Episode Details

What does it take to build a team where people feel safe enough to make mistakes and different enough to remain themselves?

Julia speaks with Carla McKenzie about two ideas at the heart of how Carla builds teams: grace and belonging.

For Carla, grace does not mean lowering expectations. It means being clear about those expectations in the first place and taking responsibility for what people could reasonably have known. When somebody gets something wrong because an expectation was never communicated, Carla asks what she could have made clearer rather than immediately blaming the person. But grace has boundaries too. Once expectations are understood, accountability still matters.

They then explore belonging and Carla’s distinction between belonging and fitting in. Using the idea that we all arrive from different “dinner tables”, Carla explains how differences in culture, communication and personality inevitably enter our teams too. The challenge is not to make everybody behave alike, but to create enough curiosity, communication and mutual adjustment for people to work well together. =

Carla also shares the practical behaviours she uses to create belonging across a large team: deliberately spending time with different people, learning something about each of them, noticing who may be quieter and role-modelling the behaviours she wants others to repeat.

Their conversation finishes with Energy. Carla describes herself as the team’s “power bank”: taking responsibility for the climate she creates while also finding ways to regenerate her own Energy.

A practical conversation about creating teams in which people can make mistakes, be different, feel seen and still be held accountable.

About the Guest:

Leadership and Culture strategist, communicator, and motivator who helps women find their voice, own their influence and lead with intention. Her Philosophy is simple: leadership is a verb – our behaviours - how we show up daily, not a slogan on a wall.