Show Notes
What if becoming a better leader isn't about adding more to your toolkit, but knowing what to let go of? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Heather Langton, Chief People Officer at Spark, to explore what leadership, HR, and human capability need to look like in a rapidly changing world. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience across human resources, transformation, talent, leadership development, and succession planning, Heather shares a thoughtful perspective on what she calls the "great unlearning" of leadership. Rather than continually asking what else leaders need to add, Heather argues that leaders need to reflect on what has worked in the past, what may no longer be relevant, and how they need to reset for the future. The conversation explores adaptive leadership, feedback, intergenerational learning, reverse mentoring, executive collaboration, AI, human intelligence, wellbeing, and the importance of relationship building. Heather also shares why curiosity remains one of her most valuable leadership tools, why HR is fundamentally about partnership, and why leaders need to become more comfortable operating without all the answers. From supporting mature workers and learning from younger generations to developing stronger middle leaders and embedding wellbeing into everyday work, this episode offers practical lessons for anyone navigating leadership in a complex and changing environment. What You'll Learn Why Heather believes leadership is entering a period of "great unlearning" Why leadership development needs to be more continuous and adaptive How in-the-moment feedback can support stronger leadership Why clarity matters even when leaders don't have all the answers How reverse mentoring can strengthen intergenerational learning Why power imbalances matter in leadership and workplace culture How mature workers can continue contributing in different ways Why curiosity is one of the most valuable capabilities for enterprise leader. How HR can operate as a genuine business partner Why strong executive teams require ongoing work and honest conversations How AI is increasing the importance of human intelligence Why middle leaders will play a critical role in the future of work How smaller businesses can approach leadership development and AI without huge budgets How Spark embedded wellbeing more directly into the organisation Why systems thinking is an important capability for future HR leaders Key Takeaways Leadership development isn't always about adding more skills. Sometimes it requires unlearning what no longer works. Leaders need to reflect more frequently on their impact rather than relying on annual development plans. Clear leadership does not mean having every answer. It means giving people clarity about direction. Regular, in-the-moment feedback helps make development more natural and less threatening. Intergenerational workplaces create an opportunity for reciprocal learning. Reverse mentoring can help senior leaders challenge assumptions and better understand emerging generations. Great enterprise leaders remain curious and ask strong questions rather than trying to know everything. HR is fundamentally about partnership, not people pleasing. Strong executive teams need to continually work on collaboration, trust, and shared accountability. AI will increase the value of human intelligence, including judgement, context, insight, and relationship building. Leadership development does not need to be large, expensive, or overly complicated to have an impact. Wellbeing is more effective when it is embedded into the organisation rather than sitting on the edge. Future HR leaders need strong relationship-building skills, self-awareness, and systems thinking. Sometimes the best approach is to "hasten slowly" by pausing long enough to consider the wider system before acting. About Heather Langton Heather Langton is Chief People Officer at Spark, one of New
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The future of work is already happening. So how should HR respond? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley speaks with Fiona Hewitt, Founder and Managing Partner of Unboxable, about how organisations and People & Culture teams can prepare for a future that cannot be neatly predicted. For Fiona, the goal should not be “future-proofing”. There is no fixed playbook because nobody knows exactly where technology, workforce expectations and business conditions will take us. Instead, organisations need to become future-fluent, building their ability to adapt as conditions change. That creates a significant challenge and opportunity for HR. Fiona expects the makeup of HR teams to change as technology increasingly automates areas such as compliance, payroll and frontline support. At the same time, she sees greater demand for capability in workforce planning, workforce intelligence, leadership, organisational design and operating models. The conversation challenges the familiar call for HR to earn “a seat at the table”. Fiona argues that HR needs to go further and actively help form the decisions that shape the organisation, including technology, strategy and how work itself is designed. Lisa and Fiona also explore what an operating model really means. It is not simply an organisation chart or a restructure. It includes how value is delivered, how decisions are made, operating rhythms, capabilities and how work is organised. From there, the conversation moves into the role of AI, change, culture, strategic influence and the increasing need for HR professionals to understand the business beyond their own functional expertise. Fiona argues that credibility at senior levels comes not only from knowing HR, but from understanding the commercial context, sector and organisation well enough to contribute from an enterprise perspective. The episode ultimately asks a bigger question: if work becomes more flexible and capability-based, could even the traditional concept of a “job” need to evolve? Fiona closes with an idea that has shaped her own career in workforce transformation: building people, leaders and organisations that are “ready for anything.” What You’ll Learn What Fiona means by future fluency
