I want to tell you about a moment I remember very clearly. I was further along in my corporate career, being quietly nudged towards a senior leadership role. People around me seemed to think it was the obvious next step. And from the outside, I suppose it looked like everything was going according to plan.

But then I looked upwards, to the group of people I was earmarked to join, and I saw black rings under their eyes from little to no sleep. And I saw people who spent long periods away from home and away from their families (actually…I was already that person). And I saw people who were expected to be permanently “on call” for the company, and I asked myself: “Is this how I want to spend my time?”

I’ve been thinking about that moment a lot lately, because I’m hearing versions of it from the people I coach. I’m hearing it from talented, high-performing professionals who are being groomed for leadership and quietly, privately, deciding they’d rather not. And I’m even hearing it from students who haven’t even entered the workforce – they’ve seen their parents have a specific type of career, and they don’t want it.

And then I read an article in the Sunday Times by Lyndy van den Barselaar, MD of Manpower South Africa, that gave a name to what I’ve been witnessing: a “leadership blackout.” Not a shortage of capable people. A shortage of desire. And I thought: yes. That’s exactly it.

(Here is the article - it’s behind a paywall, sorry!)

The most important thing van den Barselaar says in her article is this: the leadership pipeline isn’t empty. It’s opting out, and that is the real difference here, because it means the problem isn’t who we’re hiring or what skills we’re developing, and it’s what we’re actually asking people to step into.

In South Africa, where youth unemployment sits at 43.8% and 3.7 million people are classified as discouraged work-seekers, you’d think leadership roles would be flying off the shelf. But the data tells a different story. Younger professionals are watching the people above them, doing their sums, and concluding that the trade-off isn’t worth it. More pressure, more visibility, more emotional labour – for what? A title and a bigger inbox?

What I saw in the mines

I spent the better part of my career in the mining industry, a world that is, to put it gently, not known for its gentle approach to leadership. I went underground more times than I care to remember, built countless PowerPoint decks for bosses who got the credit, and did all the boots-on-the-ground things women are advised to do to gain credibility in a male-dominated industry. (I’m aware of how that sentence sounds. It sounds like 2003. Because it was.)

And I was good at it. Good enough that people started saying things like “I thought you were going all the way to the top.” Which is either a compliment or a warning, depending on how you look at it.

But here’s what I noticed, the closer I got to those senior positions: the people who occupied them were exhausted. Not the productive kind of tired you feel after a good day’s work, the other kind. The kind where you’ve been running on fumes for so long you’ve forgotten what it felt like to run on anything else. Back-to-back Teams calls. Rebuilding PowerPoint presentations to give management “better” numbers.

I had spent 880 weeks in that company. And at some point I looked up and thought: I just don’t want to play this game anymore.

I wonder how many of today’s younger professionals are having exactly the same thought, just earlier in the game than I did.

What the data is telling us

The ManpowerGroup “Human Edge” Trends Report backs this up with numbers that should be making every organisation sit up a little straighter. Here’s what stood out to me:

57% of workers globally have never had a mentor. In South Africa, where access to senior leaders is already limited by structure, geography and inequality, that number is almost certainly higher. Mentorship is how leadership potential gets spotted, nurtured and passed on. Without it, the path into leadership doesn’t just look hard, it looks invisible.

45% of South African Gen Z workers take on gig or short-term work on the side, nearly double the global average of 27%. In a market where youth unemployment sits above 43%, gig work isn’t a trend. It’s a survival strategy. And when the gig economy offers more autonomy, more flexibility and more sense of agency than a traditional leadership role, organisations are competing against a fundamentally different value proposition. And I haven’t even mentioned what AI is going to do to jobs and traditional corporate ladders (because I don’t know).

The traditional leadership contract: long hours, constant availability, emotional labour, limited support, was built for a world that no longer exists. It assumed stability and hierarchy and a clear path upward. Today’s leaders are expected to navigate economic volatility, rapid technology change, hybrid teams and rising employee expectations, often without the training or support to do any of it well.

(If you’re reading this Lyndy van den Barselaar, look here, I turned your article into a cool infographic):

Source: Compiled from Lyndy’s article and ManpowerGroup “Human Edge” Trends Report & Student Village/Flux Trends “Gen Z Economy” Report (2025)

A coaching perspective: what’s really going on"?

I sit with this question a lot. Not from the outside, theorising about what “young people” want, but from inside coaching conversations, where the real answers tend to surface.And what I am hearing is not apathy but something that looks a lot more like a lack of clarity.

Younger professionals are watching their leaders closely. They’re seeing the toll it takes: the burnout, the isolation, the way people get promoted into roles that demand everything and offer very little back. And they’re making a very rational decision: no thank you.

What I keep hearing in my coaching conversations is that it’s not leadership itself they’re walking away from, it’s what leadership has come to look like in practice, and what it seems to cost the people who hold it.

From what I can see, there are four things younger professionals are really asking for, none of which the traditional leadership model reliably delivers:

Autonomy. Not the “you’re empowered to do exactly what we’ve already decided” kind. Real autonomy, the freedom to shape their work, make meaningful decisions, own something. Traditional leadership structures tend to give you more accountability while quietly removing your freedom. (Not exactly a compelling offer.)

