Understanding leadership transformation to prevent Working Mom Burnout | Podcast
With Dr Jacqueline Kerr | Behaviour change scientist, professor, author, TED talk speaker, researcher, burnout survivor
As part of Dr Jacqueline’s ‘Working Mom Burnout’ series I was invited to talk about understanding leadership change, and culture change, in the context of how to prevent working mom burnout. As Dr Jacqueline states ‘When women work society benefits economically, and when women lead, organisations are more diverse’. Yet we are working in such archaic ways that aren’t always set up for working moms. It can seem like an extraordinary task when we consider the systemic change needed in our society to address these needs, yet fundamentally if we really want to change the system we need to start with ourselves.
Have a listen to our discussion and rediscover your approach to leadership transformation and culture change, and the steps you can start to take. Click below to be taken to Dr Jacqueline’s podcast:
Here are a few sample insights from Allison, in the discussion:
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One of the biggest type of burnout that I’m seeing right now in organisations is change fatigue. And that’s a result of changes being introduced one on top of the other. So many change initiatives that are happening that people actually can’t keep on top of what is changing. What’s expected of them and also how they’re relevant. How they stay relevant because they’re trying to keep on top of new skills, new policies, new laws, etc. And so one of the key ways that I work with organisations to handle that is to get them hyper-focused not on a long list of change priorities, but on one or two things that really matter.
- If we start to break out incremental goals, to help people stay focused and also build their momentum and confidence that they can change. Because I think the other thing that leads to burnout in organisations is that people feel like they’re being left behind. ‘I don’t have the skills or the relevance. You’re not giving me the support and training I need’. And so therefore I’m simply going to sit still and feel left behind and I don’t know what to do about it.
- Do you, as a leader, firstly, believe that in order for the system to change that you yourself play a role in that? That’s probably the biggest question I ask leaders early on. If the leader continues to believe that change must happen outside of them. That’s where we start to get incongruences, because when that leader will start to lead that change, their people will start to ask for role modelling. ‘I need my leader to role model and walk the talk of change’. And that typically tends to be the disconnect and where change programs start to fall down is when me as an employee in the organisation, looking around at my leaders and saying, wait, you expect all of this of me, but I don’t see you doing any of this. So why should I try so hard?
Allison Tsao in conversation with Dr Jacqueline Kerr / LinkedIn