Episode 311 · 18 June 2026 · 1:00:30
Are middle managers being set up to fail? With Kristien Turner
Featuring Kristien Turner
Are middle managers being set up to fail? With Kristien Turner
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Are middle managers being set up to fail?
interview#middle-managers#leadership#pressure
A shared passion for the middle manager crisis
interview#middle-managers#crisis#passion
What's putting managers under so much pressure right now?
interview#middle-managers#pressure#workplace
Job design, AI, and the changing nature of work
interview#job-design#ai#work
When middle managers start to give up
interview#middle-managers#burnout#feedback
The coming skills gap and the Gen Z shift
interview#skills-gap#gen-z#future-of-work
Brands doing it right — it's not all doom and gloom
interview#brands#best-practice#leadership
The 'Sally' problem, modelled in real time
The power of volunteering
interview#volunteering#career#development
Knowing your super skill and building your kit bag
interview#skills#career#development
The war cry — where to find Kristien
Show notes
Are Middle Managers Being Set Up to Fail? — with Kristien Turner
Guest: Kristien Turner — founder and CEO of TK Talent Group, working with global brands across the Americas and Europe to solve the modern talent crisis.
Are middle managers facing an existential crisis? According to today's guest, the answer is a resounding, 100% yes.
Kristien joins Al and Leanne to pull back the curtain on why middle managers are drowning under the weight of AI disruption, corporate layoffs, and a severe lack of actual leadership training. They unpack the "Sally Problem" — where top-performing individual contributors get promoted into management without a toolkit, a coach, or any support — and explore why companies are cutting headcount on the false assumption that AI can replace human leadership.
If you're a middle manager who feels like they're drowning, or an executive wondering why engagement numbers are plummeting, this episode offers a raw, practical roadmap to reclaiming control of your career and leadership strategy.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Have the honest conversation. Be vulnerable with your senior leader. Show them what's broken, present the data on why it isn't working, and ask for support. Give your organization one last chance to show up for you.
- Stop trying to be everyone's everything. You are not a workplace therapist, a buffer, or a corporate savior. Share the load by implementing peer mentoring programs and opening up communication access to the senior leadership layer above you.
- Build your kit bag now. Don't wait for a corporate restructuring call. Keep your CV polished, optimize your LinkedIn profile, and get out to in-person networking events to build real-world connections.
🔥 Key Themes From This Episode
The "Sally" Problem: Companies consistently reward top-performing individual contributors by promoting them into management without giving them a toolkit, a coach, or proper support mechanisms.
The AI Illusion: Many organizations are cutting headcount assuming AI can fully replace human roles, failing to realize that technology cannot navigate tricky performance reviews, handle workforce drama, or look a struggling employee in the eye.
The 8x8 Structural Trap: Middle managers are stuck acting as an emotional buffer for massive teams (sometimes up to 64 people deep) while running on an empty battery themselves.
The Gen Z Shift: A massive shift is occurring where younger generations do not aspire to traditional corporate management roles and prefer gig or portfolio careers, paving the way for a severe leadership skills gap by 2030.
The Power of Volunteering: How stepping outside your day job to give back can radically boost your mental health, redefine your core purpose, and expand your executive network.
More From Kristien Turner
- Website: tktalentgroup.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kristienturner
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottYou know that feeling when you meet someone and within about 90 seconds you're just nodding along and thinking, yes, yes, yes, this person gets it. Every single thing they say you agree with. Well, today's guest is exactly that person.
Leanne ElliottKristien Turner is the founder and CEO of TK Talent Group, and he works with brands across the Americas and Europe to solve what he calls the talent crisis—
Al Elliottfinding great people, keeping them, We asked him one question right at the top. Are middle managers being set up to fail?
Leanne ElliottYeah, 100%.
Kristien TurnerDon't need to think about that for one second. And let's get into it, right? Like, those middle managers, many of them didn't want to be managers to start with. They didn't want the drama of managing others. They don't feel prepared to manage others. They haven't been skilled and equipped to manage others.
Al ElliottYou could stop listening now. You've got your answer, but you'd be missing out on one of the best conversations we've had on this show and some of the most practical advice ever given to anyone who wants to be a leader. navigating the chaos of managing people right now.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a chartered occupational psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner, and we are here to help you simplify the science of work. So let's go and join Leanne and Kristien right after this short message from our lovely Sponsors. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottKristien, welcome back to Truth, Lies and Work. For any of our listeners who didn't catch the incredible panel that you were a part of on our LinkedIn Live series, can you introduce Introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you do, and what you're famous for.
Kristien TurnerYes, I'm Kristien Turner from the UK originally, but now spent 18 years outside of the UK between Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, spent a stint in New York City in my 20s, Miami. And I'm the founder and CEO of TK Talent Group. So we are helping brands the world over, but with a big focus on the Americas and on Europe, to be fair, solve for the crisis of talent, the talent crisis, the war on talent. And what does that really mean? It means they can't find the technologists, they're grappling with with how do they refresh their company and their brands to be more appealing to the younger generation? How do they retain staff? What are they doing around coaching, coaching their middle managers, again, with this view of retaining sticky talent? So, we really do operate at the intersection, I call it, of marketing and HR, and really helping both the company, but also the individuals. And I think we're going to get into that today, the individuals behind these companies that are struggling. They're saying, do I stay? Do I go? Do I get, you know, do I take on a side hustle? Do I get involved with the gig economy? Like, what do I do? Do I see myself here for another 10 years? And so we're kind of the talent gurus is kind of, you know, what I would say that we do.
Leanne ElliottI know this entire, I mean, we could talk about so many things, but I wanna talk to you about a shared passion area that we have, and that is around managers and specifically middle managers. And what a time they are having. I wanna dive straight in with just a very blunt question. Are middle managers being set up to fail right now?
