The Emotional Wake: Intentional Leadership and Its Ripple Effects, with Mike Williamson

In this episode of *The Mental Health Couch*, host Nick McEwan sits down with leadership development consultant and coach Mike Williamson. With years of experience across corporate, educational, and not-for-profit sectors in both Australia and the UK, Mike shares his insights on effective leadership, the importance of psychological safety, and the emotional impact leaders have on their teams.

They delve into personal stories, discussing the significant influences that shaped their leadership journeys, including memorable mentors and challenging experiences. Mike emphasizes the need for leaders to create environments where team members feel safe to express concerns and provide feedback without fear of repercussions. The conversation highlights the critical role of middle managers—whom Mike refers to as "connecting leaders"—in bridging gaps between senior leadership and front-line staff, stressing the importance of training and support in these pivotal roles.

Listeners will gain practical tools for fostering psychological safety and enhancing team dynamics, learning how intentional leadership can lead to more motivated and engaged employees. Join them as they explore how building a leadership culture of openness and feedback not only benefits individual well-being but also drives organizational success.

Transcript

Nick McEwan Speaks with Mike Williamson

Nick McEwan: [00:00:00] In today's episode, I'm speaking with Mike Williamson.

Michael Williamson: My name is Mike Williamson. I'm a leadership development consultant and coach and I bring experience several sectors including corporate education and not-for-profit, both in Oz and in the uk.

Nick McEwan: I've known Mike for a few years now, and I've always been interested in his take on leadership and coaching, so I thought it'd be cool to bring him onto the podcast for a conversation, and it was a great chat. It left me with new tools and new ways of thinking, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Michael Williamson: So Nick, great to be with you this morning. really pleased to be invited on.

Nick McEwan: Mike is a leadership development consultant and coach with extensive experience across the corporate education and for purpose sectors both here in Australia and the uk. His career has encompassed state and national leadership roles at some of Australia's leading for purpose organizations.

His deep understanding and broad knowledge of contemporary leadership enables Mike to deliver tailored, practical, and engaging professional development. He has, he's been [00:01:00] told unhealthy obsessions with Arsenal Football Club, going to the gym and reading books about leadership teams and coaching. Welcome to the podcast.

And you know, I think what. What's interesting is I, I started out as a management consultant and my career has come full circle. So what I, what I tend to focus on in my work is helping leaders become better coaches. For example, also how to establish trust and psychological safety in that sense.

So I'm, you know, I'm sure we'll, we'll get into the detail of that. As we go. I'm based in Melbourne. I live in the inner south beach with my partner, got three independent, uh, adult, I, i dunno what the word is, but I've kind of children and recently a grandson as well. So yeah that's a little bit about me.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Recently a grandad. That's exciting. That's cool.

It is cool. It's a bit confronting as well, the last time I looked at my watch, I was still in my forties nick, so, it's just come [00:02:00] around. It's a wonderful thing though.

It really is.

So nice. So nice. I thought we might just jump straight into it, and I know we've. Sort of had our notes backwards and forwards, and one of the things that really stood out to me was you had a big list of things that have, that you said were the biggest kind of impacts in your life, and there were different dimensions professionally, personally, you mentioned your partner there in your intro as well.

What are some of those memorable things for you? What are those impactful things that have happened for you?

Michael Williamson: Yeah I love this question. I think it's quite a hard one. In some ways, but when I think about influence or impact on me professionally, there is one huge standout, not someone I work with a couple of decades ago, he was an amazing leader of an organization. He was a mentor to me. And he opened the windows to me around leadership and, how he can really drive excellence and results in a team, you can do that and still maintain great relationships.

And in [00:03:00] fact, the two go together. So he was a, a real mentor. I'm still in touch with him actually. I think that's where the, Steve, for me was sign of. If you wanna call it a tion with leadership. So yeah, professionally, that, is an absolute standout.

Nick McEwan: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I've talked to so many people, about how they. Came to do what they do. And a lot of people, myself included, can look backwards and look at a situation or a person and go, that person, in that situation, in that context really had a big impact on me.

I think everyone's got at least one of those stories along the way, at least to one, I reckon. Yeah,

Michael Williamson: absolutely. And, that kind of drives my work. When I think about when you're in the workplace, if you have a leader who is. In a.

Knock on benefits the people that they lead. that was, a junction in my life meeting that person and being mentored by them. think the other thing to mention here though is that [00:04:00] sometimes in the workplace as well still we come across people who perhaps are.

The opposite to that. And they're not very pleasant and they lead a toxic environment and they teach us an awful lot as well. They teach us how not to do it. And there's some dangers in that, which we might get to.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. It's true though, isn't it? The two sides are the same coin, right?

It's like, well, this is what I like and what's been impactful on me. And I guess what we could say is a positive way, and then, yeah, here are the impacts that have had on me in a negative kind of way. Like, things I didn't like, things I didn't enjoy, or that might've been hurtful, or whatever it might be.