Impact. They want to know their work matters. Tangibly, visibly, today, not in an annual report two years from now. Bureaucracy makes this feel impossible, and they know it.

Flexibility. The ability to work in a way that fits their lives, not a life structured entirely around work. The gig economy is winning here, and most organisations haven’t figured out how to apply this thinking to a traditionally corporate environment.

A path they can actually see. When 57% of workers have never had a mentor, leadership looks opaque and uninviting. If nobody shows you the way in and if nobody is genuinely invested in your growth, why would you put your hand up?

A recurring theme I see with young (30-40 year old) professionals is that they arrive at this place where they’ve got to the end of the blinkers-on climbing the ladder journey. They got the degree, then did the internship, then they were the graduate-professional, then junior-manager, then manager, and all of a sudden they lift their heads and look around and ask: “Is this what I really want?” And then the answer to that question catches them by surprise!

From a coaching perspective, this is actually healthy. It reflects a generation with a more integrated sense of self, one that doesn’t separate “professional achievement” from “personal wellbeing” the way many of us were conditioned to (and by us I mean us ancient gen-Xers). The problem isn’t their mindset. The problem is that our leadership models haven’t caught up.

So what does need to change?

Van den Barselaar’s article ends with a call to action for organisations, and I think it’s the right one. The leadership contract needs to be rewritten and genuinely reimagined.

For me, that starts with mentorship as a non-negotiable. Not the ad hoc, “if you’re lucky enough to find a sponsor who takes you under their wing” version. A structured, intentional practice that is taken as seriously as any other business process. The data is clear: without it, succession doesn’t happen.

It also means opening leadership pathways beyond formal qualifications. The gap between degree and non-degree holders is now the narrowest it’s been in 30 years. Skills (not credentials) should be driving succession decisions.

And if organisations want to compete with (or integrate) the gig economy, they need to start offering what the gig economy offers: autonomy, flexibility, and project-based ownership inside the organisation, not just outside it. Make leadership look like something worth choosing, not something worth enduring.

Most importantly, wellbeing needs to become a genuine leadership competency, not a poster on the wall or a wellness day in October.

South Africa is not running out of leaders. It is running out of reasons for people to want to become them.

I keep coming back to that moment I described at the beginning, the moment of looking at what leadership really costs, and deciding whether it was worth it.

My solution was to take a break and go for a walk in the Himalayas (because that’s how I roll). And after doing a lot of yoga and thinking and walking, I decided to redesign my life to be closer to who I am as a person. I discovered that I loved to help people take off the blinkers and find a way to be in the world in a way that feels more meaningful, so that’s what I do now.

The next generation is asking the same question I asked. They just have the self-awareness to ask it out loud, earlier. And that’s not a problem to solve. It’s an invitation to build something better.

Lots of love

If you’re navigating a leadership crossroads, whether to step up, step sideways or step out, I’m happy to think it through with you. Book a free 30-minute chemistry session here.

Last week my partner (Gavin) and I went on a ~3800km road trip to see the magnificent flower displays in Namakwaland. We love road trips. It gives us a chance to listen to podcasts or short audio books and to pause the conversation when the speakers say something we find interesting to chat and talk about what they just said.

We were listening to the Diary of a CEO episode with Codie Sanchez, and if you can move past the horrible click-baity tagline for the episode, there really is some excellent food for thought in this episode. What I like most about Codie Sanchez is her attitude and message to young people about hard work and a bias towards action. She shares many many ideas that can be turned into practical businesses. Her message is clear: if you’re willing to work hard, to show initiative, lean on mentors early on and are willing to learn, there are so many opportunities out there in the world. And I thought: ”Wow! I wish I had this type of female role model when I was in my teens and twenties.”

Then Gavin asks me: “Who was your first female boss?” …and I had to think about it, because I think he meant who was my first female boss who could role model leadership to me. Firstly, I have to say that I never (from school days) thought I was in any way inferior to my male class mates and colleagues. Even though the evidence around me (being the only woman in my university Honours class, and working in the very male-dominated mining industry) pointed to a world where male leaders were preferred, I never thought I couldn’t be a leader. This was a very irritating place to be, knowing I knew more and could do the job better, and being overlooked, disregarded and ignored for many years. And you might say it’s not about what I knew, but who I knew, but to be perfectly honest…very few women were promoted into leadership positions in the mining industry in the nineties and that is a fact. I could go on, but you don’t want me to…

Anyway…back to my first female boss…I only had one of those and that only happened in my thirties and she was amazing and the best corporate political player I have ever seen. We worked very well together and she was thrilled when I was eventually promoted into a senior leadership position. But, I do wonder what life would have been like if I grew up in a world where I had been able to listen to people like Codie Sanchez or Brené Brown or Reese Witherspoon. Watch this video:

So, what am I going to do?

I am making a series of podcasts about female trail blazers. women who dared to lead bravely, unafraid of letting their authenticity, vulnerability and values shine through. I am hoping that these conversations will light the way for other women and anyone else who has been disadvantaged by an ego-driven system where the loudest voices are heard first.

And maybe you’ll ask (exasperatedly): “Why are we STILL talking about this?” And my answer to that is: Look around! Who has the loudest voices right now? What are they saying? I, for one, am ready for a new type of leadership where we are able to listen to one another to find solutions for a planet in crisis. And I think a good place to start is by hearing more strong female voices.

