Find Your ARB.
"And who are you?"
"Me? I'm Lisa."
"Lovely to meet you Lisa! What do you do here?"
"Oh, I'm just the TAFE prac student."
"Lisa, you are never 'just' anything.
You are an important part of our team."
First day. I made coffee, dropped the manager's car at Toyota. Met most of the team. Trying to calm my nerves all the while feeling like a total fraud.
She walked in. And something shifted. These temporary, on-loan colleagues lit up. Genuinely wanting her there. This leader. This human. Who they seemed to respect, maybe even love.
Anne. Russell. Brown.
Twenty years later, I can still feel how she made me, the anxious, imposter prac student feel like the most important person in the building. With five life changing words:
"You are never 'just' anything."
But it was months later, in a sterile state office training room, that I truly understood her gift and its power.
Induction day. The room was over-chilled and we sat in rows, attentive to the presenters as they rotated through. Anne stood at the back, waiting her turn.
I saw it happen. A woman in a thin sleeveless top, rubbing her arms against the cold.
Without pause, without performance, Anne walked through the rows. Removed her suit jacket. Placed it on the cold woman's shoulders. Shocked, she looked up, then smiled as Anne turned, and silently walked away.
That was it. Ten seconds. No fanfare. No lightning bolts. No one else even noticed.
But it changed me. Leaving an indelible mark like a favourite tattoo you work hard to prevent fading. So much so that I've spent 20+ years trying to be the kind of leader who sees the cold people. Who gives up their jacket without thinking. Who knows leadership has little to do with PowerPoints or KPIs.
It's about showing someone they're never "just" anything. It's offering warmth and welcome rather than hierarchical hubris. It's in the quiet moments where you see staff as humans first and employees second.
Simon Sinek tells a story how one manager transformed her worst-performing team to first through one practice: every Friday, writing down something personal each member mentioned. Monday morning, following up. Reconnecting: "How'd your son’s recital go?"
Her three minutes changed everything. Anne's 10 seconds did the same.
Here's the coolest bit, when people feel remembered, it triggers oxytocin - the trust hormone and employees are 5X more likely to trust leaders who show authentic care. That "soft skill" we call 'trust' translates to 21% higher profitability and 41% lower absenteeism.
Anne embodies what Jim Collins calls Level 5 Leadership: "ordinary people producing extraordinary results." Not through charisma, although she has buckets of it but through consistency. Humility. Through simply seeing people.
So, find your ARB. Your leader whose 10-second gesture leaves a 20-year mark.
And then ask yourself a very important, game-changing question: Who needs YOU to be their ARB, today?
Right now, someone in your team is standing cold and unnoticed. Someone in your organisation is introducing themselves as "just" the intern. Someone is hiding feelings of anxiety at being an imposter.
Can you see them? Do you remember their story? Will you share your jacket?
Twenty years from now, someone might be writing about you. About the 3 minutes or ten seconds that changed everything.
The question isn't whether you'll get that opportunity. The question is whether you'll notice it when it arrives.
H2BH 015/365