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Interview Transcript

Sally Foley-Lewis

You. Hi, Sally Foley Lewis here with a number fantastic video interview in the spark self-leadership series, and it’s an absolute honor and a privilege to be having a conversation with Mark Middleton. Who’s the Global CEO of Icon group. A welcome to the conversation, Mark.

Mark Middleton

Thank you, Sally. Yeah. Pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for the invitation.

Sally

So what’s Icon Group? Tell us that first and foremost.

Mark

Well, look Icon Group is Australia’s biggest provider of private cancer care. Um, we’re integrated cancer care, radiology, chemotherapy, radiation oncology, pharmacy services, and chemotherapy compounding. So we’re a very big company now, from humble beginnings in Queensland, uh, to who we are now on a national platform, but also an ever growing, reaching to Asia with, uh, facilities in Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, New Zealand and mainland China. So a very big company.

Sally

Wow, well, congratulations. And, um, being a fellow Queenslander. Yay. So, uh, I love a good success story from, from our own home grown patch. So, um, going from strength to strength,

Mark

Indeed we are, and I’ll let you know a little secret. I’ve been in Queensland for 14 years, but I’m actually Victoria. And so I hope that doesn’t dampen your enthusiasm.

Sally

Where’s, where’s the hangout button right now? No, just kidding. Just kidding. Okay. You can be an honorary Queenslander. So

Mark

We’re very proud of our Queensland heritage.

Sally

Thank you. Cool. Hey, let’s wait. We’re here to talk about self-leadership. So I am really, really interested because I have been, I’ve been seeing you on the social media, particularly on LinkedIn and being a very visible corporate leader for want of a better term, um, and a very visible senior leader. And so, uh, I really have admired the messages that you put out there, you know, on behalf of not just our con group and, and some of the way you work there, but also general leadership, um, messages as well. And which is why I reached out and asked you to have this conversation. What, what’s your definition or your take on self-leadership?

Mark

Well, for me self-leadership is it’s, it’s, it’s how you live your life. Uh, it’s the frameworks that you have within your own life about why do you choose to do the things you do? How do you pursue them and how ultimately do you judge your success or lack thereof, um, in particular pursuit? So, so for me, it’s, it’s everything that you do. It’s how you behave. It’s how you strive for goals. It’s how you encourage others and those around you to also strive for goals. So it’s about you to your behaviors. And I, I class that as both professionally and personally, um, it’s values, it’s multifaceted, but it’s also those things that get you out of bed in the morning. That’s self-leadership, unless someone’s, turfing you out of bed in the morning, you’ve got to get yourself out of bed in the morning and that self-leadership cause you’re getting up to do something to do good to achieve goals. What drives you to do that? And how do you build frameworks around everything that you do to me? That’s

Sally

Yeah, yeah. And I think we’re on the same page there. I totally agree. It’s around our values, drive our behaviors, and then they are reinforced with the motivators that go along with it and, and they are quite interrelated in that regard. So, um, and I think you, you tapped into a really good point. It’s not just those fundamental things, but then it’s about creating a framework in which to operate. So, um, you know, it’s not always quite simple, but it’s about understanding there’s a driver and then there’s also structure that you need to. So thank you for that. Now, what impact does self-leadership have, um, on aspects like confidence and influence and courage as a, as a leader?

Mark

Well, I have an enormous, uh, influence on those things. If you think about it, confidence, um, is not necessarily something we’re all born with. You know, you get confidence from experience and from proving yourself and knowing, Hey, I’m really good at that. That’s where my strengths lie. That’s what builds confidence that allows you to feel very confident going into a particular activity or a particular environment or a particular pursuit. So, um, I also would say self-leadership is when you are a leader and you’re thinking about the people around you about projecting confidence, even if you may not be confident, that is really, really important, really big believer in that in particularly, I know I’m sure talk about the global pandemic. Your people want strength and confidence: how do you present that even if on the inside that might not be how you’re feeling. So look absolutely important courage.