"I tell my daughters to have their voice in this world, and it became clear I needed to role-model that." - Melinda Gates 

I hope you like the new series. Please listen, comment and share.

Episodes will be added as I record them. You can find them here or where ever you listen to your podcasts.

Lots of love

Petro du Pisani is an executive coach who specializes in empowering mid- to senior-level female managers ready to step up into leadership roles. Her coaching practice is rooted in a deep passion for helping women break through the glass ceiling and claim their space at the executive table. Book your free chemistry session here.

It was a full-hearted conversation about how I left my corporate career at the age of 51 to dive into a sabbatical year filled with experimentation and rediscovery, a year to redesign my life into something more aligned with my values and purpose.

“At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.” - Maya Angelou

Listen here:

I met a potential coaching client for a chemistry session this week, and she quoted something I said in this podcast back to me, so I thought I better listen to the conversation again.

I was talking about how you initially go through life automatically, from pre-primary school to primary school to high school to university to graduate to junior manager to manager to senior manager and then some day, around 35-40 years old you wake up. Stealing a quote from Briony, you “sleep your way to the top,” and then suddenly you wake up and you look around and you wonder: “Is this where I want to be?”

This thought-process is not new. When I was doing my EMBA1 the prof who teaches executives to be humans (Chris Breen) showed us a video which has a similar concept. The video is narrated by Alan Watts and it’s about how life shouldn’t be a race from start to finish. Instead life is like a musical thing and you are supposed to dance and sing along to the music while it’s playing.

I am sure these concepts sound familiar to anyone who’s ever attended a motivational talk. In theory most of us would like a life where we are happy-in-the-moment and smelling the roses. Because I’ve always been an optimistic person with a very positive social media presence it may have looked like I was living that life already, and lots of that was true, but you don’t share the stuff you want to change or are unhappy about or may be longing for on socials.

It’s not easy to uproot your life, a life that many others may yearn for and admire. “I thought you were going to be the next COO,” said the prospective client. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but either way some people at the company thought I was destined for greater things.

As much as I (mostly) enjoyed my job, and loved (most of) the people I worked with, there was this niggle in the back of my mind:

“Who was I when I wasn’t a cog in the wheel of a big corporate?”

“Was there a way I could live a life 100% of my own making, doing something that didn’t even feel like work?

Little disclaimer here: I’ve been thinking about this since my late twenties, but like most people in their twenties/thirties/forties…the pull of “should” is strong.

You should use the degree you just got. Why did you go to university if you’re not going to use it.

You should climb the corporate ladder, especially if you’re smart and ambitious.

You should get married and buy a house and get a nice car.

…and then of course there’s all the obligations to family, which I think is a good should.

Should is useful - because it teaches you discipline and negotiation and how life actually works (especially when your should-marriage comes tumbling down), but at some point you are allowed to start questioning all the shoulds.

So, after three decades of shoulds (both positive and negative) I decided to experiment with all the things I might want to do for the rest of my life: coaching, writing, landscaping, yoga-instructing, botanical drawings, trekking, adventuring, starting my own business.

This re-design didn’t happen overnight…it took lots of planning and a whole heap of courage to leave a comfortable job, where I knew how things worked. And when I see promotion updates for people I used to work with and did development programmes with…there is a tiny little pang of “that could have been me.” But, at the same time, I am building something that is all mine, and I get a huge kick out of every small success, every new client, every flicker of a light bulb in a client’s eyes when they’ve discovered how amazing and resourceful they are.

Thanks, Briony for choosing me as your first guest on the Eminence Project. When I listened to our conversation again we sounded so in tune, bouncing our soul-searching stories off one another. For me this comment on our Spotify podcast link sums up our conversation perfectly:

Raw and inspiring conversation. So relatable. I love how you both skillfully balance vulnerability with professionalism, modelling how not to fall into victimhood when faced with the inevitability of mid life.” - Lin

Lots of love

If you are on the threshold of a big change in your life, be it stepping up in your career or taking a sabbatical, I am happy to guide you through the process. Book your first (free) 30min do-we-have-chemistry session here.

Dear Tony

You probably don’t remember me, but back in 2017 I started a podcast for an audience of one. You were that audience. You were in requisite-organisation-speak my MOR (manager-one-removed) and thus the person who would most likely be responsible for any promotion in my future.

Most of my career had been in the technical space, starting as an exploration geophysicist and then transitioning to business-process improvement. I had done many geophysical surveys (exploration and in-mine), gone underground more times than I care to remember in deep-level gold- and platinum mines, done mine operational reviews…all the boots-on-ground things women are advised to do to gain credibility in a very male-dominated industry. I had been the technical assistant to the previous technical directors, built countless PowerPoint presentations for my bosses, and was a converted disciple for the new CEO’s (your boss’s) operating model.

In 2016 I had done a Prosci change management course, and I thought, wow! …if only we could use the stuff I had just learnt in the course for the deployment of the new operating model. Up until then that deployment had been very technical and didn’t really consider the people side of things.

