Episode 329 · 20 August 2026 · 1:00:43
Toxic or Just a Bad Fit? How to Tell the Difference at Work with Cait Donovan [Fried: The Burnout Podcast]
Toxic or Just a Bad Fit? How to Tell the Difference at Work with Cait Donovan [Fried: The Burnout Podcast]
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Introduction to the special episode and Leanne's guest appearance on Fried
Being real on LinkedIn and the ethical gray zone of personality tools
interview#linkedin#ethics#personality-tools
Occupational psychology vs medical science in burnout research
Diagnosing workplace culture and psychosocial risk factors
Psychosocial risks vs culture: which comes first?
Right parcel, wrong address: bad fit vs true toxicity
interview#job-fit#toxicity#behavioral-science
Recognising incivility and emotional manipulation
interview#incivility#emotional-manipulation#workplace-toxicity
Generational myths vs managing early-career employees
interview#generations#early-career#management
The middle manager crisis and teaching prosocial skills from day one
Self-reflection, feedback, and wrap-up with takeaways
interview#self-reflection#feedback#takeaways
Show notes
Toxic or Just a Bad Fit? — Leanne Elliott on Fried: The Burnout Podcast (Feed Drop)
This week on Truth, Lies & Work, we're doing something a little different. Over the summer we're taking a short break from our regular format to share conversations we've had on podcasts we genuinely love — and first up is Fried: The Burnout Podcast, hosted by the brilliant Cait Donovan.
In this episode, Cait puts our very own Chartered Occupational Psychologist Leanne Elliott in the hot seat. They dive into the messy, nuanced reality of workplace culture, systemic stress, and employee wellbeing — and Cait doesn't let Leanne off lightly, challenging her on everything from the validity of psychometric tests to where manager training fails, and where individual responsibility ends and organisational responsibility begins.
If you've ever wondered why workplace stress persists despite wellness initiatives, or how to tell a genuinely toxic workplace from one that's just a bad fit — this honest, no-bullshit conversation is for you. (Al and Leanne bookend the drop with their three biggest takeaways at the end.)
🎙️ The Feed Drop, Explained
Al and Leanne recently took a short break from the usual TLW format to share conversations they've had on shows they genuinely listen to. First up: Fried: The Burnout Podcast, where Cait Donovan interviews Leanne about burnout, workplace culture, and where individual responsibility ends and organisational responsibility begins. It's a cross-show drop — the Fried episode in full, wrapped with a TLW intro and Leanne and Al's three takeaways.
🔥 Key Takeaways
The system vs. the individual. Burnout isn't just about an individual's resilience or biology, nor is it purely an organisational failure. Sustainable workplace mental health requires looking at both the person and the system they operate in. (Leanne: "burnout isn't just about the individual, and it isn't just about the organisation either. If we really want healthier workplaces, we have to understand both the person and the system they're working in.")
Middle managers are set up to fail. Managers have the single biggest impact on employee engagement and mental health, yet the latest CMI stats show 92% of new managers have received no training ever — and more than 40% of managers five to ten years in haven't either. We ask them to coach, support, communicate, resolve conflict, build culture and drive performance, often with little or no formal training. (Leanne: "We shouldn't really be surprised when they struggle if we've never equipped them to succeed.")
The best conversations aren't the ones where everyone agrees. They're the ones where people ask good questions, challenge each other's thinking, and stay curious enough to explore different perspectives — exactly what this conversation was. (Al: "Cait is a fantastic interviewer who asks really genuinely thoughtful questions.")
More From Cait Donovan & Fried
- Listen to Fried: The Burnout Podcast: caitdonovan.com/podcast
- Website: caitdonovan.com
- BurnBold: burnbold.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/caitdonovanspeaks
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/caitdonovan
(Cait's new book, Mismatch, is out as part of the Blue Goat Books Beyond the Cubicle series — mentioned in the wrap-up.)
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name's Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottWe are the co-founders of people and culture consultancy Oblong, and together we help leaders simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottNow, today's episode is a little different. Over the next couple of weeks, we're taking a short break from our usual format and sharing a couple of conversations that we've had on podcasts that we genuinely love. These are shows we actually listen to ourselves, so we thought we'd bring them to you too.
Leanne ElliottAnd honestly, as a podcaster, as a person, there's not a lot more exciting than being invited onto a show you genuinely admire. The first is incredibly Fried: The Burnout Podcast, hosted by Cait Donovan. If you've not come across Cait before, I mean, she's awesome. She is so cool. She is one of the leading voices on burnout. Fried started out focusing on burnout recovery, mainly at an individual level, but the more recent series has broadened the conversation to look at organisations, leadership, and the systems that we work in. I was so looking forward to this conversation, and Cait definitely didn't let me off lightly. She challenged me on everything from culture and psychological safety to whether managers are being set up to fail, and where, importantly, individual responsibility ends And organisational responsibility begins.
Al ElliottYeah, this is exactly the sort of discussion we love listening to, and we hope you enjoy it too. So after a very quick word from our sponsors, Leanne and Cait will be in your ears. Does your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident, and is completely flipping useless. Well, that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm. But you know what does know something about your business?
Al ElliottHubSpot.
Leanne ElliottHubSpot's AI. It works with your actual customer data. Every interaction Every signal your team has generated over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Cait DonovanCreating a podcast that people listen to is hard, and in the world of podcasts, there are some standouts. That get a ton of accolades, a ton of downloads, and the right sort of attention. And today, I'm lucky enough to interview one of the people behind one of those podcasts with what is over 4 million downloads, 250,000 downloads a month. It's just this wild, huge, magical thing. that you've created. So, today, we get to speak with Leanne Elliott, who is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Coach known for building workplaces that empower teams and drive performance. So, you can see why she's here in this season. Makes sense, right? She co-hosts the award-winning Truth, Lies, and Work, the UK's number 1 work podcast and a top 10 global business podcast. Folks, breaking through that space when you are not a celebrity is like near impossible and never happens. So, this is So impressive. Leanne has a reputation for developing high-performance cultures at major organizations, including the NHS, DWP, and RBS. Currently, she brings this expertise as SMES. What's that?
Leanne ElliottUh, small and medium enterprises.
Cait DonovanOh, to small and medium enterprises as co-founder of people and culture consultancy Oblong. Leanne, welcome to Fried.
