Too Nice to Lead? The People-Pleaser Trap | Russell Harvey | S2 E10

PodcastLeadership
Written By Russell Harvey

In this episode, I join Angela Gill Nelms on the Badass Leaders Podcast to talk about something I lived through long before I ever taught it.

We get into the messy, human side of leadership resilience - workplace bullying, people-pleasing, and why empathy, one of your greatest strengths, can quietly undermine your authority if it isn't balanced with self-awareness.

We also explore the Resilience Wheel, strengths-based leadership, and the one question that tells you whether you're surviving, coping or thriving - and how to shift if you don't like the answer.

If you're performing fine on the outside while running on empty inside, this one is worth your time.

TL;DR

  • Resilience is "springing forward with learning" - not keeping going regardless

  • People-pleasing feels like empathy. It isn't. It erodes confidence and authority over time

  • How you answer "how are you?" tells you whether you're surviving, coping or thriving

  • 70% of your wellbeing at work is shaped by your relationship with your line manager

  • Playing to your strengths builds resilience structurally - it's not a luxury

  • Curiosity is a resilience signal. If "tell me more" triggers fear, pay attention

  • Resilience isn't a new metric - it's the one that underpins all the others

Transcript available below

RUSSELL(pre-roll teaser)

0:00: So I am absolutely against toxic resilience and toxic positivity. So if somebody comes along and says, I'm a bit concerned about some things here. I'm not sure how we're going to achieve this. I don't want anybody to be doing that. You just need to be resilient and you just need to be positive. I know it's not really bad right now. However, if you don't choose to engage with a coach right now, there's a significant risk. It's going to be awful. But you could stop that from happening. Too many people believe that they are only being resilient when they keep going regardless. What they don't do is they go, "Right, I've just faced into a challenge. I'll now bounce back. I'll now go back to how I was before." And I'm going, "No, no, no, no, no."

ANGELA(host introduction)

0:43: Before resilience became something he taught, it was something he had to live through. Today's guest, Russell Harvey, works with senior leaders and executive teams who are operating in constant uncertainty, helping them navigate pressure, burnout, and complexity without losing themselves or their results. In this conversation, you'll learn how to lead through pressure without burning out, how to make decisions when clarity is missing, and what real resilience looks like when it's no longer optional. So, welcome to the Badass Leaders Podcast. I'm your host, Angela Gil Nelms, and each week I sit down with leaders, founders, and change makers who refuse to play small. People pushing the limits in their careers, companies, and lives. So, if you're ready to dive into that kind of purpose-driven work without all the corporate BS, then buckle up, get ready, and let's go.

ANGELA

1:42: Okay, Russell. So long before you were advising other leaders on resilience, you were leading in environments where performance, people and pressure collided daily. Tell us a little more and specifically a moment from that chapter of your life where you were handling pressure and it wasn't sustainable. What allowed you - what forced you to that realisation?

RUSSELL

2:09: And thank you very much. Great question. So I've known that I'm a people pleaser for a long time and I also sometimes really forget the fact that I'm a people pleaser. And there was twice unfortunately in my career when I was bullied. So the pressure around that was really rather insignificant and one of my strengths is also empathy. Trying to see something from somebody else's point of view. So those three things - a couple of times in my career where I've been bullied, trying to please them, trying to understand their point of view - absolutely got me into a pickle of literally, I am not in a good place. I am not very happy. I don't quite know how I'm going to get through each day until you know, one of many sort of reflections and actually one or two people just reaching out and going, "Are you alright Russell? Is everything okay?" Those moments made me suddenly go, "No, they're not. I absolutely now need to understand that actually I'm not in the wrong. Some other people are treating me really poorly and really badly. So I now need to just assert myself and I need to give some strong feedback that I do not like the way that I am being treated." And that was, you know, I've had to do it a couple of times in my career, but the first time that I did it was probably one of the biggest useful, helpful, light bulb moments, pieces of learning essentially that I needed to do.

ANGELA

3:45: First off, how long ago was that moment?

RUSSELL

3:51: Probably about 20 years ago.

ANGELA

3:53: And when we say bullying - I know bullying resonates with me. I think oftentimes people are bullied in their work settings that maybe they're afraid to assign that label to it, or they don't actually understand that that's what's happening. So what are some examples if listeners are thinking, okay, how could I be bullied at work? What are some examples would you provide to them?

RUSSELL

4:14: There was quite a few unfortunately. So never being able to finish a sentence.

ANGELA

4:21: Oh, as a female engineer, I can appreciate that. Yeah. Okay.

RUSSELL

4:22: Yeah. Okay. Never being able to fix - and then the moment you're trying to explain a point, somebody jumping on with it and absolutely just misinterpreting it and taking it a particular way and then it turning into a personal attack. Then also, you know, being dragged into an office on multiple occasions and really being told in no uncertain terms, don't behave like this, don't say this. Or there was one time I shook somebody's hands and said, you know, nice to meet you, welcome to join the team essentially. And I got called into an office and going, that's not your role to do that, Russell. It's mine. So don't take it upon yourself to go above your station. And lots of things like that. But in general, it was pretty much every single thing that I said and I did being picked up upon and being commented on and being turned into then a personal attack of "don't do that" essentially.