And then in 2017, you approved a request for me to attend a change management conference (hosted by the ACMP, Association of Change Management professionals) in New Orleans. Here is where I found a whole conference venue full of like-minded people, ALL of them concerned with the people side of change. It blew my mind, and I learnt so much about taking people along a change journey and listening to people when deploying a big change project…that I wanted to immediately use all of this knowledge to improve our company-wide operating model deployment.

I also thought this might be a way for me to carve out a niche within the company, become a technical change manager. I thought I’d be perfect for the job, since I knew all the technical stuff required for the operating model deployment AND now, I knew how to do the people stuff too. I searched all the company databases looking for an official change management policy or document that I could use or modify, but as far as I could see there was only a draft version of something made by HR. So, I took it upon myself to integrate all the things I had learnt from the Prosci course and started preaching change management to all the general managers at the mines and operations we were working to roll out the operating model.

To be honest my hope was to eventually be seen and promoted and a whole new change discipline to be created for which I would be the Head of Department (self-aggrandisation, much?). But, as my partner likes to tell me, just because there’s a gap in the market, doesn’t mean there’s a market in the gap. There seemed to be no appetite for a change management department.

So, next tactic…

I thought, how could I get noticed as somebody who knew something about change? How could I establish myself as a thought leader in change management?

My partner was just starting his new venture, a podcast studio, so I though maybe I could have conversations with people who were already thought leaders in change management. Maybe this would get me noticed by my MOR. I could publish my podcasts and put links to them on LinkedIn and maybe you’d see them there and it would play a small role in showing that I was not only excited about change management in the workplace, that in fact I was so interested by it that I would even spend my “free” time talking to people about the wonders of doing change right.

I saw this as a double-win…either I’d get noticed by the higher-ups or I could potentially establish my self as a change thought leader and get snapped up by someone else or start my own consultancy. Here you can see an example of my eternal optimism.

I called my podcast On Change, because it was initially going to be about change management, and it was also a bit of a homage to one of my favourite podcasts On Being.

So, my first podcast was with my Prosci course instructor, and then I did an episode with an expert in logotherapy, and then I did an episode with one of the instructors of a half-day course I attended at the New Orleans change management conference. I carried on in this vein making podcasts on change management intersecting with business improvement, safety culture, mindfulness, storytelling and reprogramming your brain.

At that point I found anyone I asked for an interview said yes…podcasting was still very much a novelty. I asked people that had taught me, mentors and interesting people who I worked with. And with each conversation I learnt more and I believe I did become a thought leader in change management. I did eventually get promoted in 2019, because my manager at the time took a chance on me, and I did survive the 10-minute MOR interview where you asked me questions mostly about the safety of our Johannesburg head office.

Tony, I don’t know if you ever listened to my podcast, but even if you didn’t, it was the start of a wonderful new pathway for me. Through my podcasts I have been able to talk to wise and inspirational people who have each changed me in a small way. It gave me creative outlet away from work where I could discuss whatever I wanted, be it serious, fun or silly, but all of it was transformational for me.

So, thanks for providing the impetus (even if you didn’t know) for starting my podcast, and I herewith extend an open invitation for you to be on my podcast.

Yours sincerely

Some pictures of my earliest podcasts, some in a very make-shift podcast studio:

On Change was nominated by the South African Podcasters Guild as one of the Top-5 Business podcasts in South Africa in 2024. We won bronze! (So, technically top-3 then)

On Change is recorded, edited and published by Solid Gold Podcasts & Audiobooks.

I’m trying. And it was going quite well with writing The Book, and then life happened. My mother-in-law got sick and she spent a lot of time in hospital, and the whole family came together. We sat with her, every day, for weeks, which I am so grateful was possible for us to do because of how our lives are structured and how we are able to support each other. The doctors tried to save her, but then we got to a point where it was just escalating…giving this medicine to counter that medicine and so forth and the sons made the very difficult decision to let her go. So we sat with her until she was gone and our hearts were broken, because she was supposed to live with us for another ten years. She had only just moved in. But the universe doesn’t always give us what we want.

For a month after her passing, when all the waiting was done and everyone had gone home, I was unable to write because of life’s existential questions and not having the will to get up at 5am, which is my best time of the day to write. I just wanted to sleep and not think too much and just brainlessly execute my other non-conscious habits, both good (exercise, studying) and bad (drinking wine and eating sweets).

And then this morning I got up at 5am and started writing again, because I want to be a writer. I am a writer. I’ve been reading Atomic Habits and it seems the best way to change your habits is to become the type of person who has the habits you want…so if I want to write I have to behave like a writer and write (see meme above). But because I am also the type of person who exercises most days, I got in the car and went to F45 at 7:15.

And while I was driving to F45 that beautiful Ben Böhmer song from the hot air balloon set over Cappadocia came on and all of a sudden there were tears, and I didn't have tissues because I thought the crying was over, and it wasn’t supposed to be my grief.

But, grief compounds…and pretty soon it wasn’t just about my mother-in-law and the grieving dog she left behind, but it was also about my parents and my friends’ parents and my best friend’s friend that passed away this past weekend and everyone else’s grief, and all the grief that is still to come.

The process of writing unleashed all the emotions and maybe I should have been writing all along, but sometimes it’s okay and you can take a rest from all the tiny habits and habit stacking and streaks and consistency and the making progress towards your goals.

