Leading Through a Decade of Disruption

00:00:05 Sarah (Host)

Welcome to the Deep Dive, the show where we explore the latest topics in HR, talent management, and the world of work.

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We recently surveyed hundreds of senior HR decision makers, and early warning signs point to real gaps between the pace of change and the readiness of organizations.

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It’s never been more important to have the right people behind the wheel leading these organizations through this period.

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So today we’re asking, how can organizations ensure that their leaders are

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set to drive growth through this next period of disruption.

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And to unpack all of this, I’m joined by the wonderful Dr.

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Hayley Lewis, an esteemed occupational psychologist and leadership expert who works with businesses building the kinds of leaders and cultures that thrive through change.

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We’ll dive into some of our survey findings and what future-ready leadership actually looks like in practice, and how organizations can spot and develop the people who are going to drive growth against an uncertain landscape.

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Hayley, welcome to the Deep Dive.

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I’m sure you’ll be a familiar name

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to many of our listeners, but for those who may not be familiar with you, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

00:01:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me.

00:01:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

Yeah, I’m Hayley, Hayley Lewis.

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I am an occupational psychologist, or as I like to say, I have dual citizenships.

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I’m also a coaching psychologist.

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And I’ve been an occupational psychologist for almost 30 years.

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I’ve worked in lots of different places.

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I started out my career at the BBC.

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primarily working in assessment and development, which is where I first kind of got to work with Savile and proceeding that SHL, and then moved into local government, held a variety of roles, moved away from occupational psychology for a bit, and went into bigger and bigger leadership roles and frontline service roles, which taught me a lot, very stressful.

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and then came back to my spiritual home that I love and set up my own business 10 years ago.

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And I primarily do work around leadership and management behavior and how that impacts culture and performance.

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So yeah, so it’s primarily executive coaching, but I do lots of teaching and training and talking as well.

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Some of your listeners might know me for my little scribbles, my sketch notes.

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So yeah, whenever I’m at conference, lots of people will come up to me and go, you’re the sketch note lady.

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So lots of people have got to know me for my sketch notes.

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Many of which go viral now.

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So which always blows my mind.

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So yeah, so that’s a little bit about me.

00:02:36 Sarah (Host)

That’s amazing.

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I mean, I love the range within your career and I suppose.

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the sketch notes, being able to distill large, complex topics into easy to understand information is a pretty hard skill to nail as well.

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So I’m sure very useful for so many people.

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And I’m not surprised they would go viral.

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So I’m excited for the episode.

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I assume you’d also have so many great perspectives on the world of automation in terms of AR and HR.

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And I know you’re reading a book on AI and the world of work at the moment.

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So do you feel like you reflect back on your career and bring in all those different

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parts of it into, I guess, your perspective now, and it’s great to have that range.

00:03:15 Dr Hayley Lewis

Without a shadow of a doubt.

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And it’s really interesting to me.

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I think lots of clients give me feedback, because when I ask how they found me or why they’ve chosen to work with me, lots of the leaders that I work with say they really value the deep psychological knowledge I have around the issues that they’re grappling with.

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But I’ve also

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to some extent been in their shoes.

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I’ve kind of had that real world experience.

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I don’t just talk about, for example, motivating team members who are no longer motivated.

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I don’t just talk about that from a theoretical perspective.

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I’ve lived and breathed that, you know, that brilliant team member who suddenly just doesn’t want to play anymore and just is not happy and what’s going on there.

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I’ve had to sit in rooms and defend why I’m having to restructure for a fourth time in a year because of budget issues to the unions.

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I’ve had to negotiate that and kind of everything in between as well and kind of wear, I call them my battle scarves, but I kind of wear them with pride and I think that combination to some extent

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gives me a bit of a unique insight that I think lots of leaders value.

00:04:34 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, absolutely.

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And I suppose to bring that into a problem that, or a challenge that a lot of different companies are facing today.

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On a recent episode of the podcast, we had Matt Alderon and he suggested that recruitment process, could it be 80% automated by next year?

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And according to our own data in the UK, only one in five HR leaders currently feel prepared.

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for a more blended human and machine workforce.

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And I think just generally we’ve seen so much ambiguity around this and people feel a lot of uncertainty and maybe fear around how exactly to navigate this moving forward.

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Like what’s your kind of top note perspective on all of this?

00:05:13 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s really interesting.

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I was chatting to my husband about this today.

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I think until the end of last year, I was absolutely one of the people sitting there with crossed arms.

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a bit holier than now about the environmental aspect of AI, for example.

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And then I had this moment where I thought, the genie is out of the bottle.

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You need to lean into this.

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And actually, we have a responsibility, whether we’re HR or organizational development or psychologists.

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I think we have a real opportunity to help steward the way.

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But what I’m seeing is a lot of denial.

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I think a lot of hope that the genie will go back in the bottle.

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And then I’m seeing almost like a paralysis, people not sure how to proceed, feeling out of their depth, but maybe not, maybe because they’re in really senior roles.

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They’re embarrassed to admit they don’t know.

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It was really interesting.

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I was at the Division of Occupational Psychology conference last week and I deliberately went

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to the sessions that were sharing research about AI, whether it was AI in management, AI behaviors.

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It was really interesting.

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And what was the most interesting thing is how split the kind of the delegates.

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So there were those of us who were a little bit unsure, a little bit uncertain,

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but were curious.

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And then there was a lot of arm crossing and a lot of what about the environment?

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What about the ethical aspects?

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What about…

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And it was absolutely fascinating to me.

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There is no going back.

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So we better get on board.

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But I think it’s scary.

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I think it’s scary for a lot of people.

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And particularly for people like, you know, I’m Generation X, if we want to put generational terms on it.

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And

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I think for those of us, it’s so unknown, it’s scary.

00:07:13 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, it’s very scary.

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And I think the point you made around, especially senior leaders having to enter a world of a lot of unknowns when maybe there was…

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more certainty around how organizations would structure themselves or I guess like where those boundaries ended or where the kind of norm started and ended as well.

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Now like the norm has changed so much.

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And I think it would be great to get some clarity around that from your perspective.

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Like when you look at the next 5 to 10 years, what do you see as the biggest forces for change?

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to organizations and their people.

00:07:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

I will say this anytime I’m asked a question like this and it is such a typical response from somebody in my profession, which is it depends.

00:07:54 Sarah (Host)

Okay, yeah.

00:07:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I think it depends to some extent on the sector and industry.

