Episode #128. Interview with Jessica Hickman on bullying and the bystander effect

Welcome to season four of the Dynamic Leader Podcast. My name is Shelley Flett. I believe that leadership at its core requires strong relationships, the ability to sit in a space of genuine curiosity, and the courage to build capability in others. I believe great leaders are lifelong learners and so my intention is to help you to continue your learning journey by bringing you new perspectives from experts in their field. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Hi everyone and welcome to another Dynamic Leader conversation. Today, the topic that we're covering is a little bit of a sensitive one. It's about bullying and what it means to be a bystander alongside what it means to be an upstander, which is an interesting term. I actually haven't heard of that prior to meeting today's guest. So today's guest is Jessica Hickman. Jess was a victim of workplace bullying and has dedicated her career to making sure that nobody has to feel the way that she felt. She's the founder of Buliology and driver of the upstander movement. She now uses her background in human resources, workplace health and safety coaching and behavioral therapy to guide organizations and individuals on how to create healthier workplaces that are free from conflict. So lots to talk about today. Jess, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

So it's probably worth, you know, to frame the conversation asking for you to share, like what was your experience in the workplace.

Yeah, sure. So look, my background is in construction and council, so I started off my career obviously for my accent. I'm from the UK and I came to Australia in 2013 on a career break. I was working for local council running youth drop in programs. So I was a community manager looking after a team of staff. But also that was my part time role three evenings a week and I also had a full time role as regional manager for a construction company. So, you know, the high achiever in me thought, right, okay, I just need to take three month career break and decide which career I wanted to pursue. So I came to Australia for some time out and I think when I landed I just knew, wow, this place, the people, the culture, I need to make this place my home. So look, I was very fortunate and I still am grateful despite the challenges that I was approached by a company and offered a human resource position working for a large oil and gas project in the Top end. So just outside of Darwin, bit of a culture shock. Girl from Wales drop you in the outback and you know, looking after a team of people which was in the fly in, fly out industry. So as we know, you know, there's a lot of complexities with living away from home, particularly in a high risk, high volume environment. And Darwin has all of the complexities available from hanging over scaffolding in croc infested waters to living away for a month or more from friends and family. Isolation, loneliness, depression, male dominated industry. So a lot of drugs, alcohol, gambling, even sex addiction, you know, we've seen it all in the leadership team. So I realized, okay, I've got this breadth of experience working for local government and council, developing nurturing environments for youths. I realized that I needed to quickly tap into that skill set to actually build rapport, trust and confidence and create a nurturing environment for our workforce which was predominantly males. So this project had 7 to 10,000 workers. So it was a quick crash course in the good, the bad and the ugly leadership. There was two sides of the coin where some people realized, right, suicide in the industry is really high. Which I was quite confronted with obviously when I started. And then the other side was tough enough. Princess is the industry. No time for soft, empathetic, you know, approach, no fluffiness. But I realized with the rise in suicide and you know, the people day in, day out suffering that we needed to do more. So look, I developed culture programs. I was able to become quite successful early on in my career in Australia, being nominated as Northern Territory Young Achiever of the year, being in front of the minister, winning exceptional women in resources. On paper the awards were beautiful, but behind the scenes I was actually really suffering. And it was because six months into my role and my climbing success, I had a new HR business partner, leader, manager join our project. And you know, his leadership style was very much my way or the highway we take. No, no prisoners. If someone is suffering mentally, physically, emotionally, they're a risk to the business, we get rid of them. So it was counterproductive to everything we'd started to achieve. And ultimately, you know, it, it put an arrow in my back which made me the target of extensive bullying and harassment. So ultimately the client loved me. I was winning awards, I was being asked to do keynotes and support other subcontractor companies. You know, there was 32 different companies with different cultures on the project, 52 different nationalities, and I was becoming successful and he hated that. And you know, over a three and a half year period, you know, even the most resilient people crumble. And I was fortunate enough to document the experience throughout and ask for help. 32 times I reported it to corporate in Perth. Mixed promises Failed promises. And ultimately it took me physically collapsing at work in June 2017 from extreme burnout, stress, fatigue and overwhelm and to lay, you know, in a Darwin hospital bed on the other side of the world from friends and family, with a string of awards and success behind me, but ultimately broken. And it was at that moment really I realized, wow, bullying and harassment is, you know, infecting our workplaces across Australia. And ultimately it's not good enough. And I went on a mission then to heal, of course, which is still a long journey, heal from the bullying experience. But ultimately I had two options. To let the experience break me and leave silently, or shine a light on the insidious behaviors and ultimately create my business bullyology and go on a mission to raise awareness and capability and help leaders navigate the complexity of workplace culture.

