Zoë Routh Leadership Podcast

Science journalist David Robson, author of the brilliant The Intelligence Trap - Why smart people make dumb mistakes, takes us on a wild ride through the stupid things smart people do, and why. We explore: Why real life human vampires are more deserving of compassion than scorn How the ancient study of wisdom (and how to live our best life) is having a resurgence and renewal through the lens of Evidence Based Wisdom How intellectual  intelligence is different to rationality intelligence, and how this can be measured The frightening condition of DYSRATIONALIA - when smart people think and do dumb things How mindfulness is a step towards diminishing this trap Why we need to get analytical about intuition The importance of developing an emotional compass - this includes emotional awareness, differentiation, and regulation of emotions How Brexit is the perfect example of motivated reasoning by smart people that drives greater polarisation Benjamin Franklin’s moral algebra and its ability to immunise a little bit

Do you struggle with perfectionism? Procrastination? These are some of the blockers to doing good work. Our very desire to do good work stops us from doing so! Lynne Cazaly is an author, international speaker, and master facilitator. She has published six books, including her latest Ish - The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough. We talk about: How leaders get in the way of good results by trying to censor the inputs and control the outcomes High performing teams work intensely within constraints, and celebrate small wins Defining the standard you are working towards, and why that is important is the critical first move away from perfectionism paralysis The next move of identifying the high value tasks, the 20% of tasks that give you 80% of results, is your next best move How using a pressure on / pressure off method works for both introverts and extroverts in an iterative agile-ish process Improvisation techniques help us release the hold of perfectionism and

He helps smart people be people smart. As the co-author of Forever Skills along with Kieran Flanagan, Dan Gregory is a leading thinker on what leaders can do to move people to sensible action. We explore how the real test of leadership is what we do when things go wrong, how the gaps in skills we need as leaders vary from industry to industry and culture to culture, how corporate Aussies are strong in risk-taking, why making values-based decisions is important for long-term vision, why we need to use a value lens to avoid short-term reactive decisions, how to consume 200-300 books per year, how to challenge your own perspective with Socratic questioning, why thinking in questions is the best strategy to avoid the traps of default thinking, what Dan’s shadow flaw is.

We are wired to belong. Contemporary workplaces are modern-day tribes, and yet so many leaders treat them as transactional places of misery. In fact, 82% of leaders have been found to be lacking in the required skills to lead effectively. There is a serious deficit in the soft skills. Author, consultant and tech startup leader, Shawn Murphy talks with me about the key principles of belonging in his latest book, Work Tribes:The Surprising Secret to Breakthrough Performance, Astonishing Results, and Keeping Teams Together.  These are to be valued, welcomed, and wanted. We discuss the ins and outs of belonging, how it’s an outcome, not a program, how you can’t operationalise belonging but you can develop programs to develop leadership skills that foster belonging, how any behaviour change expected from a training program needs to be backed up by accountable tracking afterwards, why ‘hiring for culture fit’ is a fast-track to building a country club and not a successful business, why hiring for ‘how you can contr

What do you do when your social drinking becomes a crippling habit in a downward spiral of destruction? We can admit defeat, we can surrender, we can ignore it, or we can own it. Rachel Hind chose complete responsibility. Her journey to sobriety is one of personal honesty, radical self healing, and personal transformation shows great courage.  We talk about how drinking for middle aged women has increased 85% in the last ten years, the warning signs for the start of liver cirrhosis, how the first stage of healing begins with honesty with oneself, why pain and suffering can be the biggest opportunity for self empowerment, is alcoholism an addiction or not, the two very  different paths for recovery, Jack Canfield’s model of E + R = O (event plus response equals outcomes), the switch from success based on external markers to success based on living according to one’s values, and how one’s quality of life is directly related to how much uncertainty one can deal with.

What does it take to be a real man? Life Coach for Men, Greg Gillies, knows that it’s not what we usually think. It’s not about material success, business goal achievement, or a facebook narrative. He believes we need to clear the programming from our past so we can embrace the best of who we can be. Greg shares his own downward spiral from successful executive and business owner to numbed out alcohol abuser through to renewed and liberated healthy male leader. He reveals how kinesiology and quantum matrix therapy helped clear his unconscious past beliefs so he could choose more powerful ones. We take a deep dive into sympathetic nervous system dominance, the body’s natural healing system, releasing negative emotions and beliefs from our past, resolving conflicts in our brain, **** Shownotes: www.zoerouth.com/podcast/greglifecoachformen About Greg Gillies: Greg Gillies is a Life Coach for Men. He is an expert in emotional intelligence and releasing blocks, He helps men release past limiting beliefs, influenc

How do we make sense of chaos and lead through it? What can we expect from Generation Z / Generation Alpha as leaders? What is the antidote to the pessimism we experience through post-modernism? These are some of the robust questions James and I explore in our conversation about his book, Metamodern Leadership - A history of seven values that will change the world. We travel through the historical periods of modernism, post-modernism, and metamodernism to look at how we see and operate in the world. We look at developmental models of human experience. We consider the 4 generational archetypes and how they have affected our leadership over the ages. We ask, Trump vs Obama, nationalism vs globalism - what will empower people and nations? How can we lead from behind in chaos? A very full and engaging conversation for those interested in leadership needed for our complex world.