Kristien TurnerYeah. Yeah. Yeah, they are. Yeah, 100%. Don't need to think about that for one second. And let's get into it, right? Like those middle managers, many of them didn't wanna be managers to start with. They didn't want the drama of managing others. They don't feel prepared to manage others. They haven't been skilled and equipped to manage others. They've kind of been rewarded for being an incredible individual contributor. You know, like Sally. Sally's the person that, you know, works 60 hours a week and stays late and is the one that responds to emails on the weekends. And so suddenly, you know, an owner-manager or even a senior executive at a big firm goes, Sally needs to be promoted, and let's just give her 80 people or 100 people to manage. And of those 100 people, we've got all of the personalities under the sun. She's managing interns, she's managing graduates, she's got people in that team that have been at the firm 15 years longer than she has. They're all going through their own kind of reflections on whether or not this workplace is where they wanna stay and retire. Yeah. You know, do they skip to the competition? Do they go and launch their own business? Like Sally is not equipped. We've given her a name, right? We're calling her today Sally. Sally is not equipped to be a manager. And frankly, many Sallys out there never really wanted to be a manager in the first place. And so, no, I do believe that middle managers are being set up to, to, to fail. And all of the news bites that we're getting out there at the moment on LinkedIn, Leanne, it doesn't matter if it's coming outta the States, outta the UK, out of Asia. People just don't want to be managers. People are saying, you know what, I'd like to stay in the position that I'm in. I know that I'll be earning 20 or 30% less because that's the general bump. You know, if I'm going to give you a team of 50, 70, 80 people to manage, I'm going to give you, you know, 20 or 30% bump in pay. But people are going, are those few thousand dollars really worth all of the drama that come with this? Because they're just not equipped. And we're not giving them support mechanisms, and we're not giving them a coach, and we're not giving them this kind of toolkit. I like to call it a toolkit. We're not giving our managers a toolkit to set them up for success anymore. We're kind of pushing them in at the deep end. We've not prepared them, and they don't have all the answers. And we're saying, well, now you're the mouthpiece, you're the spokesperson in front of your team of 70, 80, 100 people. Because remember, a lot of those managers, Leanne, are also managers of managers. And so this is like a, you know, the typical span in the corporate world is 8 by 8, right? So suddenly this kind of senior manager has 64 people underneath them. They've got 8 direct reports, and then each of those 8 have another 8. And there's just not, there's just not the sequencing. There's not, there's not the support in place. We're not setting them up for success. And I think the individual's going, what the hell do I do? Because if I now find myself in that space, how do I get out of this as quickly as possible? The companies are going, Oh God, we're now gonna start calibrating them and performance managing them. And if they're great, they stay. And if they're not great, we're gonna, we're gonna boot them out, which we'll get into in a, in a bit, is also a, also a horrible message to be sending. 'Cause I'm sending you to the frontline, not giving you the tools to do the job, and then when you fail, I'm saying, hey, get out. So I do think we're living a little bit of a crisis with that, what I would call middle management space, where I would estimate probably About 40% of an organization actually lies, and they're just not equipped.
Leanne ElliottI mean, that's not new. That's always been the case. But it feels like now middle managers are under an added layer of pressure in terms of geopolitics, the economy, AI.
Kristien TurnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhat is it, do you think, that is putting managers under so much pressure right now?
Kristien TurnerI think it's all of the above. Like, we just keep listening to every single news bite and news article about the next tech firm that's laying off 10% of their organization, 20% of their organization. There's always this kind of, this constant threat of we're going to make people redundant, we're going to right-size. The soundbite at the moment, you touched on it, is of course artificial intelligence. The reality is 80% of the people taking those cut decisions don't even understand fully the consequences of AI on their organization. Like, they don't have it figured out. So it's almost become like a trend. It's become Kind of like the trendy thing to do, a little bit like during COVID like the trendy thing to do was, well, we had to for necessity at the very beginning, which was going fully remote, but the hybrid, you know, like hybrid work policy was the trendy thing back in 2022. And then we now see 60% of the companies that followed that trend, but didn't really embed a culture underneath to enable like fully hybrid work and make it, make it work for them, but also make it work for the individuals to enable people to be at their best in those environments.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerThey've reversed the decision, everyone back to the office 4 or 5 days a week. Well, a little bit like now, I see this kind of like boomerang where we're going, right, 20% of the workforce out because that's what the company over the road are doing. And we're already seeing now this upswing of companies that made these rightsizes early on. And early on means, you know, we're in May of 2026. I'm talking about the companies that took these decisions in April of last year, 2025. And now suddenly, hiring again, because they made these huge swings, and they thought that the technology was going to do 100% of what the human was doing in that role. And then they said, shit, but actually, that AI, you know, bot that's doing now performance management, who's going to have the tricky conversation with the employee? Who's going to tell them that they're, you know, they're underperforming in their job? Who's going to look them in the eye and go, well, you've just come back from a leave of absence, and I think that you need to be doing this, this, and this better? The technology doesn't do it. Technology is an enabler.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerYou know, it enables us to be more productive, to be more efficient. And I'm a huge believer in using AI tools to make an organization perform better. But don't go and make these silly decisions of taking out 20% of your workforce that have an average tenure of 9 years and all of that sticky knowledge of your customer base, of your product, thinking that the tech that you brought in 6 months ago is gonna do their job because it bloody well doesn't. And we all know it doesn't. So. It can be a fantastic enabler. But I do think at the moment, back to your question, you know, what is causing this? Yeah, it's AI. Look, the political tensions, the war in the Middle East, you know, currency depreciations, appreciations, which are happening all over the place, and then causing companies to think about where they're positioning talent geographically, all plays a role as well. But at the moment, when we talk about those big swings, Yeah. It's the AI kind of race that everyone is moving towards. And I just think it's kind of hypocritical, no, of the HR team that talk about bringing the human, you know, element and being the conduit, that we're not the ones standing up. Because I count myself in that camp, right? I grew up in marketing. You know, I've been a leader within the commercial organization, but my last 7 or 8 years has been very much in the HR people leadership team? Why aren't we standing up more to the CFO? Because ultimately a lot of these are financial decisions, and to the CEO to say, stop. Let's map, let's map the skills to start with. Like, what does Leanne do in her day-to-day? She's got 20 tasks. Where has AI fully replaced those 20 tasks? In 4 of the tasks. Isn't that an obvious question to go, so the other 16 things that she does in her day, Who's gonna do it? Who's gonna bloody well do it? And we're just not starting there. And it sounds so basic, but I can tell you that these massive multinationals out there that are super sophisticated, doesn't matter if you're in financial services, in pharma, in entertainment and consumer goods, no one is starting with that basic kind of point of saying, what does that person do? What are the skills that they have? What are their super skills? You know, what is their contribution to the revenue of this organization and the product development pipeline that we have? Oh, 80% of that is uniquely theirs, not the technologies. That should be the starting point. And unfortunately, 'cause I'm, I'm still on some of those tables as an advisor, you know, as a thought leader being invited in, those conversations are not happening, or, or rather they're happening, but the decision's already been made before the conversations happen. So, you know, we already know we're gonna cut 20% of the organization before we've even mapped what each person is doing, will be doing, you know, their super skills, you can call it whatever. It comes down to what are those unique human behaviors and skills and deliverables today that if I take that person out, is going to have the big impact on the bottom line? Because it does have an impact on the bottom line. And it has an impact on your customer service. And it has an impact on your product development roadmap. I mean, so, so I, you know, I think at the moment, it is the AI You know, newsflash, which is impacting all of us, both at an individual level, but also, you know, the companies and the top tables that are out there, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottKristien, you're talking my love language, honestly. You're talking to me about job design, job analysis, about work design, about skill development and talent development. And it is basic stuff. It really is. But I guess what I'm wondering is, is management just fundamentally a different role now than it was 10 years ago against this backdrop of AI? Is management different today?
