"Kindness fuels everything. When you're kind, you win. It's as simple as that."

When my guest said those words during a keynote in Rome, the room of 200 investment bankers divided into two camps. Team Kind, and as he calls them, Team Screw Them All and Be Evil.

That moment sparked a book, an award and a mission.

Graham Allcott is the founder of Think Productive and the author of six books including How to be a Productivity Ninja and Kind, winner of the Institute of Leadership's Book of the Year.

For my money, Graham is the UK's leading expert on kindness at work and this conversation is one I'm truly proud of. We cover:

💛 Why kindness is a performance strategy, not a fluffy one. Psychological safety helps organisations achieve more, not less

💛 Why the care sector trains for compliance but not for connection, and what that costs us all

💛 What younger generations really want from work and why we should be listening, not judging

💛 Why boardrooms and policy makers need more voices from charities, frontline services and young people

💛 Tales from Holland. Graham's deeply moving piece of writing about parenting his son Roscoe, who lives with a unique chromosomal disorder, and learning to love the life you didn't plan for

Graham brings warmth, honesty and vulnerability to every answer. We got on like a house on fire and I promise this episode will leave you thinking differently about that little word that means so much.

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"The recipe for disaster is having no comfort, no belonging, no security, no identity, no meaning."

My guest this week shares an insight that we all can benefit from harnessing: Identity, purpose, and meaning are central to wellbeing at every stage of life, not just in dementia care.

Professor David Sheard is one of the UK’s most influential voices in dementia care reform.

What begins as a discussion about dementia care soon becomes something far more personal: a conversation about identity, vulnerability, coming out as a gay man in the 1970s, living with terminal heart failure, and what it means to leave a legacy.

Emotional Intelligence plays a key theme in David’s life and advocacy for more understanding care.

This episode invites us all to remember that all human beings are more feeling beings, than thinking beings, and that emotional intelligence can be the key to helping us connect with each other better.

Music: 'Spirit of Fire' - fiftysounds.com

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“You don’t have to be liked as a leader, but you must always be kind.”

Those are the words of this week’s Unmuted podcast guest, Zoe Egerickx, a leadership and team coach who spent 30 years in the NHS.

Zoe began training as a coach at weekends whilst still working as a nurse to help others find what she had discovered herself: that real, lasting change at work starts with how we relate to each other.

We cover:

• Why moving into leadership can be so overwhelming and why nobody warns you it will be
• The difference between being nice and being kind and why it matters more than you'd think
• Why "clear is kind" in the relatives' room, the boardroom, and everywhere in between
• How burnout is spreading at every level and what we can actually do about it
• The power of reverse mentoring and why your most junior colleague might have the most valuable perspective in the room
• Why we need to stop outsourcing the responsibility of our own wellbeing

She believes everyone is born with the potential for EQ but not everyone fully develops theirs. It can be grown through experience and self-awareness, and it underpins everything from clinical care to executive leadership.

Whether you’re an established leader, new to leadership and management, or simply looking for inspiration to grow your own emotional intelligence for the workplace - this podcast delivers a masterclass in how to hold space for others whilst taking care of yourself.

Music: 'Spirit of Fire' - fiftysounds.com

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