As host Shirley Chowdhary points out in the wrap up episode, we’ve spoken to some incredible women this year, each with different ideas about what leadership looks like, sharing stories of how their leadership journeys have played out in their lives and careers.

“We’ve been talking about leading for the next decade and there is no question in my mind that women have so much to offer in this space,” Shirley said, reflecting on the season.

“The leave policies, the focus on diversity and inclusion, the importance of lifting women up and supporting each other, resilience, self confidence – the list goes on.”

Below, we’ve shared some key quotes from each of our guests this season, and explore some of the key leadership themes that become apparent while creating the podcast. A big thanks to Salesforce, for making The Leadership Lessons possible.

Nicole Liu, founder of Kin Fertility

One of the most critical lessons Nicole Liu has learnt since founding Kin Fertility, is that she doesn’t have to be an expert when it comes to reproductive health or tech, to be a successful businessperson in the health tech space. For her, it’s about surrounding herself with the right people.

“I’ve always really valued building strong relationships with everyone I meet, whether that’s my friend, my colleague or my investor,” she said.

“You want to be around people who care about you as a person, not just you as a business. I think that transparency, vulnerability, that ultimately helps build that connection.:

“I lot of people like to follow their gut, I like to call it follow your energy. You spend so much time at work, probably more than you spend with your family, and so you kind of want to fall in love with it.”

Helen Haines, Independent MP

Helen Haines also spoke about the benefits of surrounding yourself with great people, whether it is those you work with every day, or experts who can help you to do better work. She also told us to face our fear, and constantly learn from others.

“I just think it’s so important to know that you don’t have to be a subject area expert in everything to be a champion for it. What you need is those experts to support and help you and that’s been my experience with prosecuting the need for a federal integrity commission.”

Shelley Cable, CEO of Generation One

Shelley Cable shared her ultimate strength and inner confidence, as a First Nations woman, comes from her ancestors, her family, her friends and those who have confidence in her.

“I feel so privileged to have had my family instil such confidence in me that if someone stands in my way, I always just think, “I’ll show you”. My family has taught me that I can do anything, and I truly believe that.

Mel Thomas, Founder of the KYUP! Project

Mel Thomas has channelled her very difficult childhood into supporting children, women and men who are dealing with domestic violence. She shared why she doesn’t believe our experiences have to limit us.

“I think there’s a great misconception that people that suffer trauma or hardship are weak. I actually have an incredible sense of intuition and street smarts that got me through that time but also, I looked at my mum, who escaped an incredibly traumatic experience, she rebuilt her life. I remember thinking she’s strong, I’m strong,” she said.

Professor Lisa Jackson-Pulver, epidemiologist and Deputy Vice Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Services at the University of Sydney

Proud Wiradjuri woman, Professor Lisa Jackson-Pulver talked about the power of dreaming big, and what can happen when you keep putting one foot ahead of the other.

“I survived a childhood that remains, even for me, fairly unspeakable. And I survived it. One of the reasons I survived it, is I was able to envisage a different future. I always knew that I’m not alone, there were others in circumstances like mine and I always knew there were others who weren’t in as good a circumstance as mine.

“I didn’t have an aspiration as such. What I did have was an ability to put one foot in front of the other and to do something. I recognised that I am not the sum of my upbringing.”

Madison de Rozario, Paralympian

Athlete and paralympic champion Madison de Rozario speaks about the responsibility she carries as role model, especially when she has the privilege of a platform to create change.

“It excites me and it stresses me out. It definitely is a responsibility that I take very very seriously. I remember growing up and not having many role models that looked like me and I remember seeing Louise Sauvage as the only person that looked like me. I’m very aware that there still isn’t that many, so I understand the impact you can have when that spotlight isn’t shared as evenly as it should be.”

Lisa Annese, CEO of the Diversity Council of Australia

Lisa Annese lives and breathes diversity and inclusion and in her episode, reminds us all why it’s important, and what comes with being a person always agitating for better outcomes.

“You are always up against it because you are always agitating for change. So you’ve got to be comfortable being a little bit difficult. That’s me. It doesn’t necessarily make me popular but it’s effective to work in this space.”

Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb

Journalists and friends Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb made us all laugh this season, reminding us why we should work with people we respect and trust, and also people who can make us laugh.

“The joy of having somebody with a sense of humour that you work with. That honestly is like the mental health super pellet. I know how stressful Leigh’s job is but I always know it can just take one funny gag for her to feel in the moment, loosen up. If you have the power in a situation to have a laugh, it says a lot about your sense of control over the situation and faith in your own competence.”

Daisy and Lucy Turnbull

Mother-daughter duo Lucy and Daisy Turnbull spoke about their careers, the ‘mental load’, the importance of building confidence in young girls and women, and why we need to combat gender deafness at home and at work.

“We need to get women and girls confident in their own abilities and their own innate skills so that when they are going for jobs they are selling themselves as best they can. It’s a lot around self-talk and positive self-talk and for young girls, especially teenagers, it does become an issue of being rightly proud of your own achievements versus bragging. Girls don’t want to accidently fall into the trap of bragging,” Daisy said.

“I think gender deafness is a real issue but I think whenever there’s more than one woman at the table – and this can apply at the dinner table, too – when a woman says ‘let’s talk about this’, the men often don’t listen and then bring the same problem up… and the other men say ‘that’s really good’. I think the other woman who listens to the woman make the point initially, has to be given credit by the other woman,” Lucy said.