Kristien TurnerYeah, I think it is. And I think what companies are grappling with is with average tenure down by 30%. And so, what I mean by that is, you know, the soundbite we all know, which is many of us joined an organization in our 20s thinking that we'd retire there, just like our parents' generation, you know, this notion of a job for life. And many of us chose our employer or even our sector or our industry, believing that it was secure, that it was stable, that we are really going to make our career there. This notion of 30 years of service, you'll get a party and a Rolex watch at your retirement. For many organizations out there, again, US, UK-based, that was the dream. That's no longer the dream. Very few people, and I still go into a lot of universities, I'm doing a lot of work with graduates and interns. No, and I was with, what, 50 20-year-olds last week here in Mexico City's kind of top business management undergrad course. None of them aspire to having the same employer for more than 3 years. Isn't that insane? They don't expect to be anywhere longer than 3 years. You know, half of that class did not want a full-time job, Leanne. They want to be part of this kind of like gig economy where they have a portfolio. They're like, hey, Yeah. I'm a great social media marketeer. I wanna have 5 or 6 companies amongst 2 or 3 industries. I wanna kind of hedge and I wanna learn beauty industry, but I also wanna have a little dabble over here with a fintech, and I wanna have this like diverse range of experiences. They no longer see having that at a corporate firm like you and I did when we were entering the job market. And so back to that question around management, firms used to invest in management training. Because that person was gonna stick around. Like, if I'm gonna invest in like an incredible leadership bootcamp at a London business school, or I'm gonna send you on an MBA, Leanne, or I'm gonna invest in you learning, you know, 2 new languages, or I'm gonna give you a, a, a coach, a performance coach, because I really think you're a superstar. Well, we did that in the past because we thought Leanne was gonna stick around, you know, 20, 30 years into her career. Now with people sticking around for 6, 7, 8 years in that kind of middle bracket. Yeah. And I don't like to use it with age because, you know, many people arrive at different points in their career, etc. But I think for the benefit of our listeners today, let's put like an age bracket on it. Let's say that you're between 38 and 52, and you find yourself today in that kind of middle management category. You know, companies are no longer investing in you the way they used to. They're not sending you to all those courses. They're not paying for that language training. If you're lucky, You've got some online courses that you can access on demand, which, by the way, we're not gonna encourage you to do that in work time, right? That's the other ironic thing here. We're gonna say when you're exhausted at the weekend and the only time that you have with your kids and your family on a Saturday and Sunday, we think that you're gonna be on an online learning tool spending 4 hours upskilling around the new world of work. Like, that's where it's all started to break down.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Kristien TurnerUm, you know, middle managers also started to give up, Leanne, when it was The feedback survey, the engagement survey that they've responded to every bloody year, and they've manifested the same concerns year after year. I don't know, since 2015, and we're in 2026, and we see the same bad behaviors. The bullies in the office are still there because they're the ones that are getting ahead, and they're being rewarded because they're the sharky sales types that get ahead. People have started to, like, take their foot off the gas. They go, I don't believe.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien Turnerin this place anymore. And, you know, and that's a lot of the work that I do with the brands that we're working with. You know, I'm working with some huge banks, I'm working with some huge travel firms at the moment, and we kind of look at how do they live the culture internally. And then where we come in with that marketing comms background is then how do you sell it externally? Like, how do you communicate it to your potential audience of candidates? And sometimes it's, you know, it's ironic. Sometimes the culture's beautiful. It's a fantastic place to work. And they're just not sharing it externally. So nobody knows that it's a fantastic place to work. And it's very much like this closed community where the doors are, where the doors are shut and we're not encouraging anyone to really share what a great place it is. And, and there's fewer of those, but they exist. And then there's the other extreme where, you know, and we all see this, which is the companies that say, we're a great place to work. We're number 1 in the survey, number 1 UK top company as per LinkedIn 2026. Come and work here. And then you go on Glassdoor, and I invite everybody to go on Glassdoor to see the real reviews of your firm, right? And you start to see a 3.1 out of 5, and you see people talking about toxic leadership, bad management, horrible culture, um, you know, not being rewarded fairly, all of those attributes that we know build a positive culture or frankly destroy a culture. Like, Glassdoor is the place to go and see What being a manager at that firm looks like. And so for all of our listeners today going, oh my God, I don't know if I wanna be a manager. I don't know if I wanna be a manager at that firm. They're offering me a promotion. This is 20% more on my salary, and we're in a little bit of a job crisis at the moment. And so I think I should take it. I would, my invitation for you would be to start with going on Glassdoor, take a little look at the reviews, see what people are honestly sharing. And for anyone out there that doesn't know, Mm-hmm. who Glassdoor are. It's basically TripAdvisor for jobs. And so, you know, there's no photos on there, Leanne, right, of dirty beds and dodgy balcony doors. But frankly, there's the other kind of texture on there, which is, you know, how do people spend their day-to-day life at work? And all of that analysis and all of those comments, you're gonna find it on that platform. And then go over to LinkedIn and stalk the manager That you're gonna be working for, the leader you're gonna be working for, right? 'Cause if you're a middle manager, you're probably still 3 or 4 layers from the very top. And if you're a marketing manager, you're gonna look at what that CMO is communicating and what that CEO is communicating, and you're gonna say, is this the culture? Is this the firm that I wanna be a part of? Yes or no? And so do your research. And actually, that's where we come back full circle on AI, because now, Leanne, you go on Claude.