Leanne ElliottThank you so much. Much. What a beautiful introduction. And I have to point out, Cait, to all of your lovely listeners, we first met when we approached you to be a guest when we were babies. I think at the time we maybe had like 1,000 downloads in total. And the episode that you came on talking about the Twitter layoffs was a real pivotal moment for our show and really started to, to launch us in ways we couldn't imagine. So huge thanks to you. You've been such an important part of our journey.
Cait DonovanThe thing that I love about you most on a, even from like on a personal level, is you're very much a no bullshit kind of gal, and you write really funny LinkedIn posts about the state of work and what we're all looking at and what we're all facing. So, you have this like pretty serious job, you have this incredibly popular podcast, you're doing all these big things, but you're still just being human.
Leanne Elliottout there.
Cait DonovanLike, it's a, it's a relief to me to see someone continue to be real and continue to be themselves and to maintain their personality through that kind of growth.
Leanne ElliottThank you. I'll be honest, I'd love to sit here and go, that was always the point, Cait. I was always confident enough to be myself and put myself out there as a northern, northern English woman from state schools and all that stuff. Um, the truth is My kind of inner saboteur was always thinking to myself or telling myself that you don't sound clever enough to be a psychologist. You didn't go to like Oxford or Cambridge and you haven't worked in a Big 4. Like, who are you to go and post on, on LinkedIn about these things? And I was talking to an old colleague of mine. We used to be part of the same writing team doing professional branding, and she is now phenomenal on LinkedIn. And I talked to her and I was like, I just can't. get into the flow of it. And she was like, I listen to your podcast, Leanne, and it's you. It's, it's just authentically you. I read your LinkedIn and it's not like— just write how you talk. So I was like, but people might not take me seriously. And she was like, they take your podcast seriously. Try it. So I must admit, it's all down to, to her advice. And, and yeah, and I've had lots of feedback, the similar thing, that it's nice to not— to see LinkedIn content that isn't performative and isn't kind of selling something. But I have also had people get in touch with me asking if it's pushing— some of my content sometimes pushes into a gray zone of ethics in terms of what psychologists should be saying and talking about. And I'm all right with that.
Cait DonovanReally?
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah. Just because I'm quite direct, because I can be quite direct, I can call out the BS, I can, you know, fall into things that— it doesn't depend. Myers-Briggs is is BS. Let's just call it what it is. I don't like it, and I'm gonna say that.
Cait DonovanSo, but it has no actual background or validity to it. So that's not an unethical thing to say.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanDo lots of people use it? Yes. Do lots of people get helped by it? Yes. Does that mean it's a statistically valid and useful tool? No, that's not the same thing.
Leanne ElliottI know, I know. I think, and understandably and rightly, ethics is such a central part of our of our practice and, and how we qualify. It's always, you know, front and center of everything that we do, and that's what distinguishes working with an occupational psychologist and working with a management consultant. We're not going to sell you something that isn't going to work because ethically we're bound not to. But I think at times we can stretch that to a point where we almost silence ourselves, and I think that's where, you know, probably stems a lot from why organizational psychologists, occupational psychologists psychologists aren't a firm feature of businesses in terms of their senior management teams.
Cait DonovanYeah. Well, and I think that there's this awkward idea that if you offend someone, you're being unethical, and that's just also not true. I have been reading your posts and been in your world for what, 4 years now, maybe something like that, right? It's been a long time, and I have seen your content consistently over that time. I have never once thought that you were crossing a line. I thought you were being honest, but honesty is not a lack of ethics.
Leanne ElliottI, I agree. But as, as we both know, honesty can be hard to hear sometimes.
Cait DonovanOh yeah. Not everybody likes it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right. So I wanna jump into this idea that occupational psychologists are not part of the workplace, and I wanna first Tell you why occupational psychology bothers me.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Cait DonovanAnd then we can get into why it's still necessary, because I do think that it's necessary. But when I started researching burnout, every piece of research that I found was done by a social scientist of some sort. There was no medicine-based, medical-based, physiology-based research. Into burnout. That means to me that we're only telling a very small part of the story because there's a huge physiological component to burnout. And there's a huge physiological component to behavior. So sometimes I feel like some of the suggestions that are made are like cool in theory, But people's bodies aren't gonna let them do it because of hormones, because of inflammation, because of all different things. So, I would love to see an organizational psychologist with someone who understands the stress response on a physiological level sort of work together. Like, I think that would be a, a better space because you can't just tell people how to behave. That's not how behavior works.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think you're, you're absolutely right. And we need this, this collaboration between practitioners to really have a sustainable and significant impact. And there are organizations doing that in the UK who are doing phenomenal work. The RSPCA, which is an animal charity, has a chief medical officer partnering with organizational psychologists to Um, especially around the emotional load and trauma that staff go through. The BBC is another organisation that has a chief medical officer. So, there are pockets where that collaboration is happening, and it is having a phenomenal impact. I think when it comes to organisational psychologists, you're right, we can't tell people how to behave. We can do various things to try and influence behaviour and modify behaviour. My focus, and the majority of most organizational psychologists, is about the environment that we're creating and the things that leaders can control. You're right, we don't have any control over somebody's physiology or their genetics. We can't control that, we can't change that, but we can change elements of the environment that are going to impact that individual and, and may make, you know, make it harder for them depending on what they're dealing with as an individual.
Cait DonovanYeah. So, When you are looking at, you've got a new client coming in, what is your first step? Are you doing a diagnostic procedure? Are you reading surveys? Are you, what are you doing?
Leanne ElliottYeah, diagnostics. I think that's the biggest myth that I first experienced when I started as an ox psych was people expecting me to have all the answers from day one. And it's like, I don't have any answers right now. I have a load of questions and You know, and I have a structure behind those questions. But yeah, it's about diagnosis, about understanding the environment. And yes, that does involve surveys, which I know can be triggering to some leaders out there. But I think I'd start by saying not all surveys are equally created. You always wanna scrutinize the model that sits behind the survey and how well those questions are measuring what they're intended to measure. And it has to be complemented by other activities as well. So yes, I will do a diagnostic survey with staff, but I'll also do focus groups. I'll also do— Yeah. Group coaching sessions with leadership teams. I'll also look at the policies and procedures that people have in place, the work environment itself, whether it be physical or digital. There's a whole host of things that we look at to first define what is going on. One of my favorite books is by an incredible psychologist called John Amici, and he says that the most important thing that you can do for somebody who's lost is tell them exactly who they are, where they are. And that's my first step as an oxyc is to go, let me tell you where you are. Then let's look at where you want to go, and then we can figure out a route to get you from A to B.