Yeah.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. And that makes me think of something that I remember probably 10, 15 years ago doing some professional development and personal development with a coach, he said. You know, when you're a leader you'll leave an emotional wake. Whether you like it or not. Yeah. It really kind of, resonated with me.

[00:05:00] And so you need to get intentional about what impact you have. So that's really interesting. I think that whole era about impact and intentionality, and the other side of things, personally, I think my parents, I grew up in a very loving environment.

I don't think my parents had any intentional at all. I don't think in those days, many people had the knowledge about it. But, you know, the most important thing was there was care, um, and challenge actually.

I dad hard. Which I think is true, but you kind of have to fight that work ethic thing sometimes as well to get the balance right.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. And as you're saying that, it makes me think about, you know, I've got this very visual picture in my head of like a big cruise ship, like cruising through the open ocean with that or wake that in like behind it.

And so [00:06:00] impactful, and that's happening, like you said, regardless of what we're intending, that kind of wake is happening and that intention versus impact question's really interesting too. And I, it's something I talk a lot about in mental health First aid training, because people will say, well, I, I had good intentions.

Yeah, I wanted to help, but maybe the way I didn't. Maybe the way I did it really had a impact that wasn't quite what I wanted. So this kind of intention and impact, there's separate things that kind of work together and feel like you want both of them in your sites to really do things well.

And they should align a little bit if you can make that. But it's such a visual way to think about that emotional wake. Yeah, it's really interesting.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, really happy to, talk about some of those I call them, foundational principles to leadership that will make that weight a positive one.

Nick McEwan: Yeah, well let's talk about it. 'cause your work is in that leadership coaching and development kind of space. So yeah, why don't we talk about it? It'll give people a good insight into [00:07:00] the work that you do and Yeah. How you do it, which I think is really interesting for people to, so tell me more.

What's on your mind we think about this whole piece?

Michael Williamson: a number of years ago, Google did. There is such about what makes the perfect team? I don't believe there is any such thing. Um, there's been a couple of sports teams, like the US 1992 Dream Team, the basketball team.

They seemed to be the perfect team, but I think in the workplace, there isn't any such thing. But Google did their research, they call it Project Aristotle. , And it was about the same time that Amy Edmondson, who's a, Harvard Business professor, and now work in psychological safety.

What Google did is they investigated hundreds of their teams, thousands of employees and the result really surprised them. They thought it was gonna be about the demographics of the team and the technical capability in the teams. And what they found was the common denominator in their high performing teams was there was psychological safety in the teams.[00:08:00]

So , people felt safe defining what psychological safety is not is a good thing to do, and it's not. You can do whatever you like. It's not, we don't have accountability. What it's about is people feeling safe to raise issues or concerns or to provide feedback up without any fear of repercussions.

And that was really surprising for Google. So I do a fair bit of work around that within teams whether it's one-on-one leadership coaching or co-design workshops with a particular team. There's so much in that, but I think you know that there's more and more evidence of that is.

A absolute truth.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. And it makes so much sense. Doesn't it really? Like when we think about it, it makes so much sense, that kind of idea that when people are being vulnerable, when , giving feedback or making a comment that. I think maybe they don't know how it's gonna be taken. Right. Or there's a fear that it might be [00:09:00] taken the wrong way or there's a repercussion or some kind.

But to the way I think about, it's like when people are vulnerable, we want them to not only be able to be vulnerable, but if they want to, I wanna reward them for that. I want them to feel a positive by being vulnerable with me. Right? It's the whole thing is the whole piece just wrapped up in a nice little thing.

I guess where I sometimes get struggles with this stuff is. That there's an element of subjectivity to it. ? So how do I know when somebody is feeling safe? That kind of thing. But I think there's some universal truth as to how we can set this up, which I'm sure , you've worked on in your work.

Yeah.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. I like that phrase, universal truth. And I think, one of the things you can do, and I Edmondson, , makes her work freely available is you can go and measure. The level of psychological safety in your team or your organization now, just by doing that and asking people's input is gonna improve that area.

And so you could, you can measure it and then you can work out what. [00:10:00] Perhaps you as a team or an organization need to do to make it better. And it's gotta come from the leadership level, the top level to make that decision. , But I think, if you've got that, if you've got the psych safety, if you've got the trust of your people, it, it doesn't mean that you don't confront poor performance or inappropriate behavior.

It does tie in with the whole area of how to get and how to give feedback. And I always say, if you're gonna do anything as a leader in the feedback space, make sure the first bit is to ask for it. I suppose the other principle in all of that is never, ever shoot the messenger.

If you get bad news. Just say thank you. Whether that bad news is about results or whether it's about you. Just say thanks. So yeah, it's a really. I think the whole area is very interesting [00:11:00] and, more and more neuroscience evidence is coming through around this.

Nick McEwan: Yeah, it's a fascinating space, isn't it? I think people might understand what it is from their own perspective, like their own kind of experience of feeling safe, like psychologically safe and it can be hard to put that into. Words, I think, to document it or to articulate it sometimes.

