a listener production. Welcome to another special edition of the Empowering Leaders podcast.
I have to say again what an incredible privilege it has been to sit down and learn from inspirational
and diverse leaders who talk about their life and what has made them successful in so many areas.
We at Aleda believe that success leaves clues and that there are a number of different dimensions
of leadership that are consistent with 21st century purpose-driven leaders that we've spoken
to on this podcast. The idea of having a positive impact on others in your environment we think is
one of the keys to being a great leader and something that was really unique to the leaders
that we sat down with in 2022. 44 leaders in total each with a unique and powerful insight into the
way they lead from the world of business, from arts, from social venture, from sport in a more
collaborative way to impact others in a positive way in their world. All of these episodes tie
into a great passion of mine.
You would have heard me mention a lot throughout the year a business co-founder with my great friend
Matt Waterwitz called Aleda. It's a place where leaders come together to collaborate and learn
from one another. People like Michael Voss, the coach of the Carlton Football Club, collaborating
with Benjamin Northey, who you would have heard on this podcast, the legendary conductor of the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Dr Chris Brown, to name drop a few again. But you don't have to be
internationally known or a legend in your space to work with us at Aleda. Our passion is about
supporting a world of collaboration, inspiring connections, and we'd love you to check out our
signature Aleda Connect program. Head to aledacollective.com. Back to the idea of having
a positive impact on others, which is the focus of this recap. Something really passionate about
exploring with leaders like the CEO of Rugby Australia, Raelynn Castle, who had a unique
practical insight into the idea of what positively impacting others means to her.
I went for a guy in my very first job. I was a
very enthusiastic marketing graduate that was, you know, looking to, I suppose, you know, take on
the world, if you like. And he was a very experienced Xerox executive that had come from the UK. And
I'd go into his office with this idea and I'd be like, I've just been thinking and I reckon we can
do this and this and this. What do you think? And I always left his office better off than when I
went in there. So I always had value added to the thought. He told me you should go and talk to the
this person. Maybe if you just tweak that and go about it this way. So it's something I've really
thought about and that when someone comes and approaches me with something, an idea, a thought,
you know, whatever, that hopefully I can send them away just a little bit more knowledgeable
or point them in a little bit better direction than when they arrived in.
And, you know, like I said, he taught me that right from my very first job.
And you can always identify when someone's just not listening to you, can't you? It's pretty
deflating, even if the idea doesn't get up.
The idea that someone's actually genuinely listening and maybe that can be transformative
resonates with me. Brian McNamee on this podcast, who was the legendary CEO of CSL,
that took that to, you know, the biggest company by market cap. And that was what he said routinely
he did. Didn't put meetings in his diary, just wanted to walk, you know, ended up with 40,000
employees, CSL worldwide, but just wanted to walk and talk, walk past people's desks,
find out from someone obscure about what was happening, you know, in the inner sanctum of
the organisation.
You know, rather than the old version of hierarchy, which is really the passion for
leadership we're talking about. Jeff Harris, who founded Flight Centre recently, the same thing,
you know, walking into the stores and finding out from those at the lowest rungs of the
organisation was the most beneficial. And have you found that's really related to you
and as you've gone on in your working life as well?
Yeah, it has. And I have to say it's my single biggest frustration about COVID is the fact that
you get, you know, last year I had four months at my dining room table in Auckland,
because Auckland was in lockdown, dealing with, you know, the people that I obviously
had to deal with on a daily basis, 40 hours of Zoom calls, but actually no capability
to get that physical and environmental contact that I really find rewarding from a job point
of view. And, you know, be able to get a sense of walking past someone and saying,
how's your mum? Or how's your dog? Or did you win footy in the weekend? Or what did
you think of the Grand Prix in the weekend? Wasn't it a great performance? Those are the
types of things that I find really rewarding.
You can taste it and smell it around the culture of an organisation. But if you're not doing
that because you're locked behind a screen in COVID, that's really, really, really challenging.
And as we start to move back into an environment where we want people to come back into the
office to have that human connection, that's a real cultural challenge for a lot of organisations
where people and staff have got used to working from home, it suits their lifestyle better,
they realise that they've got more flexibility, and it might be better for the organisation,
for the industry.
But it's more challenging for the organisation. So I think that's a real challenge facing
leaders as we emerge out of this COVID world.
Raylene Castle there with a fantastic story and insight, a chat that I really enjoyed.
