentlyaround psychological safety are
wonderful because that's thekind of thing we need to be
talking about is how do wecreate spaces where it's
actually okay to be human, toyou know, bring your best self
to work.
But yeah, there's gonna be atime when you bring your worst
your worst self to work too.
And how do we deal with that?
How do we help people with umyou know, maybe it's coaches,
(34:23):
therapists, there'spractitioners out there who can
support people who areexperiencing trauma because
traumatized people bring traumato work and they cause trauma to
other people inadvertently.
You know, people aren't comingto work and going, I'm gonna
bring my trauma and smack youwith it, but it happens.
And the more we can sort offocus in on the negative side of
what it means to be human, thebetter off we'll be in terms of
thriving.
SPEAKER_00 (34:43):
You've reminded me that it's not just for us to
wait for the system to catch up.
I think on an individual level,on a peer-to-peer level, there
are things we can do to createthat kind of connection and
caring in the office space.
Because what you said wereearlier on was that we've lost
that sense of connection.
We used to function in villages,in communities.
(35:04):
Now we are sort of operating,you know, every man for himself
and every woman for herself.
But we're not we're not wiredthat way.
Certainly, women are are wiredto be a lot more collaborative
and to, you know, work acrossrather than hierarchically.
So on a individual level, whatcan people do differently to
start becoming more empowered inthe way they lead?
SPEAKER_01 (35:27):
As leaders, we can certainly have an impact on our
own team.
We maybe we can't impact thesystem, but we can have impacts
on our own local area.
It's that sort of think local,you know, think global, at local
thing of, you know, can weeducate ourselves better?
Can we learn to create safespaces for people?
Can we make it okay for peopleto talk about what's happening
in their lives genuinely?
Can we provide people with thesupport that they need?
(35:48):
Um, one of the interestingthings I remember reading a long
time ago, and I cannot rememberwho said it, but it was a they
were interviewing um a woman whowas an anthropologist, and they
said, at what time do you sortof consider, like how long ago
do you consider that we becamehuman?
Like what was the sign that webecame human?
And they were probably expectingher to talk about the when we
first started harnessing fire asa good example.
(36:09):
But she actually said, and itwas going back a really long
time, I don't, I'm not gonnaremember any of the details, so
I won't get it wrong.
But essentially she said thefirst sign of humanity was she
actually uncovered a skeletonthat had a fractured thigh bone
and that thigh bone had healed.
And she said, but what thatmeans is because the person
would have been completelyincapable of moving around and
doing anything for themselves,it meant that somebody looked
(36:31):
after them.
And she said that was the startof humanity.
And I just love that the factthat somebody was incapable of
doing things for themselves andthat somebody looked after them.
And that's I think the missinglink for us as leaders is how do
we ensure that the people aroundus are supported and healthy.
And we're getting a lot betterat it in organizations.
(36:51):
There's certainly a lot ofprograms that have been put in
place to support people, butthere's always more we can do.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And I think the other missing link is also to
make sure that we are payingattention to our own needs.
So we're not bringing our traumato work.
That we're doing the inner work,we're reaching out to the
coaches, the therapists, doingwhatever it takes to get more
movement in, to find creativeoutlets, to find ways we can
discharge some of that, youknow, nervous energy or you
(37:18):
know, some of the negativeemotions that come up in the
course of a day.
So, what is one thing you wouldlike our listeners to take away
from our conversation today?
SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
I think the big takeaway is that that
combination of looking afterself and looking after others.
It's about recognizing, and thisis an emotional intelligence
piece, is that the big bit isrecognizing we're in a negative
space.
So you might, you know, onceyou've heard about the
archetypes, for example, I getclients and I get my credit
practitioners who are talkingabout things like I didn't have
(37:49):
a great day today, I was verylone wolf, or I really felt
myself slipping to the tyrant,or I had a martyr day today.
But recognising being able toput language around it is really
important.
And then doing something aboutthat, because just because we've
experienced something that'screated an emotion for us
doesn't mean we need to takeaction on that.
It's enough to just recognisethe emotion and process it and
(38:09):
let it pass by.
So just say, for example, we getum just say we've got somebody
who's naturally tends to thesort of tyrant energy that's
sort of, you know, got to provemyself all the time.
And something happens at workwhere she feels um, you know,
devalued or that she hasn'tadded enough value.
Now that can be the trigger forher to descend tyrant to really
kind of drive herself evenharder, but recognizing that and
(38:30):
going, actually, that's not ahealthy pattern.
You know, I need to do somethingdifferent now.
And just because I feel like Ineed to do something doesn't
mean I have to actually doanything with this.
And that's the, I suppose, thediscernment point is recognizing
you don't have to take action onthe way that you feel.
SPEAKER_00 (38:44):
It sounds to me, well, what you're saying is
there needs to be thatself-awareness and then the
ability to interrupt your ownpattern, to almost be the
observer.
I think you notice this iscoming up again.
I've been through this before, Iknow what happens next, and I'm
going to do something right nowto interrupt that.
So that is that is extremelyuseful.
So thank you for that.
What is the best way for peopleto connect with you and work
(39:05):
with you, Ross?
SPEAKER_01 (39:07):
I'm on LinkedIn, is probably the main place you'll
find me on socials.
I do have presence on a lot ofother socials, but I don't tend
to spend a lot of time there.
Um, I've got two websites.
I've got my consulting business,which is shapeandchange.com.au,
and the women's leaderarchetypes have their own
website, which iswomen'sleaderarchetypes.com.au.
So you can find me at either ofthose places as well.
SPEAKER_00 (39:26):
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate you, Roz,for sharing your time and your
wisdom with us today, thesharing the women's archetypes
in leadership model andexplaining to us, you know, all
the all the ways in whichchildhood conditioning and our
environment can result in usunconsciously bringing our
(39:47):
trauma to work with us and howimportant it is to be self
aware, to take selfresponsibility, but at the same
time, too, for leaders to be tothink more holistically and
healthily about the way we arelooking after all of our
employees.
So, if you enjoyed today'sepisode, be sure to leave a
five-star rating and review tohelp the Quiet Warrior podcast
reach more introverts and quietachievers around the world.
(40:10):
And for recommended resources onhow to thrive as an introvert,
make sure you're subscribed tothe Visible Introvert newsletter
at Serenalo.com.au.
See you on the next episode.
I'm so grateful that you're heretoday.
If you found this contentvaluable, please share it on
your social media channels andsubscribe to the show on your
(40:31):
favorite listening platform.
Together we can help moreintroverts thrive.
To receive more upliftingcontent like this, connect with
me on Instagram at SerenaloQuiet Warrior Coach.
Thank you for sharing your timeand your energy with me.
See you on the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.