00:08:00 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

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So for example, I work a lot with public sector and finance and risk sector and industries and they are very risk

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It’s all about risk management and it’s all about let’s produce that report in order to make that decision.

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And then it has to go through three or four committees.

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That has been completely blown out of the window.

00:08:24 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

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And that’s a really uncomfortable space.

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So I think there’s something about, I think hierarchy is upended.

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is actually about having the people with the right skills in the room, not about job title.

00:08:38 Sarah (Host)

Right.

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I think there needs to be a different approach to risk management.

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It can’t be producing really long reports, as I say, that go to this committee and this committee and this committee.

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So I think there needs to be a much speedier, more agile approach to risk management.

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I think

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We’re going to move, if we’re not already moving, to skill-based hiring.

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Gone are the days of you need this degree or this qualification.

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And I think there’s something around what it means to be a resilient organization in the face of security issues, in the face of the political turmoil, in the face of territories changing and what that means for trade and so on and so forth.

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And I think this is going to be it now.

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just everything is constantly changing.

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And I think organizations from the top down need to have much more fluidity.

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And I think in some sectors and industries, that’s really hard.

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square to circle.

00:09:44 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, it’s a really interesting point, actually, because especially those industries that are under a lot of regulation or exposed to a lot of risk, it was already such a struggle to be agile and to work quickly without sacrificing quality, for example.

00:10:04 Sarah (Host)

And I suppose, the addition of AI and automation generally just makes that so much more difficult now, as you’ve mentioned.

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Have you had any conversations recently with those types of organizations and leaders that have been bringing that to life for you?

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Like, how are they trying to navigate it from your perspective?

00:10:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

Not specifically about AI, which I think is evidence in and of itself.

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It’s data in and of itself.

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I think I’m being asked to deliver a lot of

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sessions on to help organizations and managers and leaders navigate change.

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I have yet to have an approach where a client has been very explicit about and within that can we think about and have space to think about the disruption of AI and what this means for us.

00:10:59 Dr Hayley Lewis

And look, I don’t put that purely at the door of the organizations I work with.

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There’s something about what am I selling as well.

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And I feel like I’m running to catch up.

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I was chatting to Dominic earlier and I’m now immersing myself.

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I’m speaking to AI experts.

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I’m reading, I’m listening to stuff, but I haven’t felt confident to date to think about what my offer is as a psychologist to support.

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I’m now kind of getting clearer on that.

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So I think it’s a two-handed thing.

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I think organizations aren’t necessarily asking organizations like ours for that specific support.

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I think there’s still this, oh, we’ll go to tech experts when actually there’s a cultural element to this as well.

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There’s A behavioral element to this as well, but there’s something about what’s our offer?

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Are we clear on the value that we can add to help organizations navigate this space?

00:11:53 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, and I think it seems definitely from our perspective that the uncertainty

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has created a need for someone who has had many of those conversations.

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And that’s a lot of what we’re trying to do is gain more and more of that insight.

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And we talk a lot about AI and how that’s disrupting organizational structure.

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And I think it would be naive for anyone to say they know exactly how this is going to impact each kind of company structure or culture and to be able to advise on that with complete certainty.

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But I do think that there are some interesting perspectives

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perspectives now coming out that help bring that to life so much more as well.

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And we really enjoy having those discussions.

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And I think especially for the companies that you’ve mentioned, those under regulatory pressure, exposed to risk, it’s even more important that they get the right perspective and have that insight of a range of different companies that have faced those same challenges as well.

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and it’s why conversations like these will be so important.

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We saw in a recent Gartner study that among the top priorities for crows in 2026, there are things like mobilizing leaders for growth in an uncertain world, harnessing AI to revolutionize processes as the human and machine era gathers pace.

00:13:14 Sarah (Host)

It’s definitely not the most straightforward set of challenges to overcome, and we’ve spoken about that a little bit more.

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And there are a lot of buzzwords and terms going around as well, because I think

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to our earlier points, people might not know what the right questions to ask and don’t know really how to define exactly what’s happening.

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But one thing we have heard a little bit about is change-ready leadership.

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How would you define what that is?

00:13:38 Dr Hayley Lewis

I was thinking about this, I loved this question and I was thinking about this a lot because I think what we thought change readiness was, the definition of change readiness, it’s kind of the book’s been torn up and thrown out.

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I think

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So I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

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What does it mean to be change ready now in today’s world?

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Because a lot of the models and the concepts and the theories that many of us draw upon, I’m not sure I fit for purpose anymore when it comes to change and being change ready.

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I think when we think about the level of disruption in the world and that organizations are facing, I think to be change ready means being much more prepared to experiment.

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and manage risk in a more experimental way.

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Not everything even needs to go through a pilot.

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There’s one organization.

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I can’t remember what organization it was.

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It’s in a book that I’m reading at the moment.

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They built a CRM in a day.

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Now, when I was responsible for digital transformation, when I worked in local government, you know, 15 years ago, it took us three years to get the CRM up and running.

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That’s because we were testing and testing and checking and going to this committee.

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So I think there’s something about getting much more comfortable with experimentation, what that means, the guardrails that you put around that, because it doesn’t mean being risk-free and just kind of being complete mavericks.

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There still need to be guardrails, but I think it’s a different approach to being much more experimental.

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I think

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If we think specifically about AI, for example, again, less of this kind of rigid, hierarchical approach to change readiness and things getting signed off.

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I think having a kind of a much more dispersed approach, just allowing expert teams to get on and do

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and execute and then report back to the hierarchical leadership.

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I think this has always been the case and I think it’s even more so now, having a values led approach to decision making when it comes to some of the decisions that organizations are having to make.

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And I’m not talking about those lovely corporate values that are on posters or mugs or anything like that.

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I’m talking about a leadership team actually saying,

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What are our guiding principles?

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What’s our moral compass for some of the difficult decisions that we are going to have to make moving forward and some of the changes that we might not even know about at the moment?

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What’s going to help us navigate that in as ethical a way as possible?

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And being really clear and kind of setting out those kind of three or four core values that’s going to help that leadership team make those decisions.

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in the wisest way possible.

00:16:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

So not a straightforward answer to your question, but that’s because I think we’re not in straightforward times.

00:16:40 Sarah (Host)

No, not a straightforward question.

00:16:41 Dr Hayley Lewis

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

00:16:43 Sarah (Host)

No, that is true.

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And I just wanted to go back to what you’d mentioned around teams being more experimental.

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And I think

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that’s a really interesting point because I completely agree with you and I also think that’s so challenging for those companies, especially that are exposed to more risk.