ANGELA

5:19: Okay. And I see this a lot and I think this will resonate with other individuals and team members where they feel as if their voice is not being valued in a way. And I as a leader understand that as a very big leadership problem because all of the voices are what really help us drive towards the best success in areas. So in those instances, was your perspective - I should leave this company, I should leave this organisation, I'm not a good fit for this - or was it another approach that you would recommend at that point?

RUSSELL

5:57: So prior to me sort of having the light bulb moment of actually I've got to stand up for myself and I also need to go and ask for some help for some people to deal with this, it was from the perspective of like, okay so what do I need to do to change, because one's level of confidence at the time was reduced and I was starting to question myself more about - maybe it's me, maybe it's my fault. Okay, maybe I need to listen to that. You know, this person is a senior and he's more experienced, so maybe they've got some valid points. But then also realising at each day as I was driving to and from work, I felt horrible inside, you know? So, it's like that's a signal to me to go, this isn't right. I'm not supposed to feel like this. I'm supposed to feel as though I've got value or worth. Or people absolutely can give me feedback. Essentially, that is my whole life. Every day, everywhere I go, I ask for feedback. So I'm happy to get feedback. So initially it was trying to fit in - that was my initial response - until two things. Somebody came along and had noticed what was going on because they'd done it to lots of others and just sort of said, are you alright? And in that moment, me having to suddenly be a lump in my throat and go, "Uh, no, actually I don't think I am. I think I need some help, you know." And in that moment, went to spoke to somebody and going, "This is happening to me." And they said, "Right, yeah, we can support you with that. That shouldn't be happening. You're not in the wrong. It's not your fault. They've got form. So yes, we'll support you in terms of pushing back against it." You know, it ended in me leaving, but I was so pleased to leave essentially.

ANGELA

7:36: Yeah. So I can think of listeners who might be on both sides of this story that are listening. When you find yourself in a position of authority and you're cutting people off, you're telling them to be less of something, maybe pause and think about that component of it. And hear what Russell is saying - like this is how it's being perceived on the other end. And then we're gonna talk about the amazing work that Russell's done, which is also - if you're a leader and you find yourself doing this, you might be pushing away the next great amazing star who really can drive you and everything toward success. So, you're going to miss out. And for those of you who are listening to this and you think, you know what, that just happened to me yesterday. I was in a meeting and I got cut off or I was told, oh, I am like kind of skating beyond my skis or something like that. You also want to continue to listen to hear Russell's story.

8:27: So Russell, tell us more about you as a human. Who are you? And then let's dig into your professional career and our talk today which is going to be a lot about resilience and about amazing leadership. So who are you?

RUSSELL

8:38: Thank you. Yes indeed. So today I describe myself as a coach and a facilitator. That's who I am 24/7. That is my identity. But my journey to that is the fact that I have always been interested in human behaviour. What is it that makes people do the things that they do. So I am absolutely just 24/7 always interested in each individual human being. Who are they? What makes them tick? What makes them interesting? What makes them happy? What makes them sad? Those types of things. So it's very much about humanity, community. I'm seeing that the world is diverging it seems in two really simplistic ways. One side of it is literally it's all about the self and I've just got to fight for me and you know everybody else can go by the wayside, and there are others going, you know what, I think it's about community, I think it's about others and we'll all succeed together. And they think the world is diverging on that essentially - some people are going one way and some people are going another based upon recent experiences. So I'm in the space of like, it's all about the community. So even with the advent of artificial intelligence, what I would love the world to do - which we can't - is press the pause button first and then actually ask ourselves what does it mean to be human and then how are we now going to interact with the artificial intelligence now that we better understand what it means to be human.

9:50: So, as part of all of that, I love travelling the world. And my wife and I did around the world trip in 1996, 1997 where the birthplace of what I do came about because I was teaching people in Hong Kong and some magic was happening in the room. I thought, I want to do that for a living, but I knew I don't want to be a teacher. And at the time it was like - when I came back to the UK, went to the recruitment agencies - it's like, I think I'm gonna be a business trainer. And at the time I wasn't qualified, didn't have the experience, but that was the birthplace of me in my corporate career and then setting up the Resilience Coach. So I'm a looker-afterer of other human beings. That's who I am.

ANGELA

11:00: I love that. A big piece of the AGN Group and the work that we do is seeing humans as humans. And I am a strong believer that if many of us can have that as our goal and task in every interaction that we have, the outcome and the impact later is huge and significant. We start to really see the core of the situation of the person and I think that's where real magic happens.

11:26: Okay. So, you work with leaders who look successful on paper but feel like an elastic band about to snap. What's the earliest warning sign leaders consistently ignore before burnout hits? And what do they usually tell themselves when they're just ignoring it?