Cait DonovanAll right, so the where we are portion. So, if we're talking about where we are as a company, I mean, we, I'm only one person, but we're just going to say where we are as a company. You're going into someplace and you're looking at where we are. What kind of map are you describing that on, right? So, is that a clear enough question or no?
Leanne ElliottI think so. So, kind of, what am I looking at? What kind of framework am I using?
Cait DonovanYeah, like when you say here, like if you were going to paint someone a picture that says, here you are, what are the components that tell them, we're not talking northeast, southwest, we're talking there's, but there are cardinal directions that you're looking at in order to orient someone within the workplace. What are those cardinal factors?
Leanne ElliottI always like to start with what psychologists call psychosocial risk factors, which are basically aspects of organizational life that can cause stress. And over time, you know, it can be problematic in all sorts of ways to the individual and to the organization. And they're usually very transactional, observable, observable things. It's things like the quality of relationships between people as peers and direct report to a manager. It's things like how change is managed in the organization, the resources people have to do their job. So the training they get to, to do their job and the workloads that they have, the support they're given, the level of recognition, which is gonna include, yes, things like salary and benefits, but also in terms of how feedback is given, how career development is managed, how performance is managed. It's gonna be also things now that we're in a remote world, of how remote work is handled in terms of whether it be fully remote, in terms of hybrid, how communications shift, how belonging is fostered. And it's gonna also come down to things like really transactional stuff like role clarity. Does somebody know what their job is? What's within their area of responsibility? What isn't? And are they working in a team that all know that and how they're contributing to the overall mission of the organization? So, it stems very much from a research perspective in In stress research, in health and safety research, because the idea is it doesn't matter what the culture of the organisation is necessarily. Culture is almost a tool to help you get a strategy in place and execute a strategy, because the underlying psychosocial risk factor is what's actually driving people's behaviour. You can't Bring in like, oh, we're gonna have— we need to really grow, so bring in this high-growth learning culture, but nobody's got the resources. There's lots of instability and infighting, and nobody knows what their job is. So, it's really starting at that foundational level. And often I'll work with clients for 18 months just to get those things right and identify the areas they have strengths in that we can build on and celebrate, and the areas that are real risk factors that we need to pay close attention to. Once we've got that level of stability, we can start to talk more about what culture means and how it complements the strategy of the organization?
Cait DonovanIn my mind, and we can play with this, but in my mind, the culture is what allows for or disallows for the psychosocial risks.
Leanne ElliottOkay, say more.
Cait DonovanSo, you're saying the psychosocial risks come first, but in my mind, the psychosocial risks are based on what the culture allowed to happen or didn't allow to happen, right? In my mind, culture is basically determined by what we allow and what we disallow, what kind of behaviors we allow and disallow in the workplace, and what kind of environment that creates within that structure. So, if there's a lot of psychosocial risks, to me, that means that there's a weak culture. Like, you can't have a lot of psychosocial— like, if you have a high degree of psychosocial risk, You have a shitty culture at the same time. Like, you can't have— if you had a good culture, you wouldn't have those psychosocial risks.
Leanne ElliottTrue, true. And it is a bit of a chicken and egg. I think my thought is that culture exists anyway, and changing culture is like trying to steer a cruise ship. It takes a long time, and it's one, you know, it's that Barbra Streisand quote, it's one degree at a time. If we're looking at psychosocial risk factors, they're much more transactional, they're much more tangible. I agree with you, my favorite definition of culture is the worst behaviors tolerated, and that again comes from John Amici. We don't have an agreed culture definition in the literature. There's more than 50.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo if we're even trying to talk about changing culture, we first have to define it and understand it, and there isn't really an agreed way of doing that. There are very, very good and robust ways of doing that, but still not not agreed. And it's almost then like you're changing something that feels intangible, which for leaders is, is really hard. And I think this is where culture has become a buzzword and people are starting to kind of disconnect with what culture is and whether it's all that. Whereas if we're talking about, yes, there's a psychosocial risk that there's infighting, but where is that coming from? Is it coming from the fact that relationships are really bad and people are bullying, there's harassment? In the workplace, or is that incivility coming from nobody knows what their role is, therefore everyone's stepping on each other's toes, or managers are micromanaging? You know, there's so many different, different drivers that could be influencing what pockets of toxicity we've got. So, to really make a change, we need to first address those little pockets, and they're the psychosocial risks.
Cait DonovanOh, and my head just went, yeah, but if you're having those things, there's also a hormonal thing happening that you might not be able to shift. Without awareness of the fact that that's happening. So, like, I'm still going, my head always goes into the biology. So, for instance, like, if there is a really well-bonded team, like, there's a team that really works well together, there's 5 people, they know each other well, they bounce off each other well, that doesn't mean that there's no risk. It just means that this team in this company is really kind of doing a great job. But when you do that, there's a high level of oxytocin bond between everybody on the team. Oxytocin, yes, bonding hormone, love hormone, intimacy hormone. Okay, cool. So we're all connected, we're bonded, we're cool, except for if we try to add one person to that team, that same oxytocin bond will encourage the people that are already bonded to reject and even—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanViolently attack the outsider. On a biological level, you don't know this is happening. You know that there's a team that you need another person on, but you can't seem to get one on there. If you don't understand that there's biology behind it, I guess you could change it without, because really all you have to do is break up the team and introduce them one by one. It's not a difficult process to actually go through, and that you can make that decision from any perspective. But to me, it's like knowing that that happens allows for a deeper understanding of why people are acting the way they're acting.
Al ElliottRight. We're back with Leanne and Cait after this very short break.
Leanne ElliottWelcome to the break.
Al ElliottYes, my favorite part of the show. These, these two idiots have stopped talking.
Leanne ElliottYes. I want to tell you about my new favorite podcast. No, that's a lie. It's my old favorite podcast.
Al ElliottI've been on it for a while. Didn't know where that was going. Didn't know where that was going.