So I think there's a decent amount of storytelling that kind of has to happen here as well. People need to say, this is what makes me feel safe. This is what makes me not feel safe at all. And everything in between. Right. Between those two ends of that spectrum.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. And I think that has to start with a leader. I often use that there's, that, I've got a framework of six questions that a leader can ask to promote psychological safety. And one of those might be something like what's one thing I do that gets in the way of you been successful?

And it's really showing openness to that feedback. So that, that's, for me, that's one of the [00:12:00] key areas. I I also help leaders become better at being a coach. Not to say that. Coaching is always the best. Sometimes you've gotta be more forceful to leader it, but if you're gonna have a default, being a good coach is a great one.

And , you know that you've worked in that space as well. When I work with an organization, I, I find, efficacy. If, If I come in and go, we're gonna cover these things. I tend to go in and listen to what is happening in the organization or the team, and then we'll co-design around, around certain frameworks.

Nick McEwan: And it taps into something. You and I talked about in our kind of pre podcast kind of discussions. It's about. Those connecting leaders. As you put it, like connecting leaders, middle managers, people might know these people as, and I find that a lot of the time people in those roles, because they have that pressure from above and that pressure from below, it can be a really difficult [00:13:00] place to be vulnerable, right?

To be vulnerable with people. 'cause you've got all these different kind of stakeholders and at the same time, we have such big expectations for this group of people in our businesses and in our workplaces. I know you're passionate about this kind of wording around this stuff, so talk me through, middle managers, connecting leaders, that whole piece because.

I think if we understand a bit more about the differences and how we think about those folks, then we're gonna do a better job at supporting them from a psychological safety point of view.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, you've hit on the topic and you know that you're gonna get me started on this, I think, yeah. So look calling these people middle managers is just the tip of the iceberg for me. We talk about aspiring leaders. We talk about senior leaders, executive leaders, and then we go, you are middle managers, you're not even leaders, you're managers. I love the term connecting leaders for this group because they connect the senior with the frontline, they connect strategy [00:14:00] with operations, and they are leader of.

I don't dunno whether disturbed is too strong a phrase, right? But I know that in the corporate world, I know people in the corporate world who experience this in the not-for-profit in the local government area, maybe not quite so much, but we say to someone, you are really good at your role. I love what you do technically, and I'm gonna, we're gonna promote you to lead the team.

But we're not gonna give you any, any training or support. It's extraordinary that we do that, that we expect someone, because for me, what it does, and as I say, I can get a little bit strident on this one. Um, but I do feel very passionate about it because if you let someone go into a team leadership role.

And they haven't gotten the support or training I've done none of the foundational principles. It will affect their mental [00:15:00] health. They'll be really stressed. They haven't been given any, guidance. Not saying it happens all the time, but it does still happen now. You know, we're talking about emotional wake.

How does that affect the people that they're leading when they haven't had any training? So, yeah, I will pause because, I can go on and on about this one, but it's a really important, we think about future leaders as well and the future of organizations.

We've gotta, we've gotta,

When I was gardening yesterday, I was thinking about this. You know, we, we, you have to garden regularly. You have to clean, you have to prune, you have to water. And in the same way, we need to nurture people. That's not to say we let them do what they want.

Nick McEwan: Mm-hmm. It's so true. I'm thinking about one of my first real jobs, when I first moved to Melbourne and decided I wanted to work in adult education and it was a not-for-profit, and, the leader there left, the coordinator left and they literally looked around and said, who's good at their job?

This is literally the conversation we had. They said, Nick, you're [00:16:00] really good at what you do. Why don't you be the coordinator? And I was like, great. As a young kind of 22-year-old, I was like. Fantastic. I'm gonna be a coordinator. That's amazing.

And that emotional wake, that idea that you've planted in my head now, when I look back at some of the challenges I had leading that team, it was the emotional wake I was leaving behind. I felt great. I thought I was doing a fantastic job. My leader at the time was going, yep, you're doing all the things we need you to do.

Like it's going really well, we trust you. All of that sort of stuff. So from the top, I'm getting. It's all good, messages and from the bottom I was getting, there was lots of challenges there. There were lots of issues and. A lot of it has to have been to do with my skillset at the time, and that ability also, not just the skillset in terms of practical, can I do the work, but also the emotional skillset there as well to go, you know what, like I don't think I've got the right tools, or I think I'm stuffing this up, or whatever it is.

I just did. It wasn't that I wasn't psychologically safe, it [00:17:00] was that I didn't have the tools to even know. That was what was going on, and there was no leadership training. It wa was literally accidental leadership. I remember doing a conference presentation about accidental leadership in the sector that I worked in for a long time.

And it was that story and it's so common and that question you, you posed before about it's gotta be bad for our mental health. I think there was definitely parts of that job that really challenged me in terms of like make me feel stressed, but because I wasn't so aware, I didn't have the impact.

Right. So. It's this kind of awareness. The more we know, the more we can do that kind of piece. It's really interesting. But that wake idea, I can, I have things coming to my memory now about conversations I had that I can still remember. That was definitely because the emotional wake that I was leaving behind as a leader, as a manager in that place.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what you've made me think about there is the fact that, or the idea that, [00:18:00] it's gotta be driven from top level of leadership. But you know what are we trying to do? We just, after getting things done, are we just after getting the results. Surely we wanna help people grow and develop, and I think that's what the best leaders do.