00:17:00 Sarah (Host)

How practically can you see that playing out within an organization or a leadership team to be more experimental?

00:17:07 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s really interesting because even in some of the most regulated organizations, it starts with the leader’s preparedness to let go a little bit.

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I have this concept of kind of

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tight loose control.

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So that doesn’t mean the leader’s not accountable and it doesn’t mean they’re not paying attention to and keeping an eye on the things that matter, but they relinquish a little bit of control.

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I read this case study with one of the highest serving officers in the UK Army, in the Ministry of Defence, who absolutely demonstrated that with the decision to use AI for

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a really important decision.

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And when I was reading this case study, I was thinking, I’m sorry, if one of the top brass in the army, with all the risks and the pressures and the security issues that they’re facing, can relinquish a little bit of control and encourage experimentation and trust and trust.

00:18:15 Dr Hayley Lewis

people who aren’t at his level to go and do this thing with AI and report back and work together, then there’s no reason why the rest of us can’t in highly regulated, difficult context.

00:18:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

So yeah, so that’s kind of what goes through my mind is where can you relinquish control but not relinquish oversight?

00:18:45 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

00:18:46 Sarah (Host)

I’m just thinking on that, what are some of the things that enable someone and a leader to be able to do this?

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And if I’m a crow, listening and thinking, what can I do?

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How can I be more enabled to do this?

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What are the gaps there?

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Like from your perspective, what are those things?

00:19:03 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think if you’re a crow and you sit at the top table, I mean, that’s always the thing, isn’t it?

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Why aren’t we at the top table?

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So if you are at the top table, happy days.

00:19:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

There’s something about team development.

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So whether it’s the board or the top team, however you refer to yourself, I think there’s something about a dedicated program of development for you as a leadership team around digital intelligence and skills development, the behavioral development to help you become more digitally intelligent.

00:19:37 Dr Hayley Lewis

DQ is the new EQ as far as I’m concerned.

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or it sits along EQ and IQ.

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We’ve now got kind of digital intelligence.

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And I don’t think we can just leave it to individuals or individual leaders to go off and do this.

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I think it needs to be a kind of a team effort.

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And I think if you’re lucky enough to be a chief HR officer, you’ve got the trust and ear of your board, the chief exec or the managing director,

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then convince them to go down this path, to convince them to do some dedicated work as a team, team building that is very much focused on building digital intelligence and AI literacy.

00:20:22 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s not about them becoming AI experts, but they do need to, you all need to understand what it means to make ethical decisions, to be stewards.

00:20:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

I mean, I keep using that word stewardship, how to navigate experimentation,

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how to kind of manage risk in this way, that takes some focus and that takes time and space to think.

00:20:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

That would be my suggestion, but I know that’s easier said than done in some contexts.

00:20:54 Sarah (Host)

And for that leadership team, but also as that kind of digital intelligence filters down into the rest of the company, what kind of

00:21:04 Sarah (Host)

capabilities would you be looking for or would you be looking to grow within these development programs to ensure like there is that digital intelligence?

00:21:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

So just as I said, so I think in particular the ethical side of things, so AI ethics, I think there’s cultural intelligence as well and how that plays out.

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I think there’s understanding bias and how that plays out in kind of how

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to use the data that’s coming out.

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For people managers, I think there’s something around helping them learn how to manage hybrid teams.

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And when I’m talking hybrid, I’m talking hybrid of a mix of humans and AI and what that means and the capabilities there.

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So how to manage performance of people and

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AI together, how to work as a team together.

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So there’s a whole host of things.

00:22:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think just by, this is me being really vulnerable now, I think just by, you can just see, even I’m trying to think it through, because I don’t have all the answers.

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And it comes back to what I said at the start.

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I think so many of us feel like we’re kind of just grappling around and running to catch up.

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And I very much feel that as well.

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And I am absolutely not sitting here.

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proclaiming to be an expert in this space, but I am really curious and I’m open to learning and I think curiosity and openness to learning is also really important for CHROs and people who are in leadership and management roles who want their organizations to thrive in this space.

00:22:49 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, I was going to say on top of that curiosity, like thinking

00:22:53 Sarah (Host)

on an individual level, do you have an idea of what a perfect or near perfect future really leader looks like?

00:23:00 Dr Hayley Lewis

I don’t like the word perfect.

00:23:02 Dr Hayley Lewis

I hate the word perfect.

00:23:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think it puts too much.

00:23:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think it just puts too much pressure.

00:23:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

Well, particularly because a big issue that comes up in a lot of coaching sessions is perfectionism.

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And I think perfectionism can be really paralyzing and cause all sorts of kind of maladaptive behaviors in leaders.

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So I think there’s something about what’s good enough, because I think that’s the space we’re in now.

00:23:27 Dr Hayley Lewis

For sure.

00:23:27 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’m waiting to be the perfect leader.

00:23:30 Dr Hayley Lewis

You’re going to be outdated by the end of the day, let alone tomorrow.

00:23:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

So true.

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Getting comfortable with relinquishing control, but not oversight and accountability.

00:23:40 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think getting even better at communicating and engaging with people.

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your people on these issues.

00:23:51 Dr Hayley Lewis

I still continue to be shocked at just how poor organizations can be and people in senior roles can be at communicating to staff about what’s happening and doing that in a timely way and doing that in different ways.

00:24:10 Dr Hayley Lewis

and doing it in ways that help people really understand and doing that in empathetic ways.

00:24:15 Dr Hayley Lewis

Or they focus so much on the broadcast, they figure out about the engagement aspect.

00:24:19 Dr Hayley Lewis

When I was in a head of communications and engagement role and people would be like, get comms involved, I’d jokingly go, and engagement.

00:24:28 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because that’s really important.

00:24:30 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, completely.

00:24:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

Yeah, I mean, I’m preaching to the choir and yeah, I don’t see those skills

00:24:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

readily enough.

00:24:41 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think that’s going to be really important, being able to communicate this stuff and hold spaces for staff to be able to ask questions and talk this stuff through and learn together.

00:24:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think facilitation skills are really going to come into their own for people in leadership roles to be future ready leaders.

00:25:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

Those are the things that matter.

00:25:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

Being able to build different kinds of teams, those are the things that matter.

00:25:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

And build teams really quickly and then disperse those teams to build another team.

00:25:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

I just think that’s

00:25:19 Dr Hayley Lewis

That’s the future that we’re facing, but the future is now.