RUSSELL

11:38: So, it's really all very much around their self-awareness, around the answer to the question - how are you? We get asked this an awful lot essentially and it's then being able to notice in that moment - does their answer feel like it's in the surviving, the coping, or the thriving space. So it isn't one particular thing that they have to look out for, Angela, but it's like raising their awareness - when they check in with themselves on a regular basis about how am I - is really noticing how they're answering that question. So surviving feels like hanging on by your fingernails essentially. So if you're struggling to give an answer, or if there's a lot of tension in that answer, or there's part of you going, I wish I'm just hoping nobody does ask me how I am - then there's some clues. There's some signals there that you might be in the surviving space. Coping is essentially some variation of "I'm okay." Now it might be I'm okay, but I'm a bit worried. I'm about to tip into not okay, surviving - or it might be, you know what, I'm okay but I think I might be tipping into thriving, which is I'm good. So when people work upon, engage with, build their resilience - all the stuff that you know I work with them on - their answer, the resilient leaders', the resilient humans' answer is genuine and real, where they will say to themselves, do you know what, there's an awful lot going on and there's an awful lot of challenges and I feel good and I feel optimistic.

13:20: So any answer other than that is a warning sign.

ANGELA

13:25: Yeah. One of the things that I see oftentimes in leaders is their fear of looking like they're less than. Their fear that other people will perceive any response other than "I'm doing great." Because when I ask how are you doing and people say great, I'm like, okay, are you really great? You know, but a lot of people don't ask that, don't dig in, right?

13:53: Exactly. How do you encourage people to get over that fear of looking vulnerable, of not looking like they're on top of things and thinking that they're going to lose the confidence of their team or the confidence of their investors or the confidence of those around them and their community if they're transparent in a situation?

RUSSELL

14:18: Yeah. Yeah. So it's not going to be necessarily one singular thing. So how I work with clients is - when anybody asks me, "So Russell, how do I build my resilience?" - my response is there's a Resilience Wheel on my website, built upon research, seven aspects to it. Okay? And if there's time, we'll do a whistle stop tour on them. So when leaders choose to engage with their Resilience Wheel, you know, they will enable themselves to get into thrive. One of the dimensions of being resilient is this word confidence. Okay. So one of the choices that individual does is to just keep playing around with - what is it that enables a particular human being to build and enable and grow their confidence, their belief in themselves essentially. So the confident individual is more comfortable being vulnerable. You know, so they're more okay to be - their self-talk being, I'm alright that I don't know all the answers. I'm perfectly okay that I don't need to. So, you know, and we're having conversations about things in a room where I'm going, yeah, I've got a clue what was going on here. This is, oh gosh, this is new to me. They're okay with that and they're happy to explore it. So, they're open. They're curious. They're more comfortable being challenged. You know, they purposefully go into rooms and go - essentially do the behaviour of - "tell me what I don't know."

15:39: Yes. Because they're comfortable in their own skin essentially. So it's all of those types of watch-outs, and then as a result of that, there'll be less fear inside themselves that they don't know everything - and every time their line manager, their boss, or a peer sort of says, how's X project going, or how's Y project going, or how's Zed project going - you know, they're more comfortable giving whatever the truthful answer is rather than, "I have to give a certain type of answer because I'm supposed to."

ANGELA

16:14: And the thing that I want those who are listening who are afraid to do this to realise is that those of us in the know, when we see those behaviours, I trust those employees so much more. When someone on my team displays that - walking into a meeting and saying, "Okay, I don't know anything about this area. I know about this area. I'm excited to learn more about this area." - I immediately, in my brain, even in my body language, I can feel even within myself I relax more, which is a sign of trust and acceptance. So I as maybe their leader relax more. I trust them more. I know when subsequent times when they tell me something, I have more trust and value in what they say later because I know they're not going to BS me. I know they're going to tell me the truth. So it is actually a confidence builder in me. Now granted, if they came into every meeting and said "I didn't know anything," then I would at some point say right - exactly, there is that balance within those two different scenarios.

RUSSELL

17:25: So one of the things that is really important is how each individual line manager that exists on the planet is playing their part to enable the people that report into them to behave like that. Okay. So, circling back to this question of "how are you?" - according to the last two or three world happiness reports, roughly 70% of our ability to give a decent answer to the question "how are you" is down to our relationship with our line manager.

ANGELA

17:51: How do you define line manager? Because I think that may be a European phrase that I haven't heard as much in the US.

RUSSELL

17:58: So, it's your boss. It's the person you report into. Somebody that signs off your holidays - whatever performance management conversations that you are having about the activities that you're working on. That's your line manager essentially.

ANGELA

18:09: I think it's important to remember that piece as a manager - the impact that you're having on that piece of them, right? Absolutely. So you want to be able to encourage people within the workplace that are going to be the leaders of the future to be comfortable in their own skin.

