“I like to create environments where people feel their best. And I think inherently what comes with that is people won’t always be at their best, so how we respond to that is where care comes in.”
Ellen Derrick, the Managing Partner of Consulting, Deloitte Australia and a board member of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance, talks about her passion for gender diversity, psychologically safe teams, and how her growth mindset is one of her greatest strengths, and she shares these lessons that she has learnt from her 17-year old daughter who lives with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes.
At the heart of everything we do
For Ellen, care in the workplace is the foundation of performance. She views her business, Deloitte Australia, as a people business and the kind of ecosystem of delivery partners they work with, where at the heart of it is people. While care is a fundamental aspect to perform in the environment, Ellen strives to create environments with real psychological safety, where people can feel and be their best, as they continually create great leaders, whether it’s for Deloitte, for people who come and work with them, or who then go out and work in the industry.
Throwing light on people’s best selves, Ellen also works hard on realising the inherent selves of people where not all the time everyone is at their best due to a probable life event, a global pandemic, or just even a bad day, — and how to respond to that is where care comes in to make people feel valued and perform at their best!
It’s time to put your big girl or big boy pants on!
From working with the public sector and large-scale transformation which Ellen felt was her real deep passion and life’s work with her focus on studying government and business, Ellen took on the role of being a Managing Partner for Consulting because she simply loves the challenge, despite the doubts that came with it. As she works through the process, one of her great advisors is her daughter Kate who has real challenges, being diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes.
Being told off by her daughter, Ellen realised she has been doing exactly what she loves all along, and never thought she’d be able to even do that — doing what she’s passionate about, and that it was time to put her big girl pants on!
As Ellen shares her values, she does not fail to put emphasis on making sure that aspiring women in the work environment feel valued, can see a path for themselves, and see value in the work that they’re doing, while creating leaders in the organisation and helping them realise the ambition that they have for themselves.
After all, diverse teams that come with diverse leadership with a diversity of thinking and background, absolutely produce better results and are fueled by making sure that what they do every day, like Ellen with Kate, has an impact.
However, there will always come a time that you’d pressure yourself, asking a question if you’ve been really maximising your time and hold yourself to account on how you treat people, not being your best self, and being very hard on yourself when you don’t get it right. But like Ellen says, don’t look too far ahead!
Step back and stop to move forward
If you think something is difficult or complex, and you just want to work harder and harder and crash through it, you’re not doing it right!
Sometimes, the absolute best way to move forward is to actually;
- Step back and Stop
- Have a plan
- Get your bullet point list
- Examine everything at the core of it
- Test everything
Because with this, you can get smarter as you are working with your schedule in the activities that inherently give you energy. In addition to doing the things that you have to do for business, make sure that you maximise your energy, and when you get that right, you will feel like you can do anything!
Intense Growth Mindset
In times of taking new challenges and bad news, lay down your solutions, actively thinking of what you are going to do or how you are going to move forward. And the ability to take that, be bold, have a creative vision, be able to bring people along, stay the course, have resilience, look for opportunities and grow.
About WeCARE365
We create simple skill building programs that help managers to lead mentally healthy teams. We believe that the #1 priority for every leader and team is to be more caring and mentally healthy, and enjoy growing together. In the very best teams, people care about each other, they have each other’s back, and enjoy each other’s company. We know the best learning solutions are those that ‘everybody gets’, which are easy to roll out, promote, and provide ongoing practical support. If you would like to see a demo please book here.