Al ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerAnd you say, I'm thinking of taking a job at X firm. Should I do it? Help me understand the good, the bad, and the ugly. And Claude will come back having scraped all of those sites that we just spoke about. You'll put in your leader's name, and it will actually give you a full-on reference as to whether or not you should take that job or take that promotion, um, at that firm. So do your research if you're the individual, and if you're, you, if you're the company, My invitation for you is, when was the last time you honestly went on and read those reviews? And if you're the company, my other invitation is, let's do something different this year with the engagement survey. Like, don't keep pumping out an invitation every year. Well, I was with a client a couple of weeks ago, Leanne. They do this engagement survey every 3 months. And I just laughed. Like, because first of all, if you're doing an engagement survey every 3 months and you're not following up and you're not actually doing anything with the actions, Like, how soul destroying. Like, I'm gonna sit and spend 45 minutes giving all this feedback with the will to make this a better environment for the 50 hours a week that I'm gonna spend sat here. And you're just going, you're gonna ignore me. It's just rude. It's like, don't do it to start with, or make it a once every year or once every 2-year exercise. But that's where, unless you give it the full attention that it requires, it's actually more damaging to ask for that feedback than just to be in a vacuum and just like Just, just pretend, just pretend that we're all so busy, we're not going to ask for your feedback because there's nothing worse than giving it as an employee, as a manager, wanting to make this place a better firm, and then just doing nothing with it. So yeah, I do think the managers, they're not being invested in. They're kind of giving up. They're saying we've manifested the last 5, 8, 10 years what needs to change around here. We're not being listened to. We don't have all the answers. We're the buffer. You know, the middle manager today, Leanne, is the buffer between senior management and the day-to-day. And the management don't have all the answers. They haven't got it all figured out. But yet we expect that manager in the middle to show up, you know, to the one-to-ones and the team meetings with the energy, with the vibes, with the, we love it, we're great, we're doing great. Look at us, look at our numbers, look at our product roadmap, look at our, you know, look at how we're positioned against our competition. Like, we expect them to be the Energizer Bunny. But we're not filling them up with energy. We're not recharging them, right? So until the company starts to recharge them, you can't expect those managers to show up and motivate. Using my 8 by 8 analogy, because it's what I see across most of the multinationals, how do I have energy for 64 people if I'm running on like, not low battery, I'm flat, I'm out of energy. I can't give that to 64 other people. So that's, that's where I feel we're at this kind of huge disconnect.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Kristien TurnerAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
Kristien TurnerUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Kristien TurnerDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottI'm just, I'm nodding furiously because everything you're saying, I'm like, yes, yes. And another thing, yes. It's infuriating. And we're seeing the impact now from, I think, you know, the latest stats from Gallup showed that, that engagement for the first time in a long time has dropped amongst managers because of the pressure we're putting on them. What I'm curious, going back to, I love what you were saying before about the, the, the early 20s you spent some time with and how they're viewing their career and, and how they wanna develop. And you are in the business of, of talent.
Kristien TurnerMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd the fight for talent and meeting that. Are we looking at a massive skills gap if Organizations aren't investing in managers. Our younger people joining the workforce have no real interest in being managers and wanna completely diversify their portfolio career. Are we heading towards a real problem of having no trained managers or people who wanna manage?
Kristien TurnerYeah, I think we are. And I think that crunch point, we are gonna start feeling it now. I think it's gonna become pretty bad in 3 years. And I think by 2030, it's gonna be a massive crisis, you know, because a lot of those middle managers that you are getting, you're taking out are the ones with, and I don't necessarily like this terminology, but it's the one that all of our listeners are gonna kind of relate to. So let's just say what it is. It's soft skills. And what do we mean by soft skills? Go in a room with 64 of your direct reports and deliver a set of bad results and bad news and try and rally the troops around those results and hold the room. 64 people in a virtual room. That takes confidence. It takes skill. It takes empathy. That's not an easy thing to do. Standing in front of a sales force, you know, I don't know, 600 of your commercial leaders in a physical room to deliver a rallying cry around, you know, your strategy for next year. That takes a real skill in terms of like public speaking, being fun, but also being, you know, on the nose with the message, but also bringing in data and knowing your stuff and knowing your product, like being eloquent.
Al ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerNot reading off a teleprompter, not reading off a bunch of notes. Like something as basic as that. We're losing that in the workforce because those middle managers, again, using my kind of age analogy of like those ones around 38 to, you know, 50-something that have, that have spent 20 years of their corporate— let's talk about it in terms of experience, 20 years in the workforce. We've all been exposed to that. Like we've all had to stand in front of a large group and deliver bad news. We've all had to stand in front of a large group and rally the troops. I've had to stand in front of like, you know, 3,000 students and convince them to come and work for a legacy brand that's been around for 150 years. 50 years when the person up next is this jazzy fintech that everybody wants to go and work for. Like, those are, those could be called soft skills, but they're actually the real super skills. And they're the future skills that firms are gonna be lacking because we're removing those middle managers that have all those abilities. The new generation that's come into the workforce has grown up, you know, tech native, tech savvy, but actually 90% of their work has been looking down a computer or a phone screen. And now for this new generation, you know, for the last 2 or 3 years, all of their writing skills has been through prompting Claude and ChatGPT to write their homework and their coursework for them. So like, we're at this crunch point where we don't have middle managers who have those abilities anymore. So like, I'm kind of scared because in, you know, a 200,000-person organization, in 5 years' time, who's going to stand in front of them to deliver the—
Leanne ElliottVision.
Kristien Turnerthe bad news, or who's gonna stand in front of them to rally them and motivate them. And so, you know, and we do see some of these firms out there, Leanne, like going back a little bit to focus on those soft skills. You know, when you look at all of the investments at the moment from like a learning and development training perspective, 70% of the cash, the hard cash, is going towards AI deployment, upskilling, training, just AI in general. And there's like 7 attributes there, top 7 of the top 10. Then number like 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 is literally public speaking, Um, confidence, relationship building, relationship management, which for our generation, Leanne, is like totally normal. Like that was just like, that was just what you had to, to, to have to develop to survive in the world of corporate. But I think for now, a large majority of the organization, that's what we're lacking. And so firms that are gonna get ahead in the future are not only investing in the technology at the moment in 2026, but they really are investing in their people. Yeah. And in training them to be great relationship managers and public speakers. Now, they're the minority, because back to what we've been saying earlier, like many firms are kind of ignoring, they've kind of got their head down at the moment. We're all in this AI deployment, reskilling, upskilling, retraining mode, as well as kind of cost cutting with the humans. But there are brands out there that are doing cool stuff. And so, you know, I do not work with these brands, I'll caveat it, but like one firm I've always looked to is Lego. And so Lego as a brand has had such a resurgence recently, right? It was always something that the kids played with, and now we get our grandmas and our parents adult Legos and flowers and God knows what. So on a product and sales perspective, I, I think they're doing better than ever before. But what have they always done differently to other brands? And it may well be because we see a lot of this very forward-thinking talent strategy coming out of Scandinavia, right? It's always the, the Swedes, the, the Danish, the Norwegians that are always ahead of the curve.
Al ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerWhen it comes to talent strategy, they've continued to invest in their people, in their middle managers. And so when we talk about international placements, language training, management training, um, having a fund that you can tap into to study something that interests you, like a learning fund, Lego always had that. They still have it today, and they continue to be a genuine top employer.
Al ElliottRight.