RUSSELL

18:21: Absolutely. So if you're a line manager, you're the one that plays a significant part in enabling each of the people that reports into you - your direct reports - to be comfortable in their own skin, understand what you value about them, understand their strengths. You know, that feedback loop is absolutely built upon the things that you appreciate about what they're doing and things that actually could be, you know, different, could be better essentially. So that relationship is very key in building resilience. So the resilient leader role models really useful resilience-building conversations.

ANGELA

19:10: Which I think ties back to us getting to know humans as humans, because you as a leader, if you've taken the time to get to understand your team members as human beings, then that's the first step to being able to make those connections and be able to drive that towards success.

19:23: Absolutely. Absolutely. And going a little bit back to, you know, who are you Russ? So, one of the dimensions of being resilient is having a purpose.

RUSSELL

19:28: So, until recently, my purpose was to positively affect 100,000 people by the year 2025. And in August 2025, I achieved it. So that positively effect is - with all of the people I've supported in a whole variety of different ways - is that they have their individual light bulb moments about what it means to them to be resilient. A resilient leader that can go back into the workplace and be themselves and perform much better. And that purpose has now segueed into championing businesses to be a force for good. And the detail behind that is every single line management relationship in the world, in the universe - I'm just going to play my part with whoever my clients are to go, let's see if we can make your relationship with your reports as good as it can be through resilience role modelling. And then as a consequence of that, that person will be at its best, and the business will be giving itself the chance that it's got the right people in the right roles in the right time going in the right direction.

ANGELA

20:37: And I can't think of a better time in history to talk about resilience than now. So the other piece - the other side of resilience though - can also be the whole burnout side. So, I want to peel the onion a little bit on the burnout piece because that's often what I see, especially when I see leaders who are very resilient and are very tied into human nature. They can often struggle with that next piece of also getting burned out, because there is a balance. I believe everything you say yes to means you're saying no to something else, and so there is that struggle. So for you, when you're working and collaborating or you see something, what do you see as the earliest warning sign that leaders are consistently ignoring before that burnout hits? And what do they usually tell themselves to justify ignoring that warning sign?

RUSSELL

21:22: So I take a strength-based approach. So in the USA, I think you're familiar with StrengthFinder and in the UK and others, it's Strength Scope. So one of the 24 strengths is compassion. So I see a lot of individuals in the work that I do - depending on whether they've got a compassion strength or not. So those individuals that have the strength of compassion, they have natural energy to deeply care about other people's well-being. As a consequence, they take on too much of other people essentially, and that burns them out. The biggest burnout that I see in the public sector - over here I do a lot of work in the National Health Service and councils - these people, very simplistically, their value system is that they care for others, they want to look after others, and they forget to look after themselves essentially. In addition, regardless of whether you've got the compassion strength or not, the burnout comes because you are not choosing to engage with your Resilience Wheel and nurture it day by day, week by week, month by month. The individuals that do that, then they spend more of their time, as I've said previously, in this thriving space. So all of your burnout and your watch-outs comes with the fact that some individuals are choosing not to make the effort to engage and nurture their internal resilience.

ANGELA

22:54: Which for some people is terrifying. So yes, going along that journey - walk us through a specific client moment where you saw a leader that was close to a breaking point. And when you think about that particular client moment, what options were on the table, you know, what did they want to do and what did you push them to do instead?

RUSSELL

23:19: Most human beings don't ask for help until it's, you know, crunch time. And so the space I've been in for 20 plus years is trying to say to individuals, I know it's not really bad right now. However, if you don't choose to engage with a coach right now, there's a significant risk. It's going to be awful. But you could stop that from happening. But most people will hear that and go, um, no, I'm going to wait. It's not bad enough for me to now sort of talk about these things.

23:44: So, one individual - or quite a lot of individuals - that come to me, you know, when they ask that question "how are you?", they go, "I'm really struggling with things in the workplace. There's too much challenge going on. I'm not enjoying myself. I don't quite know how to fix the challenges I've got. Actually, I dread the Sunday night feeling." Those are all the things they have, you know, relationships with family. So, I've got this example I give now - it's multiple clients essentially - that came with some version of "nothing's going well. I'm not enjoying myself. Family life is not good and I'm dreading every time I get a telephone call from my boss because I've just got no idea how I'm going to answer the questions they're going to ask me."

24:33: Right. So then I support them with, okay, let's have a look at your strength profile. Essentially, let's just understand what that is. And for a lot of clients, it's a real light bulb moment. Their eyes will normally go to their strength score, which is their lowest. And they'll go, "I suppose, Russell, my homework is to do sport." And I go, "No, do the opposite." And their minds are quite blown with, "You mean you want me to spend time doing things I love doing?" And I go, "Yes." Okay. Because they build natural resilience and natural confidence. Then we just look at their wheel and just do a bit of a simple self-assessment to sort of go - these seven aspects of what it means to be resilient, where are you? And then it's some little simple steps to start to nurture each of these areas. And they've got knock-on impacts.