How do you build People & Culture capability when you're supporting more than 150 organisations, all with different structures, resources, challenges, and communities? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Claire George, Acting Business Capability Manager at Sport New Zealand, to explore what it takes to strengthen leadership and people capability across the sports sector. Rather than supporting one internal workforce, Claire and her team work across Sport New Zealand's partner organisations, helping lift capability in areas including governance, technology, change management, commercial capability, and People & Culture. For Claire, relationships are fundamental. Sport New Zealand is also a funder of many of the organisations it supports, which means creating enough trust for leaders to openly share when things aren't going well is critical. When those relationships exist, Claire says there is an opportunity to do some powerful work. The conversation explores the realities facing sporting organisations that don't have dedicated HR teams. In many cases, people responsibilities sit with a CEO, finance professional, or another leader alongside their existing role. Claire shares why the answer isn't adding more complexity, but making good people practices simple, practical, and easier to apply. Lisa and Claire also unpack the unusual dynamic created when people care deeply about the organisation they work for. In sport, work can be closely connected to someone's identity, community, recreation, and personal relationships. That passion can create extraordinary engagement and commitment, but it can also make change more emotionally charged and make it harder for people to switch off. Wellbeing and burnout are therefore important parts of the conversation, alongside the responsibility organisations and individuals have to create sustainable ways of working. Claire also shares lessons from Sport New Zealand's leadership development programmes, including the importance of embedding te ao Māori rather than treating it as an add-on, creating genuinely diverse cohorts, and giving leaders opportunities to learn from one another. Ultimately, this episode is a practical conversation about keeping People & Culture grounded in what organisations and people actually need: trusted relationships, good conversations, strong leadership, simple processes, and capability that prepares the sector for what's next. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN How Sport New Zealand supports People & Culture capability across more than 150 partner organisations
What happens when someone with deep operational experience steps into the Chief People Officer role? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Nicki Mackay, Chief People Officer at FMG, to explore leadership, trust, resilience, culture, and the future of People & Culture. After 17 years at FMG across operational and leadership roles, Nicki brings a practical understanding of the business. She shares how moving between roles has challenged her assumptions, strengthened her commercial understanding, and shaped her approach to executive leadership. A central theme is perspective. Nicki explains why technical expertise builds credibility while leadership builds influence, and why People & Culture must help people thrive while keeping the business moving. She also explores trust, self-awareness, and constructive challenge, reflecting on the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle. Experiencing a year's worth of claims in just two weeks taught her valuable lessons about staying calm, supporting teams, and leading through uncertainty. Nicki discusses decision-making under pressure, why perfect information rarely arrives on time, and how leaders must combine data, judgement, and instinct while remaining ready to adapt. The conversation also covers career agility, performance, motivation, generational diversity, mutuality, and Nicki's leadership philosophy: be your story, own it, live it, love it. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 • How operational experience strengthens People & Culture leadership and commercial understanding • Why changing roles challenges assumptions and broadens perspective • Why technical expertise builds credibility while leadership builds influence • How People & Culture can maintain organisational momentum • What CEOs and executive peers need from a Chief People Officer • Why relationships and respectful challenge strengthen executive teams • How self-awareness and active listening improve leadership • What Cyclone Gabrielle taught Nicki about trust, resilience, and crisis leadership • Why leaders must make decisions with incomplete information • How career agility creates opportunities beyond rigid career plans • Why performance issues may reflect role fit, strengths, or motivation • How beliefs, values, and individual drivers influence behaviour 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 • Perspective matters. Moving across an organisation builds context and improves judgement. • People & Culture should enable progress. Early involvement, commercial understanding, and strong relationships help businesses move forward. • Trust is built before a crisis. Everyday relationships provide the foundation for extraordinary moments. • Resilience means moving forward. Crisis leadership requires calm, awareness, judgement, and support for others. • Decisions can't always wait. Leaders must act with incomplete information and adapt as circumstances change. • Careers aren't concrete. Flexibility creates opportunities that rigid plans may miss. • Performance depends on context. Strengths, motivation, role fit, and individual circumstances all matter. 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐲 Nicki Mackay is Chief People Officer at FMG. With more than 15 years at the organisation, she has held operational and leadership roles across area management, agribusiness, claims, recovery, and executive leadership. Nicki joined FMG's executive leadership team as Chief People Officer in 2023, bringing extensive operational experience to the People & Culture function. Her leadership approach centres on trust, curiosity, connection, practical judgement, and creating conditions for people to perform at their best. She is passionate about leadership, culture, resilience, organisational agility, and helping people navigate change while staying connected to their strengths and values. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 People & Culture leaders need more than HR expertise. They need commercial understanding, operational awareness, str