And you need to be given guidance on how to do that. I talk about this all the time, that, how you define leadership, the words you use around that are really important. And I have simplified it over the years into, great leadership is about.

Getting results through other people, but helping those people develop along the way. And you've gotta do both.

Nick McEwan: If we're gonna achieve results through other people, we need to make sure that those other people have got the skills so they can get the results.

You must have seen so many examples of this where it hasn't been working the way that we are talking about it. What do you think the barriers are for people in that situation? They're stuck as leaders or [00:19:00] managers or, coordinators or whatever kind of words we're putting on it.

What do you think the barriers are for people who are in that situation? Who might wanna change it or don't know that they need to change it. From your perspective working with them, what do you reckon the kind of key barriers, or maybe not barriers, but what are the things that you'd focus on with that person to help them see through it?

Michael Williamson: Yeah, it's a great question, Nick. I love the question, I think for me but it's about kind of individual self-awareness. And it's also about the social awareness within the organization. And for someone to change and grow and develop, sometimes you've gotta, it's about stopping. It's about what you stop doing.

When we talk about coaching, the leader as a coach, sometimes what the leader has to do is you've gotta stop giving advice. You've gotta stop telling, you need to ask questions. The best leaders ask great [00:20:00] questions. They don't have all the answers, and they recognize that. So again, I can rattle on for while on this one, but I think self-awareness, and I think if you can give people tools for, to become a reflective leader and give them some tools.

So for example, we talked before about self care and, I think sometimes doing some journaling and some reflection. I recommend that all leaders do it, at least, maybe once a fortnight. Ideally once a week, what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, why not?

So building that kind of self-awareness, nothing is really, really important. So yeah, there are barriers. And you've gotta have to grow as a connecting leader, you've gotta have someone who's your manager, who's willing to invest in you and who has belief in you. So it's about, again, it's about relationship and it's about that kind of really important personal connection too.

Nick McEwan: And having that external [00:21:00] person, I think in your role as a coach, have someone sitting completely thoroughly outside the situation, objectively offering insights and observations and in that style of a coach sort of asking some questions about that and letting people come to that position as they are able to, I think.

Yeah, with that external support. And we see this the same with when we're talking about mental health and supporting people with their mental health. Often they need an external person because for whatever they're going through, they cannot do it themselves. You right. It's an inability and it's not a, it's not a competency based inability.

It's a, they don't have the capacity, they're unable to, it's not a question of can they count, they shouldn't. They, it's just like. They can't, you know,\ it's like saying, well that chair, I could, you know, the chair I'm looking at, I can wish to the end of the day that it turns into a table, but it can't.

So it's sort of like, well, if I sit there and I keep going, oh, as soon as that chair turns into a table, it'll gonna be fine. [00:22:00] You know, we're not really doing the right thing.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. Yeah, and I think maybe what that suggests to me while you're talking there is, \ about helping people with their mindset.

And when I'm doing one-on-one coaching, whether that's at a senior level or more, in the connecting leader space or sometimes even with aspiring leaders, it's really, it's quite often that people are at a. Crossroads and they want to move up a level or , they want to go and do something differently.

And, that sometimes just, all it is, is someone in your corner to go, you can do this because our own self talk and in mental health. I know you sure talk about. This kind of area is so important. That's not to say just by believing you can do it but it's a really important first step.

And the other thing I find in one-on-one coaching, particularly at the senior level, is quite often, I'll be working with someone that comes to coaching because there's a real. Pressure, [00:23:00] and it might just be I was doing some work with a leader a couple of months back who he just wanted to leave the office before seven, three days a week.

That was the struggle. And that's definitely got a mental health aspect to it as well. And then sometimes it's quite often in the coaching one-on-one space, it's about interpersonal challenges at work. So that requires, self-reflection, a bit of work.

And once leaders can come to that realization that it's perhaps about. What they do and the effect and impact they're having. That's when you can get, those light bulb moments and if you like, a bit of a step change.

Nick McEwan: Mm. Yeah. Such an interesting space to work with people in, because I feel like.

Part of what we're asking as a coach for that person to do is to be that vulnerable piece to say, well, I don't know, or, I'm not sure, or maybe I don't have the skills. And so, you know, [00:24:00] if they're not feeling that kind of safety in that conversation, then it can really hard for them, for us as coaches, if we're working in that coach forward kinda way.

That it can be really trickier to do that. But again, I guess it goes back to the basics, doesn't it? About, well, we spend time creating those relationships and we spend time deepening the rapport and the connection so that we can do those things. It's a bit of a safety net for those challenging conversations.

Michael Williamson: Most definitely. I couldn't agree more, Nick. And I think that one about, yeah, you have that connection, the trust, the site safety because. The best leaders will, I think, confronts not the right word, but they will challenge, and if they see someone who is not pulling their weight or they think they've got even greater potential, then, , it's holding the mirror up actually quite often.

