Katie Iles

My Why

I believe work should be a force for good in people's lives, not something that extracts all the goodness from them for its own gain.

We spend an extraordinary proportion of our lives at work. It shapes how we think, how we relate, what we believe we're capable of and how much of ourselves we have left for everything else that matters. Yet when workplaces aren't working, we're remarkably quick to blame the humans inside them. We label them disengaged. Resistant. Difficult. Entitled. Can't 'hack it'. We keep trying to fix the person without interrogating the conditions we've asked them to succeed inside. It's a false economy and I think we can change it without sacrificing profit or people. I've come to learn that most stubborn organisational problems survive because we're trying to solve them from inside assumptions we haven't thought to question.

I'm fascinated by the ideas and social contracts we've inherited about leadership, productivity, generations and success. I'm relentlessly curious about how we can create coherent, human and high performing environments in our wildly disrupted cultural moment.

My work is about following the friction, interrogating assumptions and pursuing reality far enough to discover what is actually going on underneath the disengagement, crappy cultures and burnout. Because once we understand the problem properly, we can stop endlessly treating symptoms and start designing environments where trust, accountability, curiosity, contribution and great work make sense. That doesn't mean lowering expectations. Quite the opposite. I care deeply about excellence, but I just don't think normalising human depletion is evidence of it.

I want us to stop confusing hard work with good work. To stop searching for heroic leaders and unicorn employees who can somehow thrive despite the system. To build better habitats instead. My work is dedicated to proving that sustained high performance is achievable without burnout, depletion, zero-sum, i

But the true test of a system isn't simply what it produces. But that it can fully reckon with what it costs the people inside it.

That's why I do this work. I want people to leave energised, equipped and seeing something they can't unsee. Asking better questions, challenging assumptions they hadn't realised they were carrying, and building workplaces where people can do extraordinary work without having to become less human to do it. Less heroes. More habitats.

I love and believe in people. I’ve dedicated my career to researching, provoking and equipping them through communication, advisory and coaching.

My Accomplishments

🚀 Founder of The Praxis Collective. 🚀 600+ keynotes across Australia, UK and NZ. 🚀 Social researcher, communication and systems strategist with clients spanning grassroots movements to major international brands. 🚀 Written and interviewed for major national publications and news outlets. 🚀 Developed and scaled successful brands and businesses across Australia and the UK. 🚀 Led change, developed teams, grown leaders across sectors and loved every minute. 🚀 Almost finished my first book 'Lichen Leadership' 🚀 Mother of rambunctious boys, married to a great man, GSP owner.

Fun facts

1. I am a trained jazz and classical singer and have performed across Australia the UK and Europe in choirs, musicals and as a solo artist. I even sang BVs with Guy Sebastian before he got famous... 2. I am a visual artist and paint across watercolour and acrylic mediums. 3. I was late diagnosed with inattentive ADHD which really explains a lotttttt. 4. I was voted 'most likely to become PM' all throughout school. I still haven't ruled it out. 5. I once stole a stumpy tail lizard from the science lab at my primary school and kept it as a pet for a week before I got busted.

How I can help

IT'S NOT YOUR PEOPLE. IT'S YOUR SYSTEMS: I help organisations interrogate the assumptions, incentives and conditions underneath disengagement, conflict and poor performance — so they stop fixing people and start fixing what’s actually getting in the way.

5 GENERATIONS. 3 SOCIAL CONTRACTS. 1 WORKPLACE: The new playbook for leading the most age and values diverse workforce in history.

My Generational Intelligence framework explains why five generations can experience trust, loyalty, leadership and success so differently and what leaders need to do about it.

POWER vs REALITY & THE EXECUTIVE SIN BIN: The leadership fouls that get harder to see the higher you climb.

I help leaders challenge assumptions, spot blind spots and pursue reality with the rigour required for better judgement, trust and accountability.

WONDER VS GRIND: What if everything we’ve been taught about productivity is backwards?

A research-backed rethink of how awe, curiosity and expanded attention help humans think, connect, create and perform better.

UNICORNS DON'T EXIST. WOMEN DO: A sharper conversation about women, work and success.

Challenging the impossible standards, inherited rules and invisible systems that ask women to thrive by becoming increasingly superhuman.

More from Katie Iles

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