Mark

I said the same way. It’s about experience backing yourself around decisions and making hard decisions that, um, you know, may or may not be popular as well. How do you have the courage to do that? To, to lead not only yourself with the people who look to you for leadership through tough times. And again, it’s about having that framework framework and self-leadership, this is how I’m going to behave during this particular event. This is the framework of the values that I have, who will guide me through to make a decision that will take great courage. So, um, so I think we covered, uh, confidence, courage, and our last one was influence influence. Well, you want to be able to set an example and that’s about self-leadership because certainly from my perspective, being the CEO of a global company, um, people look to you for leadership and it’s all the time.

Mark

You know, I think sometimes we think we’re not on show. I can guarantee you, we are on show every single minute of every single day. And if I slammed the door to my office, someone sees that, you know, and someone will think mock slammed his door. So that’s okay for me to slam my door. No, it’s not Mark shouldn’t have done that. Um, that’s about influence and how do we make sure that we’re positive role models and influencing people in a positive, um, a positive why? I mean, you know, there’s an old saying, um, teams are only as good as it’s leader. And then there’s one that, uh, the other side of the coin is fish rots from the top. We get it wrong. Your influence is huge. I’m a really, really big believer. And I tell my team this all the time, this all the time do not underestimate the responsibility of your leadership. You just can’t, people will look to you for leadership in it even more so during tough times.

Sally

Absolutely. And that point about being when you’re, you’re always on, I totally agree with, and, um, you know, we are a role model as late as are role models and we are role modeling constantly, and it’s quite creepy, might be the wrong word, but how much people pay attention when we don’t think they are. Um, and our people see everything they see more than we realize they see.

Mark

Well, you know, that my wardrobe has been critiqued for the last, uh, 20 years or perhaps my look, I’m very fortunate to have a wonderful, uh, partner who helps me with my dress sense. But, um, I always make the joke with my wife, Susan, that, uh, you know, I’ve got to look good, cause people will critique me. What was he wearing today? Did he get dressed in the dark, all those things on a more trivial note, but you’re absolutely right.

Sally

Yeah, totally consoled about how good you look. I love that, but which I think even though I know you were making a joke, people still pay attention and that’s, that stuff does come up, which is, you know, you sort of sit there some days and go, that’s not the most important piece about this right now. Um, and that’s where our confidence and our influence goes, all right, let’s shift beyond the, the surface level and go deeper with whatever we need to go with. And I think also your point about being okay with making, uh, the tough decisions, I remember having a boss who years ago, um, I didn’t like them. And I don’t think that was any secret. Not many people liked that person at all, but if you got all of us employees in a room, we would all agree that when they made a decision and I communicated that decision, it was clear, there was no misunderstanding and there was consistency.

Sally

And so we respected that. Um, even though this person had no personality whatsoever and we really struggled to have a relationship, one of the things that we really relied on and really valued was that strong, consistent decision-making even, even when the decision was against whatever we wanted, at least that communication was there. The reason why it was made that why the consistency that, and I think that’s, that’s, you know, when I look back at that person with a little bit more maturity and a little bit more wrinkles on my face, you know, that lead, I actually had a pretty solid level of self-leadership.

Mark

Oh, I agree with you. I think consistency is a really important word. People want to know what they’re going to get from a leader. It’s, you know, they actually want you to be predictable. You know, I may not agree with that decision, but I know there will be a decision made. It’ll be well thought through and covered all bases. And I think that’s exactly what you’ve just described. Sally, I’ll put the personality aside and so, okay. That’s the personality, the person, this decision-making is actually really sound and you know what I get it because I’ve had it explained to me don’t necessarily agree with it, but now I’m on board because I get it. Um, consistency is so important. People want to know what to expect from their leader, because the important thing is if someone has to come to you one day with a really difficult conversation, they’re more likely to do that. If they know the response will be predictable, even if it’s one of, of, you know, anger or disappointment or any of those more, you know, confronting emotions that want to know what the response will be, and they want consistency because if they get that, they’re more likely to come and talk to you about things that maybe aren’t that comfortable to discuss. And that is really,

Sally

Yeah. And I think that the, uh, extending that a bit further and going into that really into the heart of that self-leadership definition is that our consistency comes from actually being really clear about our values and our motivators when, when we’re a bit wishy-washy in, in who we are and, and what we stand for, then our ability to kind of not stand strong in a decision or will be swayed too easily, or, um, not feel confident and courageous enough to, to speak out about this is the decision, whether you like it or not. I know it’s not favorable for everyone, you know, all those sorts of elements, um, when we’re not clear about our values and our motivators, then I think that’s where I can see a link between how much more difficult it is to be consistent.