And whether you are, a leadership coach or whether you are the manager in the workplace. I think it's really important to do that when you need to. So that underpinning piece around, trust and connection is so [00:25:00] important.

Nick McEwan: I think the hold of the mirror up kind of analogy is a really nice one because one of the things that I focus on when I'm working with people to support their people, from a mental health perspective is talking about reality or just objective reality, like what's happening.

Without the judgment. So it's just like, well, here's the facts. Here are the factual things of what's going on, and really working hard to strip away any of the judgment about this is good, or this is bad, or should be more of this, or less of this. And the mirror just reflects what's there, right?

It just reflects what's there without the judgment. If you see something in that mirror that you don't like, it's not the mirror. It's the fact that there's something there that we don't like or maybe something we love that we wanna do more of. Right? So this reality piece of being objective can be so hard when you are in it, like you're in the storm.

It can be so difficult. So again, to have that outside kind of assistance with, that's really [00:26:00] nice.

There must be so many other ways that mental health intercepts in your kind of work. How do you see mental health popping up as themes when you're working with individuals or organizations? Like how does it kind of show up most of all, I guess, in the work that you do?

Michael Williamson: Oh, yeah. I think. In a lot of my work not all of it, Nick, but a lot of it is in the for purpose sector and quite often I often think some of the leaders be unique and come across and work within the sector. My word what amazing things they would do if they had the funding. Okay. , If they had the same funding as some of the corporates, wow.

What a what change? We could see. But they're often in, underfunded environments. And so there, there's a degree of stress around that. I think working with an organization that, that, that does works in the overseas development space and overseas aid and, [00:27:00] trump's policies have impacted on them, so this is out of control sense for them about the external environment.

That kind of stress part of it is that's quite prevalent I think. Going to the other kind of side of the coin, when you. It and they're self aware. They get the piece about psych safety and relationships and connection. You can almost smell it in the room.

When you're with a group, you can see it, you can it, taste it. You can smell , it's really, really evident and that's just a great thing to see because what you're getting is it's kind of wonderful. Combination of great results, great connection. Amongst the team, real challenge as well from the leadership.

And then you've got divided by, if you want the equation, [00:28:00] wellbeing, you know, they're getting all of that. And that's down to the way you know that the leaders are leading the group. In terms of positive mental health I love seeing that. I love seeing that. And it's achievable, right?

It's about intentionality.

Nick McEwan: Yeah, definitely. I think with some of the principles we've been talking about, fundamental to that achievability, right? Like to kind of go, well, if we just bake these things in as skills and practices and ways of working. Then the payoff is that hopefully the positive kind of aspect of that mental health of that team or the kind of wellbeing of that team Yeah.

It comes to play. And it is such a nice place to be when you're there, right? Like as you say, when you walking to a room and or you meet someone and you can just feel it like it's a really nice thing. Yeah. Like the texture of it almost. It's like, ooh, yeah, this feels good.

Michael Williamson: Textures. Yeah. I love that.

Yeah, I love that and, and I think. If you're talking about [00:29:00] for-profit organizations, this is fantastic for the bottom line, because if you haven't got those foundational principles, people will leave. Your retention is going south. People aren't engaged. So yeah, it makes a lot of business sense as well.

No doubt about it.

Nick McEwan: You're absolutely right. It reminds me, or it brings up into my mind that question of values as well, like our personal values, organizational values, and where there's alignment there, then you know, there's less friction kind of thing. And I find for our folks that I work with in not-for-profits, there's often a very strong values alignment between what they like and what they want to do and how they wanna walk through the world.

And the kind of work that they do, it's quite often that I'll meet someone in a not-for-profit and I'll say, how long have you been working here? And they go, oh, you know, 15 years, like a long time. Because there is that kind of values alignment as well. And I think if there is that values alignment, then that's a positive thing in that step of the wellbeing.

But it's so [00:30:00] fragile because not-for-profits also have these realistic challenges like funding and resources and all things. So it's a really difficult space for people to be in a long term without feeling some of that pressure or that stress or that kind of impact on wellbeing, I think. But it's such a protective factor at the same time.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, definitely, definitely. My understanding is that whether there are laws or regulations, Nick in Victoria, by the end of the calendar year, will come in line with other states and territories around psycho social hazards in the workplace, treating those hazards the same as any physical hazards, and it's about time.

But that's gonna be something organizations really need to have a look at. And I don't think it's. It's not necessarily hard to do, it just requires, leadership commitment to, to make that happen, which kind of makes me think about what do you do about people who aren't leading the right way?

And who are creating toxic environments, [00:31:00] and it's really important that the most senior people in the organization don't accept that. And that's gonna become increasingly important.

Nick McEwan: Yeah, I agree. I think it's interesting this legislative landscape that's changing because in a lot of ways.

I think, , as companies and things, we always had that obligation to make sure this was a safe workplace and now it's gonna be super codified in kind of go there it is. Right. So I keep on saying to people, hopefully like we're investing our time and money and effort and energy into this from a prevention perspective, rather than coming at it after something happened.