Maybe Part 2 will be all about the routines and systems I’ve put in place to become the type of person I want to become (this process never ends by the way), but for now I am just happy that I put some words down today and that they truly reflect what’s going on in my mind.

Lots of love to everyone trying to keep it together out there!

The Question

In 2023 I decided to take a voluntary severance package after working for the same company for 18 years. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. Now, just two years later the company is going through a restructure again.

Working for a multinational multi-commodity mining company it used to be that these cyclical restructures happened every 7 - 9 years, but as with every else, it seems that the frequency of change is accelerating. Over the past year I’ve been documenting my grown-up gap year on social media and I did a series of podcasts with people who have taken conscious breaks from work.

So, I guess it was inevitable that when my ex-colleagues were told that they would be subjected to yet another company restructure, that some of them would phone me to ask for advice. The question being:

Do I stick it out, or do I take a severance package?

My Company Restructure Madness

The 2023 culling wasn’t my first rodeo. I had gone through similar upheavals in 1999, 2008 and 2014, so I had been a participant and spectator in this type of political circus several times.

In 1999 I was on assignment in China when the company restructured and the message I got was either stay in China, or go home (to Johannesburg) and be retrenched. There was a man involved, so I went home. He broke up with me the day I got home…wrong choice, but that’s a story for another time.

In 2008 it felt like all of the madness was happening to me. All I could do was to play the game, apply for positions and hope for the best. I was completely at the mercy of the politics and drama and the whole soap opera of who’s safe and who’s not?

In 2014 I couldn’t afford to lose my job due to being freshly divorced, family commitments and being in debt. But, in 2014 I watched people who had options, make clear-headed decisions and I resolved to have options the next time around, which is why I could leave in 2023.

Stay or Go?

For some people, who’s roles have become redundant there is no option, but to try and make the best of a bad situation. If you are in the fortunate position to make a choice (of staying or going), there are a number of things to consider, and this is the advice I gave to my colleagues.

In the moment, when you feel like you are in the middle of restructuring tornado, when you are poring over role profiles considering which jobs to apply for, witnessing the true natures of your colleagues coming out - from despair to deceit - it is easy to say: “To hell with this. I am leaving!” But, sit back, take a breath, and think:

• Are there people who are dependent on me?

• What is my financial position?

• What is the job market like?

• Are there other opportunities in the company (which I could apply for) that will expand my experience and skills?

• Can I survive (or even thrive) here until the next round of restructuring?

• If I can take break, for how long? And, how will I use this break?

Dependents

When your boss is sitting in front of you, an inexplicably smiling HR lady sitting next to him, reading restructuring T&Cs off a script, his face devoid of emotion (this is the last restructure I went though)…you might feel like just a number, just a little block on a not-yet-filled organogram. And this might make you sad or angry or sorry for your team members who are going through this for the first time, but consider your kids or elderly parents and whether you can stick it out for their sake. Once this disruption has passed there are ways to create little islands of sanity for yourself. When I went through the 2014 restructure I had elderly parents who needed me. I needed to play-the-game, apply for positions and stay positive. That was all there was to it. But, that whole experience also kicked off my planning to be in a better position the next time around.

Financial Position

(Disclaimer: I am not qualified Financial advisor, but I strongly advise that you get one)

If you are scared of spreadsheets or trying to make sense of compound interest makes your head hurt, here is where you need to (wo)man up or get help. You need to understand your net worth, your cash-flow position and for how long you can be without a job if you are planning to take a little break from it all. For my 2024 sabbatical I was supported by an amazing financial advisor who helped me to move my investments around and ensure that they were safe and growing in the background, while I spent only my sabbatical budget. Confession: I do admit to being a bit of a spreadsheet freak when it comes to my personal finances.

Seriously though, it is important that you know what is going on in your own finances. Sticking your head in the sand is really a poor strategy when it comes to your own life. There are many books, articles and websites that can help you to sort out your budget, help you to become debt-free and work towards financial freedom.

(Personally I have found great value in Ann Wilson’s The Wealth Chef and the advice of Mr. Money Mustache)

Job Market

This one may be self-evident. If you are working in an industry that is going through a slump, you may be one of many (for example) mechanical engineers that will soon flood the job market. It is a good idea to be aware of job opportunities in other companies and what people are paid on the other side of the fence. Theoretically, if you are a scarce skill the company won’t get rid of you, but I have also seen in two of my restructure rodeos where the company gets rid of technical people and leaves the massive HR department in tact…but lets not go there since my HR friends might get upset. The question is will you easily find a job somewhere else where they will appreciate your efforts more? This is where it is good to have built up your network of industry acquaintances.

Can I survive here?

When I survived the 2014 restructure I was fortunate to end up in a team I loved. Yes, there was still survivor’s remorse and being part of the old guard as opposed to the new (supposedly better) blood brought in from Australia, but I liked the work. My job had changed and I was in the middle of deploying the new CEO’s strategy, so I thrived in this new environment. That restructure was not bad for my career at all, and even though I knew in the back of my mind not to get too comfortable in that commodity uptick, I made the best of being on top of the wave. So, it is possible that you can find a home, a new team and a better job as a result of a restructure. I think it comes down to re-framing your situation and your attitude.

Do I want to take a break?

