Q&A: Tina Peel

What do you find the best approach is to deal with the hard stuff if your approach is more of a “soft” approach?

The best approach for me is to ensure I prepare well, and bring honesty and integrity into the meeting. I can still show compassion, understanding and patience, however I know I need to address the ‘hard stuff’ with honesty. I think about not only the person directly involved but the impact decisions – or if I avoided difficult situations – how that may impact on others and the people we are serving in the community.

With such a large team how do you ensure team cohesion?

This is important for me, I ensure I provide a space where the team feel safe in sharing ideas, thoughts, and feedback. We use to have monthly in person meetings, however after COVID and through gaining feedback we moved these to bi-monthly in person meetings and weekly MS team meetings.

It's important to get buy in on our direction and goals, to lead by example and be approachable. To ensure our meetings are run with efficiency, that they are productive and fun also.

It's also important to acknowledge great work and share ideas on what best/great practice looks like.

How did you approach leading during COVID for team members who had different personal and family circumstances which impacted work? For example, mental health, children.

Everyone deals with things differently and have their own circumstances to deal with. Showing compassion and understanding were key, along with communicating well with everything that was going on. Our teams, our people wanted to know what was happening so I needed to ensure everyone was updated regularly. Being flexible was an absolute must.

I was really impressed by your focus on looking after your team. What approaches do you recommend when a team member isn’t performing?

This is similar to the first question. I believe I take the same approach, I prepare well, I’m honest and ensure I lead by example with integrity. I am a great listener and show compassion and patience, (maybe I'm a little too patient). Also, what helps me is that there is a process to guide me and thinking about what is best for all involved and any impact to others.