Satu Vänskä, Principal Violinist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra

Having lived in different parts of the world speaking four languages, Satu Vänskä brought us a reminder about our own duty to be open minded and aware of our role in these rapidly evolving times.

“In the music field, I’m very conscious of the danger of stagnation. Artistically, diversifying your talents and seeing how you fit into the 21^st century as a so-called classical violinist, we all have to ask ourselves ‘what’s my place in this’? ‘How am I making it so that it’s accessible for newer audiences’? And there comes the word diversity again. We have to diversify our talents and our skills.”

You can listen to this episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce, now.

The post What we’ve learned from women on this season of The Leadership Lessons appeared first on Women's Agenda.

As she explains in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons, her father “drank too much”, gambled away money her family didn’t have, and “used his fists too often”.

On the podcast, Mel talks about the shameful epidemic of domestic and family violence that exists in Australia, and her personal experiences that have propelled her to create change for others. A survivor of family and domestic violence, Mel also says she was bullied by other girls in high school, and at age 19, she became a victim of street violence.

Then, 25 years ago, she walked into a martial arts class, and it changed the course of her life.

“I learned all the things that had been missing in my life. Accountability, real inner strength, and self-worth. I felt respect for myself. I felt respect for others, but mostly I felt a sense of belonging which I hadn’t realised was missing until I had it,” she shares on the podcast.

Mel is now a specialist in Hapkido, a Korean form of martial arts, and has two Australian titles under her belt. She’s also the founder of the KYUP! Project, an organisation she started to empower young Australians, raise their standards and champion their safety and wellbeing.

The KYUP! Project runs workshops all over Australia, in schools, communities and workplaces, aiming to end the cycle of violence at a grassroots level.

Mel explains that martial arts helped her to stand up for herself, and also taught her how to speak up for others when necessary. She believes the KYUP! Project’s workshops resonate with people, especially young people, because “nobody wants to be told what to do”.

“Kids don’t want a laundry list,” Mel says. “They want to hear real life. They want authentic stories, and they want authentic strategies and skills to actually get through situations that don’t feel right.”

The KYUP! Project began in 2013, but it wasn’t something Mel ever planned on pursuing.

“It wasn’t like I found my life’s purpose,” she said. “I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and keeping it real and saying my perspective.”

When the pandemic set in, Mel became increasingly concerned about the spike in family violence and the many people who were more likely to be trapped with abusers in lockdowns.

“I looked around and found out that 65 per cent of corporates don’t have any domestic violence policy,” she explains.“So I started talking to these businesses and how we could help people break the silence in corporates, and it’s been amazing.”

Mel says it’s essential that businesses have domestic violence liaison officers, awareness training, domestic violence policies that are properly implemented and financial support to help employees leave abusive relationships.

“On average, it takes women up to seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. We’ve got studies that show it can take 141 hours and up to 18 thousand dollars. So it’s a two-billion-dollar business problem,” she says.

“Businesses play a really important role in helping victims maintain their dignity and protect their privacy, and essentially rebuild their lives.”

Mel says that the KYUP! Project is now her ultimate passion, and she loves that she’s able to help others through her work.

“I’m very passionate about helping people, helping victims protect their privacy, and maintaining their dignity. And whether that’s at school or in businesses, or community groups, I love doing our self-worth and self-protection.

“I love doing these leadership workshops, where people are raising their voice and tuning in to our intuition – which we step over so much – and raising our standards.”

If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or family and domestic violence, you can call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.

If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

You can hear more of Mel’s conversation with Shirley Chowdhary in the most recent episode of The Leadership Lessons, a Women’s Agenda podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce.

The post How Mel Thomas is teaching others to beat the cycle of domestic violence appeared first on Women's Agenda.

That was until March 2020, when the entire music industry was brought to a grinding halt, and concerts all around the world were cancelled due to the pandemic. Speaking to Shirley Chowdhary on this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, Vänskä recalls how shocking it was to have to pull back on in-person performances without notice.

“We were like: ‘It’s impossible. You can’t cancel concerts’…cancelling is not an option. It was never an option. To have these plugs being pulled off was such an unthinkable thought,” she says.

In the podcast, Vänskä shares just how devastating COVID-19 has been for those who rely on live music for a living, saying that the uncertainty of it all has been the hardest part.

“Uncertainty is, you know, it really killed us,” she explains. “I mean, the amount of performances that we’ve cancelled, it’s really sad and it’s devastating.”

“Musicians from Ed Sheeran, to opera singers, to symphony orchestras. We all make our money from selling tickets. Because streaming and all that stuff doesn’t really… nobody sells albums.

“I am very fortunate that I am in such a well-established institution as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, but I really feel for all the freelancers.”

Vänskä currently plays a Stradivarius violin at the Australian Chamber Orchestra. There are only two of these instruments in Australia. The violin she plays was built in 1726 by Antonio Stradivari, who made about 2000 instruments over his lifetime, out of which only about 600 have survived.

“I’m very speechless about the honour of being able to play such an instrument,” Vänskä says. “To have something so old and so excellent as your everyday tool, you feel very privileged, and you feel very special.”

Vänskä now lives in Sydney, but she spent her early years experiencing different global cultures. The daughter of Finnish missionaries, she lived in Japan until the age of 10 before moving to Finland. Vänskä speaks four languages, and says her upbringing helped develop a unique way of thinking.