This is my favourite one, since I’ve just completed a year-long sabbatical, and I can’t recommend a deliberate, purposeful pause to your career highly enough! If you have addressed all the questions above and you are in the wonderful position to take a break, be it 3 months or a year it is such an amazing gift to yourself. I went into my sabbatical with a plan, which meant the time was spent fruitfully. I’ve come out of that year with new friends and an abundance of energy to build my business and live life according to my values and rules.

Conclusion

If you are considering putting your hand up for voluntary severance during a a company restructure, the question-stack above could provide you with some guidance. I hope I’ve helped you just a little bit with making this crucial decision.

Good luck out there!

If you are on the threshold of a big change in your life, be it stepping up in your career or taking a sabbatical, I am happy to guide you through the process. Book your first (free) 30min do-we-have-chemistry session here.

This is an slight update on an article I wrote on LinkedIn in October 2024. In SubStack I can add some links to people and podcasts that I mention in the article.

Why I made a podcast

There are many reasons to make a podcast. Probably the most popular reason is to build an audience and sell ads to them, like Joe Rogan and Tim Ferris. My reason(s) has been very different, and the topics of my podcasts have been aligned to a particular stage in my life where I wanted to achieve a specific goal or was curious about some topic.

Thought Leadership

When I first decided to make a podcast, I was thinking of pivoting in my career. I had recently attended a Change Management conference in New Orleans and was convinced that I had found my tribe. I thought that I wanted to incorporate change management in my career in some way, so I thought a podcast would be a good way to establish myself as a thought leader in the field. I found people who were already thought leaders in the field of change management and interviewed them. This was a way for me to learn more about the subject and to see whether this might be a direction I would want to go into. This is also why my podcast is called On Change, because I wanted to talk about change management as a subject and the way in which experts in this field effected lasting change. The name is also a bit of a homage to one of my favourite podcasts: On Being, with Krista Tippett (definitely one of my fantasy dinner guests).

Get Promoted

As the series of podcasts progressed, I spoke to more people in my field of work (Business Improvement) so that in case my boss’s boss checked out my LinkedIn profile they might think I had that extra little spark which would make me promotion-worthy. In essence I was trying to reach an audience-of-one, and if some recruiters noticed along the way…bonus! PS. I was promoted and I have no idea if my audience-of-one actually looked at my profile or listened to my podcast. (Update; I received a notification from LinkedIn that my audience-of-one looked at my profile - this happened after I left the company, and he hasn’t contacted me…yet)

Talk to Interesting People

In the thought-leadership phase I met some interesting people through work, exercise and my quest for self-development and I interviewed them because I wanted to delve deeper into what made them tick. There were a couple of episodes which were purely for the fun of it, like the two where me and my bestie spoke about books that changed our lives and where Jo spoke about motorcycling around Africa and Denis spoke about being an ordinary South African.

Learning Journey Conversations

When I started my EMBA through the UCT Graduate School of Business, I met many fascinating new people, and I decided to interview some of my profs as well as some of my classmates. We did most of our MBA in the Covid-years so we didn’t get a chance to connect as much as I would have liked and interviewing them for my podcast was a fun way for me to learn more about their research projects and to try and get some of the networking in that was supposed to be part of an MBA. I called this series of podcasts learning journey conversations. (Update: I particularly love the episode with Prof. Chris Breen, where we used his son’s music for the into and outro).

Sabbatical Series

Naturally when I decided to leave the corporate world and to use my sabbatical as a series of experiments to design my new life, I got so much benefit from the experience I decided to interview others who had done the same. These podcasts are also providing rich stories for a book I am writing on consciously taking breaks from work.

As the sabbatical series of podcasts progressed, I realised that one chapter in the book would need even more research, so my natural way of gathering opinions and learning more about something was to schedule three more podcasts on that particular topic.

In the infographic you can see how each series of podcasts reflects a particular phase of curiosity in my life.

These include:

• Establishing myself as a thought leader

• Trying to reach my audience of one

• Having fun

• Broadening my EMBA experience

• Getting to know interesting people

• Gathering stories for a book I’m writing

• Learning more about a particular topic I am writing about

Not everyone makes podcasts to monetize an audience. Sometimes we are using conversations to broaden our understanding of the world, and we think others might also want to listen in to these conversations as well.

If I piqued your interest, you can listen to the On Change podcast here.

Have a great day!

On Change was nominated by the South African Podcasters Guild as one of the Top-5 Business podcasts in South Africa in 2024. We won bronze! (So, technically top-3 then)

On Change is recorded, edited and published by Solid Gold Podcasts & Audiobooks.

This story comes from a podcast interview with Fatima Collins about taking deliberate breaks from work. These podcasts form part of a project I did while on sabbatical in 2024, after leaving my corporate job after 25 years.

When Fatima was in her early twenties, and all her friends were excitedly starting to build their new careers, she grabbed the chance to take advantage of a two-year work visa in the UK. She wanted to travel and reflect on the type of person she wanted to become. She wanted to try and understand herself and how she could contribute meaningfully to the world instead of becoming just another cog in the wheel.

By the way, I’m in awe of somebody who was already thinking like this in their early twenties – at that age my life was pretty much studying and partying with not much thinking about the type of person I wanted to be.