Leanne ElliottIt is called I Digress. It is hosted by Troy Sandage, and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottYes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes, and I Digress helps eliminate complexity, complications, and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what it says here.
Leanne ElliottAnd if you do want to hear a really personal story, go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, killing hustle culture, and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention.
Al ElliottListen to I Digress wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottThat concludes the break.
Al ElliottLet's return to the scheduled programming.
Leanne ElliottBack to the studio. I agree that educating people on these things is important, understanding the why. And I think it's the same when, when we look at neuroscience research that It can translate really well into organizational life because it can give a lens to behavior that leaders have been struggling to understand or influence. So, I agree, it's all part of the conversation. But like you said, it's— there's ways that's— if that's just kind of the biological default, then we still need to look at ways of how we do introduce that new person, how we do communicate how this is going to be beneficial for the team.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd the organization. It's how we do that, and that is gonna come down to the role that we need in this organization, or how it's gonna further our mission, or how it's gonna, you know, lighten workloads, or how it's gonna improve other people's development, because maybe this person is more senior and they can serve as a mentor and coach. It all links back, and it's all part of the same ecosystem, the same web. And I think this, again, is where, you know, this cross-collaboration of practitioners can be really powerful.
Cait DonovanYeah, and I think this is like, that part is natural to me as an acupuncturist. We're always as part of a bigger team. We're not usually the only practitioner that someone is seeing, so we're used to that sort of very interdisciplinary way of looking at things. And also, Chinese medicine is interdisciplinary within itself. There isn't such a thing as separate psychology and separate physiology. Like, those things are not separate for us. So, I keep trying to like pull them back together in the Western world, and they're just not, they're just not there yet. So, let's talk about, you said a few words, that I think are important. And I did an episode maybe 2 or 3 years ago on the research of what actually constitutes a toxic work environment. And you've just said almost all the words within, you know, the past couple of minutes. So, I think that that's an interesting place to go. And one of the things that happened after that episode was that we had a coaching client that talked to the coach at the time who was Sarah and said, you know, For the past couple of years, I've been complaining about my toxic work environment. I listened to that episode. I realized that my environment isn't toxic. It just isn't a good fit for me. So, can we talk about the difference between toxic work environment and just not right for you?
Leanne ElliottYes, yes, yes, yes. I love this. I, we had a, a guest on our show called Dr. Audrey Tang, who's one of my favorite people, like, learning psychologists in the world, and, and she described it as Right parcel, wrong address.
Cait DonovanYeah, I love that.
Leanne ElliottI just thought that was so beautifully, beautifully put.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottHer, yeah, all of her work is incredible. And I think it comes down to a level of self-introspection and reflection that we don't often indulge in. And as you know, as you talk about all the time, is so important to understand exactly who we are and what drives us and what meaningful work means to us, to know if we're aligned to an organization, because it's that dissonance that's going to cause that, that stress and, and, and that, um, that pressure, that tension. It's not to say that the organizations are so toxic, or in fact the individual is toxic. You know, we talk about, you know, toxic superstars and toxic employees as well. And an exercise that I really like, and it comes from a psychologist called Meg Selig, and it is in Dr. Audrey Tang's book, The Leader's Guide to Resilience. And I talk about it all the time because I think it's so—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottuseful, and I use it myself. It's called VITALS, and it basically stands for values, interests, temperament around the clock— so what kind of time of day you're at your best— life goals, and strengths. And it's just a positive psychology exercise, self-coaching exercise to go through in terms of just thinking, what's important to me? What are my values? What do I, you know, that holds me and grounds me? What are my interests? What do I love? What gives me loads of energy? What are my life goals? What do I wanna achieve? What are my strengths? And just having this almost like this this checklist of what your vitals are and what to look for in an organisation that's gonna align with those vitals. Because if you're in an environment, whether it be an organisation or a community where your vitals aren't aligning, that is gonna take a toll on your wellbeing, on your mental health. So, I think for anybody who's finding or isn't sure if the organisation is a problem, or maybe they're just out of sync, is to do an exercise like that. Because if you're thinking, you know, my values are completely opposite the organisation I'm working in, Yeah. And I get to serve none of my interests of serving this organization, doesn't use any of my strengths, it's not contributing to my life goals, then yeah, there's a chance it's not the organization, it's just you're not in the right place.
Cait DonovanAnd so then, what does make toxicity?
Leanne ElliottBehaviors, toxic behaviors. It comes down to behavior, and I think it's that in the literature, it's studied as incivility, because we often think of toxic work cultures as being quite dramatic, that, you know, it has to be lots of bullying or harassment. Infighting, sharking, you know, people being treated terribly, underpaid, overworked. And yes, there are organizations out there, and that's what makes them toxic. But for the majority, it's more subtle behaviors. It's withholding information. It's just doing something day to day that makes somebody else's job harder. And people don't necessarily turn up with that intention, but they're just in this environment that— That just isn't serving them in And probably, you know, going back to the psychosocial risk a lot there, that people just get into this pattern of behaviors, you know, unconsciously that just compounds and causes real, real issues. So I think for anybody who isn't really sure, if you're just feeling this, this, this slight tension, this withholding of information, elements of cynicism, resistance to change that you know, has been managed fairly well, then that's probably signs that there's just slight issues there that are little pockets of toxicity that if they aren't managed, they are going to spread and it is going to escalate.
Cait DonovanLet's talk about the concept of incivility a little bit more. Like, this is something that I don't have any physiological research on that I can find in my head. Like, I'm like scanning my brain and I can't find any that I've already read. So it might be something to look into, but when I, you know, when you read elements of a toxic workplace in the research, you see incivility, harassment, bullying, you know, whatever these things, like these are the elements. And if those elements aren't there, then it's not really toxic. It might just be a bad fit. But incivility, let's talk about how we would recognize that, like really and truly, like on a Tuesday morning at 9:00 AM.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanHow are you recognizing whether someone is being incivil or not?