“When you’re speaking in Japanese, for example, your brain works in a different way. You construct the sentences in a in a different way. And therefore, you see the world from a, you know, there’s a different way of approaching into things. And it’s the same thing when you speak Finnish,” she says.

“I see that’s a great gift, in fact, that I don’t have a home in that sense – a country that I really want to go back to. I find that way of thinking very limiting. It’s great to have a feeling of belonging, but I don’t see that there is a problem in having home in lots of different places.”

Speaking about the impact music has had on her life, Vänskä says that having been given the opportunity to play an instrument as a child was really important. And she would love to see every child given that same chance.

“Every child should be given the opportunity to learn an instrument. It’s something that should be really seen as an important thing. The studies are all there. It’s good for a child’s brain to learn an instrument,” she said.

Playing with others has always helped her to feel connected to those around her and given her a sense that there’s something bigger out there than just herself. This feeling is something Vänskä has held onto while live performances have been on hold.

“You get this access to something that you couldn’t achieve by yourself. Because you’re doing it with others, you’re sort of tapping into something bigger than yourself and something that’s worth aspiring.”

You can hear more of Satu’s conversation with Shirley Chowdhary in the most recent episode of The Leadership Lessons, a Women’s Agenda podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce.

The post Violinist Satu Vänskä on why the survival of live music is important for all of us appeared first on Women's Agenda.

In this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, Cable tells Shirley Chowdhary that she had always thought she wanted to work in corporate Australia, probably in “a finance department somewhere”. And she hadn’t known philanthropy was a sector until she took a job in it.

A proud Nyoongar woman, Cable says her parents, who met working in a bank and had an “entrepreneurial streak about them”, instilled a love of business and finance in her. She also says she grew up in an environment that gave her an “inner confidence” which means she doesn’t get easily intimated by challenges that come her way at her work.

Speaking on the podcast, Cable explains that she’s steadfastly focused on the primary objective of Generation One, which is to help close the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in one generation.

“Indigenous Australians are roughly 3.3 percent of the Australian population,” she says. “So, what we’d like to see is Indigenous Australians representing 3.3 percent of the workforce around Australia.”

According to Cable, the current statistics indicate Australia is very far away from this goal as it stands.

“What that looks like in actual numbers is we need another 300,000 Indigenous Australians in work by 2040. And that’s a pretty big number regardless, but especially so when you consider that only around 200,000 indigenous Australians are in work today,” she explains in the podcast.

“So, over the next 19 years, we’re looking to 1.5 times the size of our current workforce.”

At the Minderoo Foundation, the team is constantly dealing with challenges it doesn’t immediately know how to solve, something that reflects the organisation’s ambitious goals. Cable refers to “stretch targets” which is basically the idea that it’s good to be a bit uncomfortable with the level of challenge you’re facing at work.

“I think that’s been great to build my resilience knowing that there’s a whole foundation here that feels the same way. But the important thing is that we don’t let it overwhelm us,” she said.

“I got thrown into a leadership position here at Minderoo. And I had to learn very quickly how to manage a team, how to lead a team, how to work in the philanthropic space all at the same time.”

Part of this resilience comes from the fact that Cable doesn’t have time to worry about what other people think of her work.

“I’m in a hurry and I think First Nations people are in a hurry. You just need to look at the fact that the employment gap is 200 years away from closing for a start, to realise we don’t actually have that long.”

As Cable has told Women’s Agenda previously, she’s noticed how the dynamic changes at decision-making tables when she’s there.

“By actually taking a seat at the table, I sometimes don’t have to say anything,” she tells Shirley in the podcast. “And the people around me, by virtue of me being visible in that room and taking up a seat around that board table, people all of a sudden consider the Indigenous perspective and they wonder what I’m thinking just by virtue of me being there.”

Hear more from Shelley Cable in this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, a Women’s Agenda podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce.

The post Shelley Cable became a CEO at 24. Here’s what she’s learnt about leadership appeared first on Women's Agenda.

These are the words of independent MP Helen Haines, who says she still feels a sense of thrill and excitement every time the Speaker in the House of Representatives calls her name in the chamber.

“There’s just an enormous sense of privilege and responsibility and that’s an extraordinary feeling. I know that it comes to so few people.”

Helen Haines, who is the federal member for the electorate of Indi, is the latest guest on The Leadership Lessons podcast, where she tells Shirley Chowdhary why she thinks her background in nursing and healthcare has held in her such good stead to be a politician. But also, that politics was never something she’d imagined in her life plan.

Haines notes she is just one of two people in the current federal parliament that has a background in nursing, and as far as she’s aware, she’s the only midwife. “Ged [Kearney] and I are the only two nurses in the parliament and we’re not aware of anyone who has come before us as nurses,” she says.

As someone who was engaged in healthcare for more than 30 years, first as nurse and midwife, and later as a healthcare researcher, Haines believes many of the skills she’s brought with her from her previous career are essential to her achievements in parliament.

“I had a pretty good capacity to communicate with people in all sorts of situations and from all sorts of walks of life. I think that’s a really important skill for a member of parliament. You really need to be able to meet people where they’re at and engage with them in a way that is really compassionate, and that recognises people,” Haines explains.

“When people finally come to meet with a member of parliament over an issue, they’ve usually tried everything. And sometimes they’re very angry or very sad or feeling very vulnerable. So, I think my background in health really helped me.”

In the podcast, Haines shares that as someone from a rural, farming community and with a career in health, for most of her life, she’d never considered entering politics. It wasn’t something that had ever seemed to be in range.