Kristien TurnerAnd so there are brands out there, like, I don't want this conversation today to be all doom and gloom because I think now the candidates are becoming savvier than ever before. And we can spot those golden stars like the Legos out there, and we can say, that's who we want to go and work for. We don't want to go and work for a company like this, which comes back to doing your homework, figuring out who you're going to go and work for and what that company culture is like before you sign up to go and have the second most important relationship of your life. After choosing your partner, choosing your job and your career is the second most important decision, which will basically chart out your future path of both, of either happiness or doom and gloom. And so we want everybody to find a meaningful, happy job. And that doesn't mean to say happy job doesn't mean you go into work every day and it's roses and fantastic. And, you know, we're all going to have our challenges. We're all going to have our tough days. But, you know, we've got to be able to get to a Friday evening and go, oh, I'm really proud of what I did this week. And I feel like I'm moving forward. I feel like my career's moving forward. I feel like I'm being equipped for the future. I'm not being left around. Like, a piece of dead wood to die at this place. 'Cause there's 30% of people out there, Leanne, that actually feel like they are dead wood waiting to be chopped. Like there's, there's this real, when I speak to people out there at the moment, there's this real concern that at any moment the corporate axe is gonna come through swinging and I'm just gonna lose my job. I'm gonna lose my, you know, lose my livelihood. My family are gonna be, you know, stuck. So you've gotta take the ownership yourself. And if your firm is not investing in you today, And they're making 20% cuts tomorrow, I think you've gotta be the proactive force here that say, that says 2 things. Let me start preparing myself for a move. And by preparing myself, I mean get the kit bag ready, get the CV updated, get your LinkedIn updated. 'Cause again, I go into a lot of these coaching conversations, Leanne, and people have figured out a year ago that they wanna move. And it's like, when did you last update your CV? No, 10 years ago. 'Cause I was comfy as hell where I'm at at the moment. Like, Get that polished off. And it takes a little bit of momentum. Like, updating a CV should only take 3 or 4 hours, but for some people it takes 3 or 4 months because it's just getting that rhythm again of getting into getting your kit bag ready. Same with LinkedIn. Like, if you want to get out there and you've got a network of 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 people on your LinkedIn, activate it. How do you activate it? Reach out, direct message to some old, you know, bosses and say, let's get a coffee. Start posting a little bit more. Get your, you know, get your posting cadence up. And we always say, you know, gotta be posting once a week on LinkedIn to get trained with the algorithm and get your stuff in front of some decision makers. So get your kickback kit bag ready and be proactive. Like, you wanna be ready to move forward before you get the news of, hey, you've got 2 weeks' notice. We've made a decision on you. You're out. So like, take back the ownership and do it before we get to that kind of crunch. Moment. You know, and the only other thing there to add is if your firm is not investing in training you and developing you for the future, or even for the now, you've gotta take back some, some time, um, during the work week and during the weekend to say, I've gotta invest in myself here because if not, I'm just gonna be left behind. Like, and I'm not gonna allow that to happen. So let's not be a victim. Let's like read the room. Let's read the news articles. Let's read LinkedIn of what's happening in the job market. And as individuals, let's stay ahead of the curve. Let's be in the group that's ready to make that bold next step, not the group that's sitting around like the 20 or 30% of people out there that are having the doom coffees. You know, I can predict it. There's millions of people today across corporate America, across corporate UK, across the world that are going out with their 3 or 4 best work friends, 10 AM for their morning coffee, going, oh my God, you know, are we going to be included in that, in that work Force reduction next month? Did you see so-and-so company just cut all of our positions? Don't be that group. Don't lean into that energy. Let's get prepared, right? That's a little bit of that energy that we've gotta, the vibe we've gotta carry into the job market at the moment. If not, we are gonna be left behind.
Leanne ElliottIt's a way of regaining control, isn't it? In a world that is so chaotic. And I love what you said about in terms of preparing yourself to go to market as and when you are ready or the situation comes around. What can, I mean, and I wanna talk to these people. Let's talk to Sally. Sally, who's in her job and she's always put her all into being a great manager. She's finding herself in this very chaotic period. What can Sally do to invest in herself in terms of her management capability and her future employability and do to protect her team in terms of their performance and morale?
Kristien TurnerLook, don't get, so, so let's, let's really model this as if this was like Sally, and we're gonna like speed up like a coaching program here as if we were delivering this in like 2, 3 minutes. Okay. So first of all, I'd say to Sally, Sally, have you gone and had the conversation with your leader about how complex, how toxic, how difficult this environment is, and that I'm struggling? Have you charted out everything that you've done and delivered? Have you charted out everything that you've tried with your team and what's not working? Have you gone and been vulnerable and said, this just isn't working, right? And so I need help. I need support. Because actually a lot of the, a lot of the people out there at the moment in the corporate world are not manifesting that to their leaders out of fear of reprisals. But there's a way of doing that with a positive tone.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerBecause Sally's, as we said, Sally's been showing up to work for the last 10, 15 years. She's been going over and above. She's always been a top performer. She's earned the right. She's not been there for a week or a month. She's earned the right to show up with her leader and say, hey, Leanne, I'm struggling. Can you help me? And we've gotta see what, what, what Leanne comes back with, what her leader comes back with in terms of like guidance, support. Um, you know, uh, is, is, is Leanne gonna give Sally a coach? Is Leanne gonna say, hey, I'm gonna move 3 or 4 of these direct reports into a different team? We're gonna hire somebody else. Now, for the listeners out there, they're going, probably not gonna happen. And I agree, probably there's a stronger likelihood that Sally doesn't get any support. And so then Sally's gotta say, okay, I've, I've tried it. I've played my cards internally. I've been transparent and honest of what's happening. Now I've gotta take control of this for myself. And so Sally's gonna, over that, that next weekend, she's gonna say, I'm gonna meaningfully start connecting with my network again. So Sally's gonna sign up to 2 or 3 networking events over the next quarter, and she's gonna go into work on the Monday morning and say, Hey, I'm going to Marketing Expo 101 in London next month. Hey manager, could you pay for my license to go and do this course or go and do this professional education something? Or could you pay for my premium on LinkedIn or my LinkedIn Learning license? 