Mark

Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that’s a, so it’s a really, really good point. It’s around that the, you know, the values, the things that are important to you, because again, we’re talking about self-leadership, it’s the framework, how what’s the framework. You make those difficult decisions with it, if you get that right. But if that framework changes all the time or changes with, you know, change your direction of the wind or problem, and you’ve also going to have a problem with people following your lead.

Sally

Yes. Yeah. It’s you want them to come to work and be as productive as they can be. They don’t need to also add on top of that, the layer of what am I getting today or who am I getting today? Yeah, definitely. Um, so just thinking about an event that may have happened at, uh, and it, and it may be COVID because, um, let’s face it, it’s a pretty prominent event in our world. Where maybe you’ve been thrown and you’ve needed to reignite your own self leadership, um, and or any sort of, whether it’s COVID or some other event I’d love to whatever you’re happy to share, love to know from you, um, what it took to reignite  your self-leadership. What did you learn from that? What’s what are some of the lessons you could share from that experience?

Mark

Yeah, look, I think I’ve got a really great example. So I make it a habit every day. I mean, head office in Brisbane to say good morning to every single person in the office. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a habit for me. And I told our team when I started this role he’s I got secret bad luck. I’m never going to stop. Um, you know, so 17th of March, 2020 made the very difficult decision that head office in Brisbane, in our head office in Melbourne would work from home so that everyone was sent home. And we did a very, very quickly as the global pandemic, um, approached. Um, I decided that I would continue to come to the office every single day. And I decided that because I wanted people and it was kind of a bit of an obsession, actually, one of the people to know the lights were on, I’m here, and when we’re all back together, we’ll all come back together.

Mark

And it was very powerful symbolically for me. So I decided to do that. So I’d come into the office very early every morning, and I was driving to the office the next day, and I thought, I’m going to email everyone good morning. Cause that’ll give everyone a bit of a know, a bit of a surprise and a bit of a, maybe a bit of a lift. And I did it and people loved it. I responded, then I thought, well, I’m going to do this every morning. Yeah, careful what you wish for because it went on for a long time and then I’m going to do it for the whole global team, 3000 people, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand. So I did that every single day for 62 days. And, um, the emails became lengthier and about different topics and all those sorts of things.

Mark

And I’d be sitting in my office at home and often in the dark thinking, what am I going to talk about tomorrow with the time? Because people are connecting to any direct, you know, and they said it actually re-invigorated so many things. So I’m going to talk about this book that I read 15 years ago, that’s in the bookcase, I’ve got to look, get it out. And then I’ve got to talk about this. What have I learned from this movie 10 years ago, actually, you know, people kept saying to me, Hey, writing those emails every day, I actually just loved it because we covered so much grab family inspiration or cold the series, the inspiration to lead, because that’s what it gave me the inspiration to lead because you know, you’re sending out those things that I’d forgotten about. Um, you know, my love of some obscure science fiction TV series from when I was a kid.

Mark

And you think that’s not going to connect with anyone at all. I call them 40 responses later who also loved that, you know, that sort of thing. And then, you know, thinking a house has that going to translate to the team in China? You know, I sent a note out about one of my favorite heavy metal bands, uh, which is Iron Maiden. And, um, my brother would love you. One of my Chinese doctors sent back a picture of her husband’s cupboard, which was filled with Iron Maiden, CDs and DVDs in Beijing. So there you go, you think these things aren’t going to connect and they did. So look, I guess what I’m saying, is it just, it just reinvigorated me. And even when times got really, really tough and I was sitting in the office at home thinking, how are we going to keep our people safe during these, are we going to stay open and deliver care to, you know, two and a half million patients, uh, annually, uh, around the world that we currently do, then we’re going to keep doing this because this is getting really rough.