25:16: And one of my favourite examples of an individual that came to us in a really difficult place - they said, "Actually, since our last coaching session, Russell, I was walking in my local area and somebody that I normally see walking around just stopped me and went, 'You're really happy. What's going on?'" And the individual went, "Yeah, I am. There's a real weight that's gone off my shoulders. I've got a bit more clarity." And they said, "Yeah, you've got a bounce in your step. The last two years I've seen you walking around our town and, oh golly, you have not looked in a good place and suddenly you're happy and bouncy." So that was nice. And then this individual - to do with their purpose - they realised that their job role that they were doing was not their purpose and their value system. So they shifted from an engineering firm to a charity that was the Royal Society for Protection of Birds and they're a project manager for them now.

ANGELA

26:23: And we often forget that, or don't realise, that the impact we have in these situations is visible to others in many other areas of our lives. So when I think of people that are resistant, for example, to work with a coach or to work with a therapist or work with someone like that, I'm like, you have no idea what you're passing up. You're passing up joy in every single area of your life.

RUSSELL

26:56: Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

ANGELA

27:01: One thing you said there as well that I want to tie into - because you are really big about the idea of focusing on strengths and not focusing on weaknesses. So first, I want to know why do you think it's human nature that those of us who want to succeed and want to be great have it in our heads that we should focus on improving our weaknesses versus amplifying our strengths?

RUSSELL

27:16: So I think in the UK that's part of the educational system. You know, I'm an absolute fan of the public sector - everybody's working extremely hard in challenging circumstances. But with the educational system, it's to go - these are the grades that you've got in this, you know, like the A's, B's and C's, and you've got D's and F's in these other subjects, so spend more time doing the D's and F's. However, when you ask that individual, "How come - tell me about this subject where you're getting D's and F's," their body language will probably be, "Yeah, golly, I know, I go to those classes and I don't really know what's going on and I just dread walking into that classroom." So their energy for that is on the floor.

28:07: And you go, "Well, so tell me what's going on with these grades where you've got A's and B's and C's," and they go, "Oh yeah, I like that. I look forward to that." So it's the case of - there's lots of research that shows that from a young age, regardless of whether an individual has had some very challenging life circumstances, if somebody somewhere - either a parent, guide, mentor, teacher, or just an adult from a community centre - sort of goes, "Ah, I know - actually Angela really enjoys doing X and I just need to find a way to just nurture that, to just allow this person to do that as much as they can." The research shows that that individual that managed to play to their strengths, even in really challenging life circumstances, they actually have a very different lifestyle. They are more resilient. They have more opportunity to thrive even with challenging circumstances.

29:04: So that's one of the sort of many reasons why I advocate the strength-based approach. And then it is the language about "good enough." So those things that you're not energised by - the task is to support individuals to go, "So these things here, for the rest of your life, the best place you can get this to is good enough." And then in the workplace you sometimes have to have some interesting conversations with your line manager, because their version of good enough is not the same as your version of good enough. So some compromise needs to take place on both sides sometimes.

29:42: So, so it's it's part of life. You're still taught you got to be good at everything or you've you you've got to take these tests, you get these grades, and the grades that are not good enough. You've got to spend loads of time on them and try and make them better. But we don't balance that with - we really understand the strength-based approach is - do more of the things you enjoy doing and these things that you enjoy less, just get them to good enough.

ANGELA

30:00: I love that. I talk a lot about the whole idea of - I think it's a Voltaire quote - which is like, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And I even say to my students - I'm a professor as well at Emory University in the master's programme - and I talk to them about some of the work that they're doing and I'm like, you don't need to build a baby grand piano. We need at this stage a piano that just plays music, right? It doesn't have to be a baby grand in this instance. And I think sometimes with high performers, we struggle with that "good enough," right? We struggle with being okay with the piano that plays music so then we can move to the next step, right? Or the next phase or whatever that is successfully.

30:54: And sometimes there are some situations where you do need the baby grand piano. You do need something that's at a level of excellence. So then you bring in the people whose strengths tie to that. You get it to the phase of the piano that plays music and then you hand it over to the experts who are specialists in that area and then you can move forward and everyone succeeds in that area. But I find that that's hard. I find that even people like us, Russell, sometimes we focus a little bit too much on our weakness.

31:29: So, I want to hear for listeners that are listening - can you share a concrete example of when you personally doubled down on a weakness because you thought you had to and it later backfired?

RUSSELL

31:36: Yeah. So, out of my strengths profile, my top three strengths are strategic mindedness, collaboration, and developing others. And the thing that I'm energised by the least is detail orientation. Okay? So I can do detail. And there was a time when I was a project manager. So throughout my career, somebody did the sort of tap on the shoulder - "We like the qualities that you've got. We want you to learn more about project management in our whole sort of business change transformation team essentially." I had a mentor who was very, very, very detail-orientated - "This is how you do project management." And any time I spent any time with them, I felt a little bit broken inside essentially.