'Cause I wanna learn X, Y, and Z. Sally's gonna take back a little bit of control. She's gonna start posting and actively engaging with her network on professional social media. But, but I like to make that kind of, um, That, that, that distinction between real life and virtual life, you've gotta do them both because there'll be a lot of people out there that just immediately run to LinkedIn and social media because it's comfortable. We kind of do it from the sofa whilst we're watching something on Netflix over the weekend. It's like the easy low-hanging fruit. Like, no, you've gotta get yourself out there. And there's still some incredible in-person events and conferences and expos, and it's at those events that you meet your future employer. Or you meet the partner with whom you're gonna launch your business or your side hustle. So you gotta get your bum out there and start in real life mixing with people again, because that's what we all did. That's what we all did in our early, you know, early days of our career. You would go to those events to meet people, and then the communication would continue on professional social media. You wouldn't strike up the conversation online. It would be a continuation of what you started in real life. So Sally's gonna get herself out there. She's gonna rewrite her CV. If Sally's like a senior leader, so we're talking like a senior manager, she's gonna think about her headhunter network, right? Because remember, a lot of the jobs you don't need to find, they should find you. So either an in-house recruitment team is looking on LinkedIn Recruiter and they're gonna come across your profile, and they're only gonna come across your profile if your profile on LinkedIn's complete and updated. And again, in the algorithm, you're coming out. top on search because you're posting once or twice every week. But also, if you're pretty senior, a headhunting firm, one of the traditional headhunters out there, and there's many around the world, are going to contact you and invite you to interview for potentially your dream job. So, you know, if you're sitting there today and you're going, what do I do? That's kind of the roadmap that I would, I would follow. I would first have the conversation in-house to go, this is my last chance. I'm going to give my leader and my company the last chance to really show me a different face. And give me tools and give me support. If that doesn't come back in a reasonable period of time, and look, companies and corporates take a while to respond, so don't expect an immediate next-day response or action. But like, if within a month or 2, maximum 3, everything's staying the same, that's when you've gotta make an emotional decision, but also a very thought-through decision to say, this is not working for me anymore. Like, I've now got to go external and put my toolkit together to move on to something bigger and better. You know, you never wanna leave the company on a Friday without the CV, without the LinkedIn, without the network, and on the Monday morning be crying over coffee going, what the hell do I do? And unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there that either themselves choose that route because they haven't invested the time to put that kit bag together and go on that emotional journey. You know, some of us have therapists, some of us have even a friend, or we have a corporate friend, we have a mentor or a sponsor. Sometimes it's an old boss that's left the firm that's now somewhere else that you can speak to with full transparency. What do you think I should do? And you want to listen to those people and you want to pull them in. If you can't afford a coach or you can't afford a therapist, or frankly, you just don't have the time, activate some of those people that can act as a sounding board for you and guide you and keep you honest. But don't leave it until that last day where you just You know, blow a gasket and you go, I'm leaving, I'm done, throwing in the towel. You want to be prepared and you want to make the transition fully ready for what's next. You know, and many people out there, Leanne, are doing side hustles. Let's just like get real. Some of them are paid, some of them aren't. Some people are doing volunteering because volunteering can be an incredible way to like also expand your network, right? I've met many people that have gone on to have incredible jobs that through a volunteering initiative, Through a side hustle, even a family business that they've, you know, 10, 15 years later gone back to get involved in. There's so many ways that you can just expand your network and be ready to make the evolution on your terms. Because what we're talking about here, Leanne, is make the move on your terms, not on, shit, I've lost my job. This was my last paycheck. Now what the hell do I do? And that's what we don't want anyone— you wouldn't want your worst enemy to be in that position on a Friday evening going, What do I do next? Everyone should be, to a certain degree in this job market, prepared for that curveball and have a plan B, C, D, E. I don't know, 3 or 4 alternatives charted out and ready to go.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I wanna echo as well to anyone listening the power of volunteering, because not only would you know, that's really great for our mental health and wellbeing because purpose and meaningful work, the people you meet and the opportunities you can get through that. I met Al volunteering at an organisation called Samaritans, and clearly it changed my life in terms of personal relationships. But when I went for my interview for my first kind of big job after uni, I'd done some kind of like smaller jobs because I graduated in 2008, so not the best time, similar to now, I guess.
Kristien TurnerHmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd I went to this first big job and I was thinking, oh, they're gonna ask me about the work I did with RBS doing competency-based interviews, and they're gonna ask me about this and ask me about that. No, no, no. The entire interview was around Samaritans, my ability to listen, my ability to hold space. Everything came down to that. And yeah, it can be transformative in so many ways, something like volunteering, particularly if you're having to bide your time while, like you say, you're getting this toolkit together and you're expanding your network and you're doing all those things. It can be such a rich source of not only networking, but meaning.
Kristien TurnerNo, it's feel good. And you're right, it boosts the It boosts your mental health and it boosts your mood at a time when you're feeling that uncertainty. You don't know when these transitions are going to happen. You feel a little bit out of control. It's something where you really can, you can feel great. You know, I'll just share. Many people think the volunteering thing, especially in the corporate context, is either going back into a classroom with younger kids, doing some financial literacy workshops, or helping them to read and write, or planting some trees, you know, because for many years we went to the extreme of volunteering was about, you know, corporate sustainability, but that was also equal to climate change. And it doesn't have to be that. It actually can be really linked back to your job. And so my equivalent of Samaritans is actually helping refugees and migrants find work. So where can I help? I can help somebody show up for an interview, win the job, prepare them for the job, help them write their CV, help them have some confidence if English isn't their first language, showing up to a company and interviewing in English when their, you know, mother tongue is Spanish or Portuguese, for example. So I like to spend my time using actually something that I've kind of honed and developed on the work front, volunteering. So I think a lot of people often think that like volunteering is, I've got to go and do something so different, so crazy on a Saturday, totally removed from what I do. Not at all. Like there's so many examples of ways that we can give back, build a community, build a network. It's like a win-win. Because you're going to feel great. But also, I think in this job market, as we said, it can really be a differentiator. And I love to start interviews, and I'm talking about like managing directors or CFOs, you know, big salaries. I love to start an interview with, oh, I saw that you volunteer at said center, or I see that you're super passionate about helping, you know, female leaders in said industry get ahead. Like, tell me a little bit more about that. Like, what What, what, what spurred that? Like, what was the inspiration behind it? Tell me a little bit more. I see that you've got this person and this person in common. Like, actually can be a really good tactic to strike up an authentic bond and connection, both with the hiring manager or with the recruiter or with the headhunter. So I think we should do it for mental health and because like, as a society, it's what we should do. But also, Leanne, like, even if our listeners today are going, I haven't really volunteered and I don't really have the time, I would even say from like a From a self, from a place of self, from a place of, I actually wanna have a differentiator in the job market and have something that helps me stand out. Just do it selfishly. Just do it because actually by giving back some of those skills and abilities that you have, it'll actually help you get ahead.
Leanne ElliottI wanna go back to Sally, 'cause I'm with you. I'm like, Sally, take some agency. You've got this. You can do this. I also know, having been a very passionate middle manager myself at times, That I'm, I'm gonna feel a bit guilty about that. I'm gonna feel like I'm leaving my team on a sinking ship here. How do I continue to do my day job when on this journey of, of looking for my next move in terms of protecting the team performance and also potentially protecting what happens to them as and when I leave? Or is that not my responsibility? Am I overthinking it?
