Promoted Into Leadership
Without the Playbook?

It's improved how we communicate with our workers. We had things in place before, but only to a minor degree. Now we've built better values, a better work environment and better communication, helping them become better employees and making me a better employer. Previously I probably didn't talk enough, didn't approach problems head on, didn't have the hard discussions that needed to be had. I'd tiptoe around things rather than just saying this is what we need to do. I didn't take criticism well, but now I've learnt how to deal with it. It's part of the growth, part of business, part of what we've got to do to get where we need to go. The team understand they can come to me and talk on the same playing field. I'm the boss, but they can approach me. It comes from more of a nurturing nature, helping the boys excel and making them want to come to work for us, making us a destination rather than just a workplace. We're building a company people look at and say, wow, that's amazing, we want to work for them. We've been going 20 years, but in the last 12 months I've seen the growth go from here right up. We're growing at a rapid rate, which is brilliant. I wasn't good at communicating what we needed to do to get there, but now we've got the tools.

I'm a lot calmer now, and I understand my emotional intelligence and where I need to be in different situations, with different clients and employees. An added benefit of the whole program has been how much it has helped me at home too, with a four-year-old daughter and my wife, just being more present and making sure what we are trying to do as a family holds together. Business and personal go hand in hand, so it has been really good. It has definitely made the office a lot calmer. I'm not on the roller coaster anymore, up and down. I understand my staff and their emotions better, and I make sure the office stays productive while we still enjoy ourselves at work. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. The price you pay for the program, you'll get back instantly, and then there's the continued growth and the ability to see things from a different perspective. It lets you step out of the day-to-day, come into the program, and take that back into your workforce.

The program is such a great way to reflect, and I don't think we do enough of that because we get stuck in the daily grind. It gives you time out to really look at what you've done, how you've handled situations, and how you could have done it better. You start assessing your team's strengths and weaknesses and where you can lean on each other. I'd absolutely recommend the Accidental Leaders Program to other leaders, because the days of someone in the background saying do it my way are gone. We really have to learn how to serve and support our team as much as we can, and this gives you the tools to understand, find the why, and lead with confidence.

Donna's great, she's awesome. I run two businesses and they're worlds apart, so as a business owner I get all sorts of issues arising every day. When they came up, I was reacting out of emotion and not handling the stressful situations as well as I could have. The biggest thing I've taken out of this is bringing in a more collaborative leadership style. I collaborate with my staff now instead of being authoritative and telling people what to do. I engage them and get them involved in the decisions. And I'm more relaxed in those situations, not reacting out of emotion, taking the time to think things through properly and deal with them with more logic.

Donna's amazing. If you don't know Donna, you should get to know her. Even in the program she's been there the whole three months. It's not just turn up for a two hour session and then not see her for a fortnight. I've emailed her, she's come to my workplace. Her thing is get up, show up, dress up, and do that for yourself. It's changed the way I see things and the way I read people's needs in our organisation, and how I approach people too. I'm learning that sometimes I'm the problem, and learning how to word a situation so it doesn't offend anyone. Now, instead of always giving the answer, I'll ask what can we do about it together, or what can I do to help you. The quality of work has already risen up, because I'm letting them tell me the answer. I active listened, I'd never really done that before. I used to just hand out solutions, do this, do that. Now I realise they're coming to me because they want me to listen, not to be told what to do next. They've actually been coming to me a lot more since, because they know I'll say take a seat, tell me what's going on. It's an even more open door than we had before.

This program has been so helpful in giving me the confidence to support my team. I've got steps and processes I can use, and I've already put them into practice. They've worked, and I'm looking forward to using them in future. Before the course, any difficult conversation I'd step away from and avoid if I could. Now I've got the tools and I'm confident having those conversations with my team. Stress, uncertainty and change used to be a big trigger for me. I didn't like change and avoided it at all costs. Now I see change as a good thing that helps me grow, and I've really developed in that space. Everything I learnt has helped personally as well, so it's done wonders professionally and I've used the same skills at home. My old mindset was, not my problem, leave it to someone else, and aggression or anger would boil up. Now I take everything as a learning opportunity, I see the positives, and I know I'm growing as a person while helping others grow too. If you're thinking about the course, I recommend it 100 percent. I tell my friends, my colleagues, even people in cafes. If you're looking for a leadership course, Donna is the way to go.