“I had never seen myself as someone who would be putting my hand up to run for parliament, but I did so. I did so because, as a community person, I became highly engaged in seeking something better in our electorate,” she said.

In 2012, a group of people in Haines’ rural electorate came together in the backroom of a library and started discussing how they could improve the state of their local democracy. It led to the formation of the community group Voices for Indi and the subsequent election of independent MP Cathy McGown in 2013, when she defeated incumbent Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella.

Haines was later selected by Voices of Indi to replace the retiring McGowan, and she was elected to the parliament in 2019. She made history, becoming the first independent to ever succeed another independent in the same seat in federal parliament.

“Becoming a member of Parliament is deeply and inextricably connected to my lifelong desire to be a useful person in a rural community,” Haines says.

Haines attributes some of the confidence she now has in her role to having watched McGowan do the job before her, and says it helped her understand what to expect of a career in politics.

“It was having that role model of Cathy. A woman I knew in my own community who had a career very different to mine, but again, steeped in her local community. And then when I saw her take on that job with such confidence, I thought, ‘Yeah, okay. They’re the kind of skills that can work very well in the political sphere’.”

In parliament, Haines is focused on issues of integrity, climate change action, improving democracy, and representing her local community in a consultative way. In 2020, she introduced a bill into parliament that would create a strong and independent federal integrity commission.

“I have a sense of a place in history, which is a great privilege. And I know that I’m only in the House because the people of Indi have given me their trust to be there, and I just take that so very seriously,” she says.

“I like to have a team around me who I trust and whose knowledge I respect and who I’ve recruited for their skills and expertise. I very much like to let them get on with doing their work and bringing their recommendations to me. I delegate them to do a lot of work on my behalf, to do the research and to come back to me with recommendations. That’s how I lead.”

You can catch Helen Haines’ full conversation with Shirley Chowdhary on the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce.

The post Helen Haines never saw herself as a politician. That’s why she’s so valuable appeared first on Women's Agenda.

This is something that Lucy Turnbull says she’s witnessed throughout her time in the workforce, and often, she says, it’s women returning from career breaks that devalue their skill set the most.

Lucy shared these thoughts with Shirley Chowdhary in this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, a special mother-daughter special with Lucy and Daisy Turnbull.

“A lot of women don’t understand how good they are at multi-tasking and collaborating, especially across the operations of the family,” Lucy says. “When somebody says, ‘Have you had any experience in project management?’, I think most women have in a way.”

Lucy adds that smart employers and HR managers are coming to understand this, but there needs to be a wider acceptance in society of the many skills gained at home. “So that more women can step up to do things with for which they are perfectly well-skilled [for], although they may not imagine that they are,” Lucy said.

In the podcast, Lucy and her daughter, Daisy, share experiences from their careers – Lucy’s in politics, business and urban planning, and Daisy’s in education and building resilience in children.

Daisy agrees with her mother’s assessment and adds that women should be able to put “the mental load” on their CV. “I think it also becomes an issue when women are trying to re-enter the workforce after having a lot of time out of work,” Daisy says.

“It’s kind of like the old Ginger Rogers line of: ‘I do everything Fred Astaire does, but backwards and in heels’.”

When Lucy became the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, and then later with her work at the Committee for Sydney and the Greater Sydney Commission, she shares that her mantra was to be “very multifocal” and to bring “all the different threads and strings together”.

“You have to think of everything all at once,” she says. “It’s so important that everybody collaborates and communicates, and that they don’t just think about their stream or staying in their lane.”

Building confidence in your own ability, to be able to bring these skills to the workforce, is something that Daisy, as a teacher and mother of two children, believes needs to start early – especially for girls.

“I just think the girls feel like if they talk about having done really well at something, they feel like they’re bragging. And bragging is considered a negative trait in women,” Daisy tells Shirley.

“Girls often don’t want to accidentally fall into the trap of bragging. So, they just don’t celebrate their own achievements.

“We need to get women and young girls being confident in their abilities and confident in their own innate skills – so that when they are going for jobs, they’re selling themselves as best they can.”

Building resilience in children is something Daisy is passionate about. She’s the Head of Wellbeing at the school she teaches at. Earlier this year, she released a book titled 50 Risks to Take With Your Kids: A Guide to Building Resilience and Independence in the First 10 Years.

Looking to the future, Daisy wants to see society wake up to the gender norms we are establishing early on for children, both in their homes and at school.

“The chores that boys and girls get, the expectations we have of different genders, all of that stuff,” she says.

“If I start – I already do – but if I talk to my eight, and five year old around that, in 10 years’ time, they’re teenagers navigating this.”

Hear more from Lucy and Daisy Turnbull in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post ‘The mental load’ experience should be on a woman’s CV: Lucy and Daisy Turnbull appeared first on Women's Agenda.

These are the words of Australian Paralympic champion Madison de Rozario, as she recounts what was going through her head in the final moments of her epic gold medal win in the T54 marathon in Tokyo.

In this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, Madison elaborates on what it took to get over that finish line in first place, to cement her place in Paralympic history.

She remembers how, coming down the last hill of the course, one of her competitors Manuela Schaer from Switzerland, was closing the gap on her lead.

“I remember taking one last look behind me. Realising she was definitely closing the gap, but I still had a little bit,” de Rozario says. “In the stadium, the commentary is so loud. I could hear the commentary saying that she was closing the gap on me.”

Madison says it was the sound of the small number of Australians in the stadium cheering her on that helped push her over the line.

