Sally talks Self-Leadership with Jo Sainsbury

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Interview Transcript

NOTE: This is an AI generated transcript so accuracy is not guaranteed.

Sally Foley-Lewis:

Hi Sally folly Lewis, here again, with another spark self-leadership video interview I’m absolutely over the moon, that I get to have a conversation with the amazing Jo Sainsbury.

Who is, brace yourselves, she’s a coal train driver can be gifts get that I love that whole idea she’s a coal train driver, I actually just want to talk about culture and driving don’t care about self-leadership and I think we should talk about self-leadership and just as importantly she’s an advocate for women and helping women in industry so welcome to spark joy.

Jody Sainsbury:

Thank you for having me here today it’s an honour to be here and it’s great to be having a conversation.

Sally Foley-Lewis

You’re representing kick ass women what’s that?

Jody Sainsbury

That’s my little side hustle, as you said yes, I drive a coal train I whole 13 and a half thousand ton of it and I love my job.

And Kickass Women is a side hustle that I created and founder of in advocating for women to get out there and pursue these non-traditional roles in the male dominated industry world because everyone’s capable of doing these jobs so that’s where it all began with.

After I got my job as a coal train driver and been driving trains for the last eight years now and I’ve developed and went.

Along the way and now just you happy to pay it forward and get other women out there and into the industry and using all their untapped talent, that they have.

Sally Foley-Lewis

So to me what you just said, makes you an icon in the industry and an icon for advocating for women, so thank you. Thank you yeah cool so, and so this will be interesting, then, because you know you are in a traditionally male dominated industry and what self-leadership to you.

Jody Sainsbury

For me personally, it was about changing your focus to yourself and it’s knowing and understanding yourself aligning your values and your strengths, with your purpose. And being able to understand your emotions and your triggers and what might motivates you, and drives you to get the best out of yourself, so, as I said on love my job so for me. 

You know, getting up every day and going on shift and doing my job that’s how I.

Learn and develop myself let leadership and I’ll leave into my values in how I perform our duties and my work ethic. And so it’s when you develop a better sense of self it’s it is incredibly grounding so when things get tough when things are uncertain. And when things are challenging and helps you navigate difficult situations with stress and, of course, the negative emotions because you’ve developed and nurtured your higher level of emotional intelligence India in you yourself leadership growing like.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah I love that and it’s not that it’s never going to be rocky but you want to have a stronger foundation to start with, so it’s not worse than what it could be, is what I’m hearing.

Jody Sainsbury

Definitely and it’s we’ve got to learn to deal with our emotions and be responsive not reactive in regards to it so. I truly believe you, you need to respond, rather than react.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah, so I think we’ve all met people who can do a bit more responding and reacting and you know you know in my younger days and you know look we’re all guilty every now and again, I suppose, of reacting because it’s something comes up and I guess you know what you were saying about you know how you respond I think there’s response and responsible. You know, even when we do have a reaction, we need to be responsible for that.

Jody Sainsbury

And I had to actually be responsible today because I should have been in Brisbane right here and now, and I missed my flight, so I didn’t react to it because I was always responsible for being alive, so that was a good example today of responding instead of reacting.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Oh dear well, thank you for that well, thank you for missing your flight. I’m sure that’s not the case, but,

Jody Sainsbury

Like later on, so it’s all good.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Awesome so I’m from you know from a leadership perspective we look at leaders and we often think they need confidence and the ability to influence and I need courage so talk to me about your perspective, what impact does self-leadership have on those sorts of things like confidence courage influence as a leader.

Jody Sainsbury:

I think it’s more about the impact, you make, and whether it’s the one you want to make so developing your impact goes hand in hand with developing yourself. And it’s somewhat looking at your strengths and developing what you already have rather than trying to fix your weaknesses and the only material, you have is yourself, so the person, you are right now. And this is what I’m advocating for women, women have quietly been building the toolkits of confidence influence and courage for years and not because they’re stronger or ladder or more aggressive, but because they instinctively know how to use soft skills like empathy emotional intelligence. And to bring people over to their side so women are I will to quietly use means beyond fear and doubt. to develop influence and impact, and you know empathy respect competence and nurturing all that is already natural leadership traits in most women.

Sally Foley-Lewis

And so it just got me thinking, and you know there’s a lot of talk around being vulnerable. And, and you know I just curious your thoughts on how that plays into it as well.

Jody Sainsbury

Well funny you say that I’m a big fan of Brene Brown.

actually done a daring greatly leadership course with her foundation.

And it’s great it’s so potently relevant like she says someone who leans into difficult conversations who shows up with vulnerability and more so shows up even if things are uncertain and challenging and vulnerability is about stepping up, even if we make mistakes owning up to our mistakes and asking for help and being true to ourselves, so I love her vulnerability and daring to lead.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Her ethos, yeah yeah.