Leanne ElliottI worked in an organization where sadly I had to make my entire team redundant, and it was a really brutal, brutal job because we'd all been together for years from startup and the performance was great. It's just, it was government-funded contract. It got pulled. That's it. You know, we didn't have jobs for anyone else, and I had to make everyone redundant before I was made redundant myself. And I knew that was the score of it. I had a meeting with a member of staff, and I'd purposely scheduled it towards the end of the day because I also had a personal relationship with this member of staff prior to his joining the organization. So, I had a feeling that it might require a little bit more time.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, I scheduled it towards the end of the day for an hour, knowing that if it took the extra half hour, that's kind of getting towards, you know, end of play anyway. So, We'll take that time if we need it. There was no incivility in my team, but within the organization, there was absolutely aspects of incivility because there was a lot of pressure on the organization. There was a lot of change, there was uncertainty, ambiguity. You know, it's that classic kind of threat state. People kind of withdraw, and these starts of, you know, these sorts of incivil behavior start. So, I got a phone call from A manager on another contract who basically said to me, I've had this customer issue, I need you to deal with it now. And this was mid-meeting and I, I could see my phone flashing. And the 3rd time she called, I was like, I might need to answer this. And it was after the allotted time, so I was like, I'm, I'm sorry, I need to take this. I'll be back. Um, so yeah, told this and I'm like, I understand, but you can see I'm in a meeting. You can, you know, the process I'm going through.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottThis is hard, this is emotional, and I need to take the time to make sure that this conversation concludes in the most positive way possible. No, that's not acceptable. That meeting was meant to finish 20 minutes ago. I need to deal with this now. I thought your team was all about customer service. And there it is. And there it is. So not only is it unreasonable expectations, a disregard or lack of empathy for the situation I'm currently dealing with, And then throwing values back in my face to get what it is you want done. And it's that psychological, emotional manipulation that can turn up as a key red flag for incivility.
Cait DonovanThis is something I think I see more frequently than I would like to admit. And now I'm wondering what drives, like what really drives this behavior. We had a conversation not long ago, a leadership team that I'm on separately from my role here and as a speaker, someone came to us and said, well, I'd like to talk, and I know that you're going to take this in well because you care so much about this company, and da-da-da-da-da. There was a, you can't act any differently from how I expect you to act in response to my complaints right now because I'm telling you that you care, and that's underlining what my expectations are. I'm supposed to be allowed to whatever on you right now, and you're supposed to take it and do something with it because you care. And it's very sneaky. If you looked at it on a transcript, you might not know that that manipulation was happening.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it is. It's subtle behavior. And that's why I was saying it's not always— you think about toxic work environments as being very explosive. They're often not. It's these little behavioral nudges that just undermine our work, the work that we find meaningful, that question our values, that ask questions of us in terms of our integrity.
Cait DonovanYeah. So the thing that I'm thinking of now is generational mismatches. So you have someone who, I'm a millennial, but I have a lot of Gen X sort of behaviors, and I do a lot of things by myself. I'm hyper-independent. It's a trauma response. It's not great. I guess I'm working on it, but I am hyper-independent. So, I often have difficulty when people ask questions that I think that they should have the answers to already. Like, I told you that 6 times, Sandy, get your head outta your ass. And I wonder with the generation changes, if there isn't some of that just because like, well, I didn't get everything handed to me, figure it out. I can imagine some of the Older employees being frustrated that the new employees are constantly asking for information that they should know how to access and acting in an incivil way, not even thinking about it, just being like, dude, figure it out. Like dismissive, you know? What kind of organizational fix sits behind allowing that to not be the case? Because on one hand, like, yeah, I guess maybe you should help all the time. But on the other hand, if you've asked me 6 times, like, you're not doing your job.
Leanne ElliottIt's a very good question. I think generations are such an interesting area of, of conversation because they're not a very interesting area of psychological research because when we really drill down into it, there's not really any difference between generations in terms of what we want from work and, and how we want to to operate in it, but it is a contextual difference. And often a lot of that difference comes from how we were treated when we were younger. And what always makes me smile is I look back through how youth was described throughout the, the times.
Cait DonovanGen Z.
Leanne ElliottYeah, Gen Z are obviously, you know, talked about in all sorts of, of ways. You know, they're, they're entitled, they're not proactive, they're too needy, they set too hard boundaries. Millennials were snowflakes, the me, me, me generation. Gen X were slackers, boomers were rebels. And there's even, you know, even it was Aristotle talking about Greek youths and Plato talking about how nobody wants to work anymore. Youth is disruptive. Youth questions what, what and why things are done. Youth wants to find a better way of doing things because why is it that we have, you know, we haven't found a better solution to this and we need that disruption in our organizations.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, it's not necessary, I think, that Gen Z are wildly different to any other youth or generation. Of course, we have to kind of bring technology in as a contextual factor into that, which is also gonna cause some tension between Gen Z and millennials and older generations. But I think it really just comes down to what is our agreed consensus around how we manage young people?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottearly career people in our organization. That doesn't necessarily have to be with age either. It could be somebody who's transitioned career and is in early career in their mid-40s.
Cait DonovanSure.
Leanne ElliottHow do we deal with that? And that goes from, you know, really basic, like onboarding. What does that look like? Training and development. Do they have a buddy in terms of a mentor in a more experienced role? How do we, how do we deal with things like problem solving and critical thinking? Yes, we wanna, you're right, we wanna train people to think critically, especially in an age of AI where so much of that is is not getting practiced as much. So, I think a lot of it is, is being overly formal and having these conversations as a team. What does this look like? When is enough enough? If 6 requests and you're still not getting it, you know, then you are missing something out in terms of your obligation and your accountability in terms of the team and what it achieves. And it is really having these conversations and whether you do it formally, and I always want people to do it formally and put it into this team charter and what those behaviors look like and And that's when values can be really powerful because we're talking about the behaviors that underpin those values. And it just then serves as a framework to have conversations when things are slipping and tension is there. You know, it gives us that vocabulary and it gives us those expectations, those shared and agreed expectations to have these conversations. So yeah, these, these tensions, of course, they, they exist, but I think it's lazy to just put it down to generational differences.