“There weren’t that many of them, but they were so loud, they were just yelling at me through that last 300 metres,” she says.

de Rozario then hit a point where there were no more tactical decisions to make in the race, it was only about giving it everything she had left. In the end, she won the race by less than a second in an absolute nail-biter for all the Australians watching at home.

“You kind of just hand over control to your body to do everything that it needs to do. And thankfully, on that day, it was enough just to get me over that line first. One of the absolute highlights of my career.”

In the podcast, Madison tells Shirley Chowdhary about what’s it’s like to be a high-profile athlete, especially as someone with a disability, and why she takes her job as a role model so seriously.

“It excites me, and it also stresses me out a great deal. It definitely is a responsibility that I take very, very seriously,” she says. “I remember growing up and seeing Louise Sauvage, and she was the only person that looked like me.”

“There just weren’t many people who look like me and I’m very aware that there still aren’t that many and so I understand the impact that you can have when that spotlight isn’t shared as evenly as it should be.”

By the time she gets to the end of her sporting career, Madison says she’d love for her voice to not need to be as loud as it is right now. She wants to see others come into the space, as Paralympic sport rises in profile.

“There are so many others in that space, and I want different opinions to mine, and I want just so much variety and authenticity in all those opinions and voices. I think that’s so much more valuable than just several loud voices. As of right now though unfortunately that’s not the case.”

“I do recognise that that is a platform that I do hold. So that does come with a lot of responsibility because your words carry more weight than they deserve. I try to do that as authentically as possible, but also as considerately as possible.”

Madison also reflects on the need for greater inclusion when it comes to people with disabilities, a group that is so often pushed to the sidelines in all facets of life. She says that growing up, she always felt the need justify the very space she took up.

“Your whole life is shaped by this kind of one identity that’s very much forced upon you,” she says.

“I would love just to see a generation of kids growing up never having to redefine the entirety of who they are, getting to learn who they are in all of their facets from the very beginning, rather than having to fixate on one because they’re told that that is who they are.”

You can hear more from Madison de Rozario in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons, a Women’s Agenda podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Paralympian Madison de Rozario on what it took to win that epic marathon in Tokyo appeared first on Women's Agenda.

For a decade, Sales has been the anchor of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program 7.30. Crabb, meanwhile, has often graced our television screens with her political commentary and as the host of shows like Kitchen Cabinet and Ms Represented.

The pair are close friends and have hosted a wildly popular podcast together for years, Chat 10 Looks 3, where they’ve built a close-knit community of (mostly) women, who openly share stories about their lives, books, TV, and cooking in a private Facebook group.

The people in this group call themselves the “chatters” and there are 45,000 thousand of them. The group is a small slice of the internet where politics and divisive topics are left at the door, in favour of fun, humour, and kindness.

“It’s a specific little place that you can go just to talk about books and cooking and funny stuff,” Annabel Crabb tells Shirley Chowdhary in the latest episode of Women’s Agenda’s The Leadership Lessons.

“I think they just wanted to find each other, and we were just the community fluffers, really. Nothing more. We’re in and out of that group, but it functions independently of us. It’s just people who love to get together and talk about the things that we talked about in the podcast.

“Obviously, not all social media could be like that, nor should it, but it’s nice to have a little oasis every now and again.”

Not only is the community a delightful place to be online, it has also cultivated a group of people who actively look out for each other in the real world, too.

“There have been some really beautiful things that people have done for each other in that group,” Leigh says, telling a story about a woman with breast cancer, who was on a trip around the country and ended up in hospital with an infected breast.

The woman’s breasts were really painful, and a nurse told her that cabbage leaves could help soothe the pain. She posted in the Facebook group, and within 22 mins, one of the “chatters” had delivered a cabbage to her. The same woman also took her laundry away and did it and brought her breakfast the next morning.

It’s stories like these that flood the group on a regular basis and bring a depth to the podcast community.

Speaking on this week’s The Leadership Lessons, Leigh and Annabel – who have just released a book called Well Hello: Meanderings from the World of Chat 10 Looks 3 – are refreshingly candid about their friendship, with Annabel saying the beauty of their podcasting and writing partnership is that it doesn’t feel like work.

“She makes it easier,” Annabel said. “If I had to sit down and record an hour’s worth of podcast in a day, just me, it would be stressful. I’d have to do all this preparation. But I know I can trust Leigh so much and I know exactly what we’re capable of when we’re together.”

“I could literally walk onto the stage at Sydney Town Hall with Leigh – zero prep – and be absolutely confident that we could entertain people for an hour.”

One of the things Leigh reflects on most is how the community around Chat 10 Looks 3 has reinforced the absolute importance of having good relationships with others, whether that’s at work or in your personal life.

“I think that for all the millions of self-help books that get written about happiness, fulfillment, success, and all of the rest of it, it sounds a bit cliché, but it really does, in the end, boil down to your relationships with other people,” she says.

“What makes a satisfying job? It’s partly the content of the job but a huge amount of it is the contact that you have with other humans as you’re doing it. And, friendships and female friendships, and the important role that plays in keeping you happy and having a feeling of well-being.”

Hear more from Leigh and Annabel in this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Photo Credit: Stephen Blake.

The post How Leigh Sales & Annabel Crabb created one of the kindest places on the internet appeared first on Women's Agenda.

