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If you’ve ever thought your workplace environment was a challenge, wait till you hear this interview with our guest, Rachael Robertson. Rachael is a fascinating and successful team leader and keynote speaker from Australia who spent a year leading a team of 120 scientists in Antarctica. With no background in science or the environment she found herself in, she learned many leadership lessons during her time there and I’m thrilled for her to be sharing those with us today.
Rachael is the author of Leading on the Edge and Respect Trumps Harmony. In today’s episode, we focus on her most recent book and why respect is more important than harmony in a high-performance team. What does that mean? How did she learn this? Listen to find out more about building a team of leaders and not a team of followers through mutual respect, even in the world’s most extreme workplace.
What We Talked About in This Episode:
- Rachael’s Motivation to Apply for a Leadership Expedition in Antarctica
- The Challenge of Leading 120 People
- The Philosophy of Building a Team of Leaders
- Respect Must Come First
- The Pitfalls of Harmony-Focused Teams
- Accountability and Challenging Views in a High-Performance Teams
- The Culture of Speaking Up Respectfully
- Rachael’s Experience Coming Back from Isolation
- Rachael’s Books Leading on the Edge and Respect Trumps Harmony
- How Rachael Uses “No Triangles” to Eliminate Exhausting Conversations
- “Bacon Wars” Are Signs of a Deeper Problem
- Pushing Aside What Can’t Be Controlled
- Competing Goals and Priorities Within a Team
- Cognitive Diversity in Rachael’s Large Antarctic Team
- Creating a Shared Vision
- Rachael’s Book Recommendation and Daily Rituals
About Our Guest:
After 15 years leading diverse and remote teams and business units, Rachael Robertson took the jump and led the 58th annual expedition to the edge of the world: Antarctica. It was a tough, gruelling and exhausting year, but ultimately extremely rewarding and fruitful. The intensity of this leadership role, where the leader is on-duty all day, every day, for 12 months with no respite, gave Rachael the opportunity to road test her leadership ideas the hard way – without the luxury of peers, a desk or high-speed broadband. It was a “leadership laboratory” in the most extreme, hostile environment on Earth. Since returning from Antarctica, Rachael has spoken at over 1500 national and international conferences and events with clients drawn from all industries and sectors including mining, pharmaceutical, construction, health, education, finance, hospitality and retail.
To reach Rachael, go to her website: https://www.rachaelrobertson.com
Connect with Rachael Robertson:
- Rachael Robertson Website
- Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
- Leading on the Edge: Extraordinary Stories and Leadership Insights from the World’s Most Extreme Workplace by Rachael Robertson
- Respect Trumps Harmony: Why Being Liked is Overrated and Constructive Conflict Gets Results by Rachael Robertson
Connect with John Murphy:
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