So over. So three years is such a long time to put yourself or to stay in an environment that sounds like it was just really, really hard for you. And I think even the most resilient people probably wouldn't be able to stand up. So I think there's a testament to just how much resilience you have. But what kind of, what kind of things? I mean, just for our listeners, because I think sometimes this concept, I think sometimes the term bully, I mean, it's quite broad. So. And I think sometimes it can be used in the wrong context. Sometimes it's not used at all when it is bullying. And maybe people don't see it. So what kind of things? Actually, and this might seem like such an obvious question, but I do like to ask it anyway. What constitutes bullying?

Yeah, and that's a really great question because I was in denial for a long period of time and I believed I had all the tools on paper to be strong, confident, not let anyone bring me down. But ultimately, bullying is repeated, intentional health harming behavior that has aim to damage another person, whether it's physically, psychologically and emotionally. So it was sustained abuse repeatedly, whereas, you know, some examples were started off very subtly. So undermining my expertise or undermining me in meetings, making out that he set me some tasks or I was unable to complete them in a timely manner when he'd never asked me. I'm highly confident and a highly achiever, so that was just soul destroying for me. His aim was to belittle me and then it was undermining my appearance, telling me, you know, I'm only successful because of the way I look, go flutter my eyelashes at the client, and even accusing me of having interpersonal relationships and ultimately Sleeping with people within the business. He had a very, very outward bias that women had a place in the industry, in the workplace, and that was to be seen and not heard. So I was empathetic, kind, ambitious. Everything that triggered his insecurities and, you know, it progressed to more physical bullying. And the worst was one day when he threw a folder at my face and told me even the trainee was more confident than me. But he would single me out into an office where no one was around. He would berate me, scream in my face. Other times accuse me of talking about him. You know, his fists were clenched and he was stood over me. So, you know, really intimidating and frightening. And you mentioned that I stayed for three and a half years. There was a couple of reasons why. One of them was I was on a visa. So Little Miss Stubborn was like, you will not push me out of a company for doing, you know, a really good job, let alone a country, which I now build in a life. And the other was all the supervisors and other leaders would come to me and say, jess, we know what's happening, but this person wants to talk to you and you alone, and they're struggling. Can you help them? And if you leave, you know, someone could end their life. They were the words someone said to me, so can I. Carrying the weight of others on my shoulders every day while suffering was one of the reasons why I suppressed. I suppressed and filled everyone else's cup as a leader, but didn't ultimately stop, pause, and reflect on how empty my own cup was until it was too late and was. I loved my job, and I was really thriving and doing great work, and the purpose was bigger than. And the pain at the time, but the pain eats away. Eats away. And, you know, a toxic culture just ultimately is not sustainable long term. And I learned the hard way, for sure.

I'm listening to you going, I would have picked the folder up and thrown it right back at him. Plus, anything else I could put my hands on. Like, how did.

Yeah, stop from.

You know, stop yourself from going, I need to actually fiber myself here.

Yeah. And look, I look back now at the person I am. I was like, how could I let that happen? But I was. I was fearful. I. You know, he would threaten me, that he'd call immigration and tell him what I'm really doing. He was trying to damage my reputation. And he made it quite clear. He hires and fires people across the industry, and he spoke openly about how he could blacklist anyone from getting a job in Australia. So when you're young, you Know, I was in my mid to late 20s, and I wanted to make a career and a life here. So ultimately, you know, I was a people pleaser. I was, you know, really stuck with, what can I do more to, like, get this person to like me? And there was times where I cry or scream back at him or run off or hang up the phone when he'd call me late at night, threatening me with my visa and job. But ultimately, you know, I was stuck in fear where I just wanted to come to work, do my. Do a good job, look after my people, and fly under the radar and not pee him off, ultimately. So he would humiliate me or make a rumor up about me. So it is really hard. And I look back now and go, huh? How did I. How did I not blow up? But there was times I was screaming, crying, please, someone help me to, you know, the CEO. And, you know, I talk about it in my book, and ultimately it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we just don't want to make an enemy of him in the industry. And we realize he needs help. And young, naive, caring Jess, you know, my response was the, absolutely, I hope we get him the help he needs. He must be struggling himself to behave in this manner. Whereas the person I am now realizes that, you know, he's still with the organization. He's still with that organization in an even more powerful position, and he is still behaving in that matter. So it was an organizational issue, and they still allow that behavior to happen, which is both frustrating, annoying, but ultimately, I had two options. You know, revenge and go through more pain and suffering, or you use the experience to highlight the issue and provide education and support to the proactive leaders that want to mitigate risk and create change. So obviously I chose the latter because that was healing and, you know, proactive, rather than staying in the kind of revenge and pain, which was just too much.