Cait DonovanWell, then the question is, I guess, and maybe this is too nuanced to know, but what is the difference between friction and incivility then? When does it become a toxic factor? And is it— so, if you look at long-term chronic stress in the body, so I'm back to the brain, I'm back to neuroscience, I'm back to the body. If you look at long-term stress, so say you have someone that had a lot of adverse childhood experiences, their brain develops differently. They're more susceptible to stress later in life just because they are. That's how their brain was developed. It is what it is. Like, that's not, you are not gonna change that no matter what. So while you could say to one person, hey, you know what? You've asked me a bunch of times. I'm gonna tell you this last time. I need you to make a note of it because I'm not gonna be able to answer for this for you again. Like, you need to own this piece.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanOne person will take that as a complete attack, 'cause it will feel like an attack for them, and one person won't. So, how much of toxicity is not just about the behavior that's being acted out, but about how someone else interprets that behavior, the intention versus impact conversation?
Leanne ElliottYeah, and again, I put this, bringing it back to taking that time to agree what the expectations are and what that What does it look like if, you know, that, that, that third request is coming in, that fourth request is going on? How do we as a team agree to deal with that? What words do we use? And having everyone agree to that. So, if somebody is more sensitive to it, you know, it's that understanding that it's, it's not me. This is the, the kind of agreed norms of the group we're gonna operate with.
Cait DonovanMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think in, I think by and large, in a team that has civility and has these expectations and understanding of each other and how each of the works. Any one-to-one individual, um, differences and nuances like that will probably more than likely be dealt with very sensitively. Going back to your original question in terms of, of at what point does it go from friction to toxicity, and I think that's frequency. I think that's how, how often are these agreed norms and expectations broken and pushed. And not policed and not challenged by managers and other people in the group. And that comes back to that, you know, classic word psychological safety that everybody's heard of. But, you know, it is that, that is the, the bottom line of it is do people feel confident to challenge these toxic behaviors or incivil behaviors when they happen to prevent them from, from frequently occurring and then creating toxicity?
Cait DonovanYeah. So, every medicine has a dose level, right? Like, almost anything in high enough dose will— water in a high enough dose will kill you. It's just— so, if it's a dose question, yeah. So, this just leads me to more and more questions because it's like the dose that I can take before I speak up will be completely different from the dose someone else can take before they speak up. This is hard work.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's really hard work. It's really hard work. And you know who that should be really hard work for? Managers. And what—
Cait Donovanso tired and so burnt out already, poor things.
Leanne ElliottYeah, because they're not supported, they're not trained, they're not given the resources. It drives me nuts, Kate, how we are not only putting these people in such a vulnerable position, but also the impact they're going to have on the health and performance of our teams without the tools and resources and knowledge that they need to do no harm. We know from all the data managers have the single biggest impact on employee engagement, performance, mental health. We know, I think the latest stats from the CMI came out that 92% of new managers have received no training ever. More than 40% of managers 5 to 10 years in have received no formal training, and about 20% of senior managers have also received no formal training. We don't Invest in it. We know it's the single biggest impact on employee health, and it's it's having extraordinary managers who are trained in these pro-social skills of of of listening and having empathy and having difficult conversations in a way that allows somebody to feel safe enough, even if it is below their normal threshold, to have that conversation. And the organizations that get that right are the organizations that. that really nail this. And, and, and, you know, it— I, I, I don't understand why and what we need to do to get this message across. And my real frustration is now we're seeing the mass layoffs with AI. It's the middle managers that are getting made redundant because it's like, oh, if they're the source of the problem, let's just get rid of them. It's like, no, people still need these, these connectors within organizational life to manage these these relationships and manage what, what happens. And, you know, I was talking to, um, a psychologist called Dr. Jake Tuber, um, on the podcast recently, and we were talking about this. We had a question from, um, a listener who's stepping into their first management role and hadn't received any training. Um, and I don't know if you're allowed to swear on your podcast.
Cait DonovanYeah, go ahead.
Leanne ElliottSo I said, Dr. Jake, I said, why is it? I don't get it. And he was like, Leanne, I have no fucking idea. And that's my official answer. It's got to the point where I just don't know, and I'll keep banging on about it, and I'll keep talking about it because it's not fair to the people in these positions. It's not fair to every member of an organization. It's not fair to customers. It's not fair to clients. It's not fair to society. It's just not right.
Cait DonovanThis is something you've been writing about a lot on LinkedIn lately, and I appreciate it because I think that we're in this awkward, My approach to burnout is blameless because I don't wanna point fingers at managers or at people. We're creating this culture together. There's shit that's going wrong. You might have some biological things happening from your childhood that your manager's just not gonna be able to manage for you. That's not actually physically possible. And yes, there is research that shows the how important they are at the same time, but I feel like leaders and managers right now, so I went to Barnes Noble. Recently, and what, 'cause we're writing books for this series, you know? And so, I went and I was like, well, what's out there right now? There are a ton of books on how to be a good leader. They all say different and the same things, right? But there are a ton of books on how to be a good leader. There are no books on how to be a good employee. Not one. Not one. What the hell? That's weird. And I think that putting this pressure on the middle management to do everything without the training, like you're saying, is just so unfair. But they're still, even though we know that's unfair, they are still the target when things go wrong. Why would anybody want that job? Why would people even— people don't even want that job anymore. And I have to—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanGive a big, big, big shout out to a company that I have worked with for years. They are a national nonprofit in the US, and they run leadership training outside the company in cohorts, and they do various levels, but their first level is called Rising Stars, and they go through this 3-month process that ends in a 3-day sort of— well, it's a 3-day conference, and I'm one of the speakers at the conference.
Al ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanThey go through this like really in-depth soul-searching process with organizational psychologists, with me, with, you know, like they're really digging in hard during that time. And a lot of them come back to NextUp for the next stages because you can go through various stages of— and because of weird DEI stuff in my crazy-ass country, They almost lost a bunch of funding and customers in the past year and a half because they were doing mostly women leadership, not only, but mostly women's leadership. And I'm just like, can we please just all send our people through NextUp? Like, this should be, I think, one of the biggest companies in the country. Like, they should, they should. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And, and do you know what, like you were saying, there's no book on how to be a good employee, and it sounds like this organization is, is kind of, It kind of getting onto this is imagine, imagine an organization where everybody got trained in effective management behaviors from day one, regardless of whether they were going to continue to be an IC or a people manager or a manager of the kind. Imagine if we just trained everybody in prosocial skills, in coaching skills.