A proud Wiradjuri woman, she’s also on the executive of OzSAGE, a group of independent experts that are not beholden to government or companies, and are able to provide the very best advice to the public. She’s passionate about communicating health information, and at the moment, is focusing on getting the message out that vaccinations for COVID-19 are safe and effective.

“Vaccine technology is not new. Vaccines have been around for a long time and there is a lot of intelligence into vaccine,” she shares with Shirley Chowdhary in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people working every minute of every day, somewhere around the world, on improving what we’re doing and adding to the knowledge base.”

Professor Jackson Pulver says taking the COVID-19 “is safe. It is effective. It is an act of love…an absolute act of love to your community, to your people, and to your nation to have this jab because we have to get Covid behind us.”

As she explains in the podcast, Professor Jackson Pulver wouldn’t want people to assume she’s always been on a “path of privilege”, noting that her childhood was far from a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle.

“I remember once I was doing this talk and I was introduced as this big, esteemed professor type person,” she tells Shirley in the podcast. “And I was talking at the table with someone just before I was introduced and they go, “Wow. You must have gone to a good school. What school did you go to?”

“And I thought, oh my God, and the penny dropped. I think people see where you are now and assume that you’ve always been on this path of privilege.

“I feel very privileged to be in the role that I’m in, but I don’t consider myself privileged, right?”

Jackson Pulver shares more on her childhood in the podcast, including that she is a survivor of child sexual abuse, that her siblings and herself often went hungry, and she became homeless at the age of fourteen after leaving home to escape abuse. After meeting an outreach nun, Jackson Pulver was advised to get into nursing, because at the time it was a hospital-based training program and you were able to live at a nurse’s home while you trained.

“They give you a nice fancy uniform, three meals a day, and a room whose door you could lock. Critical,” she said. “It just changed my world because all of a sudden I was safe. I was secure. I was learning a trade.”

After dabbling in nursing and some creative fields, Jackson Pulver made her way into a medical degree at the University of Sydney, before switching to a Master of Public Health, after she found herself suddenly caring for some children in her extended family.

“So, I did a masters of public health and I haven’t gone backward. I just love public health. I thought it was just the best thing since sliced bread. And so, I went off and did a graduate diploma of epidemiology. I became an epidemiologist, you know, investigating outbreaks, leading public health teams, contact tracing, you know, did all that stuff for people.”

She went on to do a PhD, and has enjoyed a career in academia ever since.

“I’d just like people to recognise that not all of us in these esteemed positions are people that have come through a regular path,” she says. “Now actually, I don’t really know what a regular path is anymore.”

Jackson Pulver shares that one of the reasons she survived her childhood is because she was able to envisage a different future. And it’s what drives her today to help other people from disadvantaged backgrounds enter university.

“I had fantasies about my future,” she says. “What I did have was an ability to put one foot after the other and to do something. I recognised that I am not the sum of my upbringing.”

“It does drive me and compel me to kick open that door to the university for people like myself and others to come in. Having our diversity, our stories, backgrounds, histories, communities, and families in the door make a university a much better place.”

You can hear more from Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver in this week’s episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post ‘Not all of us in these esteemed positions had a regular path’: Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver appeared first on Women's Agenda.

As Liu tells Shirley Chowdhary in the first episode of Season 5 of The Leadership Lessons podcast, one of the most critical lessons she’s learnt since founding Kin Fertility, is that she doesn’t have to be an expert when it comes to reproductive health or tech, to be a successful businessperson in the health tech space.

“Initially, I did not think I was the right person necessarily to build a health tech company, but I think what I realised early on was that I didn’t actually have to be,” Liu shares.

“If you can bring in the team to help guide the insights, the decisions you make and the execution that you do, you don’t have to be the expert. You just have to make sure you lead the vision and pull everything together. I almost feel like, I’m the air traffic controller more than anything else.”

Liu founded Kin Fertility because she had observed a need for women to be able to talk openly and take control of their reproductive health and fertility.

At age 24, she had been incorrectly diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and told she could perhaps be infertile. A specialist later told her she didn’t have PCOS, but the experience had been confusing and isolating for her, at a time when she hadn’t even begun to think about whether she would have children.

“I just realised a lot of people would, for example, go through infertility and just not really have a support system to talk to. Part of this journey with Kin is really, like, how can we normalise this conversation? So we become more aware of the issues that are possible, so that we can seek help from the community and medical community when we need it,” Liu says.

As a health tech company, Kin Fertility helps women navigate the different stages of their reproductive lives with online tools, offering a contraceptive pill subscription service that utilises telehealth technology to connect women with doctors.

“In a nutshell, at Kin, we essentially want to empower women to really take control of the decisions that impact their reproductive health and their fertility, and their bodies,” Liu says.

“I think the big thing for us was that, you know, this journey, we spend most of our lives trying not to get pregnant, and then, for a lot of people that sort of shifts, and we potentially think about getting pregnant and it becomes very overwhelming and very all-consuming.

“And that journey is not always straight forward, and I don’t think we’re really set up for knowing that all the time. What Kin’s trying to do is trying to be a partner and a guide throughout that whole journey, no matter which part you’re in.”

Speaking on the podcast, Liu shares her refreshing perspective on what it takes to be a leader in a start-up company like Kin Fertility, offering that she’s never tried to be someone she’s not.

“I don’t know how not to be [myself], if that makes sense,” she says. “It’s really exhausting not being yourself however many hours of the day that you work.”

“I’ve always really valued building really strong relationships with everyone I meet whether that’s going to be my friend, my colleague, my investor.”