Mark

And then I’d sit there and think, well, first step is, I’m going to connect with everyone tomorrow morning. We’re going to be together. Um, we’re going to share the stories and share the interactions. And, um, we’ll go from there. So for 62 days. And again, you know, if people were getting sick of it, I said, bad luck. I’m going to do it until we don’t need to do it anymore. Um, so I looked at, for me, it was just this, it became a ritual every single day. And, um, I had to decide when we would stop. And I did. Um, and you know, but it’s, it’s something that I shared with the team and we connected, uh, connected in a way that I couldn’t possibly imagine. I mean, some of the things shared with me, which obviously always remained private were things that, um, are near the being more cognizant of what it meant to be a leader then during that time. And, you know, I’m really proud. Everyone talks about Mark responded to every single email that he got and those and I did one day, I responded to 400 emails. Wow. And I do, because I asked people, you know, we had a bit of a joke. I said, let’s, let’s upset the IT team. And can you crash my email this morning with the responses of saying good morning and, you know, gave everyone something to focus on for that day. And so I guess that’s a very long answer to a short question.

Sally

I love it. I love it. That

Mark

Was just that really, really special moment that we sometimes get in leadership, careers and all that. Forget that.

Sally

Yeah. And what I love is that the, the diehards who connected with the, the exact show and, and Iron Maiden, you know, you know, you’re going to ramp up a little bit of engagement with those guys, but it’s the ripple effect as well, because, you know, even just you sharing on my head and I’ve gone straight to my childhood of arguing with my brother to turn Iron Maiden down so I could do my homework. Um, and every other heavy metal, you know, Public Image Limited, Sex Pistols, that it was all air all through our house, all through our neighborhood. Um, you know, so it’s, it doesn’t, it doesn’t even have to be the exact thing, but what you’ve done is that ripple effect of engagement and you’ve been human and you’ve been you, and you’ve shared a piece of you that, um, that may never, who knows it may never have been triggered otherwise. Um, maybe it would have, we don’t know, but that’s kind of a silver lining from, from the, the pandemic that the team globally get to go, “Here’s a little bit more of the onion lie back of Mark.”

Mark

Yeah, no, absolutely agree. And I’m not sure how many global say you guys get to share with their team their love for Iron Maiden. Um, but I’m happy to, because I love actually tell us a little key. So, um, but yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. You don’t get the opportunity to share those things very often. It looks sometimes I thought to myself, am I sharing too much? You know, I talked about my own upbringing or family at times, you know what I thought, no, this is important. And, you know, from the responses I got back and people that had similar experiences, you know, family tragedies, all those sorts of things, no, I’m not sharing too much. This is, this is real connection. And it’s really important right now.

Sally

Absolutely. And they get to be reminded that, that you’re human. And I think one of the things that, you know, as a coach, and a facilitator, and when I, and I go into organisations and, and work with a lot of middle managers, um, a lot of the time the conversation is around, “I just get treated like, um, I’m not human”. And so conversations with senior leaders and conversations with the operational staff is around remembering that this, this manager is a human and, and you sharing that, um, opens the door up for people to feel safe as well. And I think that’s a really, really, um, essential part of leadership, but, but let’s go back to self-leadership if, if you weren’t clear about who you were, and if you weren’t feeling as though, um, you weren’t strong enough in yourself and your values and your beliefs and the importance of what you do and how you show up as a person, then you may never have shared that.

Sally

And then, um, the roll on effect and the positive ripple effect of that would never have come through. And, and I also think one of the things that is that you’ll never know the extent to which you’ve made an impact, um, because there’ll be people across how many people did you say a couple of thousand? Did you say, sorry, say that again. So you got 3000 people there. There’ll be some way, you know, there’s obviously going to be a cohort in that 3000 that you will never hear from about this, but they’ve reaped the benefit of it.