00:25:22 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, There’s so many important things to think about there, which reminds us of a really relevant stat that appeared on a recent survey we did to over, I think it might have been over 300 HR leaders, but don’t quote me on that.

00:25:36 Sarah (Host)

It was hundreds anyway.

00:25:37 Sarah (Host)

And we got some really great perspective on, I guess, the industry as it sits now or the world of work.

00:25:45 Sarah (Host)

And within the survey, HR leaders reported that one in six

00:25:49 Sarah (Host)

leadership hires or promotions have been mistakes in the last three years, which was quite an interesting and possibly alarming stat.

00:25:57 Sarah (Host)

So with the stakes incredibly high at this level, especially at the moment, and we’ve touched on that at multiple points in the podcast so far, you know, they talk about lost revenue, increased costs, definitely cultural damage as well.

00:26:10 Sarah (Host)

Where do you think the biggest impact is felt when things go wrong?

00:26:14 Sarah (Host)

Like which areas is underestimated or that goes under the radar all of the time?

00:26:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

The biggest thing that I see, and it might be some of your listeners see other things, but the biggest thing I see is your most talented people go, because they can.

00:26:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

And people don’t have to put up with working for a rubbish boss.

00:26:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

anymore.

00:26:41 Dr Hayley Lewis

And people will vote with their feet.

00:26:44 Dr Hayley Lewis

So yeah, your best people will go.

00:26:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’ve seen that time and time again.

00:26:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’ve witnessed it myself when I worked in organizations.

00:26:54 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think the big impact when that wrong decision is made is trust erodes.

00:27:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

And that’s hard to get back.

00:27:06 Dr Hayley Lewis

There’s that beautiful quote.

00:27:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’ve never found out who came up with this, but it says that trust is built at the speed of a snail and lost at the speed of a racehorse.

00:27:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think once you get somebody who is not fit for post, if you don’t exit them quickly enough,

00:27:27 Dr Hayley Lewis

the damage becomes really hard to undo because that trust will take a long, time to get back.

00:27:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because it’s not just not trusting the poor hire.

00:27:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

There’s also a lack of trust in the people who decided to hire that person.

00:27:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

For sure.

00:27:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

So it kind of leaks out.

00:27:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then, you know, we’ve all got stories, haven’t we?

00:27:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think that discontent

00:27:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

and the conflict that can emerge in a team then starts to leak out.

00:28:00 Dr Hayley Lewis

whenever I’ve been asked to come in and help resolve team conflict, often at the heart of it is…

00:28:09 Dr Hayley Lewis

not an effective leader.

00:28:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

But when I speak to other teams that the team touches or customers, internal customers that the team touch, it’s leaked out, you know.

00:28:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

So yeah, it can start to kind of creep out across the organization.

00:28:27 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, what are some of those early warning signs?

00:28:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

Early warning signs are grumbles, grumbles from staff.

00:28:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

complaints from customers.

00:28:38 Dr Hayley Lewis

If you’ve got this team that were formally engaged and motivated, suddenly they go quiet.

00:28:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

That’s a big clue in and of itself.

00:28:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I’ve been part of a team that went through that myself.

00:28:54 Dr Hayley Lewis

More and more silence, maybe an increase in sickness.

00:29:00 Dr Hayley Lewis

So some of it’s easy to spot, some of it

00:29:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

is a bit more under the radar.

00:29:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think if you’re aware of this team, you’ve kind of really got your finger on the pulse of this team.

00:29:13 Dr Hayley Lewis

So if you’re, if for example, you are this person’s manager and you are really aware of this team and you see this team suddenly start changing, that’s your data.

00:29:22 Dr Hayley Lewis

That’s evidence in and of itself.

00:29:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

So there’s something about paying attention.

00:29:25 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, definitely.

00:29:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

Yeah.

00:29:27 Sarah (Host)

Another point that our survey had brought up,

00:29:30 Sarah (Host)

is that top performers don’t automatically make great managers, backed up by the stat that, well, 71% of our respondents agreed with it.

00:29:38 Sarah (Host)

Why do you think organizations still seem to promote based on performance rather than potential within that role?

00:29:45 Sarah (Host)

Like what’s the gap there?

00:29:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because it’s easy.

00:29:48 Sarah (Host)

Right.

00:29:50 Dr Hayley Lewis

We just do what we’ve always done.

00:29:51 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

00:29:52 Dr Hayley Lewis

And we can kid ourselves.

00:29:54 Dr Hayley Lewis

We’ve got evidence.

00:29:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

I mean, it’s been really interesting on LinkedIn.

00:29:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

It feels like there’s this really anti-performance management and anti-performance appraisal rhetoric going on at the moment and dismantle the system and from lots of really prominent HR folk as well.

00:30:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I’m really kind of curious about that.

00:30:13 Dr Hayley Lewis

Are we about to see a backlash on that?

00:30:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think

00:30:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

We don’t give ourselves space and time to think of other ways.

00:30:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

I was speaking at an HR conference a few years ago and I cited the example of Spotify.

00:30:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

So this is before the pandemic.

00:30:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

I came across a case study with Spotify.

00:30:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

It was written about, I think, in People Management Magazine.

00:30:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

And Spotify were experimenting with different managers

00:30:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

you would have a subject matter expert manager and a people pastoral manager.

00:30:54 Dr Hayley Lewis

That’s interesting.

00:30:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I’m really interested in that.

00:30:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

Now that’s hard work to do that.

00:30:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

But I think that opens up.

00:31:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

It just creates so much opportunity.

00:31:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

I was once running a workshop for a group of people managers.

00:31:09 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s how to build a high performing team.

00:31:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

We do lots of practical stuff.

00:31:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

I share the evidence.

00:31:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I kid you not, Sarah,

00:31:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

There was a point mid-morning where I could just feel them like going…

00:31:24 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I called it out, I said, I’m sorry, does this all feel like too much hard work?

00:31:29 Dr Hayley Lewis

And one of them like cheekily nodded and I said, if you, that’s fine.

00:31:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

If you don’t want a high performing team, just carry on doing what you’re doing, like have a good team.

00:31:42 Dr Hayley Lewis

But if you want to go to the next level, these are the things that really work and it requires effort in your pie, requires you really getting to know each and every person in your team and not having a one-size-fits-all approach.

00:31:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then I was just feeling it and I said, how many of you actually like people?

00:32:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

And a few of them said, no, not really.

00:32:07 Dr Hayley Lewis

But they’ve gone into people management roles because they need the money.