Jody Sainsbury

Ethos mantras everything in regards to that and we all need to take them on board, because it’s so relevant.

But yeah and like self self-leadership is a skill, you always have to practice refining and working on going Lee it’s your own development, your own growth, development. 

So, to really to have a big impact and influence within your workplace you got to allow yourself to lean in and lean out as she says in your work and especially for the people that you lead.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah definitely, thank you for that and I have to I’m on the same page with you about Brene Brown’s work and you can see, you can see the value of that playing out across the whole organization across the team, you know our I wonder then has there been some sort of an event or maybe it was COVID or something that’s happened where your self-leadership got a little bit dented and you needed to reignite it and look, if you want to share the story that’d be great you don’t have to share the story the meat in the sandwich on this one of the I’d love to know and I’d love to share with our viewers is that when your self-leadership has been dented how did you reignite it and what are the lessons that you learned from that.

Jody Sainsbury

Unexpected events or shocks disrupt our habitual routines and we all found that out last year didn’t we and its ongoing with COVID but the thing for me was always one of the lucky ones oh my family where my husband and all that were minimally impacted by COVID due to our location and being deemed as essential workers, but what how it affected me was everyone else around us were affected, so that got me into a place where.

There was guilt going to work for still earning income still being able to live pretty much our normal day to day life, the only thing we really were restricted to was we weren’t able to travel so overall watching everyone on the Internet on the zoom hook-ups on the on all the social media outlets having the live streams and whatnot and watching everyone go through those major isolation and lockdown periods that was a sense of guilt for me thinking on how you know how am I going to help these other people around me and family and friends and not be so you know in their face that look I’ve got to go to work and whatnot so it, it was good timing in regards to me with my job wanting to advocate for women, it was a perfect time for women, a lot of women in Australia will hit really hard. With the COVID with a lot of them losing their jobs, so perfect time for women to upscale and retrain and reinvent themselves and go pursue a new career, and particularly in boy industry in the industry in the resource and mining industry there’s lots of opportunities out there and women need to go and pursue in upscale and go out there into step out of their comfort zone, as well as we all need to and don’t let the COVID or those past events hold you back, if anything, make it make it an opportunity and go forth and create a new journey for yourself.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah and you know, even if you know there’s a lot of people who may have a job, but also have a side hustle and I think that’s also the opportunity, I mean yes definitely like what you’re saying up skill and go a different way follow that that that dream that you had but then also there’s the other side, where you could say you know, maybe it’s time that the side hustle becomes the full time hustle.

Jody Sainsbury:

Right and in saying that, like all actually It made me realize to wear a future of work for women is going, so I created that little campaign for kick ass women so for this year and leading into next year we’re focusing on advocating for women to get up skilled in AI and automation there’s lots happening and we all need to learn how to work with the box, because now, and they are coming, and so I have enrolled I’m doing a unicorn at the moment with artificial intelligence and automation because it’s prevalent in my in my industry already we have automated dump trucks, we have automated trains, automated drilling so it’s there and we need to learn to work beside it alongside it and, with it, so there’s lots of opportunity for women to upscale and retrain and get out there. And, as we said there’s going to be lots of opportunities for side hustlers to be created in all that world as well take.

Sally Foley-Lewis

So, so this whole kick ass women has, that is, that being launched because of COVID.

Jody Sainsbury:

How it came about was actually published author of my book high heels to hire this I got a copy of it here some way, but it was supposed to launch was supposed to have an official launch on the first of March last year. And sorry first of April and that’ll got came because of the coven so I never had a major book launch and everything had to be done just over the Internet, you know and was it was all very low key.

Jody Sainsbury: And the same along with kick ass women who is it went hand in hand with the book, so it was a perfect opportunity to kind of just. Let the book go a little bit to the side and we pushed kick ass women out there for the advocating of women getting out into the industry, particularly wall, there was an opportunity for women to transition into new jobs and new careers with Kevin.

Sally Foley-Lewis

I’m so I guess that’s you know there’s a disappointment that you can’t have the launch that you wanted to have So what are the lessons that you’ve taken away from you know from that disappointment at least.

Jody Sainsbury

I think resilience you just have to build your resilience and like we said you don’t dwell on things like that, and it worked out for the better for me actually it with the virtual world that come about that we’ve all had to cut a custom to acclimatize to that’s where it all it got bigger and better than what I would have even imagined, just like with the normal book launch and just putting the word out there, so with covert it actually was a bit of a blessing for my side hustle to get it up and out there on in the virtual world so we’ve done a lot of innovative today zoom hookups been on virtual panels and getting the getting the message out there, so we’ve got I think you’re just building up your resilience and wanting to kick on forward you just can’t hold yourself back in and dwell in the fact of you know kind of held me up and whatnot we.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Need to really.