Now, the next grab is from a conversation that I was expecting to be a lot of fun, and
it was, but I wasn't always expecting it to be as expansive and thought-provoking as it
These are three great friends of mine, Nathan Brown, an old teammate of mine from the Western
Chris Judd, AFL superstar, Mark Howard, the number one podcaster in the world, the Howie
Games, at least according to Howie, that's the case. They are part of the team of the
Friday Huddle. I spend Friday nights throughout the AFL season with them. It's a light-hearted
take on the world of AFL. Now, the three of them each have an interesting take on positively
impacting others, but it was Howie who kicked it off.
I like to be led by really positive people. So if I'm in a situation where I'm being cast
as the leader, I am as positive as I can.
You understand that there are going to be issues along the way, but just get up, dust
yourself off, keep going. But yeah, to me, it's all about positivity, putting some positivity
out there. I think it pretty much comes back your way tenfold. So leadership to me is positivity.
And in fairness to you, Howie, I can't remember seeing you ever walk into an environment and
be flat. So I think, in fact, you're always up, always in that space, just genuinely got
an energy about you. And that's probably one, that's just the other category of talking
People in the environment is something that we see as a dimension of leadership for great
leaders. And is that the same for you, Howie? Is that just, that's your one word, going
to positivity is how you impact the environment?
Yeah, absolutely. Because I think, I was reading something the other day, a book by a guy called,
I don't even know how to pronounce his name. It's Jesse Itzler. Anyway, he got a seal to
come and live with him for a month, like a Navy seal, and train him. And this bloke kept
saying to him, no matter how hard the workout is, keep going, because you know it is going
to end. It always ends. So I look at it like that. When things are hard, there will be
an end point. So when you get to the end point, you can look at it and think, gee, I bitched
and moaned the whole way through, but I got there. Or I was positive the whole way through,
and everybody saw me being positive, and I had a positive impact on the group, and we
still got there. I want to be the one that gets to the finish line being positive, rather
the one that really moaned and whinged the whole way.
Jodie, you've been a premiership captain and a captain of two clubs. Did you think
that your impact positively on others in the environment?
Yeah, I did. And certainly, modelling behaviours was something I thought a heap about. But
certainly internally, I just had a lot more knowledge about myself that I needed to get
to be the type of leader I would have liked.
What do you mean by that? You wish you had more knowledge of yourself looking back?
Looking back, yeah. I just had no idea where I sat personality-wise.
Until after footy. I'm a real outlier in certain areas of my personality.
Yeah, I can be very obsessive, and there's some shortcomings there and whatnot, which
are good for some things, but really poor for others. And I just had no understanding
of that until, I think until I was about 31, 32, which was a shame.
So if you look back, you couldn't have had a more successful AFL career. It's full of trophies,
as you used to remind us regularly. But you think if you had a better understanding of
yourself, you could have impacted others better just by knowing your personality type?
I think so. When I look back on my career, I was just so highly strung, so obsessive
around performance and maximising output. And I just never really understood that other
people weren't wired the same way as that, or not to that same level. So to impact people
and just understanding that they...
...were driven by different things and different emotions and a different personality type
would have been something I wished I had had more knowledge around at the time.
Did that take the joy out of it a little bit when you look back, you being so obsessive
about performance? Were you able to enjoy it along the way?
Well, I mean, I found it really rewarding, but I'm surprised that looking back now that
I'm just not nearly as stressed and uptight, just how tightly strung I was as a player,
I'm really surprised now over such a long period.
Thanks so much, Chris Judd.
Thanks for coming in.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll be back, everyone.
Have a great day, Chris Judd.
And Kiara, we'll see you next time.