Absolutely. You definitely, definitely took the right path. The thing that is really disturbing in what you've said is that other leaders encourage you to stay despite the. Despite what you were going through and despite you reaching out. Which kind of brings me to talking about. I mean, that. That. That is different to a bystander. That's almost an advocating. Like an advocating for you to remain a victim, which creates a little bit of frustration, a different bit of frustration. It's like, that's almost worse. It's like you're being. You're being unnecessarily treated, and they're encouraging you to continue to do that. That's. That's terrible.

And there was comments around. But Jess, you're confident, you're strong, you're still doing your job to a high standard or toughen up, Jess, is the industry toughen up, princess. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll deal with it. So time and time again, it went on to the too hard basket. It. And it went on. I've got a lot on my plate and I look around at the leaders in my organization and the person that was solely, you know, above him and responsible and, you know, he hid behind, well, I've got this going on and, and would lean on me as an emotional crutch for personal staff, whereas he was the leader that I, I needed. And I looked around at the people in the positions and to this day I always say they weren't bad people. They just didn't have the skills, tool, competency, training and capability to know what to do. And that's where I focus my attention now, because I talk, I talk about health. Harmful bystanders and ultimately often bystanders are not bad behaved people. At their core, they feel injustice. You know, we feel it in our guts. We know something is wrong. Whether it's a comment, sexism, racism, you know, or outward bullying or harassment, we ultimately feel our body tighten up and we go, oh, that comment in a meeting was a little bit fruity or made me feel uncomfortable, but it's above my pay packet or I don't have time for this now or, well, no one raised it at the time, so it's not my responsibility. So ultimately, the bystanders diffuse responsibility. And this is widely researched through something called the bystander effect, which ultimately says that as humans, when things become difficult and hard, our natural instinct is to diffuse responsibility. You know, look at us driving down the highway. Someone breaks down. If there's one, two or more people, we usually stop, have a look and go, oh, that looks nasty. Or almost probably cause another crash. But ultimately, we're rushing to drop the kids to school, pick up the groceries, and we just diffuse responsibility. So this happens time and time again, and it's again, widely researched in the workplace that everyone typically looks at one person when they feel uncomfortable. And that is often the highest paid person in the room. So in a boardroom or in a team meeting, someone makes a joke that's passed off as banter. That could be racism, sexism, or just really toxic. What happens if, you know, the CEO or the team leader laughs, pretends they don't hear it, or uses comments like I was told, like, oh, you two Just stop. Or anyway, moving on. And again, that becomes a cultural norm, that those behaviors are accepted, tolerated, and, you know, in my mind, encouraged, because they just diffused and they become subset. So over time, what happens sometimes is the bystanders realize that this is our cultural norm or our banter, and then they become passive bystanders or actively participate because it's seen as funny or acceptable. And it's not really until, you know, someone is psychologically, emotionally, or physically damaged from post traumatic stress disorder through sustained abuse that they go, well, you know, we thought it was wrong, but it was kind of like the norm. That's the culture we've always had to why fix was not broken. And ultimately, it creates the bystander mindset across organizational cultures.

And so if leaders are listening to this and thinking, gosh, I'm the highest paid person in the room in a lot of conversations, what am I? What am I hearing and letting go and what can I do about it? Because I would say to. To stop a conversation or to call someone on their behavior straight away as a. This is the first time I've ever. I've done it previously, I've kind of let things go. Is. Is there an approach to kind of ease into.

Like, would you.

Would the leader maybe take the person aside and say, you know, we're shifting the way that we're responding to these kind of things? I know what you've said in the past has been let go. Is it about acknowledging what has been accepted up to a point and like you said, drawing a line in the sand and going, yeah, yeah, great.