00:32:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because it’s the only way to progress in one’s career, because it’s the only way to get that extra money because your family’s growing and your mortgage has got bigger.

00:32:19 Dr Hayley Lewis

And so that’s why I was really interested in this Spotify example.

00:32:24 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I don’t know what’s happened since, as I say, when I first read that case study, that was pre-pandemic.

00:32:29 Dr Hayley Lewis

But I just think

00:32:30 Dr Hayley Lewis

We need to offer different pathways for people to progress.

00:32:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

And going back to your kind of question about the confusion around performance and potential, I think you’ve answered your own question is because we’re confusing the two, but not everybody is cut out to be a people manager.

00:32:53 Sarah (Host)

And to your point, it sounds like there are other options.

00:32:57 Sarah (Host)

as well, the Spotify case study being an example of that.

00:33:01 Sarah (Host)

And I also found it funny, you touched on how when I asked, like, why does this still happen, people getting promoted based on potential, and you said it’s evidence.

00:33:09 Sarah (Host)

And I find that really interesting because we work shameless plug in the world of assessment, which is another form of evidence which should be able to give you an indication of potential to perform.

00:33:23 Sarah (Host)

without that being based solely on performance, but on the qualities that are going to make that person the best for the team.

00:33:30 Sarah (Host)

So I think, evidence is important, but catering that evidence to the decision you’re trying to make is important as well.

00:33:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think we’re still heavily entrenched in that somebody’s really good at their technical job.

00:33:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

They’re really, really good.

00:33:44 Dr Hayley Lewis

And when they’re like a high flyer, so let’s get them, let’s get them, let’s put them in that 16 box or that nine box talent thing.

00:33:52 Dr Hayley Lewis

and let’s encourage them to go into this bigger role.

00:33:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

It doesn’t mean the bigger role’s right for them.

00:33:59 Dr Hayley Lewis

And it’s interesting, this has been coming up a lot in coaching conversations with people who are middle management.

00:34:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

And it’s really interesting to me that the number of people who are on the cusp of living other people’s dreams for them, as in the organization’s dreams for them, which are very much based on that very traditional

00:34:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

linear step by step, let’s move you up the ladder.

00:34:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

And actually, that’s not what they want.

00:34:25 Dr Hayley Lewis

They want stretch, they want progression, they want bigger responsibilities, but they don’t necessarily want all the stuff that goes with people management or all the stuff that goes with traditional leadership.

00:34:42 Sarah (Host)

Thinking along those same lines, what seemed more alarming within the survey results as well is that more than a third told us that they witnessed senior leaders bypass formal hiring and promotion processes, often or always to place their own choices in the role.

00:34:58 Sarah (Host)

And yeah, I mean, this clearly isn’t a unique experience.

00:35:02 Sarah (Host)

What advice would you give to our listeners who are probably nodding along at this point?

00:35:06 Sarah (Host)

How can they push back if they see that kind of thing happening?

00:35:10 Dr Hayley Lewis

Kind of, I’m sitting here, I’m sitting here thinking, who am I to give advice to your listeners who will be so experienced?

00:35:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

You know, you’re going to have chief people officers and the like listening to this, who know how to handle this situation.

00:35:27 Dr Hayley Lewis

But if there is somebody listening who’s like, I don’t, I’m not sure.

00:35:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

First of all, a one-on-one conversation with the decision maker.

00:35:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

So if it’s the chief exec, for example, there’s a, you know, doing it in private.

00:35:40 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think, and just having that non-judgmental conversation, which doesn’t get their back up, just asking them for what they know about this person and kind of trying to dig into what evidence they have.

00:35:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

So asking, you know, let’s face it, doesn’t matter what sector you’re in, it’s all about the money.

00:36:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

So whether it’s about efficiency savings in the public sector, whether it’s about making more money,

00:36:09 Dr Hayley Lewis

in the private sector, asking questions like, what do you know about, what’s their track record of increasing profit or what’s their track record of efficiency savings in this area?

00:36:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

Do you know?

00:36:24 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think just having that very, very non-judgmental, genuine spirit of inquiry approach with a decision maker can be

00:36:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

really helpful.

00:36:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then having a conversation about potential risks.

00:36:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

what are the pros and cons that we might need to think about?

00:36:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

What are the kind of the risks of onboarding this person into this role that we might need to mitigate?

00:36:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

And just kind of coming at it from that perspective is certainly something that I’ve done.

00:36:52 Dr Hayley Lewis

I remember working with a group of politicians

00:36:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

who were the decision makers for an executive director role.

00:36:59 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I ran an assessment centre and had all sorts of evidence.

00:37:03 Dr Hayley Lewis

And they ignored all the behavioral data and the personality data.

00:37:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

And it fed into the interview and they ignored it all.

00:37:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

And they hired the person that came out as probably the least appropriate person for the leadership role.

00:37:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I had to have a really

00:37:25 Dr Hayley Lewis

difficult conversation with the main decision maker who was the most powerful politician.

00:37:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

And along those lines around, let’s just talk through the risks, potential risks of this, what might we need to put in place to manage this.

00:37:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

Sure enough, this person didn’t stay in post.

00:37:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

Ultimately, a decision maker will, particularly if they’re in a position of power,

00:37:51 Dr Hayley Lewis

They’ll do what they want.

00:37:52 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I think, but as long as you can, as long as you can hold your head up and know that you were brave enough to lean in and have that important conversation and that it’s, there’s a record of it somewhere and then managing the risk around it, that’s sometimes that’s all you can do.

00:38:07 Dr Hayley Lewis

But I’d hope if you’ve got a good relationship with the decision maker, the hiring manager, they’ll listen.

00:38:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

And there might be a third way.

00:38:17 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’m a great believer in kind of, is there a third option?

00:38:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

Is it like a longer probation period, for example, or something along those lines?

00:38:27 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, no, it makes so much sense.

00:38:30 Sarah (Host)

I wanted to go a little bit deeper now into what actually changes for leaders when machines and increased automation become a part of their day-to-day.

00:38:39 Sarah (Host)

Can you talk to us a little bit more about what are some good new habits for leaders to be getting into to keep people, performance and trust on track, which we spoke about being really, really key?

00:38:51 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I know some leaders that I work with who are managing in really tough environments, like blue light services, for example, or crisis response situations.

00:39:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

who, when things have gone back to normal, have continued using things like daily huddles.

00:39:10 Dr Hayley Lewis

So daily huddles will be something that some of your listeners will be familiar with, particularly those maybe who work in tech industries.