Cait DonovanMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottImagine the impact that's going to have on, on, like you say, your ability to be an effective Employee, team member, and should you want to be one day, manager. And my only hope, and I don't know, I'm still on the fence about this, because I try to be, to think more positive always, because I always believe that good will win in the end. I have to believe that. And what I'm clinging to in this now, that the kind of surgence of AI and how that's going to completely turn our organizational lives upside down, is whether this is the moment.
Cait DonovanHmm.
Leanne Elliottthat this stuff is going to get more important, and organizational leaders and business owners are going to realize that, oh, okay, that's why it's important, because actually that isn't the stuff we can hand off. We might think that, you know, ChatGPT makes a great coach, but it, it— no, you know, it doesn't. It does not. So that's my only hope. But, but yeah, imagine that. Imagine organizations that just did that from day one for everybody. Wow.
Cait DonovanI didn't say anything there for a second because I wanted you guys to let that sink in for a moment. What would happen if we just taught these things from the get? What if onboarding everywhere included, here's how we do things. Here's what matters here. These are, in the burnout world, the mismatch between values that a company says they have and the values that they act. If those are not the same, the entire company is more vulnerable to burnout, which is so annoying to me. That's one of the things that, shit, you gotta fix. This is not an individual's fault. The individual has nothing to do with this. The individual might even agree with your company values, but if those are not the acted values, Yeah. Then you are creating the mismatch as a company. Like, that's a problem. But when you look at stuff like that, it's like, that's yours to fix, but there's still so many other things. Like, if we just got clear on those things and shared them with people, what if people even knew what the word prosocial behavior even meant?
Leanne ElliottYeah. And like you say, just the ripple effect, like we're just talking about generational differences, that wouldn't be as much of a thing if everyone was trained on that from from day one and, and how to have these conversations was, was just a core skill of every employee.
Cait DonovanOr should we teach it? Should we be teaching it at like in high school?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. And I think—
Cait DonovanWait until somebody's an employee.
Leanne ElliottYou're right. And I wonder if there's an element of— I don't know, I'm just— and I'm thinking this right off the top of my head right now, and I'm not usually good at that because I don't really think out loud, but I'm gonna try. I'm wondering if There is an element of that, because when I was in primary school, I went to, I went to a Catholic primary school, and we talked a lot about values and how to treat each other and how to have conversations and what isn't okay to say and what is okay to say. And, and values and behavior was very much a part of my childhood. And I wonder if that's a similar experience for a lot of people at a primary school level, or kind of a, I don't know what you'd call elementary school level. Um, but yeah, imagine that. Imagine that.
Cait DonovanI think we all sort of get it in kinder— I joke about this on stage. I'm almost always saying like, most of the things that you need to do, you should have learned in kindergarten. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanMost of the things, but we learn them then, and then things fall apart and we go through, and I think this is the part that's difficult is developmentally and neurologically, when we go through our teenage years, when we're in that phase of life, we are supposed to fight against all of the things that we learned so that we figure out what belongs to us and what doesn't. Not what our family says, not what the culture says, but what really works for me and what don't. Like, you're supposed to fight the system at that time. That's your job developmentally. And so then when do we bring it back and say, okay, but within that, within whatever works for you, like, these are the places you'll be able to use that well because in—
Al ElliottYeah.
Cait Donovancorporate life, there are these behaviors that are expected. In entrepreneurial life, there are these behaviors that are expected. And, you know, like what I guess it, I mean, it's just harder than, it's just hard.
Leanne ElliottYeah. But like you say, there's, you know, maybe that's the parallel there as well. When we were talking about, you know, early, early career employees, they're meant to break the system in a safe way. You know, they're meant to, to think that way. And it's essential for organizational success that they do. Right.
Cait DonovanSo how much do we train them to act and behave and say and converse in a specific way? And how much do we allow them to disrupt the way that they are designed to disrupt?
Leanne ElliottYeah, but disruption doesn't mean incivility, does it? It doesn't have to.
Cait DonovanBut it will. on a neurological level, make people's stress response engage, which means they'll have less control over their emotional reactions, less control over their behaviors. So, it makes it more— disruption makes behaviors like that more likely.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanBecause when people are pushed to their edge, they're pushed to the edge. Listen, I tell this story all the time that I have a friend, a keynote speaker, a fellow keynote speaker who also always says that if you can get calm in a car, then you've managed your emotions or whatever. And I think it's the biggest bullshit on the planet because I think that in the car is when you should yell at people because it's a safe place for you to release anger that's not going to harm society as long as you're still controlling your car and have your eyes open, as long as you're still paying attention to where you're driving and what you're doing, that it's okay. Yell in the car where it's not going to hurt anybody if you need to move energy through your system. And then I always tell this story that I I like to think of myself, I've meditated for, you know, since I was 18. Like, I'm an acupuncturist. Like, there's a Chewy Granola girl in here somewhere. And so, I know all the rules about breathing and blah, blah, blah. But I'll tell you that there have been times that I have sworn at an old woman from my car, not that she could hear me, but in a grocery store parking lot for leaving a cart somewhere or doing, you know, like, listen.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanLike some, we're not always gonna behave well.
Leanne ElliottNo, we're not. But to, to make that analogy really cheesy, I think managers are the car. A good manager can hold that space for someone to go, what the hell is this? Why would you? And to pop off in a safe space that isn't gonna have more detrimental impacts in, you know, in terms of a senior leader's heard it or a customer's heard it, or, you know, a great manager. I've had conversations with staff where I, I feel like I've genuinely been just been yelled at. For 5 minutes. And then they take a breath and go, right, okay. And then we have a conversation. You're like, you're right, just you need to have that, that release. And it comes down to, yeah, okay, we can't expect everyone to behave perfectly all the time. Of course we can't. But if we can all figure out a way within a team environment to, to figure out ways of when, when I'll be the one that'll behave, you know, correctly.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo you don't have to, and then we'll figure that out. And then other times I might be the one that, that doesn't, and that's okay because we, you know where I'm going with this. You're nodding. It's, it's, yeah, I just think there's, we don't have to be perfect. And a great culture doesn't mean no conflict, quite the opposite. It's just how that, how that conflict is, is dealt with.
Cait DonovanHow it's dealt with. And then again, like we're back to like how it's interpreted, because some people will automatically, like if, if you have an avoidant attachment style from childhood that your parents didn't pay you enough attention, whatever it happens to be, when there is conflict around you, you will automatically assume it's always your fault.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Cait DonovanAnd that's like, again, like, this is not something a manager can necessarily fix for you.