So great question. Ultimately, there's many ways to cook an egg with workplace culture. And that's the reason why I developed my new book, which is called the Upstander how to Develop Speak Up Culture, because I realized that we were in a leadership crisis where we have good people promoted because they're good at their trade or their subject matter expertise. And particularly we've seen in the pandemic, all of these people were then expected to lead complex human beings with challenging needs, remote teams, and told just go for it. So the first thing is exactly right, acknowledging where you're at. Currently. And throughout my book, I research and work across multiple organizations and industries. I've established that organizations and teams ultimately sit either in bystander cultures or upstander. And there's actually three zones within my bystander diagram and thought leadership, which is ultimately, the first one is unconscious, where teams are unconscious of their words, actions, and behaviors. So ultimately, toxic culture is left Unchecked, that could also be the leaders unconscious of how the weight of their words or their jokes or their ideas or values impact the teams. And the second one then is uncomfortable. So where I realized that sometimes people are not unconscious, they can feel it's uncomfortable. But ultimately I found the people and teams that sit in this category, we, you know, have higher levels of awareness but don't have high levels of training or capability to know how to create change. And yeah, so, and then the third bystander zone is avoidant. And unfortunately I see a lot of leaders sitting into this because things feel hard and challenging and it's more paperwork. And if I do bullying training or if I start talking about this, will it open up a can of worms or had let it slide before and the situation went away. So, and I typically see people here, you know, that leaders typically have capability to create change around culture, but ultimately they just avoid it. And bullying and harassment is a topic unfortunately that is ultimately seen as a tick and flick, which is like, yep, we got to just do that once a year. And we've mentioned it now. And you know, they don't proactively work to create behaviour change. And that's what I do in my upstander programs is ultimately help and work with leaders to identify and acknowledge where they're at. But fundamentally, you know, shift culture through capability building to ultimately be in the upstander zone. And in my new book, there's five steps to being an upstander and that is to look and observe your environment with lots of tricks and tips on how to do that actively and consciously listen. And I realized through talking to, you know, thousands of people across Australia and beyond that they felt their leaders didn't even listen to them. And I mean consciously listen, not just, you know, hear the words. And then as leaders, we need to learn and learn and lean into topics that make us uncomfortable. And I realized, you know, look at talking to leaders about the Me too, the Black Lives Matter, even the Brittany Higgins March for Justice, all of these kind of movements that are happening on a global scale. When chatting and packing with leaders, they knew what, what they were from, like the title or the tagline. But underneath that, fundamentally it was a lot of questions. Well, I haven't really looked into this because it's not impacted me personally. So again, they need to learn it, lean in and learn about them. And ultimately, you know, it's about leadership, walking the talk, leading by example and actually looking at one's unconscious bias of the standard we accept and tolerate and Then the fifth step really is, which is a really interesting one and it is to love. And I always get, you know, I do a lot of work in construction and male dominated industries. When I say love, you know, people go, oh, what? And of course I'm not talking about the romantic sense, but I'm talking about heart centered leadership. Love thyself enough to lead, change, respect oneself to actually create a leadership legacy that you are, you know, remembered for your courage to challenge the status quo. And yeah, and I created the book of my online course ultimately because, you know, people will cross engraving tools and skill sets to know how to create upstander cultures. And yes, packed with like over 40 activities that were tried and tested over a three year period with industries from government to private.

Beautiful. It sounds like, you know, it's great that you've used the word love. It's something that I have been playing with over the last couple of years in the coaching space. And yeah, I think a lot of leaders are really resonating with it. I think in terms of leaning in and learning. And that unconscious bias, I think it's such a tricky one because we don't necessarily know, I mean obviously we don't know what our unconscious bias is because it's unconscious. It's kind of implied that we can start to, we can start to learn more about that. But what we don't need is for someone to throw it at us. And what I mean by that is that, and this is, I, I know this has happened to me in the past that I've said something and someone has made a comment around what I've said or it's, it's been taken out of context and when they've explained it to me it has made sense, but the way in which they did it felt very much like an attack. And all of my, all of my natural senses were like, shut down, fight, you know, go into this fear space. So it's great that you've got that love because I think it's about humanizing things. It's about going, it's about gently approaching the topic. It's about gently kind of saying, hey, can we have a chat? I'm just really curious about what you said here and you know, talk to me about what that is. And some people might have taken it this way. This is the way that I've taken it. Just that real gentle like I get you probably came from good space. But can I give you some, some feedback essentially?