00:39:17 Dr Hayley Lewis

But I think the daily huddle is a really good touch point each day.

00:39:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

So you’re not just waiting for that weekly or monthly team meeting to find out what’s going on, to check in with people or that one to one, where it’s just you as the manager and the person hearing from each other.

00:39:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think the daily huddle, which is 5 to 10 minutes, you’re all stood up if you’re able to stand up or, you know, you might all be online or it might be hybrid.

00:39:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

But just that kind of check in

00:39:50 Dr Hayley Lewis

What have people got going on?

00:39:51 Dr Hayley Lewis

What’s front of mind for people, including the kind of the leader of the team?

00:39:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

What do we need to pay attention to?

00:39:59 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then you kind of go into the day.

00:40:02 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I just think it’s that touch point that’s really powerful.

00:40:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

I do have a sketch note summary of a selection of huddle questions that you can choose from as a manager.

00:40:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I can send that over and you can put that in the show notes if you want.

00:40:16 Sarah (Host)

Yes, of course, that’d be great.

00:40:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

But yeah, that.

00:40:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’ve worked with so many kind of heads of service who found that a really helpful habit to incorporate and they’ve just continued with it.

00:40:29 Sarah (Host)

So over half of HR leaders responding to our survey told us that they believe that they have untapped potential going unnoticed in their organization.

00:40:37 Sarah (Host)

But a similar number also reported that they don’t have ready now successes for critical leadership roles.

00:40:44 Sarah (Host)

And with the next decade requiring more adaptable leaders, surely the big question is how organizations can join the dots and surface and develop the existing potential within their teams.

00:40:55 Sarah (Host)

I think this is something we hear about all of the time, like having the right organizational insights to work out how to create the most optimal team.

00:41:02 Sarah (Host)

And what’s your perspective on that?

00:41:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

A bit provocative.

00:41:05 Sarah (Host)

Oh, great.

00:41:07 Sarah (Host)

Tell us, please.

00:41:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

Well, first of all, and this is

00:41:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

This is always the question I’ll ask.

00:41:13 Dr Hayley Lewis

When I was reading through the questions, my question was, why?

00:41:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

don’t they have ready now?

00:41:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

Successes, what’s been getting in the way?

00:41:22 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because you need to understand that.

00:41:24 Dr Hayley Lewis

What are the barriers to that?

00:41:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

And that will be different, I think, for different organizations.

00:41:30 Dr Hayley Lewis

So that’s my first cheeky retort back.

00:41:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

What are the barriers?

00:41:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

The provocative thing, maybe it’s not that provocative.

00:41:37 Dr Hayley Lewis

You might have listeners sitting there going, that’s not provocative, Hayley, but it feels provocative.

00:41:41 Dr Hayley Lewis

which is what is the definition of ready now.

00:41:45 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I think it’s really important that leadership teams with the help of kind of the CHROs are defining what ready now means for them in their context.

00:42:00 Dr Hayley Lewis

But then I think being ready now doesn’t mean you’re ready tomorrow.

00:42:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

And that’s the space that we’re in.

00:42:07 Dr Hayley Lewis

Like everything is, it feels like everything is changing.

00:42:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

day by day, what does it mean when another pivot or disruption happens tomorrow?

00:42:18 Dr Hayley Lewis

So you might have been ready today and have the skills and behaviors, but does that help you navigate?

00:42:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

So there is, it comes back to your word, adaptability.

00:42:29 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think again, you’ve kind of answered the question, but that was what was going through my mind.

00:42:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

What have been the barriers that have stopped you

00:42:37 Dr Hayley Lewis

having ready now successes, and what is your definition of ready now for your context?

00:42:43 Sarah (Host)

And so once you understand the ready now, that will help you to develop the existing potential.

00:42:48 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

00:42:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

It all starts, you know, my students will tell, I used to have a part-time academic role and training other psychologists in my space.

00:43:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

And

00:43:02 Dr Hayley Lewis

I say you’ve got to define the problem.

00:43:04 Dr Hayley Lewis

You’ve got to have a clear definition because everything else is, that’s the springboard.

00:43:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

Without that, you could blindly be going down the wrong direction.

00:43:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

So have a definition for what ready now means for your context.

00:43:15 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, love that.

00:43:18 Sarah (Host)

The advancements in tech and AI can actually improve development programs.

00:43:23 Sarah (Host)

And I think there is also, you know, a lot of

00:43:25 Sarah (Host)

ambiguity around that and how exactly we implement that, especially with a lot more regulation around AI coming out.

00:43:30 Sarah (Host)

But we hear a lot about the personalization angle in particular.

00:43:35 Sarah (Host)

Like what do you think the future of talent development looks like?

00:43:38 Sarah (Host)

A very broad question, but yeah, tell us what your perspective is.

00:43:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I am not a talent development expert.

00:43:45 Dr Hayley Lewis

This is, that’s not my gig, but I have thoughts.

00:43:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think it’s going to need to be faster.

00:43:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think personalized.

00:43:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s going to be less about hierarchical, the kind of traditional hierarchical approaches to kind of talent management.

00:44:03 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think it’s going to be having talent hubs where people can be quickly deployed into teams that need their skills, like really kind of grappling with kind of really tough issues and then being pulled out and being put somewhere else.

00:44:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

And they’re kind of building their knowledge and their skills, but they’re also inputting their knowledge.

00:44:25 Dr Hayley Lewis

and their skills.

00:44:25 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I think talent development is going to be much more active, much more agile, much more personalized and a hell of a lot faster.

00:44:33 Sarah (Host)

I think you’re completely right.

00:44:35 Sarah (Host)

Do you think it’s important to now develop as elite leaders that are super tech savvy themselves?

00:44:41 Sarah (Host)

and across the latest innovations, is that a part of that digital intelligence?

00:44:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

Yeah, I’ll say it again.

00:44:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

I really think DQ is the more I’ve been reading, the more I’ve been listening to experts and talking to experts.

00:44:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

DQ is the…

00:44:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

the new EQ.

00:44:57 Dr Hayley Lewis

I know it’s a bit of a sound bite and there’ll be some evidence-based practitioners rolling their eyes, but I do, I’m just really struck by some of the leadership development programs that I kind of contribute to or I’m being asked to contribute to, and nowhere can I see any reference to digital intelligence and kind of developing that alongside all the other things that we need to develop in leaders.

00:45:22 Dr Hayley Lewis

So if you’re listening to this and you’re doing that,

00:45:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

You need to get yourself on this podcast and share your case study.

