Why do good people sometimes become leaders they never intended to be?

In this episode of Future Fit Leadership, I sit down with Preetie Boler, founder of Empowered by Design and creator of the Shiftcode™ methodology, to explore what really happens to our behaviour when pressure rises.

Preetie’s work focuses on the gap between intention and impact - the space between the leader we believe we are and the leader other people actually experience.

We talk about why capable leaders can become reactive or controlling under pressure, whether the accelerating pace of work is making leadership behaviour worse, and why organisations continue to promote technical excellence without paying enough attention to behavioural capability.

We also explore Behavioural Intelligence, whether it can and should be measured, the hidden commercial cost of poor leadership behaviour, and why behaviour deserves a place alongside financial, operational and governance risk in the boardroom.

And as AI and constant connectivity reshape the workplace, we ask an increasingly important question: are leaders becoming so busy responding that they are losing the space required for reflection and self-awareness?

Perhaps the biggest question of all is whether people can genuinely change. Can a leader who has behaved a certain way for decades reinvent how they lead, or does pressure simply reveal the patterns that were there all along?

This is a conversation about leadership beyond titles, frameworks and good intentions. It is about how we show up when things get hard, because ultimately, that is the leadership the people around us experience.

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When people struggle at work, organisations often respond by trying to make them more resilient. But what if the problem is not the person? What if it is the way the work has been designed?

In this episode of Future Fit Leadership, Sadhana Smiles is joined by organisational psychologist Dr Kat Page, author of Good Work: Transform Your Work from the Inside Out.

Drawing on almost two decades of research, Kat challenges leaders to look beyond wellbeing programs and examine the systems shaping people’s daily experience of work. She explains why resilience should not be used to help people tolerate preventable dysfunction, and how load, latitude, love and leadership can create healthier, more sustainable workplaces.

Kat also shares how being made redundant forced her to confront how closely her identity had become tied to her career, and how reconnecting with her values helped her redesign her own relationship with work.

Together, Sadhana and Kat explore whether performance should be measured through energy rather than hours, why psychosocial safety risks becoming another compliance exercise, and who should benefit when AI gives us time back.

Because good work is not simply about preventing burnout. It is about creating workplaces where people have agency, feel that they matter and can perform without sacrificing their health to do it.

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What does Olympic-level performance teach us about leading people through pressure?

Drew Ginn OAM is a three-time Olympic gold medallist, a member of Australia’s legendary Oarsome Foursome and now General Manager of Marshall White Bayside. In this conversation, Drew takes us behind the medals to explore the trust, honesty and discipline required to build a team capable of performing when the stakes are high.

Drew reflects on joining an already successful Olympic crew at just 21 and questioning whether he was good enough to belong. He shares how the team practised difficult conversations before they reached breaking point, why immediate feedback matters and what leaders can learn from people who understand that discomfort is part of growth.

We also explore the difference between sustainable performance and expecting people to operate at 100 per cent every day. Drew explains why recovery is not a reward for finishing the work, but part of the work itself. He discusses how leaders can remain steady while their people experience the inevitable highs and lows of performance, and why knowing when to challenge someone and when to support them is a critical leadership skill.

The conversation also examines resilience, reinvention, coaching and the loneliness that can come with leadership. Drew shares why culture cannot sit with one person, why everyone must become a culture keeper, and what changes when leaders move beyond their own success and take responsibility for the performance of the whole team.

Originally recorded for Behind the Numbers ahead of Drew’s appearance at the RISE Leadership Breakfast, this is a practical and deeply human conversation about leading under pressure without losing sight of the people beside you.

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