Liu says that she likes to have fun, be happy and motivated at work, and it helps if you’re around people who care about you as a person. “Not just you as a business, or you as a leader, or you as a colleague,” she says. “I want to create these connections because that ultimately makes life richer.”

Liu also thinks opening up conversations about being authentic at work, gives others permission to do it as well. And being open and authentic is at the heart of what Kin Fertility does, working to remove the stigma that is so often associated with women’s health.

“When we don’t talk about it, society at large, doesn’t recognise it as a big problem,” Liu says. “Investors at large also don’t recognise it as a big problem and I think the more we talk about it, the more innovation, research, and actual solutions will get built to these problems that we so clearly feel.”

You can hear more from Nicole Liu in the latest episode of The Leadership Lessons, a podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post How Nicole Liu built a health tech company to help women take control of their fertility appeared first on Women's Agenda.

This week, our host Shirley Chowdhary speaks about two overarching themes that have come through in the episodes this season, including how women have navigated challenges they’ve faced, like discrimination, and what our guests believe leadership should look like in the decade ahead.

“Often, we can underestimate what the world looks like from the perspective of another,” Shirley Chowdhary said, in reflection of this season.

“What does it feel like to experience the world as a First Nations woman? As a woman from a culturally or linguistically diverse background? From the perspective of a woman who lives on or below the poverty line? Or even as a woman trying to lead a business or an idea in our modern world?”

The podcast explored all of this in season 4, and we’ve pulled out some quotes below from our guests, talking about their challenges, and the leadership they’d like to see. As always, thanks to Salesforce for making The Leadership Lessons possible.

Sharon Chuter, founder and CEO of UOMA Beauty

Sharon Chuter let us in on how she had to work doubly as hard as many of her colleagues when she worked in the corporate world in order to prove her worth and ability.

“It’s ok to be average, and be a person of colour. You don’t always have to be spectacular. Sometimes this sounds controversial…but the burden should not be on us to be successful in corporate life. Why should I have to work an 18-hour day and my colleagues work 8 hours? We should all work 8 hours, and whoever is a star, is a star, regardless of your race.”

Madison Howarth

Young Indigenous woman Madison Howarth spoke about what it meant to her, when she heard Brooke Boney introduce the news segment on Triple J, with a greeting, “Yama”, in her language.

“Hearing someone say hello, in language, on a station like Triple J. It was like – finally. We’re hearing something of our languages being shared. It’s really important. And it was done in a way that was just normal. She would just say it, so that people heard it every day.”

Mikaela Jade, CEO of Indigital

Mikaela Jade reflected on what it’s like to be a female, Aboriginal leader in the STEM sector, and shared some of the challenges she’s overcome along the way to build her company.

“We’re a minority of a minority. It’s very rare to see women in STEM, it’s very rare to see Aboriginal women in STEM. Something that gets frustrating as a CEO in this area is, if I have a male with me, people still want to talk to him about business decisions.”

Professor Raina MacIntyre, expert in infectious disease

Professor Raina MacIntyre shared her experiences of being overlooked at work, and in the media, in favour of others who are less qualified.

“There’s a lot of efforts to pull you down and to elevate people who are not as qualified. I call it white washing, which is where there’s huge efforts put into making you invisible.”

Turia Pitt

Turia Pitt spoke about why she’s sees the pursuit of happiness as essential to living an optimal life.

“Happiness is not really a sought after goal for a lot of people. I think most people think it’s a little bit trite. It seems kind of insignificant when you compare it to other really great aspiration out there. I really think someone who is happy most of the time, is generally more productive, more energetic, more focused.”

Kirsty Chong, CEO of Modibodi

Kirsty Chong spoke about normalising menstruation, menopause and miscarriage in her workplace through implementing separate paid leave to cover these issues for her employees.

“So many people, who are experiencing physical and mental pain in relation to a very normal monthly problem, being menstruation, or menopause…and then miscarriage. I didn’t feel it was right that you have to use sick leave in the first place. Part of our mission at Modibodi is to open conversations around bodily leaks, menstruation and women’s health.”

Nina Mapson-Bone, Managing Director of Beaumont People

Nina shared her insights on how she led the introduction of a four-day work week for staff at recruitment firm Beaumont People.

“Everyone participated and we came up with productivity guidelines by role. So we knew if you were meeting those guidelines, you could quality. You could get paid for 5 days, and take a day off as long as you were still meeting the outcomes. It’s all about how to do we continue to twist the dial to improve.”

Wendy McCarthy

Feminist leader Wendy McCarthy shared some of her hopes for the future, including achieving equal pay, and improving women’s health outcomes.

“I certainly want to see equal pay and equal pay is something that a lot of people use a lot of weasel words about. We’ve had endless inquiries into how to achieve equal pay. It actually isn’t that hard. I also feel strongly about women’s health and safety, and that includes domestic safety and the public health system.”

Mariam Mohammed, co-founder of MoneyGirl

Mariam talked about her experience when she first arrived in Australia, and why it’s so important to have representation for people of colour in the media.

“When I came to Australia, and I looked at the Australian media and it was so fricken white. Every time I saw a brown face I was like “yes!”

“If there isn’t representation than what you’re counting on is a few individuals who see a vision for a different world and will therefore push through those barriers regardless. But that’s a lot of work on those individuals…we can’t expect all people to have that level of clarity and vision and resilience. If they don’t see it, they’re not going to believe they’re able to do it.”