And I think unfortunately, probably. For some organizations, it's gonna be a little bit of like, something's gonna have to happen, unfortunately, before we see that effort, before we see the input of resources into kind of developing that, that sort of muscle, which I think is really unfortunate. But that's how it is.

But the smart organizations have had some of this [00:32:00] stuff in place for a long time because they've seen the value of it. But the smart organizations. Are ahead of that curve that's coming, which is to say, well, it's gonna be legislated at some point, and underneath all of that, and we can talk about legislation, we can talk about companies, we can talk about blah, blah, blah.

But underneath that are the human beings in those organizations. And some of 'em are struggling, some of 'em are suffering, including some of our leaders who are. Who are, what we would perceive as being really challenging, really toxic, , it's like, well, what's going on for them? That's kind of making them that way.

Right. That's one of the first things that goes through my head, not to Okay, the behaviors or anything like that, but just go, well, yeah, you're in a context, you're a leader in a context. What's happening for you that's making you behave in these ways.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, and you know, I think, that's why you know that these.

The connecting leaders that they're the senior leaders of the future. It's really important to give them the skills they need for the longer term. Yeah.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. It's funny, I was talking to someone last week and they said, [00:33:00] oh, they asked me, they said, oh, you know, one of the challenges with getting people to do mental health first aid training as one sort of way to address some of this stuff.

And I gave the analogy, I won't quite get it right today, I don't think, but I, a subset said, it's kinda like saying to someone who, you know, let's say your operator saw mill. And you've got massive sores and things and you say, well, yeah, that's a really dangerous saw there.

But we don't really train people 'cause sores are sharp and some people will probably lose their limbs. Yeah. And people should know that saws are sharp, but people should know that they shouldn't put their fingers on it and. They should know all these things. There's lots of assumptions there, but if we think about that from a mental health perspective, what we know about that stuff is people do not know that things are challenging.

People do not know how things work. They do not know how mental illness works. They do not know they, our mental health works. So this psych safety piece I see as a bit of a. Like it's a structural thing, which I think will [00:34:00] allow people to kind of go, I don't know that, I don't know that I need to know that.

I'd like to know that. It's like an enabling force, I think, for some people, but I think it's gonna be really hard for others.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, and I think, that there's few good things that came out. The global pandemic. But I think awareness about mental health and, the importance of connection and relationship were a couple of them.

But, when we're talking about mental health, one of the things I wanted to mention was kind of non workplace, stuff around mental health. I, um, think we spoke about this before briefly, but I think men's mental health is. All mental health is important, right? But I think men's mental health is particularly it has been problematic in this country.

If you look at the male suicide rate it's unbelievable, isn't it? So I attend a men's book club, monthly book club. It's called Tough Guy Book Club. So that, that's very tongue in cheek and ironic, name, but it's an amazing thing and how it's evolved. It started in Fitzroy probably, I think.

10, 12 years ago, [00:35:00] just a couple of people who started it, and it's now there are chapters of the book Club of TCO book club right across the country. There are hundreds. It's over in nz, it's in the us it's in the uk. It's quite phenomenal and yeah. Men who read books were tough, it's very funny like that.

The mission of the organization, because it is a. Registered charity get some mental health funding is to help men to read more, and talk more and connect more. And that's just a brilliant thing because a lot of that connection happens beyond the monthly book club. The books we read are really bring up some. They're carefully chosen. Some aren't very popular, but, they bring up some really important topics. So amazing what the organization done. great rules as well.

Nick McEwan: ask you what the rules are.

Michael Williamson: Yeah. Two rules. One is you don't talk about work. which is great. You don't, what do you do for a living? You don't have that [00:36:00] conversation. I've been attending this for three years and there's people that I've no idea what they do for work.

And the other rule is, no dickhead and that's a really good role too. Yeah. I love

Nick McEwan: it. Yeah, when you told me that.

Michael Williamson: That's happening in communities, all over Australia and that's only a good thing.

Nick McEwan: And it's such an interesting model because it's so simple. It's like get people together around a common activity, put some basic structure around it and let the rest happen.

And I think you can so easily replicate those things in workplaces. So easily, and it may not be a book club, but something else in its place. Let's do, people cringe about the lunch, the team lunch and stuff, but actually having places and spaces in, I'm thinking in terms of time in the week, right?

Space in my week to actually just. Talk to people about stuff, is really nice. It's like this morning, I'm here at our shared office space and I was here last week and the guy out there was at the front desk. He was talking about it, his footie tipping and footie tipping is not, I [00:37:00] have no idea about footie tipping, right?

I've got no idea. But we had this conversation about it. Then I saw him again this morning, he was making my coffee and I said, oh, how's your food chipping going? And he's like, oh, it's going really well. Like it's going good. Like, and it's just. To be really honest, like footy tipping is not really my jam at all.

I'm not particularly interested in football, but in terms of having a talk about something that's a bit different, that's not about work. It's not about who we are as people. It's just about this other random thing allows me to feel like I walked away with a smile on my face going, oh, we really connected about that.