And that's the key critical word is feedback. Because when we Think about workplace culture, often it's one dimensional. And even when I look to, you know, workshops around psychological safety with leaders, it's all, it's their perspective on how they believe the culture is. And when I do work with them to create that 360 feedback, ultimately you can see the bodies tense up and they go, oh, I'm uncomfortable with this. And I'm like, well, why? If you have great ecosystems within your organization and a feedback culture, ultimately we are, we develop resources and a skill set that we can actually give feedback effectively and timely, but also receive it. And it's not just around productivity or safety. It's ultimately about how we can better ourselves as leaders. And you know, you would be surprised. Well, I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised because you do this kind of work as well. How many leaders go, you know, say who, like raise your hand if this makes you feel extremely uncomfortable. And there's like a few people, you know, a little bit uncomfortable. A few people. But ultimately everyone is more on the kind of the sticky end. Whereas like, yeah, feedback makes me really uncomfortable. So I realize again, well, we can't work on workplace culture and our blind spots if we're not actually open to finding out where we're falling down. Workplace culture. So again, we do a lot of stuff around surveys and tools, but ultimately it can be as simple as asking your team for feedback on workplace culture, areas for opportunity improvements and just having one on ones that are not productivity, safety or workplace based that can ultimately be check ins on how you go in or how's the family. And ultimately in my last role when I worked on the oil and gas project, that's how we build trust and rapport. I would walk around the 6K Darwin Oil and gas project in the, you know, the heat, the humidity, where it's wet and wet and my boiler suit and hard hat was one goal to actively show up, listen to the workforce and trust with no agenda. And that was really confronting at first. You know, they would whistle, you know, safety or HR or come in and everyone would, you know, get their ducks in order. And it took, you know, up to six months to actually just say, I'm just here to have a chat, how you go in, anything you need, any feedback. And those small wins with the feedback was ultimately what shifted that culture of trust where people were coming to me with the most deepest, darkest, you know, feelings and challenges ultimately because we created space to listen.

And yeah, it's that, it's the human connection. I think being able to humanize Things, you know, I think about growing up on a farm and being surrounded by farmers and, you know, having two, two sisters and, you know, being able to change minds by going, but what if it was, what if it was your daughter? You know, it's that I've found that. Or what if it was your son? Or, you know, it, it doesn't really matter in terms of gender, but, but sometimes it's about saying, shifting the perspective to be able to connect with something that they do care about, because they might not.

Then.

Yeah, it's. I feel like it's a dehumanizing.

I agree. Yeah. And look, that's perfect example because recently I was doing a lot of work with Justice Victoria and working with eight prisons and prison guards. So obviously, traditionally it can be a really challenging environment, obviously dealing with the complexities of the clients or the inmates, but also the team culture when you're in a high risk environment. And that was a great example where, you know, a gentleman shared something that he said that he thought was funny. And I just turned around and goes, you know, how would you feel if that was your son or your daughter or, you know, someone you loved, cared about? And he had a full body response, stood up and kind of went, well, you know, I would say this, this, this, and they wouldn't still be standing. And I said, well, you know, that's the kind of culture we have to keep, particularly when home and life and, you know, our environments are blending. We need to actually be conscious of our words and just touching on the unconscious bias stuff as well. I see a lot of comments with the leaders and clients I'm working with currently around different generations. And I address this in the book as well. And you know, there's this very strong. And not everyone, of course, well, you know, the Gen Z's and millennials are hard to manage and, you know, all of this kind of stuff and, oh, he doesn't, or he or she or whoever doesn't understand me and my personal values like upward to the generations. And I've realized again that, you know, leaders sometimes when we're talking about upstander cultures, just need to lean in and understand that the workplace environment has changed. And I'm actually based out in regional New South Wales, so I live on a farm too. So I work with a lot of industries that have been typically archaic. And one, you know, one of the engagements I'm currently working on is just to modernize the workforce mindset and that's pulling them into the 21st century. And looking at, you Know culturally what's acceptable and what's not. And of course underpinned in that is bystander behaviors, bullying, harassment. But sometimes it's just language change or, you know, bias change and working with them to help identify that and how it could actually be stunting the growth of them as leaders, but ultimately their industry as well. How we can actually put a negative spotlight on all of the great work they're achieving just by silly comments that can actually get them unstuck as leaders and damage their reputation.