00:45:29 Sarah (Host)

Absolutely.

00:45:30 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

00:45:30 Sarah (Host)

No, very interesting.

00:45:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because you will have an amazing story to share that others can learn from, I think.

00:45:35 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, absolutely.

00:45:36 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think we need more stories.

00:45:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think a lot of the stories that we’re hearing about in the kind of tech, AI, digital disruption space are coming from tech leaders.

00:45:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

And I would love to hear from people in the HR,

00:45:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

space, who are doing great work around this, who are working on that digital intelligence, who are supporting leaders and managers with this.

00:46:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

We need to hear your stories because then I think it helps other people create their stories and try stuff out and give them confidence to do stuff.

00:46:10 Sarah (Host)

Definitely.

00:46:11 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, absolutely.

00:46:11 Sarah (Host)

And if you’re listening and you have a good story, please reach out to us because I think those stories will become

00:46:17 Sarah (Host)

so much more common as we move forward, or they’ll have to become so much more common as HR leaders have that demand on them to have that digital intelligence.

00:46:26 Sarah (Host)

So completely agree with you.

00:46:28 Sarah (Host)

We’re coming to the end now, which is very sad.

00:46:30 Sarah (Host)

But before we do go into the quickfire round, there may be some people who are listening that are currently in leadership positions, feeling a little bit overwhelmed and possibly underprepared themselves.

00:46:42 Sarah (Host)

With your coaching hat on and all of the experience you’ve had, how might you try and position the next decade as something to be like really excited about?

00:46:51 Sarah (Host)

How do you see, I suppose, that and what advice would you give to those people?

00:46:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’d say you’re not alone if you’re feeling like that.

00:46:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

You know, my coaching philosophy, I take a strengths-based approach.

00:47:03 Dr Hayley Lewis

So kind of a useful activity to do is on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you?

00:47:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

in your ability to navigate the next decade and all the disruption that we’re facing, kind of just mark yourself down on that.

00:47:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then, so say you give yourself a four out of 10, then think about what are you doing, what strengths do you have in place that enabled you to give yourself a four and a three or a two or a one?

00:47:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think that’s really important to acknowledge that, you’re not

00:47:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

hopefully you’re not starting from zero.

00:47:37 Dr Hayley Lewis

And that can be, whenever I use that approach with clients, they find that really, they almost have a moment, oh.

00:47:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

Because when we’re holding it all around in our heads, it all feels overwhelming.

00:47:48 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then it’s like, okay, over the next six months, where do I want to nudge to?

00:47:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

So you might say, I want to nudge to a six.

00:47:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

Okay, what does that gap between 4:00 and 6:00 look like?

00:47:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

What would I be doing at a six that I’m not doing at a four?

00:48:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

And just kind of have a little bit of a brain dump, even talk it through with someone, maybe a trusted peer if you don’t have a coach.

00:48:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

And you’ll probably identify two or three things and then choose one of those and think, what’s the first small step I can take?

00:48:15 Dr Hayley Lewis

And it might be, I’m going to go and read a book on this, or I’m going to speak to someone.

00:48:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’m going to go, I’m going to ask to, I’m going to speak to someone in the technology team to see if I can shadow them more.

00:48:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

But the key with this, I think, is leverage your strengths and recognise that you do have strengths.

00:48:38 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then break it down into the smallest step you can take just to edge yourself forward.

00:48:44 Dr Hayley Lewis

I think underpinning all of this, having humility and curiosity, I think those are the two watchwords for all of us.

00:48:51 Dr Hayley Lewis

Being humble enough to hold your hands up and go, do you know what, I don’t know.

00:48:56 Dr Hayley Lewis

You know, I’ve done that a couple of times in this conversation and for somebody who others hold, I would never call myself an expert, but others hold me up as an expert, they look at the doctor title, that’s a lot of pressure.

00:49:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

And sometimes I get a little bit frightened of saying, do you know what, I don’t know.

00:49:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

But actually, I think it’s important that I’m role modelling.

00:49:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s okay to say, do you know what, I don’t know, but I know how to find out or I know to go and talk to someone.

00:49:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

So there’s something about having that humility to just acknowledge, I don’t know.

00:49:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then just being curious and going, but I can find out.

00:49:29 Dr Hayley Lewis

And there’s so many, there’s so many people who are

00:49:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

who’ve got podcasts about AI and there’s so many brilliant people writing accessible stuff.

00:49:38 Dr Hayley Lewis

There’s so many great people to go and talk to.

00:49:40 Dr Hayley Lewis

So having that curiosity to go and find out, I think humility and curiosity are going to, if you have those, you’re going to be okay.

00:49:50 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, I love that.

00:49:51 Sarah (Host)

And I think those two things, curiosity and humility,

00:49:54 Sarah (Host)

coupled with within your organization, having that values-led framework will help you wade through a lot of the noise because there are so many perspectives out there on something where there is a lot of ambiguity and it can be hard to know who to trust, what to listen to, what’s the right approach.

00:50:11 Sarah (Host)

But I think a combination of what you’ve talked about helps make that a lot clearer for people.

00:50:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

Absolutely spot on, Sarah.

00:50:17 Dr Hayley Lewis

When we move up into more and more senior roles, we put this pressure on ourselves

00:50:21 Dr Hayley Lewis

to have all the answers to everything and save the really clever, clever things.

00:50:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

Actually, the cleverest thing you can do is ask questions.

00:50:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

Ask questions.

00:50:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

How does that work?

00:50:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

What might the implications be if we go down this path?

00:50:36 Sarah (Host)

So true.

00:50:37 Dr Hayley Lewis

Sometimes that’s the cleverest thing.

00:50:38 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, definitely.

00:50:39 Sarah (Host)

And that’s that curiosity and just wanting to learn more and not assuming, I suppose, that you already know everything, especially with something like automation in the world of AI or AI within HR as well.

00:50:50 Sarah (Host)

It’s, yeah.

00:50:51 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, it’s the Wild West, as they say.

00:50:53 Dr Hayley Lewis

Oh, without a shadow of a doubt, yeah.

00:50:55 Sarah (Host)

Cool.

00:50:55 Sarah (Host)

Before we finish up today, we’ve started doing like a little quick fire round in the wrap up.

00:51:00 Sarah (Host)

Hope that’s okay with you.

00:51:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

I feel like this is mastermind.

00:51:02 Dr Hayley Lewis

I feel like you’re Clive Myrie and I’m about to undergo.