You know? it's not like our lives have changed right now, but it's like, I got that little hit of, that was nice. That was a nice connection. It was a nice thing to be able to do, and I felt like I've enabled that for them as well. Right. So, yeah, just these simple things I think can be so important.

I don't think we need to overcomplicate some of this stuff.

Michael Williamson: I agree. [00:38:00] One of the things you reminded of is, you know. Or just after the pandemic and there was, initiatives all over the place around wellbeing and there was quite a lot of I don't know, it wasn't boredom. It was like, oh, not, we're not doing games again.

Are we on the Zoom meeting? And I think that the teams in organizations that.

One size fits all for this. Different things help with wellbeing with different people. And so giving people, agency in an organization to set up a group or do different things and find their own, as long as the organization can facilitate that, that's the important thing.

But yeah, those organizations that don't. Recognize the importance of wellbeing. Will they'll get left behind? I think.

Nick McEwan: I think so. And I mean, we know what the market's like, right? People will leave the organization because organizations are doing it well. ,

and it [00:39:00] reminds me of the whole how working at home or the office kind of thing. People will just go and get a job at an organization that fits them better. So I guess our job is to actually create organizations that fit people better, like that, allow people to feel welcome and to feel a hundred percent there.

I think that's the job.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, I think welcome and, the other word I often talk about with things is you gotta make your people feel valued. People are doing great work. It's, people don't feel valued or recognized. I think it affects mental health. I think it affects motivation and performance, catch people doing the right thing. Alright. And congratulate them. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McEwan: It's a nice thing, isn't it? It's nice to say, Hey, that was really great. That was really lovely. And I think we need that balance. As leaders, we need that balance. If we just, it's so easy just to focus on, Hey, this needs improving and, oh, that hasn't been quite right, or maybe we could do this and we can sit there going, oh, I'm being encouraging.

I'm, showing people how to improve and things. But actually the genuine. [00:40:00] Hey, that looks really great. Hey, that I love that. Yeah. Ooh, that wasn't what I was expecting, but it's much better, like those sorts of things just out of the blue, they have to be genuine and you want to look back at your week even if it's been a massive storm of a week, there's been stuff in there that I've actually can point back to, to say.

Yep. I gave some good feedback and it was genuine. It was delighting, it was all those things. I think if we get that balance right, that goes so much to that sort of triple bottom line of psych safety, but also in terms of helping people feel connected, right? How nice is it to delight and surprise people?

It's beautiful.

Michael Williamson: Absolutely. I think one of the things as well that I a quick tip for leaders who wanna recognize people for their work and give that positive feedback is if you're gonna, for example, if you're saying,, the meeting you ran the other day, that was great. That's not enough.

Tell them why it was great. Connect what they did with what the organization's trying to [00:41:00] do, or tell them what the impact was. Because just saying, yeah, that was great meaning, and then off you go down the corridor, not enough. So we need to get specific on that. But coming back to the thing about, valued and recognized that, if we'd been in a team where we felt like that we know.

How that feels. It's not a warm bar. It's really motivating when you feel valued.

Nick McEwan: Absolutely. Like people will show up and they'll do more and they'll be more, and they'll be more innovative and yeah, they'll just, I think they'll just go that step further and it's not big. And again, I think some people can think, listen to this conversation and think that we're being.

What's the word? It's like we're trying to we're conniving. It's not that. It's actually just saying, Hey, people come to work. Like the person you've got in your team has applied to work with you, they want to be there. If we go right back to that, they've said, that looks like a team I'd like to be part of.

They've interviewed you, you've interviewed them. They're here now. Let them do. [00:42:00] All of the things that they're capable of doing, let them do it. Why do we bring people in and then squish down on their kind of freedom to just do all the things that we think they're awesome at doing, and that's why we hired them.

It just doesn't make sense to me. But on the flip side, I know how easy it is to slip into that.

Michael Williamson: Well, I think there's a famous quote, I think it's Steve Jobs, who said, we don't hire people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people 'cause they're gonna tell us what to do, or something along those lines.

So yeah, really important. One of the things I recommend leaders do is when you've recruited someone, you brought someone onto payroll don't wait until the six month probationary to tell them how they're going. After a couple months, ask them how we are going for you.

I call them entry interviews, right? Yeah. How are we going for you? What's good? What's maybe not so good? People are quiet, taken aback by. When you start doing it, because it doesn't [00:43:00] happen everywhere. Right. Yeah, it does certainly It's a bit of an injection of motivation and engagement.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. It's such a reminder, isn't it? About that importance of that psych safety. 'cause I think if people don't experience psychological safety in those environments, when we say to them, so how are we going, if we're not creating those environments in which people can tell you, then we're gonna get the top line.

Yeah. It's great. Yeah. And we can sit there across the table as the leader going. I know that's not what you mean, we can't really force them to say it. We have to create the environment in which they're, they feel like they can just tell you, right? Yeah. I feel like if someone's going to their performance review and they're not sure how it's gonna go, that's a problem.