out and so it should right and and and so if you've got good values inside and good culture
inside that's going to come out into all of the things you do um but if you don't and so if you're
projecting and this is often probably where some things get critiqued maybe rightfully as they
project a very positive image on the outside but there's massive dysfunction on the inside
and it's that dysfunction that everyone eventually says well that doesn't add up how
is how can you be double-minded or double life or like what so so i think it comes back to that
like our internal culture and our internal you know i suppose the flow and effect of me as a as
a leader is huge and i've probably seen the years when in the times when i was not really focused on
that i was just focused on results and sales and outcomes and impact with with sort of missing the
the internal impact but i think it's a really cool question and
it's a very important focus for any leader of people and i think i liked the idea that there
wasn't a huge link between the internal battle or the internal challenges i face and then the
organization i get to lead and it turns out they're they're intrinsically linked and so if i'm
yeah and that that's the hard reality but i think as as a leader that's the first job
it's leading yourself it's taking the time to reflect and that's not like a
10-minute job that takes time um and you probably need help coaches mentors advisors and i had them
all in fact a couple years ago i i got a 2018 i think i i booked a session with a psychologist
and i promised you i was gonna cancel and then i i like i i hid myself on the way in and i in my
head i'm like i'm doing this once because people like you should see you you carry a lot of pressure
and i'm like i'm gonna do one and in this session i reckon he figured out i was only gonna do one
because he he said daniel you're gonna do this and i'm like i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this
you say that you have this fear of failure but i don't think you do and he said i actually think
you have a fear of rejection and as he said i started crying i couldn't stop i don't know where
it came from but he and then we ended up unpacking this like oh what fear of rejection yeah turns out
that was a thing in me and it went back all my life and and that inward journey helped me to
the point that man i kept those sessions going and now i'm not like hiding my way in i'm not
trying to tell everyone
like talk to someone do you know what i mean like like like you're crazy if you don't have
a psychologist like it's it's it is something shifted in me because i've kind of detached from
however i was thinking but that's actually helped me lead a lot more transparently and authentically
so i think that's the job for every leader that was really one of the highlights of the year for
me to chat with dan hearing his vulnerability around seeing a psychologist and being so open
about it and then spreading the positive experience he's had that was such an unique
way of impacting others in a positive manner another person with great passion about globally
impacting others is former socceru craig foster a legend of the round ball game and a consistent
advocate for human rights around the world craig has always been passionate about using sport as
a platform and you can hear in this highlight the way in which craig pushes the message that sport
is one of the best possible ways to impact others in a positive way you know i i just recognize that
look a broadcast and what you're doing now and so on is very very positive and i think it's a very
powerful and influential position and uh and it can be used for tremendous good as we've seen
around the world with trumpism and all of this type of things it can be used for really nefarious
untruthful things um and that's perhaps why it needs to be used uh for truth and for uh you know
what is good and to help people you know i have a responsibility through the platform that sport
has given me uh to help anyone who comes within my purview if i have time uh and
can do it in a you know an authentic substantive way you know not in a superficial way and what
the hakeem you know and i used to like every athlete you know i was ambassador for a thousand
things you know even when i was playing i was part of the republic movement you know i spoke at the
town hall here in sydney around the referendum on being a republic with malcolm turnbull uh and
you know homelessness domestic violence uh you know you name it you know i just think if people
came and said look these people don't have what you have they haven't had the same opportunity
they're in trouble and you could somehow help them then i just always felt compelled to do
whatever it is that i could fact check me if i get anything wrong along the way but uh you you
i believe said this the real power of a sporting career is the platform it gives you to do something
else it's why i work so hard now with human rights i wanted to start craig by asking you
it was an outstanding sporting career why is the next part of your life meant so much
because it's just about people and many of the lessons that we learn in sport
are the lessons that we learn in sport and the lessons that we learn in sport are the lessons
are the same and i've just taken those into the rest of my life in fact i've tried to make them
authentic you know what i've learned as i've gone on is that many of the propositions uh
the slogans that sport promotes a lot you know aren't necessarily as real as we'd like them to
be when we're young athletes we think that you know sport has this extraordinary power we think
that it's about people it's about humanism it's about solidarity and equality and all those things
but sport struggles to live up to that so you know the old
i've got i've committed myself to trying to make that occur i happen to believe that if sport does
become more people-centered uh and that means speaking out uh for people uh who are facing
injustice for racial equality uh for gender equality all of these things then the world
will be a far better place there are a bracket of people craig to say i need my sport to be a
sanctuary away from the heaviness of dealing with these things i want to go to the foot i just want
to support the sport i want to support the sport i want to support the sport i want to support the
sport do i need at the same time to have to deal with these issues you would say yes you would say