“Making this decision was nerve wracking at the time because I’d been offered scholarships and jobs, and watching all my friends starting their dream jobs,” explains Fatima. “In retrospect it was the best decision I’ve ever made. When I finally arrived in the workplace I knew more about myself and how I wanted to show up. I may have been slightly behind everyone else in the rat race, but I decided I’d run my own race in my own time, knowing what my expectations were.”

Deliberate time-outs

Fatima’s decision early in her career (to travel and be part of the world) set her up for taking more deliberate and intentional career breaks later. She took three more breaks to study an MBA full-time (2008), a sabbatical where she reflected on the type of work she wanted to do (2015), and later a break to grieve friends and family lost during Covid-19 (2021). Each of these breaks provided her with necessary introspection and returned her back to the workforce stronger.

When she took time out to do an MBA something shifted for her, and she describes how that sabbatical was one of the best gifts she gave herself. She discovered new avenues, new ways of thinking and went into a completely different direction after that year.

“It was like, I came back to myself. And I had a good 20 years ahead of me in terms of work. So that one year gave me job satisfaction for the rest of my working career.”

What really resonated with me when speaking to Fatima, was how she’d already, early in life, decided how she wanted to interact with the world. I found during the first three months of my sabbatical that there was a lot of work to do to disentangle my identity, this corporate persona, from who I actually was. When you’ve done so much to become a company (wo)man and align yourself with the company’s spoken (and unspoken) rules to further your career, it takes a bit of time to let go of all of that. I’m not saying it was all bad, but you do sort-of need to play by your company’s rules in the corporate world if you want to be noticed or get promotions – and you do consciously or unconsciously remold yourself to fit into the expected culture. What struck me about Fatima’s story was that because she took a deliberate break early on in her career to travel and learn about herself…she was always true to herself later in her career.

Maybe some of us just learn some of life’s lessons earlier than others, but as Francis Scott Fitzgerald says:

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”

Wintering

Fatima describes how she took time out during the Covid pandemic to grieve for the friends and family that she lost in the pandemic. In the podcast I mention the book Wintering, by Katherine May.1

The concept in wintering is that people, like nature, need times to rest and retreat. To quote May: “It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting is a radical act now, but it’s essential.”

This made me reflect on the period when I’d just started my last corporate job. As I signed up in February 2021, my mom’s health was deteriorating, and I was overwhelmed by not knowing what was happening to her or what to do. Until you’ve sat with somebody at the end of their life, you don’t know what dying looks like. I was frantically trying to find answers, a caregiver, something or somebody that could help me because I also needed to hit the ground running at work. It was during Covid-19, so when I took my mom to hospital for tests, I had to leave her by the door, and I remember standing in the hallway with her suitcase, which they wouldn’t accept, crying.

Only after my mom was admitted to hospital, was she diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. I was allowed to visit her for 30 minutes a day, because of Covid restrictions. My boss at the time was very understanding, but I started that job while being fully immersed in the trauma of seeing my mom slip away. It felt like there was no time for retreat and rest.

My boss was new and building a new department, so we had site-visits, recruitment and getting-up-to-speed to focus on. I wonder, how in an environment like that, we can apply the concept of wintering. In my context (I thought) there was no space for grieving inside my corporate life. It took me a long time to forgive myself for not noticing earlier, not being there enough (although I couldn’t be at the hospital more), for not being a better daughter. All these things you beat yourself up about after a loved one is gone. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was also doing my MBA part-time during this period, and chairing a not-for-profit organisation, but we’ll talk about insecure overachievers in a later article.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic Fatima was retrenched from a construction company, but she came to see this as a blessing in disguise, as she lost many close family members during the pandemic. So how had she managed to take time out to grieve during that time?

“I needed to build myself up again. I had lost so many people close to me and was so broken I felt I couldn’t offer the world of work anything. When I eventually returned to work, I found I was grateful for the return to routine.”

Most companies across the world offer between three to five days of bereavement leave for a close family member. I wonder if this is this enough. If you ask almost anyone what their values in life are, they’ll mention family and when we lose one of our family members, we’re expected to be well enough for work after just a few days. I guess it’s a balancing act. I’m grateful I had an empathetic boss at the time, but I was by no means ready for work after one week off, after my mom passed away. This is another lesson to be learned from Fatima, who recognised that she needed an extended period of retreat and recovery.

In a follow-up conversation Fatima said that we should encourage people to bring their whole selves to work. If we get to know our colleagues, we can be supportive in times of stress and grief.

After many conversations on conscious breaks from work, I believe extended periods of reflection help us to be better leaders and more empathetic towards our colleagues and team members.

Love to know what you think.

I had seen this all before. The defeated looks on peoples’ faces when they thought nobody was watching them. The jostling and backstabbing and grandstanding to get on the decision makers’ good sides. Desperate whispering about who was safe and who was not.

I had had enough! I just didn’t want to play this game anymore.

I had spent 880 weeks of my 4000 weeks with this company. I wanted to be in the world in a different way, a gentler way more aligned with my peaceful and adventurous spirit.

Watch Oliver Burkeman’s Ted Talk on How to stop fighting against time here:

Deep inside of me I had known for a while that the corporate life was not for me, that it was a means to an end to gain financial stability. The restructure I describe above happened in 2023, but it was the one before that, in 2014, where I had made my mind up that I needed to get out.