They should know. Roughly how it's gonna go, whether that's good or bad. But if they don't know, then maybe they haven't had the feedback. Maybe they just haven't been supported throughout that time.

Michael Williamson: Definitely Nick. Yeah. And you know, getting a culture of feedback where it's okay to

give feedback to your manager. [00:44:00] It's also, feedback is something you do in the everyday. I mean, there's whole, whole workshops that can be done on feedback and how to do that effectively. I'm involved in a webinar in a week or so with some not-for-profit leaders in the volunteer space actually.

So they. They help manage volunteers at their organizations, and it's gonna be about, how do you elicit feedback and then how do you give feedback, effectively. And if, you or I or anybody listening, if you've ever had feedback that was done badly if we wanna talk about the emotional wake, you just wanna run.

You just wanna run away when it's done badly. I've got a couple of memories, which are now funny actually, but at the time they certainly, they didn't amuse me. But, yeah, really important capability as a leader to do that, to get feedback and to give it well

Nick McEwan: interesting. Yeah, it's, so the conversation today has been so interesting because.

We've covered so such different ground, right? We're [00:45:00] talking about the psych safety piece, that connection, be it the leadership aspect, and it all comes back to me, that emotional wake idea that we started off with just picturing in my head it's triangular, it's, it expands, it's like, yep, the boat's this wide, but that wake is huge and it lasts, rages, and we look behind a giant cruise ship.

It's kilometers long. And we can be over there going, oh, look where we're going. That looks beautiful. Like we're going over here. But if someone's stuck back looking the other way going, yeah. But at that point, that was really rough for me. And if we don't have those places

Michael Williamson: Yeah. Or getting slapped in the face by a big wave.

Absolutely. So it just, yeah. I'm glad that's resonated. I think one of the things I'm doing at the moment is, publishing, what would we call it? You can call it a newsletter or a series of articles about leadership. It's called How You Lead. On Substack. And so I think haven't talked to explicitly about the emotional wake piece for a [00:46:00] while, but I think that article's gonna come and it's gonna have a photo of a big cruise ship with a big wake behind it.

Or maybe it's the ferry over to Tasmania. But yeah, I think it's a highly resonant kind of image, isn't it? we're talking about leadership and we're talking about work. I think, this is applicable in all areas of our lives, isn't it?

We have an impact wherever we go. We can try and be intentional about that. Sometimes it's really hard. Respond rather than the react, but we, yeah, we leave that impact wherever we go.

Nick McEwan: Yeah. It's made an impression on me, this idea of that weight that we leave behind and we're just doing what we're doing.

And everyone's gotta wake up that they're leaving behind them too. It's not just the leader, I mean, it's everyone in that example, right? So if you had a harbor full of boats, they're all leaving a wake behind. And so it's complicated, right? But it's such a visual kind of way for us to just think through about how we're showing up, how we're impacting people, and how.

Other people's wake impacts us as well. I think it's such a [00:47:00] nice kind of summary for everything we've talked about today. I feel like you need to go on a cruise, Mike. I feel like you need to book a cruise and just go and do that. Write that article on a cruise, you know, like go do it.

Michael Williamson: Oh, that's, do you know what I've never gotten the stereo across to Tasmania. I've always wanted to do it. And I will at some point, but I think I certainly, I feel like I need a holiday. I need some warm weather, Nick, so that I'm maybe doing something in November or I might leave it till the new year, but certainly, yeah, a cruise.

I've never thought about doing a cruise. I've gotta stay. But I don't mind a thorough trip.

Nick McEwan: I feel like the photo on your article should be a photo you've taken.

Michael Williamson: Ah, I like that. I really like that. Yeah. Okay. You got me thinking now, but

Nick McEwan: I'm a big fan of holidays and booking travel, so you'll always get that from me.

But I think, a lovely way to just think it through and to, again, like we're talking about Yeah. You've said I'm you only for some hot weather. It's back to that wellness, it's back to that kind [00:48:00] wellbeing piece, listening to what you need and how you work and what works best for you.

It's a nice way for us to think about our whole conversation today. I've really enjoyed it. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for that image in my head. And I think I, I'm pretty sure that in the next week or so I'll be telling that story. I'll say, I've talked to Mike and he told me about this idea about this weight that we leave behind because it's so relevant to the work I do and the work that you do as well.

But yeah, it's a nice way for us to think about everything we've talked about, I think.

Michael Williamson: Yeah, that's. my real pleasure to be on. I've loved the conversation and I think, whoever's listening wherever this gets to, you know, the intersect between how we run teams and organizations and mental health is.

So important in so many ways. So yeah, it's been really lovely to be involved.

Nick McEwan: Well, thank you for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. We'll put links and everything into the show notes so people can find you as well. But thanks again, Mike, for being here today. It's been a real pleasure.

no worries. Thanks Nick. Thanks, [00:49:00] Mike.

You've been listening to The Mental Health Couch with me, Nick McEwen Hall. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to stay updated on future episodes. You can also check out all the other episodes on our website at www.thementalhealthcoach.com.au.