32:28: Because they were giving me great information about what it means to be a project manager, but they were doing it from their perspective with just the level of Gantt charts and detail and micro elements of everything and minutia. And so that wasn't playing to my strengths, but I was spending all of my time trying to role model that essentially. But I also had some people around me who were sort of good friends that would sit on, you know, day-to-day desks with them. And I would just be going, "My head's broken. It's like I'm getting taught all of these things, but I don't feel like I'm achieving anything or doing what I need to because my head has got all of these great ideas, strategic ideas, end point - paint the rainbow of the picture of the future world of how it was going to be, what it would look like, sound like, and feel like." And I could articulate that and describe that and get everybody excited about it. And then it was like, "Right, I've now got to put this into a project plan." Oh god.

33:36: So trying to perpetually do that got me into trouble until one of the people that I was sitting next to went, "Look, Russell, what you are is a project leader and you need a business analyst to support you." And so that was the way out. You know, I would sit down with a business analyst and go, I've got this idea, describe the future world. And they were highly energised by the detail that my mentor was showing me. And then they would literally stick all of my words and phrases into this amazing project with Gantt charts and detail and milestones and together, you know, we ruled the world essentially.

ANGELA

34:13: Well, exactly. Have you ever done the - so you talked, you mentioned StrengthFinder before. Have you done the Working Genius analysis? Have you worked with that?

RUSSELL

34:25: No, I haven't. No.

ANGELA

34:32: Okay. So, one of the things - I'm actually a big Working Genius fan. And the thing I love about it is that if you have all of your teams take this analysis, you can then identify the people that really love an Excel spreadsheet. And it basically has six different things - I can't remember what they all are, so forgive me on this everyone, we'll put a link in the show notes so you can pull it up. But it has the two things you're really good at, okay? The two things that you're kind of good at and you can manage, and then the two things you're really horrible at or you hate doing. And it's more of like love, really good, you can do, and then really dislike doing. And I love when teams do something like that and then compare, because often you find - exactly as you're saying - there are project managers or business analysts who thrive off Excel sheets and Gantt charts and all that, and it brings them great joy. And finding the people on your team who do and partnering together and then ruling the world - that's a recipe for success. Focus on highlighting the strengths of each of you and also identifying the weakness and then saying, who can fill in this weakness with their strength?

RUSSELL

35:46: Yeah. So just to reiterate - when you play to your natural strengths it builds natural resilience and natural confidence, and confidence is one of the dimensions of being resilient. So there's a bit of a triple whammy there essentially about nurturing and growing your resilience.

ANGELA

36:00: Okay. I'm excited about this. So, for those overachievers who are listening to this podcast today, many of them may hear the words "be more resilient" and their heads translate that into "just endure more." Okay. When does that translation become dangerous and how would you challenge leaders who hide behind that toughness spectrum? So, let's dig a little bit into that.

RUSSELL

36:28: Yeah. Well, yeah. So my intention - my value system - is that whenever I talk about the word resilience, I never ever want it to feel toxic. So I am absolutely against toxic resilience and toxic positivity. So if somebody comes along and says, "I'm feeling a bit challenged by this. I'm a bit concerned about some things here. I'm not sure how we're going to achieve this," I don't want anybody to be doing that - "you just need to be resilient and you just need to be positive" - because that is akin to gaslighting and bullying essentially. So that's not how I want to come across. So everybody that's listening now, you've got to have this self-awareness or this choice to go - hmm, is that what I've done? Have I done that? Has that been done to me? So step one, self-awareness of like, have you role modelled the "you've just got to be resilient," or "yeah, I hear you that this is a bit of a challenge, but can you just get on with it please?" It's risky to do that all of the time.

37:31: Yes. So, I define resilience as springing forward with learning. I'm not a fan of the term "bounce back" - seen there in all the literature. Too many people believe that they are only being resilient when they keep going regardless. So the resilient individual - what they don't do is go, "Right, I've just faced into a challenge. I'll now bounce back. I'll now go back to how I was before." And I'm going, "No, no, no, no. What did you learn? What did you learn?" And so the resilient leader role models - like pause in life. And pause is listening to a podcast. Pause is having a great conversation with a mate. Pause is going for a walk. And in those pauses, they ask themselves three questions. What behaviours have I been doing recently that have been serving me well against my Resilience Wheel? What behaviours have I been doing recently that have not been serving me well against my Resilience Wheel? And how do I do more of the answers to the first question?

38:38: So when you role model that reflective practice and the springing forward with learning, then you actually get to the space of thriving rather than surviving and coping. So those individuals that go, "I know it's tough but just keep going for now and we'll talk about it later" - that's putting you in the coping space and potentially the risk of putting others in the surviving space. The better conversation is somebody comes along and says, "I'm not entirely sure how we're going to do this." Then the leader at that moment in time is comfortable to go, "Oh, all right. Let's talk about it. Let's be curious about it. Tell me more about that." You know, how do we find a way to work through this together essentially? And that leader at that moment is not feeling the pressure of, "Oh my god, my boss is just telling me to get on with it, so I just need to tell my people just to get on with it." They need to be the one that's the buffer - pushing back against their boss and going, "Stop telling us just to get on with it, because something's not right and we need to find a different way." And they also feel comfortable to say to the people reporting to them, "Okay, I hear you, it's not working, so let's talk about it differently."