Is it worth. And you probably do some work around this, around this concept of banter. And so banter is really big in Australia. It's how, it's how so many people connect. It forms part of the culture. And so when you kind of address the notion of bullying and unconscious biases that it might, people might feel like, well, if I can't banter, I can't connect. And then what's the point? And so it's not about, you can still banter without it hurting anyone. Is this part of the learning journey?

Absolutely. And look, when I do this work, I love fun in the workplace. I love having a good laugh, often at my own expense. You know, when I'm working with my team, I say to them, if I muck up or, you know, something, feel free to laugh at me and tell me. But again, it's relationship based. And the example I give in my book, if we look at like bullying versus banter, I give an example of my childhood best friend. Friend. And we had nicknames for each other. Okay, we're based on, you know, I was tall and lanky, she was kind of short and, you know, it was caliphant elephant and Jesse the giraffe, which was, you know, our kid friends. And, you know, we still have a bit of a joke around that she'll say how things giraffe. But one time someone got involved in that when we were kind of in our, you know, early twenties and you started to use the names as attacks on us. So again, it comes down to relationship and context. And often this needs to be established and worked out in the workplace, like I work with colleagues, where we've had little nicknames for one another or one of us mucked up one client engagement, you know, when I was working, I don't know, in construction. And we would have a bit of banter. Remember that one time or that thing you said. And you know, it comes down to the relationship. And that's why it's really hard to say, like, you can't do this and you can't do that in the workplace. But it comes down to creating a safe space that you can challenge one another. As an example, as a leader, I remember one of my colleagues saying, oh, Jess, when you actually said this to me in front of other people, which was, you know, identifying a mistake, it actually made me feel this way. I would rather you would come to me one on one rather than we all talk about it at a team meeting. And to me it was delivered in a safe, loving way. But I realized, ah, that person, like, prefers one on one feedback. Whereas, you know, I'm the type of person that is really open to be called out on any BS or unconscious bias by my team publicly. So I guess it comes down to the leader. Talking about psychological safety was accepted, but colleagues have interest enough that they can actually say, hey, this makes me feel uncomfortable. And when we look at banter, often, you know, I do a lot of work in construction, so we have a real crisis with apprenticeships, apprentices at the moment and sustaining them and not just construction across Australia. And when I do some work, you know, there's, oh, well, can you go and get me the fallopian tubes as an example. And it's stuff that, you know, humiliates the person or makes them clean toilets, which is not part of their job role. Just to kind of, you know, oh, it's banter. When we step into the industry or workplace, you have to earn your keeper, earn your place, and ultimately that damages people. And if there's not a safe environment to say, hate, stop, you know, this is making me feel this way, that ultimately that's what damages people and stops them fulfilling their career dreams. So I think as leaders, it's important we establish those boundaries. And in my book I share a great story from Jo Perel, who is the general manager of Kane Constructions down in the act. And Josh has a great story. But when she was a female entering the construction industry, she was forced to dig a hole and keep digging, keep digging and then fill the hole and do it again. And she was forced to work for free to prove her worth in the industry. And like, my body now is like, it infuriates me. But, you know, in this modern world, bullying, harassment and this banter is actually impacting so many people and it's so common and yet we've just got so much work to do.

It seems like it's almost like the perfect time to approach it and really support people through change. We've got coaching as the default style of leadership now. It's the conversations around psychological safety. We're starting to look at emotional intelligence and how that plays into the work. But then you overlay that with this massive skills shortage and that people are more inclined to go, well, if that's my only option, then maybe I'm going to switch industries. And we're seeing people move industries. Rather than saying, if I don't have the option of a safe workplace, of a place that's going to trust and respect and value my contribution, I don't necessarily need to go to somewhere else in the same industry, I'm just going to leave the industry. And, I mean, that's dangerous. But the time is now. So it seems like the perfect storm is being created to support your movement.