sport needs to step up more than than it is well i'd say two things number one is that the people
who play sport are human beings and they have the same right as you to speak about any issue that
they feel uh comfortable about um i happen to think that human rights are important uh and that
we should all be helping others does and why should athletes be different um it's absolutely no no
different one of the reasons why that's been kind of propagated within the sports industry
because it's been led by um largely by sponsors and by commercial interests it's a bit like when
you talk about climate action in australia you know clearly fossil fuel companies are still very
much shaping the narrative of both government and many people in society and and industry and
business are a big part of that as is sport you don't see sport in australia being as prominent
as even the finance industry and and others at the moment so um i think this separation of
athletes and therefore sport because athletes are sports and they're not sports and they're not sports
the rest of the people involved are there just to facilitate for athletes to play that's their job
the the concept that they're not citizens the concept that they're not human beings
uh the concept that they shouldn't be care they shouldn't care about all the aspects of social
and civic and even political life when they're playing a sport is to my mind just completely
ridiculous i know that that's what people have been led to believe i know that's the way that
sport has conducted itself but i think it's wrong and sport has contributed to much harm in the world
um and one of the reasons it's contributed to a huge amount of harm is because of that uh you know
that kind of propaganda telling all the people everywhere that well sports exceptional to society
and you know we don't speak about anything we're just completely neutral from one code to another
as we venture back to a chat i really enjoyed with cricket superstar and the australian test
captain pat cummings whose take on positively impacting others moves from the dressing room
with the australian cricket team all the way to fatherhood
you know i try and be really consistent um you know naturally
you know i'm lucky i feel like i'm quite a happy positive person so um you know i try and bring
that to the table as much as i can try to stay curious and and open-minded and create a safe
space for people to be themselves and and talk to and i think you know cricket side or any you
know sporting side or office you you have this kind of critical mass of where most of the people
are and and what makes them tick and even if that's different to to me or someone else trying to
make sure we kind of encourage that as much as we can and facilitate that now i understand uh that
you're not far away from uh being a father in october with your beautiful partner beggy have
you thought about leadership through the eyes of of being a dad um have you given that some thought
i have a little bit um not as much as probably becky wishes i had um yeah naturally i think you
your own childhood and i was lucky i had a great childhood um you know i've got two brothers two
sisters parents are great so yeah you try and take the best things i guess out of that and then
yeah just how do i want to um kind of what life do i want to yeah give uh you know give the child so
um yeah i've thought a little bit i'm sure i'll think of more ideas but at the moment my head goes
to playing sport getting up to mischief as opposed to probably reality which would be nappies and no
i yeah i was having a look i've never never been to the blue mountains but uh it uh just looks like
a magic place that you grew up and i see as you said your two brothers uh two sisters and it looks
like an incredibly close-knit family the cummins family and what was it like i mean clearly the
person you are you know we're all a product of of our how would you describe it how has that
influenced the person you are yeah we had a big family so family of seven um five kids and i was
born and raised by my mother so uh in terms of i guess a cricketing and sporting sense we we were
so sporty i remember we went on a big holiday went on this one big holiday in my childhood um
over to europe and uh we took a football so every single photo in front of the you know eiffel tower
or um wherever we are we're passing a football louvre museum we're passing a footy down the
horse so um just always active always competitive
we had a big backyard space and just just fun we're always up to plenty of different things
us kids and mum and dad and um there's always adventure mum and dad are you know really
positive happy curious people so yeah you know just had a had a great childhood really lucky
i've just got an image of uh of my uh learning to kids on the spanish steps kicking footies off
the top of that uh amongst the crowd and trying to take speggies it sounds like a similar upbringing
it's the footy goes everywhere it's it's like an appendage in house even my my daughter is 16 so
it's a it's it's either in the dna or it's not isn't it mate it comes with us everywhere i know
we're in um we're in paris and my brother tried to drop kick over this huge tree and uh got stuck
up there so we spent a whole day in paris going to all the sports stores trying to see if we got
to share it well you know bill man i see i've seen you kick the footy pretty well mate is it
as a big classy left footer i mean you grew up in in rugby league uh heartland
really in the west of sydney um did you see both codes yeah both codes it's actually one of my
regrets i wish i played afl um as a kid both my brothers played a little bit but not till
probably kind of mid-teens we had a school across the road with a big field and we'd go there
literally every afternoon in winter and um and we'll just try and slot goals and you know
contests you had to kick right left foot um it would be out there for hours till dark um so i
love the afl swanee's used to go into
um you know scg and az stadium to watch the swanee's and uh yeah still follow along
really enjoyed that chat with pat cummings legend of australian cricket and captain of the men's
australian cricket team one of the most high profile leadership roles in australia and you
get a real sense of pat's values and leadership every time he speaks now moving again to a
