How do you gather the courage to challenge a culture which you know is in danger of becoming unhealthy? Carolyn Aldous, CEO of Peerpoint, says it’s through leading by example and choosing which battles to fight.
Carolyn Aldous has experienced first-hand the impact addiction and poor mental health can have on performance and relationships. She regularly speaks openly about this and you could say it runs in her family. Her mother – the most powerful role model in her life and the one she most aspires to be like – was orphaned at 13.
Learning resilience from an early age, Carolyn’s mother often spoke about trying to keep a sense of normality in a household affected by alcoholism. It’s a resilience her mum carried into her professional life as a palliative care nurse and, later, managing an aged care facility.
Carolyn’s father, now retired, was an accountant who ran his own practice which put him in the public eye, and she speaks lovingly of how her parents worked together, as she grew up in a small country town in Australia.
“Thanks to my parents there was always a real sense of heart and head in my childhood,” she says. “My brother and I were loved unconditionally, no one was afraid to express love, and we would openly talk about death and the preciousness of life.
“There was a real sense of being present and of nothing being taken for granted. Nothing was off the table in terms of conversation. It set the standard for who we were expected to be.”
Taking control
In many ways it’s a background that set Carolyn up ideally for her role as CEO of A&O Shearman’s global resourcing business, Peerpoint. One of her driving motivations as leader of the business is giving lawyers the freedom to take control of their professional lives, working in a way that allows them to achieve greater work/life integration.
She speaks movingly of extracting herself from a long-term relationship which was affected by serious addiction and poor mental health. Given her family story, she felt shame in having to tell her parents about the situation she found herself in and admitting that she needed help to get out.
That help came from two sources. The first was her manager at the time who facilitated an international move. The second was her ex-partner’s colleague, who at a crucial moment, when she was being urged to fly back to sort out a crisis, reminded her: “This is not your problem. Don’t get on the plane.”
“These were just two of many critical moments in my story,” she says. “They are examples of how leaders can make important interventions without possibly realising the impact they are having.
“It’s what still fuels what I do professionally. Offering lawyers the ability to work with great clients on market leading transactions, but with more control over their professional lives so that they can thrive”. “I’m often interviewing lawyers to join our panel who are experiencing burnout. For lawyers, their career is such a huge part of their identity, you can’t separate their career from who they are as a person”.
“It’s about how you turn up for the people who need you to be present.”
Increased pressure
Not surprisingly, she is concerned about the frenetic pace of working life in the legal industry and the ever-increasing pressure to perform and adapt to rapid change, particularly AI.
“The danger is when that becomes the norm and when it becomes behaviour that is celebrated. For me that doesn’t look like the peak performance. It seems too often we glorify grinding to the point of exhaustion.”
Being well
Carolyn puts effort into staying fit through regular sessions with a personal trainer as well as a growing (healthy) addiction to playing padel. She tends to her spiritual wellbeing as well, starting each day with a moment of self-reflection. A recent session with an energy coach left her feeling a little guilty – it made her later into the office than normal – but the benefits shone through during the day.
“I can’t tell you how many people came in and talked to me and commented on my energy that day. I felt grounded and much more in control. I don’t see that as fluffy. I see it as maintaining performance in a sustainable way and continuing to turn up for those big conversations.”
Failing to look after ourselves goes beyond folly. “We can sometimes treat our bodies so thoughtlessly. Some fuel it with sugar and alcohol, both inflammatory and don’t give it enough rest. That’s the ultimate disrespect for ourselves.”
The onus is on organisations to align corporate values with acceptable and rewarded behaviour. But many organisations fail in this task – coming up with the right values but failing to live by them. Speaking about wellness and work life integration and then expecting someone to pull an all-nighter, is incongruent to performing at the highest level in a healthy and sustainable way.
And in some corporate settings, organisations continue to reward behaviours which are questionable and in conflict with defined corporate values. If only leaders realised this impact and how it kills discretionary effort.
Calling it out?
But how, as a leader, do you challenge an unhealthy culture in a way that can bring about positive change?
“I’ve decided there’s only so much I can control. Foremost, I look out for my team as much as I can and, when I can’t, I try to explain the context of the problem and why I’m not able to get the desired outcome,” she says.
“I’m lucky in this. My leadership team are a group of people that hold space for each other. We don’t always agree with one another but, through the development work and coaching we’ve done, and because of who they are as individuals, it means I have incredible depth in the team and great support.”
More widely, it’s a question of choosing the right battles to fight, recognising that we don’t have to throw ourselves into every battle with the same level of intensity, she says.
“I’ve come to peace with the fact that there are some things that I can change and are worth the fight and I get right in there and do that. And there are other things where I’ve used my voice and it wasn’t picked up, at least immediately.”
“Being the one that grits their teeth and speaks up when the tide is going the other way can come at considerable personal cost.”
But advocating for a healthier and more sustainable work environment remains vital, she says.
“The workplace and life in general would be better if we had the courage to push for better ways to engage with, and treat each other. Given where we are in the world right now, that feels like one of the best things we can do for each other.”