ANGELA

39:44: You said a word that I want to double click on for a moment - you said the word curious. And I love that. I think more in life as a leader, we should spend way more time being curious in situations, asking better questions, trying to get to the heart of stuff versus just trying to move forward.

RUSSELL

40:14: Yeah, that absolutely. And we're able to be more curious once we have nurtured our resilience, because being curious means that you have got to challenge your confirmation biases essentially, and be open-minded. So, you know, when our brains are taking a path of least resistance and we're not feeling very resilient, we potentially don't want to ask the question of "tell me more about that" because we're going, "I don't think I've got the energy to listen to it." But when you are feeling more resilient, you sort of go, "Yeah, there's an awful lot going on, but I'm now also still willing to open a door which might initially cause me more problems on top of all the problems that I've got." But the resilient individual is more willing to go there essentially - to be more curious. The benefit of being more resilient is to be more curious and open-minded.

ANGELA

41:03: So I think a warning sign as a leader you should see in yourself - if you're afraid to ask or to say the statement, "tell me more about that," if that triggers fear within you, then I think that's an early indicator that you need to pause within yourself. That is triggering something that is unsettling within yourself, and I think the greatest thing you can do to be the best leader is to pause yourself and try and determine why you're so hesitant to dig into something more.

RUSSELL

41:38: Brilliant. Yes. Yeah. Right. Totally well articulated. Thank you.

ANGELA

41:39: So for those people who are listening - you're a leader and you're listening and you're feeling overwhelmed. Are you still functioning? Okay. So what would you advise is the first small decision they need to make this week, right now, to stop heading towards that burnout?

RUSSELL

41:59: Yeah. So in addition to this, whenever I talk to people about resilience, my intention is not to add to anybody's overwhelm. Okay. So the answer to your question - and what they need to do - it does include them doing something. Okay. But if the individual is already feeling overwhelmed - as an analogy of like, the water's above my head - and they're listening to this podcast going, "Oh gosh, I need to go away and work on my Resilience Wheel - that's something I've got to do in addition to the overwhelm" - that's not my intention. So the answer to the question is, in its simplest sense, go look at the wheel that's on my website and just sit down and just have a little bit of a reflection of - how many of the aspects of my wheel are in a decent place? And whichever one is the highest score that you've put to it - it's just an easy self-assessment - just ask yourself the question, "Okay, so how do I make that one a little bit better?" Because they have a positive impact upon the others. But then that needs to be a behaviour replacement. So it's making the decision - because they've listened today and they've gone, "Actually, working on my resilience, I can see that there's benefit to me. I can have a better life." Okay. So I see the benefit in it. So I'm willing to go and have a look. But looking at your Resilience Wheel and just saying, "Okay, what's one aspect going to make one thing better?" - that has to be instead of something else, right? Because you can't do everything.

43:23: So what is that instead of? Well, that's their choice, that's their choice, Angela.

ANGELA

43:33: Be calling that out because we we need to be cognisant of that, right? Like, I am going to focus on this and by focusing on this I'm not focusing on this. I think it needs to be a conscious decision - you're saying "instead of" - not just, it happens to fall off the wayside, but consciously make - because I find when I do that, when I say, "Okay, I'm going to do this," which means I'm not going to do this - then it reduces my level of stress. If I just say, "Oh, I'm going to focus on this" and I don't cognizantly let something go, then my stress level internally increases because I feel like I've added more work to my plate and now I have more stress versus the other approach.

RUSSELL

44:24: Right. So it's exactly that - it's avoiding that. So that does take a bit of a challenge to start with, because when quite often clients initially come to me they're not in a great place, you know. So I have to have this conversation with them - "It's like my intention is not to add to any of this unpleasantness, but we need to be really clear that for you to feel better, there's some things that you need to do." So then it is asking the question - you know, you tell me what you do day-to-day. Sometimes a lot of it is your internal thoughts. One of the dimensions of the Resilience Wheel is this word "meaning" - as in our internal storytelling. The meaning we attach to events. So with a lot of clients, one of the initial things that they do is just raise a bit of their self-awareness of what their internal storytelling and their internal self-talk is. And we sort of go, "Okay, well, if there's one sentence that you know that you're saying to yourself, we need to replace it with something else." And it's got to be replaced with something that is realistic and believable essentially - maybe not where they want to actually get to, but it's a step to where they want to get to. Because at the heart of resilience is our attitude, which is driven by our belief systems, which is driven by how we talk to ourselves essentially. So it's just somewhere in there doing an element of replacement as a starting point.

ANGELA

45:43: Let's go back to the reality that we said. A lot of the people listening to this podcast are probably overachievers and they might say, "Okay, great. I'm listening to all of this brilliance on resilience and now what I need to do is I need to add it to my performance metric chart that I now measure. How do we prevent them from doing that?"