00:51:06 Sarah (Host)

Yes, get prepared.

00:51:07 Sarah (Host)

It’s quick answers only.

00:51:09 Sarah (Host)

No, we actually do love the conversation.

00:51:10 Sarah (Host)

So if you’d like to, you know, expand on what you’re saying, then all good.

00:51:15 Sarah (Host)

But the first question.

00:51:16 Sarah (Host)

If you could change one thing about how most organizations spot and grow future leaders, what would it be?

00:51:24 Dr Hayley Lewis

Stop going to the obvious pools of people.

00:51:28 Dr Hayley Lewis

Think about who are the problems?

00:51:31 Dr Hayley Lewis

Who are the disruptors?

00:51:33 Dr Hayley Lewis

Who are those annoying people who ask lots of questions?

00:51:38 Dr Hayley Lewis

Why not think about them?

00:51:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

But often we don’t.

00:51:42 Dr Hayley Lewis

We want good corporate citizens.

00:51:45 Dr Hayley Lewis

who do as they’re told and make life easy for everyone else.

00:51:48 Dr Hayley Lewis

And so sometimes, but sometimes we need to lean into the disruptors in the organization.

00:51:57 Dr Hayley Lewis

because we need disruptors to help us navigate through the disruption that we’re in the middle of and that will be ongoing forever now.

00:52:03 Sarah (Host)

Yeah, and that’s a part of that experimentation.

00:52:05 Sarah (Host)

Yeah.

00:52:06 Sarah (Host)

Number 2, what’s a leadership trait we still over reward?

00:52:09 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s not solely a leadership trait, but it’s one that I see a primacy put on for leaders is extroversion, you know, being the talkative one.

00:52:20 Dr Hayley Lewis

If I have, if I,

00:52:23 Dr Hayley Lewis

The number of people have approached me to coach, particularly female up and coming leaders, to lean in more and be more talkative at the board.

00:52:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

We’re encouraging people to talk for the sake of it.

00:52:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

And actually there’s a real power in more thoughtfulness, being thoughtful leaders.

00:52:39 Dr Hayley Lewis

And it’s not that you’ve got nothing to say, but when you speak, you’ve got something important to say.

00:52:43 Dr Hayley Lewis

You’re not just speaking for the sake of it.

00:52:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

So yeah, this whole

00:52:47 Dr Hayley Lewis

We value the most chatter.

00:52:49 Dr Hayley Lewis

There’s me chatting a way, but they talk, they’re articulate, therefore they must be a good leader.

00:52:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

And we overlook and make invisible maybe the quieter, more thoughtful one.

00:53:00 Sarah (Host)

Quick fire question #3.

00:53:02 Sarah (Host)

What’s one question a manager should ask more often than their one-to-ones with their team members?

00:53:07 Dr Hayley Lewis

How can I best help you?

00:53:10 Sarah (Host)

It’s not being asked enough.

00:53:11 Dr Hayley Lewis

No.

00:53:12 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’ve got a cheeky follow-up.

00:53:14 Dr Hayley Lewis

How have I hindered you this month?

00:53:17 Sarah (Host)

That’s an interesting one.

00:53:19 Sarah (Host)

Okay, quick fire question #4.

00:53:21 Sarah (Host)

Best piece of advice you’d give a crow to succeed in 2026?

00:53:25 Dr Hayley Lewis

I would advise a crow, develop your own DQ.

00:53:29 Dr Hayley Lewis

It’s going to put you ahead of the game.

00:53:32 Dr Hayley Lewis

Go on your own development program that you create for yourself if you don’t have access to one already.

00:53:38 Sarah (Host)

Okay, and last question.

00:53:41 Sarah (Host)

Finish this sentence.

00:53:42 Sarah (Host)

If you want leaders who can handle AI-driven change, you need to.

00:53:46 Dr Hayley Lewis

Have a DQ program, which includes the board, or read this book that I’ve been reading, which is called Rewire or Retire, and it’s by Mark O’Ryan and Alistair Lechler, I think.

00:54:01 Dr Hayley Lewis

Absolutely brilliant.

00:54:03 Dr Hayley Lewis

So some of the…

00:54:05 Dr Hayley Lewis

I feel like I’m their agent.

00:54:06 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’m not at all.

00:54:08 Dr Hayley Lewis

But some of the case studies that I talked about earlier, so for example, the Ministry of Defence one, the UK, I meet is in here.

00:54:16 Dr Hayley Lewis

So they’ve interviewed all sorts of people from different sectors, different organizations in different countries.

00:54:26 Dr Hayley Lewis

They interviewed this general about his approach to taking a big risk using AI for part of the armed forces.

00:54:35 Dr Hayley Lewis

But there’s some brilliant, brilliant stuff in here and they’ve set out almost a mandate and a structure for what digital intelligence looks like.

00:54:44 Dr Hayley Lewis

They even have a whole section about how high and low digital intelligence, what it looks like in boards.

00:54:52 Dr Hayley Lewis

So they look at it through the lens of the crow.

00:54:55 Dr Hayley Lewis

the chief technology officer, the CEO, the COO.

00:54:58 Dr Hayley Lewis

So I would say crows, get a copy of this book because no one else will be reading this and it’s going to put you ahead of the game and give you lots of ideas.

00:55:07 Sarah (Host)

You’ve heard it here first, everyone.

00:55:08 Sarah (Host)

Thank you so much, Hayley, for your time today and your insight and for bringing the information to life with all of the stories.

00:55:14 Sarah (Host)

It makes it so much more, I mean, it’s always going to be interesting to listen to, but just really helps put it into context for our listeners and for myself as well.

00:55:23 Sarah (Host)

If our listeners would like to hear more from you,

00:55:25 Sarah (Host)

and access more of the amazing information you’re putting out, where can they find you?

00:55:30 Dr Hayley Lewis

The main place to find me is on LinkedIn.

00:55:34 Dr Hayley Lewis

I’m there a lot and some of your listeners may be there following me or connecting with me already.

00:55:40 Dr Hayley Lewis

And then I’ve got lots of resources, lots of useful articles on my website, which is halopsychology.com.

00:56:00 Sarah (Host)

Thank you, everyone, for listening.

00:56:01 Sarah (Host)

If you want to find any of the information we talked about in the episode, you can look in the show notes below.

00:56:06 Sarah (Host)

But otherwise, make sure you’re liking, following, subscribing, and we’ll be back soon for more with another episode of the Deep Dive.

00:56:13 Sarah (Host)

Thanks so much, everyone.