The Science of Neurotransmitters: 5 Chemicals Every Leader Must Understand | Dr Tom Buckley

Most leaders have said it. My door’s always open. Far fewer realise their team is watching whether they ever walk through a door themselves. Former NRL player Keegan Hipgrave was the teammate everyone could talk to, the one pushing mates to open up inside a macho dressing room, and later the host of his own mental health podcast. Yet for 8 years, he kept the loss of one of his best mates locked away, while telling everyone else to talk. What finally broke that silence, and what changed once it did, is where the real lesson for leaders sits. This episode discusses suicide. If it raises anything for you, support is available through Lifeline on 13 11 14.

If culture’s in HR, it’s in foster care. Karl Treacher has spent 25 years inside boardrooms, including the war room of a big four bank during the Royal Commission, and he has watched leaders hand culture to the one department that was never meant to own it. Engagement scores can look healthy while the culture underneath is quietly turning toxic, and the board is often the last to know. Karl built a culture diagnostic later featured in Harvard Business Review, and he says measuring culture is far easier than most leaders believe. He and Andrew get into what boards consistently misread about the culture they lead, and the afternoon in an aged care day room that set the course of his career. If you sit on a board, run a team or answer to one, this conversation will change how you look at your own organisation. 00:00 Who really owns culture in your company? 01:31 Nursing homes, Olive and the moment Karl saw the system was the problem 07:41 “If culture’s in HR, it’s in foster care” 09:31 Culture vs climate: the confusion boards keep making 11:38 Building the culture diagnostic HBR called the gold standard 14:43 Donuts, beers and gaming the engagement survey 15:41 Inside a big four bank’s war room during the Royal Commission 16:59 Return to office: what the evidence actually says 22:32 Small business: when the founder’s character becomes the culture 24:30 Why most leaders have burnout wrong 28:45 Writing a book on burnout, and burning out 31:37 Why we’re running antique cultures not fit for today Find out more about Karl’s work and the Culture Institute: https://builttoburn.com.au/ Connect with Karl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/treacher/ Get Karl’s book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Built-Burn-People-Leaders-Cultures/dp/1394456514 - High performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building the capacity to perform when it matters and sustain it over time. Hosted by Andrew May, one of Australia’s leading experts in human performance, leadership and mental skills, the Performance Intelligence Podcast explores how leaders, athletes, coaches and researchers think clearly, manage pressure and consistently perform at their best. Drawing on more than 20 years working with senior executives, elite sporting teams and the Australian Defence Force, Andrew combines candid conversations with evidence-based performance insights and practical strategies you can apply.

Lost jobs. Bankruptcy. Marriages that did not survive. Unmanaged ADHD can leave a trail most of us never see, because the risk-taking that looks like drive on the outside is fed by the same low dopamine that quietly pulls a life apart. Lindy Hadges maps the layers sitting beneath the label, and makes the case that you cannot work with ADHD until you understand what is actually holding it in place. View the ADHD Cake model: https://performanceintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ADHD-Cake-of-Understanding.png Find out more about the ADHD Foundation: https://adhdfoundation.org.au/about-us Connect with Lindy: https://ccaa.net.au/practitioner/200102-14/ High performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building the capacity to perform when it matters and sustain it over time. Hosted by Andrew May, one of Australia’s leading experts in human performance, leadership and mental skills, the Performance Intelligence Podcast explores how leaders, athletes, coaches and researchers think clearly, manage pressure and consistently perform at their best. Drawing on more than 20 years working with senior executives, elite sporting teams and the Australian Defence Force, Andrew combines candid conversations with evidence-based performance insights and practical strategies you can apply.

You’re exceptional at your job. That isn’t the problem. The skills, the experience, the judgement, you’ve spent years building those and they aren’t going anywhere. The question is whether you’ve still got the capacity to use them. Enough in the tank for the project that matters. Something left for the people at home afterwards. The momentum to get where you told everyone you were going. And the wave is coming either way. A bigger year, a harder quarter, a team asking more of you than it did last time. Capability isn’t what keeps you upright when it lands. Byron Cannon has the capability. He is the CEO of LDK Seniors’ Living, a business about to triple in size, and a year ago he worked out capability wasn’t what he was running out of. Andrew and Byron walk through how they built Byron's leadership capacity to sustain his performance and how this rippled onto his leadership team. Byron didn’t do anything you couldn’t do. He just did it before he had to. 00:00 Why senior leaders really get pushed out 07:12 The hotel room phone call: “I can see burnout on the horizon” 11:02 Inside Byron’s full physical and psychological assessment 13:41 Dr Tom Buckley on what the data showed 20:20 Love, decency and kindness: the mission to change retirement living 26:33 Larry the gnome and how LDK builds its culture 29:46 The mindset shift: treating leadership capacity as strategy 38:47 AI: why depleted leaders outsource their thinking 47:34 How Byron rewrote Andrew’s framework: from survival week to surge week 52:50 “I felt selfish”: the hidden barrier to putting yourself first 56:29 Eight months later: the reassessment results 01:06:45 Unscripted: Byron’s team shares what changed for them Want to learn more about Leadership Capacity? Start here: https://performanceintelligence.com/building-leadership-capacity/ Follow Byron on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/byroncannon Learn about LDK: https://ldk.com.au/ -

Ask Lisa Alexander who the best coaches she has known were, and almost none of them were the best players. Alexander spent a decade running the Australian Diamonds netball team to an 81 per cent win rate, one of the most dominant coaching records in Australian sport, and she names the pattern directly: serial winning coaches are rarely elite players themselves. The reason has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with what coaching actually requires. What that is, and who she credits with teaching her the difference, is where this goes. You can find Lisa at the TGI website: https://tgisport.com.au/talent/lisa-alexander/ Or the Celebrity Speakers website: https://www.celebrityspeakers.com.au/speakers/lisa-alexander/ Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-alexander-am-a83bb378/?originalSubdomain=au High performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building the capacity to perform when it matters and sustain it over time. Hosted by Andrew May, one of Australia’s leading experts in human performance, leadership and mental skills, the Performance Intelligence Podcast explores how leaders, athletes, coaches and researchers think clearly, manage pressure and consistently perform at their best. Drawing on more than 20 years working with senior executives, elite sporting teams and the Australian Defence Force, Andrew combines candid conversations with evidence-based performance insights and practical strategies you can apply.