Jody Sainsbury

Focus and look forward.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah that’s great I love that message about resilience and just keep moving forward so.

Do you have any direct reports, or do you have a strong team around you or.

Jody Sainsbury

Would we have. A work in a team, but I I step up as a supervisor, so I do the role supervisor, so in that role, I have roughly around 30 try and draw others that report to me while on duty that it’s been it’s been a journey and it’s been a good learning journey but yes, you definitely have to taking living into your values with that in regards to being you know empathetic towards.

Your fellow your fellow workers in the situations you’ve got to learn to be a really good listener, and allow them to speak and only provide feedback when they when they asked for, but, but then provide them with the backup and the reassurance that they are doing a good job.

They valued and that they are heard.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah, So what about them, how do you help them keep their self-leadership thought up.

Jody Sainsbury

On a big one in journaling on me I love writing and being done I’ve always kept a journal and notebooks and whatnot So for me, I found that I’m happy to encourage everyone to write things down take it take five minutes 10 minutes or before the start of each shift write something down right, you know. Just let it free flow on what’s been happening in your life or what you’ve been you know pissed off about or whatnot it’s a good way to vent and it’s really liberating after you’ve written a page, or even a couple of sticky notes out of could be just words vented you’ve got your feelings that you’ve you know you’re showing emotion it’s a really granting and liberating experience to walk away and you’re thinking oh. I’m glad I did that and it sets a bit a good mindset for the day, then, so I encourage the crews to actually try and I must say, because I’ve always carried around nine book majority of the crew Nan do carry their own notebooks.

Sally Foley-Lewis

So that’s really cool I love that and that’s what an exercise, and you know I’m very familiar with it and I love it and I to me my head. It right sizes and issue it doesn’t get rid of an issue but we’ve got Hollywood up here and we put things on such a big sensational big screen Hollywood screen. Because it plays in a tape up here, but when we actually put it down in front of us, we course corrected or we right size it and it’s sort of we can sit sort of step back from a distance ourselves from that a bit and go hang on a minute it’s this thing doesn’t might go away, but I’m less attached and I’m less there’s less heat to it.

Jody Sainsbury

Yeah and I like to say you break it down and you break it down into little chunks so you work on one little chunk at a time so that’s how I how I how I explain it and how I in Troy encourage them to do their journaling and yeah, as I said it works for the majority of people, and it has been liberating for a lot of them, they like oh I’m you know I did that today and I’m really glad I did because I learned something from it and they walk away and they continuing to do that, so I think that’s for me that’s something that I love to just pass on.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah that’s called that’s called Jo I love that so and look you’ve got a plane to catch. So, but one last question for you. And before we wrap up and the question is, you know what’s The one thing you wish you knew about self-leadership before you stepped into your first leadership role.

Jody Sainsbury

The number one thing that I learned and I learned afterwards is the relevance of your why. 

Your purpose. 

Needing to know your why and what it is and the purpose of having a sense of your values and what’s so important to live into them. Because these are your guiding principles they help you to make the decisions, and they help you to move forward in life and relate it to every action to evaluate. I often thought leadership was just about managing other people and getting them to do certain things, and you know, to move up the ladder shoot out the leadership level. However, as I’ve learned over the years leadership is way more complex than that, and it is. Because for us to have an impact on other people, we have to lead ourselves first, so no matter what, so if you’re an emerging leader and experience leader or small business owner, you have to start by leading and understanding, who you are so you need to know your why and your purpose.

Sally Foley-Lewis:

No, I love that and couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much, Jo. We absolutely have to know our why our purpose and before we wrap up do you have any last words you want to share?

Jody Sainsbury

I think, welcome the concept of self-leadership is somewhat new yeah we’re all we’re using the terminology now self-leadership. The components are always or certainly have been there, but self-leadership simply off as a guiding framework, to put it all together, which I think it’s very powerful and very helpful. And people need to lean into that to know that they are their own their own leader and they need to build that framework and work and develop it learn and develop it and grow from there and live into their values.

Sally Foley-Lewis

Yeah love it Thank you so much, and I couldn’t agree with you more and I really appreciate you spending some time with us for the spark self-leadership video series Jo and one of the things that I’m not I know you have to go and catch my but the next time we do this, I want to know about how what it’s like to drive a coal train I imagine there’s a bit of fun to a bit of power.

Jody Sainsbury

There is an I’ve got the best office view.

The best sunset some.

Sun rises night of war.

And he has a beautiful scenery our Our Australian landscapes, it is the best best office view that.

I do enjoy yeah.

Sally Foley-Lewis

That’s a good job ad.

That’s bread well Jo Sainsbury, who is a coal train driver and an advocate for women in industry –  Kickass Women. Thank you so much, I appreciate you being here. I’m Sally Foley-Lewis, and that’s been another SPARL self-leadership video will see you again next time.

Jody Sainsbury

Thank you.