Perfect. And look, it's really unusual that I say this and, you know, when bullying and harassment is in the media, it's actually quite exciting for a person in a business like mine. While it's horrific to hear of suffering and injustice, you know, the fact that the respect at work, you know, report legislation has just come out, reports into Parliament, from New South Wales to Canberra to even Queensland Police Service, I'm sitting back and going, finally, there's space in the media to actually highlight the elephant in the room. Whereas when I started my business back in 2017, yes, the MeToo movement happened for a while and then it disappeared. And again, it is an uphill battle to knock on corporations and business door and say, bullying and harassment is an issue, you need to be proactive and address it. Because, again, you know, traditionally 80% to maybe 95% of organizations still only deal with the elephant in the room when it's damaging their reputation. Compensation claims are soaring, people are psychologically damaged beyond repair or, you know, they're about to hit the media. So that's why I'm really focusing my life work now by creating upstanding leaders and the upstanding movement that mitigates risk by building capability and trust from the ground up and gives the power to the employees to lead cultural change. Because ultimately that makes the leader's job easier, where people feel confident and supported to call it out, to report it and challenge one another at a ground level. So trust and rapport is built, which stops the, you know, the sticky end of damage being done, whether it's organization or human damage.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's great work that you're doing. My final question for you, Jess, is if someone, if a leader has an issue around bullying that they haven't been able to resolve or they've, you Know they're called out for help or are not getting the support. What resources are available outside of the organization that they can tap into today? Outside of you, obviously, what else could they do?

Yeah, look, so if people head to the Bullyology website, I've got a downloadable facts sheets and resources and lots of free helplines for leaders and individuals that are suffering bullying. I just want to address that. You know, often leaders can be bullied themselves, whether upwardly, but particularly middle managers, you know, in construction, excuse the language, we used to often refer to it as the shit in the sandwich, where you'd have all of the pressure from below and then from up above and, you know, you were really struggling. And I didn't know where to get help outside of the organization. So look, Safework has got amazing tools, you know, fair work. And if leaders are listening to this and are not all over the new legislation for respect at work around sexual harassment, you need to get your ducks in order. You have 12 months, well, actually it's probably more 11 months now to get everything in order and make sure that you're proactively not only providing education, but formal processes for reporting and support. Otherwise you're going to end up in a lot of trouble. Because ultimately the standard you walk by is the standard you accept. But yeah, look, on the Bullyology website, there's lots of different links and resources to signpost people in Australia and globally to helplines for personal support, to signpost their team if they're struggling, and ultimately download a lot of resources for organizational guidance and support. But for me, for me, I didn't know where to get help. And I went to the Darwin Working Woman center for some free legal advice. And that was really a fundamental moment for me. I give them my statement, which was an eight page statement, and she said, oh, we're really busy in a capacity, we'll get back to you in a week. And they called me in a few hours, or, you know, I think it was even like a few minutes, under an hour and said, oh my gosh, we've read two pages and this is the worst case of bullying and harassment we've ever seen. Can you come in and see us? And I think that moment of being seen, believed, acknowledged. I just remember my world falling apart because I was made to believe it was me for so long and someone had finally seen me. So, you know, there's one thing people can do listening to this podcast, to be upset is to make people feel seen, heard and valued. And ultimately you may not have the answer on how to deal with the bullying and harassment. But a conversation saves a life. And one day a colleague gave me the number to the employee assistant program and said, yes, I can see what's happening. I don't know what to do, but here's the number to get help. And that person potentially saved my life because I was in a very dark state space.

Beautiful. I love that. I love that for leaders like you don't have to know the answer, but just be willing to help them find it together. Either, you know, enabling them to do it themselves or helping them. Yeah, I just think that's a beautiful, beautiful note to end on. Jess, thank you so much for taking the time to have a chat with us. We'll put the link to your book on in the description as well as a link on how they can connect with you. Might also include a link to the new legislation which I wasn't aware of prior to today's conversation. So that sounds amazing and you know, it's just a great time for change. So thanks for all the great work that you do.

Thank you so much for having this conversation. Chat soon.

Thank you and thanks everyone for listening. I look forward to another Dynamic Leader conversation with you soon.

Thanks.

Thanks again for listening to another episode of the Dynamic Leader. There is no better time than now to work through your leadership and people strategy to establish what the future might look like for your business and how you might empower your people to help you succeed. It is through building the capability of your people and reducing their dependency on you that will keep you moving forward at pace and will see you remaining relevant in the future. I have worked with over 100 businesses across almost as many industries and seen firsthand the challenges that come with employing, engaging and managing staff. If you're looking to improve how you lead, why not reach out for a conversation in the meantime? Thanks so much for joining me and stay awesome.