Kristien TurnerOkay, so cold Kristien would say, not your responsibility to be the savior. of those 64 people that you're managing. But the reality is you go to bed on a Monday night worrying about Mark and Sarah's and Emily's wellbeing and the fact that they had a cry and a breakdown in the one-to-one today, and that tomorrow they've got a presentation with your boss, and that boss is probably either not gonna turn up, or if they do turn up, they're gonna be on their phone and so not paying attention. But then Mark's gonna say, I spent the entire weekend building that deck and that idea and that strategy, and now I feel ignored. And so they're gonna come back to Sally to say, Sally, I, you know, so that's the reality we live in, right? Like, I'd love to tell people you can't be the savior of those 64 individuals, but we carry that burden. So some practical things that Sally can do, I think she can't be the only one and only buffer here with those 64 individuals. So a way to share the load is actually trying to, you know, and so I've seen this happen actually really well in corporate, is getting a mentor kind of program going. So actually getting your Marks and your Sarahs, your superstars from your team who are struggling, get them linked up with somebody else, either within the firm or a peer externally, but somebody else who can actually give them a little bit of contention, like a little bit of support in the day-to-day. So it doesn't all fall on the shoulders of Sally to be their savior, to be their guide. Because I understand it, this middle manager's kind of become their Their leader, but their therapist, but their shoulder to cry on. But it's also kind of toxic, right? Because it's the same person that celebrates their birthday, that we have the Christmas party, uh, we know the children's names. We've had a fertility issue and a, and a battle with one of these people in the team. And so we've been on a real emotional rollercoaster there because they've been trying for a baby for 2 or 3 years. Like, there's a lot of baggage when you have 64 people as a middle manager that are reporting into you. Like, That's a lot to control. And so trying to get some mentors or even kind of like an in-house coaching program going on to kind of help could be really, could be really key because then you start to lighten the load a little bit. And rather than everybody and everyone coming to Sally for support, they've actually got some other people, some other go-tos to work with. So that, that's probably number one. Number 2, stop being the only person that buffers This happens a lot. And a couple of my clients, actually, especially in the States, this happens a lot, this kind of hierarchical approach where Sally will then stop the 64 people underneath her having to interface with her leader. And so everything goes through her. She's like this kind of bottleneck. Actually, you've got to reopen that back up because you've got to go, hang on a minute, that person above me is earning double my wage, double my salary, double the responsibility, but I'm making their life easy because I'm the one that's actually At the moment, taking on board all of the drama, all of the stress that comes with those 64 below. I'm gonna open that up a little bit. And so you're not gonna suddenly set up one-to-ones with 64 people, but going back to our 8 by 8 kind of analogy, if you've got 8 reports, you're gonna suddenly ask them to have a quarterly with your manager because you need to make sure that you're not the only one handling all of this craziness, right? And all of this uncertainty. You've gotta get your manager above also involved in those conversations.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerSharing honestly what they're seeing, the roadmap, the future of the company, their future career, their conversations. Like, you've gotta hold them responsible. So I see a lot of middle managers kind of struggling because we've come to the conclusion that we can't allow the stress and the drama to bubble up. But the only person that that's then affecting is you. So I think you've gotta unleash and loosen a little bit of that tension and that tight hold around the narrative and actually just be okay.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerWith your leader interacting with 8 of you guys and, you know, that, that are gonna share honestly some of their struggles, cuz it's gonna be the good, the bad, and the ugly that they share, and that's okay. But if you try to control it, it's gonna control you and it's ultimately gonna affect you and your career and your future. And so you're not there to be the workplace psychologist. Your role was never defined as you are the organizational psychologist of this firm. And I always love to, cuz many people watch this series Billions, right? You're not the Wendy of billions. You're not there to be the drama filter for the organization. You've gotta un-bottle that and allow that to feed up to some of your senior managers, and you've gotta share the load. What I'm actually seeing a lot of the middle managers do is rather than now sugarcoat with their teams so that everything's rosy and fantastic, they're actually the voice of reason. So also, like, sharing with your 8 direct reports, not the, not the ones beneath necessarily, but like with your top team, what's really happening, like being authentically real and true and raw, that's kind of also a coping mechanism. Because like, if we all try and live in this la-la land that is kind of like Disney World and it's all perfect and roses and, you know, flowers, it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work anymore. So again, 3 things there that you can do. First of all, stop trying to be the buffer to everything and allow this stuff to bubble up to your leader. Book them in monthly or quarterly touchpoints with your senior leader. 2, get them mentors in other parts of the organization. So you're sharing that burden around career development and where they're going and just sharing that load with other leaders and other managers. So kind of like this idea of sharing is caring and not trying to kind of hold on to everything yourself. And 3rd, I think just a little bit of real talk, like just not sugarcoating it because your team are feeling it. If you try to be that super positive Energizer Bunny, but your battery's not being charged up, at some point, you're just gonna go totally flat. You're gonna flatline. So, it's important to just to have some real talk and just to share the load with your team as well. But again, these are kind of coping mechanisms. These are things that Sally can do while she's on the inside. But when all of this still doesn't work, you've gotta have an inflection point.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerYou've gotta have a moment where with a, you know, with your partner at home, with your mentor, with your old boss of 15 years ago, with whoever, with your therapist, with whoever it is, you've gotta sit down and go, is this the place that I want to be? Or would I be better suited at another firm? Or should I start a side hustle? Or should I start my own business? And you've gotta plan because none of those things, you know, 2 business owners here, Leanne and myself, Having your own business is no joke, right? Let's just get real, guys. Like, for anyone listening here, because there's another phenomenon happening, right? Like 15% of corporate workers are all stating in all of these surveys that they wanna open their own business. Fantastic. Do it, but plan it and be real and do your financial projections and look at your savings. And are you ready? Because you will work more in your startup because you're CFO, business developer, marketeer, doer, consultant, coach, enabler, tax person. You will work more doing your startup.
Al ElliottYeah.
Kristien TurnerAnd harder, and at the beginning for no pay than you will ever do in corporate life. And so we've also sugarcoated like all of these, I'm gonna become an influencer, I'm gonna do my own business, I'm gonna go and work with my best friend, I'm gonna start a company with my husband. That's great, but go into it with your eyes open. Like I think today we're saying be prepared, plan, and these plans take not days, not weeks, they take months to develop. So, You know, you might be listening to this podcast in the car, on the commute into the office. If these are things that you're going, you're noodling on, you've gotta put pen to paper and spend a large chunk of time for the next few weekends actually charting and planning this stuff out. But it's all about preparation. It's all about preparation, Leanne. Like, and actually the people that succeed, whether it's that transition to the new job or to starting their business, have all put in the time and the work ahead of time. No one succeeds by winging it. And by, again, going back to that analogy of Friday, I've lost my job. On Monday, I'm gonna either launch my business or my side hustle, or, you know, start applying like crazy for 900 new jobs with, you know, easy apply on LinkedIn. Like, that is not, that is not the coping mechanism. That's not the response that we want anybody to be taking. Be prepared.