Mark

Well, I hope so. I hope so because it became, it’s a very, very important part of, you know, not only, and I think that’s the important thing I was trying to support our people through. COVID actually got my three COVID too, because it’s ritual. How am I going to lead to die every single morning, uh, racing, we’ll make every challenge that comes out why today. And we’ll sit in the office at home in the dark and Maddy have a whiskey and think about how we were a game we regroup tomorrow together. And we were playing, you know, I think we could, we could spend a few hours talking about rituals and how important they are to lose you. But, um, it became very, very important.

Sally

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Um, you know, how do you, so let’s talk about your people then, and obviously one of the things that help fire up and, and keep people going is that email and shifting from saying hello to emailing. Hello, but in other situations, how do you fire up the self-leadership in your people?

Mark

Well, I think firstly set an example, um, I believe whole heartedly icons mission. You know, it’s been my whole career’s mission and that’s to deliver the best care possible to as many people as possible, as close to home as possible. And I’ve, I’ve lived in breath that my entire career has been oncology and it’s a huge part of that’s about then delivering it to regional Australia. And now we’re fortunate enough to deliver into regional areas in other countries. So I, I believe in that mission, it is my mission. And, you know, you know, pardon the use of the word in the current circumstances, but that’s infectious, um, you know, people, if the leader believes in it and it’s real, it’s my passion. It’s what I want to do. I want to help as many people as we came, why I want that to flow through everyone, that this is really, really good work that you’re doing.

Mark

This is often right. The feedback from that patient and their family raid the feedback from that community about how important this is. So that’s the first step. That’s how we fire people up. And, you know, I talked earlier about oil. I get out of bed in the morning. That’s why I paid, we’ll get out of bed in the morning. You can impact and touch so many people’s lives, so many communities. So that’s, that’s really important. But what I also want people to understand is, um, you know, look at the examples we have on a radiation therapist by background. My part of the icon story starts at St. Andrew’s hospital in the carpark in Toowoomba. That’s our first radiation oncology facility, you know, um, I led that facility and now I lead a global company, uh, 14 years later. So look at the examples that we can see.

Mark

I don’t want people to understand that our mission not only helps people, but it provides opportunity for great careers and opportunities that if you grab them, the world is your oyster. I spoke at an international women’s day conference this morning, and I spoke about some of the stories about female leaders and where they started with the organisation, where they are now, it’s about opportunity. People want opportunity. They want to be able to grow professionally and personally, but they also want to be able to do that within the framework of where their life is at at that particular moment. And I think that’s really, really interesting. We all go through stages in our careers. Um, you know, you’re starting a family, you’re having a family, you’re raising a family that, that shifts focus, achieves all those things, but you still want to be able to grab opportunity that works for you during those times.

Mark

And I think that’s really important. So when it comes to firing up self-leadership, in our people, it’s mission, and then it’s this mission will provide you with amazing opportunities and the rest is up to you. Um, and if I can set that example, because I actually am an example of that, you know, uh, I was at first ever site manager and we in 2007 and now I lead the entire company. So, um, that for me is self-leadership, you’ve also got to provide other opportunities like here’s this professional development opportunity. I think you should do this. I’d like you to do this. I mean, I, um, I I’ve asked our teams before. I want to least of all the conferences that people speak at all the scientific papers they publish was the postgraduate study that’s going on amongst our group. And it is just amazing, the depth and breadth because people, people want and people want to grow and to do all of those things I’ve just described that actually takes self-leadership absolutely not. One’s pushing you now, one’s going to spoon third year, I’ve got to write this scientific paper for you and get it published. That’s self-leadership and that’s that motivation, self-motivation that you need to bring to the table, but there’s gotta be a goal. And I guess what I’m really saying, Sally, that goal is opportunity and wow, are we going to do some good work along the way?

