New Year New You and Toxic Terrors

G’day G12!

I am down for the next two weeks to provide motivational advice, inspirational stories and thoughtful insights….or maybe just ramblings from an Aussie J

Over the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about my goals, probably brought about by the new year and that I love new years resolutions! For the first week of this year I was laid up in bed and when that quickly became boring I looked back on some of the APLP work, it made me realise what a productive time that was for us – how much work, thinking, research, community engagement, friendship occurred during that time. The greater the distance that grows between the now and APLP, the greater the appreciation I have of it and the greater the recognition that this was a privilege, a luxury almost to have a period of six months (for some longer) of time to consider your goals, your strengths, your weaknesses, explore those issues that you always wanted to research and never had time for. I look back with nostalgia at our time there, I glaze over the super small dorm rooms, the old dragon on reception, the never-ending orientation fortnight, the peeping tom – oh the memories! I don’t know whether my life will provide me with it, but I sincerely hope I get the chance to have a six month sabbatical in the future and reap the benefits in the years afterwards. For now I try to create the space in my days, weeks and months to think and reflect.

The last few months of 2015 were extremely challenging for me, I was dealing with some significant staffing issues, primarily caused by a middle-aged man in my team who was quite simply toxic. This man had been in the team for more than eight years. He was considered as the agency’s most experienced officer in coordinating Australian Government assistance for domestic and international disasters. And while he didn’t hold any qualifications as such, he was in fairness experienced and did hold a significant amount of corporate knowledge and was well liked and respected by some of his colleagues. However, he was not open to a much younger, female coming in and being his boss. I have dealt with being a young (female) boss on many occasions and so have developed strategies and a thick skin to work through it. Like all relationships at work (and in your personal life) we would have moments and periods of working well together and the atmosphere in the team would be positive and energetic. Over time I noticed that these periods were when he had got his own way on something (so I had comprised) or during or after the response to a major event (where research shows that people generally display cooperative behaviour and attitudes). And while the benefits lead a more positive environment within the team, they caused me to deeply analyse my behaviour, question my ability to lead and my commitment to what I thought were my set of morals or principles. It was a roller coaster, which was not only unstainable but disruptive to the direction I wanted to take the team and the changes I wanted to make. He was a road block to change within the team, if he did not agree with my decision he would rally the troops and bring them around to his approach and I would be lobbied by my own staff on an alternative approach – normally one that was ineffective, costly or unimaginative at best and further entrenched an old way of doing business. The effective on me over the last ten months was both physical and emotional. When you are in a workplace (of which you are the boss!) that makes you question some of the fundamentals about yourself, you should use that as an opportunity to self reflect and question some of your behaviours and attitudes and make those improvements where you need too – this I did. But when I started to realise that these opinions were not shared by my peers nor by the entire team, I started to see his behaviour for what it was – bullying. For those of you that work in any Government institute you will understand that it is incredibly difficult to fire permanent staff, they basically have to demonstrate gross negligence or behaviour – and like most bully’s he was smart enough to stay well under this line. After long negotiations, he has been moved to another agency for 12 months which he begun at the start of the year and I can not begin to tell you the relief that I feel, physically and emotionally, every day going into work. My energy and enthusiasm for work has dramatically increased and I am excited to be there again. It has been liberating and illuminating – while you should also take the opportunities to reflect on yourself (and your leadership) you

I would say that most of you may find this boring and for that I am sorry, but this is the first time I have actually really thought about this deeply or put my thoughts onto paper – it has been cathartic and for that I am thankful for your indulgence.

I will make the next post more exciting! 

P.S keep all the reunions across the world happening - so great to see!