At the time I had debt, I was freshly divorced (my severe travel schedule contributing to this) and my parents needed my help, so I couldn’t leave then. I just knew that I wanted a freer lifestyle and not to be at the mercy of company whims and commodity cycles. I wanted to be in control of my own fate at the next round of retrenchments. I wanted to be the one who chose whether I stayed or left. In the 2014 restructure I saw one of my colleagues, who at 57, could opt for (or really was pushed into) early retirement act from a position of power. Steve crunched his numbers, weighed his options, and exited the company with dignity… and I thought I want to be like Steve.

I had no idea what sums Steve had done or how he could be so confident about walking away, but I knew I could learn.

With that intent out there in the universe, my life continued in rat-race for the next nine years. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

When the next round of retrenchments inevitably arrived (in 2023), I was in a much better position to act from my own position of power. I had done the work, done the planning and built some solid back-up systems. I put my hand up for a voluntary severance package. My plan was to take a year off to rest, rejuvenate and re-invent myself… to re-design a life that was closer to my values, personality and soul…a life without politics and stress, where I was healthy and doing things every day that would make my heart sing.

People at my company thought I was crazy…I had done so much work at becoming a true company ambassador, re-shaping myself to become exactly what the company expected from me. At the time of the restructure, I was enrolled in an in-house executive development programme (a sign that I was being pushed upwards) and I had recently completed an executive MBA and now all those learnings (and money) were wasted, lamented one of my friends.

I got comments in the first couple of weeks after leaving about how lucky I was or how nice it must be to be doing nothing. Luck had nothing to do with it! And no, I was not doing nothing, or on holiday – I was actively reflecting and investing time in myself so that the best version of myself could think clearly about the rest of the precious time I have left. I learnt new skills and took on projects that made my heart happy. One of those projects was doing a series of podcasts with people who had done what I was doing – people who had taken breaks from work to deliberately and consciously re-design their lives.

I put a call to action out on LinkedIn asking for people to take part in my project and they responded! The next couple of articles will be about these interviews and what I learnt form people who actively pursued a different way of being.

If you are thinking of taking a break, a deliberate time-out from a world where busy-ness is worn like a badge of honour, these stories might inspire you to pause purposefully. To re-design your life so that at the end of your 4000 weeks you will feel like you have lived and examined life (as James Hollis puts it).

Listen to the podcast series here:

If you need help planning and executing your conscious break, book a free intro coaching session here - just so we can see if we have coaching chemistry.

Where it all began

In 2017 I was feeling stuck at work and looking for a way to position myself differently at work. I felt like I’d done everything right, been a good girl, taken on all the difficult projects and I made my bosses look really good by being a dutiful and competent 2IC. I was looking for a gap in the company structure, which I could claim and build out, or if not that, then leave and do my own thing (this was a recurring theme in my corporate career).

I had just done a course on change management and I loved the process, so I thought maybe I could do this - be an expert on change management. Problem was, I wasn’t, so I thought I’d interview people who were already experts on change management, learn from them and become a thought leader on the subject, and so…the On Change podcast was born.

You can read more on why I started the podcast here.

The Podcast

The podcast became my creative outlet, while in the real world I was grafting and being good corporate citizen. I used the podcast to explore all the topics I was curious about, and mostly they focused on change and people who had gone through big transformations in their lives. I made podcasts for the following reasons:

• Establishing myself as a thought leader

• Trying to reach an audience of one (that one person who could promote me)

• Exploring topics that interested me

• Getting to know interesting people

• Expanding my network

• Broadening my MBA experience (by interviewing my class mates & lecturers)

• Gathering stories for a book I’m writing

• For fun

And yes, I did carve out an area for myself where I got to do change management, I did get that promotion and I led large transformational projects for the company. AND I met some interesting people and had some fun along the way.

Listen to the On Change Podcast.

The Business

When I eventually left my corporate career, I first took a break to reflect on what I might do with the rest of my life. I ran a series of experiments on myself to see whether any of my fantasy jobs (those jobs I would dream about while stuck in boring meetings) could actually turn into a meaningful pivot for me. I did a coaching course, a yoga teacher training course, planned to do a landscaping course, etc, and what I learned was that the thing I loved most about my corporate career was the mentoring and coaching of my team and younger employees - that was the best part of my job! I should mention that one of my previous bosses also said I taught him to be a human being at work, so it seems I was coaching upwards as well.

I’ve now started an executive and life coaching business and naturally, because my podcast was called On Change, it made sense to use that name for my business too. For the business I changed the logo to show how a coaching journey towards living a more balanced life bears fruit.

Be part of my tribe

In this newsletter I will be sharing my thoughts on the topics I am curious about, much like why I started a podcast, but here I can test my thoughts with you, and share podcasts, videos and articles that I find interesting.

Initially I would like to share a series of articles I am writing. These pieces will form the basis for a book I am writing on taking conscious and deliberate breaks from work. These are based on a series of podcasts I made on taking constructive breaks from work, my own sabbatical story and some research.

I would love for you to:

• Give me feedback

• Ask questions

• Share your related stories

• Point me to research that might be helpful

• Tell me what you want more (or less) of

You are also welcome to point out my clumsy writing, spelling and grammatical errors. English is my second language after all.

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