The Latest from Kristy-Lee

If things are starting to feel clunky with running your business, or you are constantly the bottleneck, or spending all day managing around people instead of actually doing the things you need to, it’s likely not a people problem. It’s a structure problem.

As small businesses grow, roles get added reactively. This means responsibilities are blurred and often overlap amongst many roles. What once worked simply stops working.

When this happens, it’s time to redesign your team structure.

Redesigning your structure gives you clarity on what your business actually needs now, not what it needed when you first hired your team, because the team that got you and your business to this point, is very often not the same team you need to move you forward.

What’s really going on when your team feels messy?

If your team feels stretched thin, inefficient or like a constant juggling act, it’s often because your structure has evolved without you even realising.

What most business owners do in t...

Hello and welcome to Episode 321 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Are you stuck doing everything in your business because it just feels quicker and easier than explaining it to someone else? Like you’re constantly putting out fires, jumping back into tasks, and wondering why your team isn’t stepping up? You’re not alone and this is exactly where so many business owners get stuck.

I keep seeing this pattern with growing businesses. You start out because you’re great at what you do, but as your team grows, your role has to shift. The problem is, no one teaches you how to make that shift. It’s uncomfortable, it’s unfamiliar, and it can feel easier to just stay in the doing. But staying there holds your business back and, more importantly, it holds your team back too.

In this episode, I unpack what it really takes to step out of the day-to-day and into leadership. I talk about why letting go feels so hard, how your expectations might be setting your team up to fail, and the subtl...

One underperforming employee in a small business can have a huge impact on productivity and ultimately profitability. If you only employ four staff, one underperformer means a quarter of your team are holding you back.

When one person isn’t pulling their weight, it creates extra pressure on you and the rest of the team, and the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to fix.

Most business owners know something isn’t right but hesitate to act because they don’t want to escalate the issue or handle it badly. The reality is, how you approach it determines whether it improves or spirals.

Why underperformance gets worse instead of better

Managing an underperforming employee without making it worse comes down to two things:

• Correctly identifying the real cause of the issue and
• Responding with the right solution.

Most problems escalate because business owners either avoid the conversation, handle it poorly, or apply the wrong fix to the wrong problem.

If you match ...

Hello and welcome to Episode 320 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

You've hired someone. Finally. After the job ads, the interviews, the back and forth, they said yes and they're starting Monday. The hard part is over, right?

Wrong. Almost half of every person you hire won't make it through their first twelve months. Not because they were the wrong person. Because nobody set them up to succeed.

I can't quite believe I've barely touched this topic in 320 episodes, because the first 90 days is the most important period of time in determining whether a hire works out, and most small business owners have no plan for it beyond "here's your login and good luck."

We treat onboarding like a box to tick when it's actually the foundation of the entire working relationship.

In this episode I'm pulling back the curtain on what actually happens in most small businesses during those first 90 days, why it quietly sets new hires up to fail, and what a proper 90-day plan looks like when you'...

You’ve got team members ticking tasks off, but every time something goes wrong there’s an excuse, a reason, or someone else to blame.

They are turning up and going through the motions (just), but there is no care, no passion, no motivation and no accountability when a mistake is made or something goes wrong.

Over time, this erodes your trust in them. It creates frustration for you and your best team members and leaves you feeling like you just can’t rely on them.

You’re not dealing with someone who isn’t capable of their job. What you’re really dealing with is a lack of accountability, and until you can change that, the issues will continue.

What’s really going on when your team won’t take ownership?

When your team member defaults to excuses, defensiveness or blame, they are operating in a space known as ‘below the line’.

When they take responsibility, own outcomes and focus on solutions, they are operating from ‘above the line’.

The difference isn’t skill, it’s mindset, beha...

Hello and welcome to Episode 319 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

Got someone on your team who just is not cutting it, but every time you think about dealing with it, you put it off for another day? Maybe you are hoping they will sort themselves out, maybe you are gathering more “evidence”, or maybe you are trying not to rock the boat. Either way, the issue rarely fixes itself, and the longer it drags on, the messier it gets.

I keep seeing this with small business owners, and I get why. Managing underperformance is one of the hardest parts of leading a team, especially when your team is small, the person plays a big role, or there is a personal relationship involved. It is easy to avoid the conversation, overthink it, or soften things so much that nothing actually changes. But when we handle employee underperformance badly, we usually make it worse for everyone involved, including the rest of the team.

In this episode, I unpack why so many business owners struggle to manage a...

Four in five Australian employees are disengaged at work. Put simply that means that the majority of Australian employees aren’t performing at their best, nor are they motivated to do great work. The biggest contributor to this statistic? The way employees feel about their boss, and the leadership skills on display.

In small businesses, this often shows up as owners trying to keep the peace, avoid conflict and be liked by their team. The result is unclear expectations, inconsistent standards and a team that underperforms.

When being nice becomes the priority, strong and consistent leadership is sacrificed, and the teams performance declines.

What being “nice” is really costing you

Being a nice boss becomes a problem when it replaces clarity, accountability and honest communication.

When you prioritise being liked, you avoid difficult conversations, soften feedback or let issues slide. That leads to confusion about what you expect and are willing to tolerate, inconsiste...

Hello and welcome to Episode 318 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

Do you have someone on your team right now where something just feels... off? Maybe you knew when you hired them, maybe it crept up on you slowly — but either way, you're still holding on. And if that's you, this episode is going to hit close to home.

This is one of my most listened-to episodes and I'm bringing it back because I keep seeing this play out in businesses every single week. The hiring market has shifted since I first recorded this, but the problem hasn't changed one bit. Business owners are still holding onto the wrong people for too long — and it's the rest of the team that quietly pays the price.

In this episode I walk you through exactly what a wrong hire looks like in the early stages (because when you're in the weeds it can be surprisingly hard to see), the real reasons we keep people around even when we know we shouldn't, and the three ways holding onto the wrong person erodes your team's mor...

Micromanagement is one of the most common leadership traps for business owners.

Many leaders fall into it without even realising. Others know they do it but feel stuck in the cycle, unsure how to stop. It often starts with good intentions. You care about your business. You want things done properly. You want your clients to receive the best possible outcome.

But somewhere along the way, that attention to detail turns into something else.

And when it does, it can quietly undermine your team, your culture and even your profitability.

Let’s break down what micromanagement really looks like, why it happens and how to shift out of it.

What Micromanagement Actually Is

Micromanagement is typically defined as a leadership style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of their team to an excessive or unnecessary degree.

It’s not the same as being hands-on or caring about quality. Those things are healthy.

Micromanagement happens when leaders insert themselves into every...

Hello and welcome to Episode 317 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

In this episode, we are tackling one of the most confusing and high-risk areas for business owners right now, the difference between employees and contractors.

I’m joined by Jeanette Jifkins from Onyx Legal, and together we unpack why this isn’t as simple as choosing what you want to call someone. We explore how recent Fair Work changes, alongside ATO requirements, have made this space more complex than ever, and why getting it wrong can have serious financial and legal consequences for your business.

We dive into the legal perspective on what truly separates an employee from a contractor, including the critical role of control, the “whole of relationship” test, and what courts actually look for when making a determination.

Throughout the conversation, we share practical examples, common mistakes business owners make, and how contractor relationships can easily drift into employment without you even realising....