Leanne ElliottNo, but it's not a problem necessarily to be fixed, is it? It's a level of awareness, both in the individual and the individuals around them. And there's still gonna be times where that behavior isn't acceptable. And there are times where you are going to have to try harder to moderate that behavior.
Cait DonovanYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, and I think as well, there's always a slight, a slight danger that, and this is also why I kind of, I really kind of push back against any type-based psychometric, whether it be CliftonStrengths or Myers-Briggs or whatever else, is it's that putting people in a box and that's my label. Oh, I can't help it because I'm You know, I'm a green, I'm a red. This is just what I— there's an element of, of kind of taking away accountability and responsibility. Um, so yeah, of course there are, there are biological, neurological aspects that will trigger behaviors. Um, but you might not be aware of is the problem. And I think that building that awareness in ourselves and in people around us. Yeah.
Cait DonovanSo maybe as we wrap up, because We could go down lots of rabbit holes from here, but maybe as we wrap up, one of the things that we're— we talked about promoting this like pro-social behaviors, but maybe the first thing that we're promoting is self-awareness for everybody, for managers and individual contributors alike, that the first stage of making any of this go anywhere is self-reflection.
Leanne ElliottYeah, self-reflection, absolutely. And I think also that being open to taking on feedback from others, you know, we have a very strong narrative of who we are, and reflection will deepen that and help us question that. Particularly if we do that in partnership with a coach, it's going to be even more powerful. There's still an element though that we misunderstand our impact on, like you said, the behavior impact kind of We still continue to misunderstand that. So, we're going to require that feedback from people around us as well. And that is where, you know, having that kind of feedback recognition structure in an organization can be really effective if it's done correctly. It's still really, really hard.
Cait DonovanYeah, it's mostly not done correctly, let's be clear.
Leanne ElliottYeah, no, it's not. But there's, yes, self-awareness, absolutely. But self-awareness is also built from feedback from others.
Cait DonovanFried fam, we did not solve all the problems of the world today, but we did solve a couple of problems of the workplace. Leanne, could you tell everybody where to find you, where to find the podcast and all that? And any last things that are just ready to fall off your tongue?
Leanne ElliottNo, I think I've said everything. I've ranted my way through this brilliant conversation. Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me. If anyone wants to find out more about me, LinkedIn is where I'm most active. Go and find me there, Leanne Elliott. truthliesandwork.com is where you'll find the podcast and on any Any other place you find podcasts. And if you're interested in working with us in terms of people and culture consultancy, you can go to oblonghq.com.
Cait DonovanLeanne, thank you so much. Fried Fam, here's what I want you to do with this information today. I want you to take a moment for self-reflection on how you're behaving on a day-to-day basis with the people that you work with, how other people's behaviors are affecting you, and just sort of start to dive into what that means for you as an individual and what that means for the people around you. I'm constantly saying no one is Switzerland. Your behavior is adding to or subtracting from whether or not everyone around you is burning out, no matter what. Everybody is contributing to it or detracting from it one way or the other. So, start to really dig into how you're showing up, what that means for you, what that means for other people, what kind of feedback that you've gotten maybe in the past that you didn't even really take as feedback because it was an offhand comment somewhere. Start to really dive into what your persona does in the workplace for or against the wellness of you and everyone around you. If we all start thinking like this, then everything becomes— easier. All right. Until next time.
Al ElliottThank you to Leanne and Cait. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, we'd really encourage you to check out Fried Podcast. Cait is a fantastic interviewer who asks really genuinely thoughtful questions. And if burnout, leadership, and workplace wellbeing are topics you're interested in, I know you're really gonna enjoy her work. She's also got a new book coming out called Mismatch as part of Blue Goat Books Beyond the Cubicle series. So we'll pop links to the podcast, the book, and everything else we mentioned in today's conversation.
Leanne ElliottA huge thank you to Cait for having me on. Fried. It was such a privilege to be part of the show, and I just have to say as well, thank you to Cait, who played a massive role in Truth, Lies and Work early days. She was one of our very first high-profile guests that we secured, and she's been so supportive ever since. Before we go, as always, we like to leave you with our 3 biggest takeaways. Uh, number one, burnout isn't just about the individual, and it isn't just about the organization either. If we really want healthier workplaces, We have to understand both the person and the system they're working in.
Al ElliottNumber 2, we ask an awful lot of our managers. They're expected to coach, to support, to communicate, to resolve conflict, build culture, drive performance, and often all of this with little or no formal training. We shouldn't really be surprised when they struggle if we've never equipped them to succeed.
Leanne ElliottAnd number 3, the best conversations aren't the ones where everyone agrees. They're the ones where people ask good questions, challenge each other's thinking, and stay curious enough to explore different perspectives. And that's exactly what today's conversation was.
Al ElliottWe'll be back on Tuesday with another episode of our summer seasons, and it is a good one. HR Confessions with Emma Jamil. I don't think we've— you know Emma Jamil. Emma, Emma. I don't think we've laughed that much in an interview for a long time. It is dark, it is ridiculous, it's incredibly funny, and Emma is just brilliant.
Leanne ElliottIt was so much fun. I was honestly crying throughout the entire interview with laughter. So yeah, grab yourself a cocktail and come and join the party on Tuesday. And then of course, next Thursday, we're sharing another conversation with a podcast we absolutely love. This time, it's both Al and I on UnbeHaved, hosted by Megan French Dunbar. If you've ever questioned the way work is supposed to be done, then you're going to enjoy this one.
Al ElliottAlso, I think it might be one of the only times we've publicly told the story of how we met. And even as we were telling it, Leanne, I was like, we were like, it sounds like we've just made this up.
Leanne ElliottIt is. I think the longer distance goes, I'm like, that did— that is how we met, wasn't it? Because it was It's not your typical meet cute.
Al ElliottIt's not. So until then, thanks so much for listening. Have a fantastic week. If you are on holiday, then, uh, mixed, mixed thoughts about you listening to a podcast. Well, no, great. Thank you for listening to us.
Leanne ElliottWell, that's why we're doing something a bit different, isn't it?
Al ElliottDon't be listening to any other work podcasts, just us. All right, speak to you soon.
Leanne ElliottBye.
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