RUSSELL

46:05: Well, it's whether they've really listened to what we've just said, right? So, so, we say rewind and listen again. So, yeah. Overachievers - it's not a new additional performance metric. It's the metric that underpins all others. Look at the Resilience Wheel piece and then start to think about how the resilience piece will have a positive impact on all your other metrics that you're looking at right now, because it underpins everything. It's a piece of glue that holds it together. So it's about how do you incorporate - not add - how do you incorporate the Resilience Wheel into your existing performance metrics.

ANGELA

46:47: Okay. Okay. And that's the challenge I want to hear from the listeners - post in the comments as well. We'll include the link in the show notes to go to the wheel and I really want to hear what resilience areas you're focusing on. Okay, Russell, are you ready for some rapid fire questions?

RUSSELL

46:59: I am. Yes, indeed. Yes, I am.

ANGELA(rapid fire)

47:00: Okay, the first one is - what is a leadership habit you had to unlearn the hard way?

RUSSELL

47:05: It was the people pleaser. That was, you know, that was the thing. Yeah. I'm still learning on that one, Angela.

ANGELA

47:21: Agreed. Ditto. Guilty as charged. Okay. What is a question every leader should ask their team but they usually avoid?

RUSSELL

47:29: How optimistic are you feeling right now?

ANGELA

47:31: Ooh, that is good. Okay. If you could give advice to yourself as a young leader early in your career, what would you tell him?

RUSSELL

47:42: It sounds a little bit arrogant I think but it's like - keep going, Russell. All of these thoughts you're having about actually, it's about humanity and the humans - keep going, don't be taken off course.

ANGELA

47:54: Perfect. What is something you said you'd never do as a leader but you ended up embracing?

RUSSELL

48:01: I think it was too much "tell" rather than not asking enough.

‍ ‍

ANGELA

48:08: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What is one signal that tells you a leader is about to grow or about to break?

RUSSELL

48:21: It's literally - it sort of plays across their face. You can see them talking to themselves. They've either got like a light bulb moment of like, "Oh, there's a different, better way of doing this" - versus a slight frowny face of like, "I'm not really listening. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing."

ANGELA

48:44: Perfect. Okay. So, if they take nothing away from this podcast but one statement, what is the major thing that you want them to walk away with today that will help them live a better life?

RUSSELL

48:55: Really understand that resilience is springing forward with learning and not keeping going regardless. And then also really understand what this word optimism means. So - grounded in reality is optimism. It requires emotional intelligence, empathy, compassion and coaching skills to understand how to have an optimistic conversation. So it's about having really human conversations about the size and scale of the challenges. But also - grounded in reality is about what's good about us, what's right about us, what our strengths are, what our skills are. And then when you actually highlight what's good and right about us, our strengths and skills, and it's higher than the size and scale of the challenge, people feel hope and then they feel positive. Okay. So we get to feeling positive by having optimistic conversations. So spring forward with learning and keep asking the question - how optimistic are we feeling?

ANGELA

49:49: Amazing. And how can listeners connect with you, learn more about the Resilience Wheel, and if they're interested in being one of your clients, how can they make that happen?

RUSSELL

50:02: Yeah, so website and all social media is theresiliencecoach.co.uk. So Russell the resilience coach - not any old resilience coach, Angela - the resilience coach. That's how they get hold of me.

ANGELA

50:19: Yes, there is only one as they say.

50:25: Okay. So, a requirement of this podcast is everyone shares their favourite motivational quote. What is your favourite motivational quote, Russell?

RUSSELL

50:30: They do change, but right now - John C. Maxwell: "Resilient leaders don't wait for a storm to pass, they learn to dance in the rain." So, thrive in the circumstances you're in.

ANGELA

50:48: I love that. I love that. Well, thank you for taking time out of your day to share your wisdom, your resilience, your courage, your motivation. I'm very curious to dig in more, and I really hope the listeners are inspired to do the same.

ANGELA(outro)

51:03: Thanks for joining me for today's episode of the Badass Leaders Podcast. To hear more interviews with industry experts and learn how to grow your career in leadership potential, be sure to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications to ensure you do not miss future episodes. This podcast is a production of the AGN Group. To learn more about the AGN Group, visit our website at theAGNGroup.com. There you can discover more about our services which include hosting workshops, management consulting, brand strategy, keynote speaking, and more. Follow us on all social media channels shown on the screen and displayed in the show notes. And until next week, be brave and be badass.

About Angela Gill Nelms and the Badass Leaders Podcast

Angela Gill Nelms is a leadership advisor, executive coach, and professor at Emory University's master's programme. She's also the founder of The AGN Group, which works with individuals, teams and organisations to unlock performance through brave, human-centred leadership.

Each week on the Badass Leaders Podcast, Angela sits down with leaders, founders and change-makers who refuse to play small - people navigating real pressure, building cultures that actually work, and doing it without the corporate BS.

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Tools mentioned in this episode

Russell Harvey