Imagine in the lift at the end of the day, being asked for the 8th time, 'so, what happened to YOU?'. People with disabilities are confronted daily with intrusive questions about the intimate details of their physical condition. Something we would not dare ask others. This is but one of the challenges people with disabilities endure every day. Disability leader and advocate Christina Ryan wants us to get beyond the discomfort of visible difference and get on with the job of talking leadership: how difference offers more viewpoints. We explored disability as identity, disability disadvantage in employment, vertical development leadership through the lens of disability, the core attributes of disability at the leadership table (inclusion, collaboration, resilience, and innovation), how acknowledging the whole self including disability is fundamental component of spreading perspective and inclusion in workplaces and community.

Khaysan grew up watching her parents work hard to set up a caravan park from the ground up. This sparked the courage to start her own business at the age of 24, which she grew successfully before a tumultuous exit some years later. Discovering she is not a great long-term employee (she gets bored), Khaysan dove into a new business venture called Project Athlete which blends mindset, nutrition, and health for personal transformation. We explore what she learned from her parents (all business takes time, you gotta love it to make it through hard times, and no bad times last forever); what she learned after rising and falling quickly in business for herself (comfortable breeds complacency and laziness); how she bucked social programming to embrace the entrepreneurial life; mindset secrets from professional athletes (passion fuels everything, stay coachable, and things happen for a reason - get back on the horse after a fall); how her definition of success changed from being all about the money, to money being ju

"You can be excellent, but not have excellence in your life". Four time Olympian Dan Collins says his biggest failure was his proudest moment - it allowed him to become the man he is. Competing at the highest level in sports teaches us a thing or two about performance. But Dan discovered something more than that. He discovered that elevation of consciousness is the highest end game for any human, that mastery of emotions is pivotal for any endeavour, and that physical health is the foundation for all things. In this intimate and open conversation, Dan shares his nightly journaling habit, his 'mindless' exercise practice, meditation for mindful stillness, how mastery of big moments comes down to breathwork, how practicing stepping into big moments helps us prepare for even bigger moments, what exactly is a 'big moment' (it's the goal driven commitment we make to ourselves, our family, and the people we serve), how big moments are the threshold of what you are striving for and who you are aiming to become, how

How does Aussie tech giant superhero, Atlassian, run its teams? Bernie Ferguson is an R & D Team Coach who makes a living helping teams become high performers. We talk about human dynamics as key to effective process, how to define and measure success in team performance, the Atlassian Team Health Monitor as the starting point for building team performance, the fact that lack of team clarity is a chief derailer, currency of coaching is questions not opinions, the responsibility for getting meaningful feedback from people other than your boss, asking ‘how easy are you to do business with as a team?’, and Atlassian’s approach to culture through living real values.

Yenn Purkis is a non-binary gender person with Asperger’s syndrome. They are an author of 6 books, a TED X speaker, and a passionate advocate for autistic people and their families. From an early age, Yenn knew they weren’t like other folks, and was bullied mercilessly for being different. Academically brilliant, they were dux of the school, but not fitting in and being ostracised for it led to several early adulthood years spent in self destruction. Yenn emerged from this determined to be successful and fulfil professional ambition. With a published book in hand, they applied to many jobs and was successful to land one. This is the origin story of a remarkable individual who overcame being singled out for difference to becoming a public champion for inclusion. In this interview, we explore what it means to be non binary gender, how to be aware of privilege as a generator of bias, how reading books is an excellent way to expand perspective and understanding of others, how becoming comfortable and aware of w

Diversity and inclusion are hot topics right now. The research says it is good for business. Common sense says it’s good for humans. But how do we do it? What are some considerations? Should we have targets? How do we measure success with it? In this interview with Sydney manager, Rory Waddell, an engineering people person at global consulting firm GHD, we explore what it means in practical terms with staff. We look at questions like how do you discover your blindspots? How do you surface and deal with your bias? How do people respond to diversity programs? What signs should we put on toilets?