Leanne ElliottI, I would imagine that people, there's people in 2 camps, and maybe they're holding both feelings at the same time at this point. They're like, yeah, Kristien, I'm with you. Yeah. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna plan, I'm gonna do all this, and there's gonna be a part of them, or maybe some people listening go, I have no idea where to even start. That all seems very overwhelming. Is there one thing somebody could do today to make a positive move to protecting themselves and their career?
Kristien TurnerYou've, you've got to understand what makes you stand out. And so, you've got to know what is your super skill? What am I bloody fantastic at? What have I always been told at that job or those 3 or 4 jobs that I've had within the same company that I'm great at? Am I great at making a fast impact? Am I a great public speaker? Am I the Energizer Bunny that goes into a room that's on a gray, drizzly day and lights it up and gets everybody kind of galvanized and moving around the same? Like, what is it that I'm great at? And that's what you want to develop. Because that's the skill that if you're transitioning to a new job, you're looking for a promotion, you're doing a side hustle, you're doing your own business, presumably you're gonna lean into what you are bloody fantastic at. And so I think you start there. It's not necessarily cuz, you know, there's cultural differences here, right? If I was in a, in America, I'd make this a competition and make it about winning, and I'd go, what am I better at than anybody else? You don't have to be better at it than anyone else. You just gotta know that it's something that you are fantastic at. That you enjoy, that you excel at, that brings you joy, that when you're waking up on a Monday morning, you go, I can't wait to do this this week. And everybody out there, doesn't matter what job or what career you have, they have something that they love. There's one thing, and I would challenge anybody, even, you know, a Debbie Downer out there that, that comes to me and says, hate my job, hate my existence, you know, hate my 9 to 5. I will always be able to rescue something about that job. That they're fantastic at, that they love, that they want to lean into more and develop more. Normally they hate their job because that one thing is reduced to 10, 15 minutes or half an hour of their work week, and they want to be doing more of it. And it's often in that side hustle or in that startup where they go, I wanna take what I love doing in that 30 minutes or that hour on a Monday morning and actually be doing that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And if it's a startup, Saturday, Sunday, like I wanna make this passion and this joy moment, I want it to be prolonged. So if somebody's sitting listening to us today and they go, this is all great, Kristien, but I'm struggling, but I'm tired, but I've got 4 kids at home. I don't know where to start. My CV's not updated. I hate LinkedIn. I think it's a bunch of show-offs. Um, I would just say one, one place to start is what am I fantastic at? What do I love? What brings me joy? And we start from that base because from that base, you're gonna be able to identify And chart out what those next steps— again, back to our whole theme of today's conversation, which is taking that proactive ownership of your career. You're gonna be able to chart out what those next steps look like.
Leanne ElliottI'm inspired, Kristien. I just, it's so wonderful. And I think you have this beautiful balance between kind of incredibly empathetic and supportive and a bit of tough love. And I think anybody who's even thinking about a career transition needs that bit of tough love. They need to get real, right?
Kristien TurnerTotally. Because I've sat on those tables, I've sat in those decision tables where there's 20,000, 30,000 people's lives, livelihoods being discussed and talked about. I've been in those corporate executive committees, leadership team meetings. And so I can see all of this through the lens of what the companies want and are looking for and where they're going to give and where they're going to be able to get to before it's just Too much. But increasingly, I'm speaking and I'm interacting with, you know, hundreds and thousands of candidates that are applying for jobs, or that are being coached, or that are going through leadership bootcamps and courses. And I also understand their concerns, and I understand where they're at. And so, there has to be this meeting of the minds in the middle where we go, we're not living in Narnia land, right? The companies also have their set of structure and rules and policies, and sometimes they're a bit rigid, and sometimes they're a bit slow moving, and sometimes it feels a little bit like 1996 all over again. Yeah. But we also go changing demands, right? A bit like changing consumer demands, it's changing candidate demands. And we went through the whole flexibility return to work thing. We went through the gig economy thing. Now we're living through the AI job cuts and rationalization thing. And we're all kind of questioning, is this the place that I should be spending 40, 50, 60 hours of my existence? Is this future-proofed? Is this where I'm gonna start, continue, and end my career? I don't know. And so this is, there is a crisis. There's a crisis on both sides. But as we said, I think it's important to take ownership and proactivity of your own career journey and start now. And I, you can start with a toolkit, but if you don't have the energy or the will or the desire to do that toolkit today, just start by identifying what brings you joy? What do you excel at? What are you fantastic at? And you will be able to identify what that next step and move looks like, whatever that will be.
Leanne ElliottWhat a war cry to end it on. I think we're all inspired to, and I think even for people who are in a job that they're quite enjoying or have their own business and you can get so lost in it sometimes, can't you? And I've, you know, I've started to at times freak out about AI and what it all means in And having those moments of reflection and writing it down or typing it up, whatever you prefer, in terms of you say, what am I good at? What value can I bring to the world? And what brings me joy is so important. So important. Kristien, I could talk to you all day. I've already taken far more, more of your time than I should have. I know we're gonna get you back on the show time and time again. Until then, where can our listeners find out more about you and the work that you do?
Kristien TurnerOn LinkedIn, Kristien Turner, spelled K-R-I-S-T-I-E-N. Little funky spelling there of Kristien. Kristien Turner. I'm posting all of the time, or on our website, tktalentgroup.com. So come and join the conversation. We're posting lots of articles, lots of thought leadership, and frankly, lots of practical advice on how to build that toolkit and how to be ready for what's next.
Al ElliottThat was Kristien Turner. And if you took nothing else from today, take this. Kristien's advice is actually really simple. If you're a middle manager who feels like you're drowning right now, Here are 3 things to do this week.
Leanne ElliottNumber 1, have the honest conversation with your leader. Tell them you're struggling. Show them what's not working. You've earned the right to ask for help, so ask for it. Give your company one last chance to show up for you before you make any decisions.
Al ElliottNumber 2, stop trying to be everyone's everything. You are not the therapist, the buffer, the saviour, and the manager all rolled into one. Get mentors involved, open up access to your senior leadership, share the load, because if you keep absorbing all of it, the only person it's gonna destroy is you.
Leanne ElliottAnd 3, build your kit bag now, not when you get the call. Update the CV, dust off the LinkedIn, get yourself to an in-person event, because the people who land on their feet are the ones who are already ready. And if you manage middle managers, this episode is just as much for you. Your Sally, whoever she is on your team, is probably going to bed on Monday night worrying about people she can't help. She needs a coach or a mentor program, or just someone above her who's willing to actually show up to a quarterly. It doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to be real.
Al ElliottKristien is on LinkedIn. Search for Kristien Turner, spelled K-R-I-S-T-I-E-N, and you can find his team at All the links are, of course, in the show notes.
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work. We will see you next week.