Sally

Yeah. And that mission in action. So, you know, being able to be, uh, being able to do the good work and like you said, get that feedback, which I think is I self-fulfilling prophecy of it getting better and better and better, um, cause that, you know, not everyone needs external feedback, but it certainly is kind of nice when you get it to help, motivate, to keep going and doing more and being that lifelong learner, whether, whether it’s through the writing of papers or doing extra study. And, um, I totally agree with everything you said about, um, you know, how we can fire up our self-leadership and love that you went through and audited, uh, where people are at with their professional and personal development and the studies they’re doing, the papers they’re writing. I think that that would be a fantastic showcase of the smarts that’s within the Icon Group. So that’d be huge to look at that. So yeah, well done. Yeah. So I just want to be respectful of times. I’ve got one more question for you and that is, uh, what’s the one thing you wish you knew about self-leadership, uh, way back when you first stepped into any sort of leadership role?

Mark

Uh, look, it’s an interesting question. I’ve actually thought about this one before. Oh, look, I wish I’d had the confidence to be bolder in certain things. Um, you know, I look back on our start and my own, the company that I founded that’s now obviously part of Icon. Um, and I think about the things we could have done, knowing what I know now and being, uh, I guess having the confidence in my own abilities now to lead that. So, um, you know, I wish I’d been bowled up in some of that decision-making and look, to be honest, we were still pretty bold. So it was, uh, it was a good thing, but you know, you look back down and say, well, why didn’t we do that? We’ve done it so many times now. And I can remember one particular instance of about opening up cancer center in a certain hospital, which we always stalled on and didn’t do, and didn’t do for various reasons.

Mark

And now it looks just, it’s one of the most successful cancer centers, certainly in Queensland, certainly in  Australia now. And I said, why didn’t we do that 10 years earlier? And it was certain things that I just wasn’t bold enough to grab the reigns of and just drive and, you know, look, that’s one specific instance, but you know, look, hindsight’s 20-20, you look back now and gee, imagine if you knew then what you know now. Um, but you know, that, that, I guess that’s the leadership journey, isn’t it? So if I, if I, um, if you came back to the self-leadership, you it’s spent having confidence in your abilities at that particular moment in time and those things type taught. Um, you know, so, but that’s probably what if I was to talk to myself 15 years ago, they balled up.

Sally

I like it. I like it a lot. Thank you so much. Any, um, any last words you want to share before we wrap this up?

Mark

Uh, well look, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you and share some of my thoughts. I think that probably I’ll just come back to something I said earlier in the conversation, it’s about the responsibility of leadership, um, and the responsibility of leadership to create leaders around you and to bring other people through on the leadership journey. We just got to do that because there’s plenty of examples of bad leadership around us. Um, and I think we have a responsibility as senior leaders to develop those around us. Look, identify the talent, look for people who, you know, naturally are strong leaders already and how do we enhance that and then look to the people who may not be natural leaders, but you know, they have it. Um, how do we guard those people? And, um, for me, that’s an important part of my role is how do I continue to develop the next generation of leaders at Icon? Because ultimately two groups of people will benefit from that the people who really need our help and the people were part of the time and that ultimately that just comes back to ambition. So that’s what we must do it.

Sally

Yeah. I love that. I mean, it’s not, there’s no point getting towards the last 10 years of your career as the global CEO and then going, all right, who’s going to take over, you know, we should, we should be getting everyone ready or, or like you said, the people you can identify, um, ready all the way along that process. Um, and, and, and I think, again, it comes back to being, you know, strong in your own self-leadership in that, um, you’re confident. It’s not that well, you kind of do want them better than you. You want to, you want the next person to be even better than you. And you’ve got to have the confidence in yourself to know that that’s what you want and not be threatened by it. Um, yeah, I think that’s, that’s absolutely gold. So thank you for that, Mark. I really appreciate it. I think it’s a really strong message.

Mark

Thank you, Sally, it was great to chat.

Sally

Thank you. And that’s another excellent conversation with another superb senior leader and it was so nice to be able to pick the brains of Mark Middleton. The Global CEO for Icon Group, uh, catches again on another spark self-leadership series and bye for now.