What happens to the future of work if half your workforce gets left behind? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Rose Powell, General Manager People & Capability at Vitaco Health Group, to explore what future-focused People & Culture looks like inside a complex, vertically integrated organisation. Rose's leadership philosophy was shaped early in her career when she moved from a command-and-control manufacturing environment into the very different world of higher education. It was there that she began recognising empathy, care, and connection not as leadership weaknesses, but as strengths. That experience helped shape the servant leadership approach she continues to practise today. At Vitaco, Rose leads People & Capability across a workforce spanning manufacturing, distribution, science, quality, sales, marketing, and corporate functions. She explains how Vitaco's Mini Business Unit model, Pillar Fundamentals, and skills matrix give manufacturing employees a structured pathway to build capability, learn end-to-end processes, progress their careers, and increase their earning potential. The conversation also tackles a bigger question facing manufacturing: what skills should organisations be developing when technology is changing the work itself? Rose shares her involvement in industry and vocational education, why future manufacturing workers will need a different capability mix, and why organisations also have an obligation to help their existing people become more adaptable. She discusses the value of reverse mentoring, including what Vitaco has learnt from younger interns bringing new AI knowledge and ways of working into the organisation. For Rose, capability is more than knowing how to perform today's job. It means understanding how that job may need to be done differently and having the will to make that change happen. That becomes particularly important with AI. Rose warns of the risk of creating a divide between employees who sit behind desks and those who don't. With many frontline employees traditionally lacking company emails, laptops, and access to the same digital tools as corporate teams, she argues that organisations need to be intentional about democratising access to technology, information, and learning. Rose and Lisa also explore how strong cultures survive rapid growth, what constructive employer-union relationships look like, and why trust is built well before anyone reaches the bargaining table. For Rose, regular conversations with delegates and genuine relationships mean disagreement does not have to destroy trust. What You'll Learn How Rose's early career experiences shaped her servant leadership style
How do you become the kind of leader people genuinely want to follow? In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Laurent Sylvestre to explore leadership, trust, human dynamics, executive development, and what it really takes to lead well. Laurent challenges the traditional view of HR and People & Culture, emphasising that leaders ultimately own people and culture, while People & Culture professionals help create the conditions for people to thrive. The conversation explores the importance of knowing your people, having meaningful conversations about skills and aspirations, and aligning individual potential with business outcomes. A key theme is congruence — understanding who you are, the leader you want to become, and whether the organisation you work for aligns with your values and ambitions. Laurent also shares his three levels of leadership: leading self, leading others, and leading the enterprise, alongside insights on high-performing teams, trust, executive wellbeing, CEO pressures, and navigating change with greater agency. What You’ll Learn Why Laurent once declared “HR is dead” and what he meant Why People & Culture is about impact, not labels What it means for HR to act as a curator * Why leaders need to truly know their people How talent reviews can become dynamic and commercially useful Why employee aspirations should connect to business outcomes How Laurent’s experiences shaped his interest in human dynamics The difference between HR process and what happens “under the waterline” Why authenticity and congruence matter in leadership * Why difficult experiences can strengthen leadership capability How to assess whether a role or organisation is right for you Why diversity matters in high-performing leadership teams The importance of leading self before leading others How leading self, others, and the enterprise connect Key Takeaways The future of HR is not about changing the label. It is about increasing its impact on people, leadership, culture, and business outcomes. Leaders own people and culture. People & Culture professionals help curate the environment in which both can thrive. Knowing your people means understanding aspirations, capabilities, potential, and what matters to them — not just performance. Talent conversations should be ongoing and linked to organisational outcomes rather than happening once a year. Sustainable leadership requires alignment between who you are, how you lead, and the organisation you work within. Career success on paper does not automatically equal fulfilment. Before pursuing a bigger role, leaders should ask what they are actually trying to achieve. You cannot lead others well without first understanding yourself. Leading the enterprise requires self-leadership and genuine followership. High-performing teams need clear definitions of performance, strong individual contribution, disciplined behaviours, and trust. Professional intimacy helps maintain trust when performance dips because people will not always be perfectly credible or reliable. Many executive team problems are not individual capability issues, but problems with how people work together. CEOs are increasingly focused on boards, executive team effectiveness, staying connected to the organisation, and their own wellbeing. About Laurent Sylvestre Laurent Sylvestre is a leadership and human dynamics specialist, CEO, and founder who works with executives, senior leaders, and leadership teams. His career spans Human Resources, People & Culture, executive leadership, and organisational development across Europe and Asia Pacific. His work focuses on self-leadership, team dynamics, trust, organisational culture, and high performance. After a long corporate career, Laurent moved into entrepreneurship to align his work more closely with his purpose and strengths. He works particularly with CEOs, managing directors, executive teams, and senior leaders. Why This