The Leadership Lessons, is a Women’s Agenda podcast made possible thanks to the support of Salesforce. You can listen here, or subscribe via iTunes or Spotify.

The post Here’s what leadership should look like in the decade ahead appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Throughout this season, host Shirley Chowdhary has been joined in conversation with some formidable women leading in all kinds of fields, including STEM, medicine, beauty and health, journalism, finance, motivation and HR, and management.

Each guest has generously shared their lessons in leadership, talked about self-doubt and how they’ve risen above that to the challenge of creating and conquering.

“Before we go to air with any guest, I always ask if there is anything they don’t want to talk about. None of these woman took anything off the table,” Shirley said, in reflection of the season.

“All of them shared their stories with us so that we might learn and grow and understand how leadership can look different, sound different and be different to the way we have been conditioned to think about it. “

Here, we wanted to share some memorable moments from each of our guests, and explore some of the key themes that stood out to us as we produced these episodes. As always, thanks to Salesforce for making The Leadership Lessons possible.

Mikaela Jade

Mikaela Jade, founder and CEO of Indigital, didn’t set out to be a leader. She simply want to create something meaningful, and then she learnt how to speak about it and bring other people along.

“I didn’t show any traditional leadership qualities as I was growing up and didn’t believe myself to be a leader. The way that I went about doing things was just seeing a need and going, ‘Well, no one else is going to bloody do it so I better do something’,” she said.

Jonty Low

Jonty Low, Chair of the Australian Associated Press, said she doesn’t have a clear image of herself as a leader. She’s focused on the work she’s doing, and trying to make a difference.

“I still don’t think I’m a leader, I don’t have any sense of myself in that way. I just want to do good work and make change.”

Kristy Chong

Kristy Chong, founder and CEO of Modibodi, is focused on being an authentic leader, who does good work and strives to be collaborative.

“Who am I at work, is who I am at home. I’m a big believer in driving business results but with collaboration. I’m a big believer in a hybrid model, because you need that little bit of staff spirit and those spontaneous moments where you come up with ideas together,” she said.

“We need to listen to everybody, to ask for their opinions and draw them out. It’s very easy to just have your own voice heard all the time.”

Nina Mapson-Bone

Nina Mapson-Bone, Managing Director of Beaumont People, takes a long-term approach to leadership in order to get the best outcomes, and the most out of her staff.

“I take a very long-term thinking approach to things. When I see people making leadership mistakes, it’s often because they’re taking what I see as a short-term approach. They’re fearful, or nervous, or scared or worried about results so they try and push harder when it’s the wrong thing to do at that point in time,” she said.

“I try and separate my personal, emotional response from things, and think what is going to get the outcome.”

Professor Raina MacIntyre

Professor Raina MacIntyre, who oozes confidence in her own abilities and knowledge, is very clear about behaviour she will not accept in her workplaces.

“You’ve got to quickly understand what people’s capacities are, then tailor your expectations to their capacity. I also learnt my capacity for work and juggling multiple things is probably much greater than most people’s,” she said.

“Just follow your own path and don’t try to be someone else. And don’t waste your time comparing yourself to other people. I always impress upon people the importance of honesty and trust.”

Sophie and Wendy McCarthy

Mother-daughter duo Sophie and Wendy McCarthy shared their thoughts on career planning, and what an important role mentoring can have one one’s personal growth and career trajectory.

“Mum always had a nice saying: that all throughout your life, you should be a mentee and a mentor at the same time,” Sophie said. “You should always be learning; you should always be giving back.”

Bronte Charles, Madison Howarth and Charlotte Ryan

We heard from young women Bronte Charles, Madison Howarth and Charlotte Ryan about what leadership means to them as First Nations women.

At the beginning of their leadership journeys, the spoke about what drives them to get up every day, and how they like to honour their ancestors in everything we do.

“You can’t deny it, I feel it when I’m in colonised environments, like uni, I feel that resilience, I feel that strength. I feel it when I’m tired and I don’t want to do it anymore. It’s resilience passed on from our ancestors. It’s undeniable, almost,” Bronte said.

Mariam Mohammed

Mariam Mohammed, the co-founder of MoneyGirl, was open and honest about her struggles with mental health, and shared that she often has bad days where it’s hard to get going. She told Shirley about her ‘why’ and her drive to make the world better.

“When I am ready to give up, on a day like today, when I have trouble getting out of bed, what eventually gets me out of bed is that I’ve been through it, and I know that I’m strong enough to make it through again,” Mariam said.

“I will do so because one, two or a couple more young women will have it a little bit easier because of the work that I do.”

Turia Pitt

Turia Pitt generously shared with us her tips on how to turn negative self-talk around, and her belief that everyone has the inner resources to cope with whatever life throws their way. In her life, she chooses happiness, and to be grateful for every day.

“I knew in those early days that if I just kept ruminating on what my future may or may not look like or how I was going to rebuild my life, or the unfairness or the injustice of it all, that would just eat me up inside,” Turia said.

“What can I be grateful for today? How can I make today good? How can I enjoy today with my partner?”

Sharon Chuter

Sharon Chuter, founder and CEO of UOMA Beauty, believes in the good of everyone, and she’s focused on redefining the beauty industry make every person feel like they deserve a place in the world.

“For UOMA Beauty, that was what I wanted to do there. I wanted to create this space where everybody was proud to be themselves. I wanted to create this beautiful rebellion.”

The post What we’ve learned from women on this season of The Leadership Lessons appeared first on Women's Agenda.