conversation that had a huge impact scott pape is the barefoot investor and this grab is a
fantastic insight for me to be able to talk to him and to talk to him and to talk to him and to
into the values that scotty pape has the way he approaches his life he's got a lot of gold i would
strongly suggest checking out the full chat but for now this is scott pape on why positively
impacting others means a lot to him one of the things that i've tried to do is with barefoot
investor it became a huge and it is a huge community um and so what i try and do each week
in the newspaper and on my email it goes to like half a million people and i'm like oh my god i'm
people is to i try and tell people stories um and there's a lot of family violence of people that
have escaped in the middle of the night and who have been able to rebuild themselves
or um about little kids that have started a lemonade stand or stories of people that have
been able to rise up um through either barefoot investor or just because of them drawing a line
and saying this is what i want to do so for me um i sort of see the
community that i've built even though it's really big now as highlighting those stories
and and and celebrating them not sure you could positively impact people more than that and if you
if you think scotty pape doesn't live his values he had a subscription uh business every business
wants a subscription model and you shut it down and he said i mean it's extraordinary and i'm
going to do this all for free i'm going to get my newsletter out there and that's the way so if you
want to get weekly communication how do we get that with scott uh well uh either and then in the
or um go to barefootinvestor.com and you'll get the the email because a lot of us aren't born
with the finance cards we do other things and so to have that trusted provider and i think it's one
of the great assets in life when you find someone i ultimately trust everything scott pape does and
i think that maybe is you know your plain language and your point of difference isn't it is that trust
is there really uh really intensely you're a father of four now uh papy they're going to have
a different upbringing than you had now given the
success that you had how do you teach those values to them now with you you are a household
name and you've been an extraordinary success i know you've just gone on a trip around australia
i'd love to talk to you about that but how do you teach those values well i mean you know part of
i live on a farm in romsey um and you know really um like we've seen it in in working together
you know a couple of years ago i really made the decision to pull back on a lot of the media that
take the holidays school holidays off um and you know for me the kids growing up on a big farm
there's always something to do there's always sheep that um that need to be looked after there's
like just like a million jobs so for them you know they understand what i do but you know even
um before christmas they were at the agency that i work at and they were packing up food
hampers for people for families that that didn't have enough food for christmas
so for me it's really important that they understand that you know too much is given
much is expected yeah and so yeah they're that you know they're uh having to do you know a lot
of the the jobs and things because they've got the barefoot investor for a dad i'm gonna ask
you a question you might find this hard to answer there's so many i want to go back to the trip
around australia there and yeah your timing in lockdown in melbourne to get away with the family
it was a great story but is there a net worth amount that equals happiness for a family can
you actually give a number on that that you're going to give to your family
if you've got beyond three million dollars or ten million dollars or fifteen can you can you
have a guess at that well there was a there was a news.com um article um that that looked at a
survey and it said how much do you need to be financially well off and i think the figure was
about 360 grand a year that's five times the average income uh and so you know what i would
like you know we are judging our values when i grew up i was judging my values of people who
lived in in the country now our kids judge their values and and there's a lot in life
by what they see online yeah so it's completely warped yeah so for me again and just to tie into
to going around australia you know we were living basically we're free camping a lot of the time
you know we were you know just eating um you know on on the on the barbie um spending very little
and that was the most that was the best trip of our lives how much that's cost not that much i
mean i didn't have i didn't work for four and a half months so there's a there's a um there's a
cost there but just that idea that i don't know if i could give you a figure because i think it's
different for a lot of people but i think there are a lot of people that i meet that think they
need to earn more yeah and the definition of wealth is someone who's wealthier than you and
that can be a real trap because what really matters i think
you know i think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
is the time that you spend with your family ultimately i mean you can do a lot of things
in your life and make a lot of money but i met a lot of very wealthy people whose kids don't
really like them yeah you know so for me once you have a roof over your head and you know you
pretty much paid it off um you got a decent car um you know everything else is gravy you know
money's not going to make you any happier that was scotty pape the barefoot investor finishing
off episode two of this special series we're talking about leadership insight and if you're
interested in the topics that we have touched on today we'd once again love you to check out
elita business co-founder with my great friend matt watterwitz it's a place where we're passionate
about inspiring connections a world of collaborations and we love getting leaders
together to learn lead and collaborate we'd love you to check out our signature
elita connect program head to elitacollective.com and look at some of the resources we have
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our third dimension of leadership we explore highlights from how leaders view the world
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empowering leaders produced by ed gooden the sound design by matt curry