AUTHOR: JO CARROLL

As I reflect on the impact accessible education has had on my career, I am very grateful for opportunities and new experiences that it has created. I have been fortunate to have had valuable and varied education across my career, which has led me to move in new and unexpected ways. Without these education opportunities I would have most likely followed a more linear and less inspiring career path.

About 5 years ago I was enrolled in a leadership training course, which we attend every few years as part of the public service. However, this one was different to others and it sent me down a fascinating path that has dramatically changed my career. This leadership course was themed around getting the best out of your team members and having good performance conversations and introduced coaching principals that were offered as an alternative to traditional management practices. I was fascinated by the broad applicability of coaching and started to read more and more about it.

My interest grew further as I learned how to apply coaching with my team members and I quickly enrolled in a Cert IV in Life Coaching. While this training was directly relevant to my role as a leader, it had broader application and I started to see it align with my other interests outside of work in yoga and wellbeing.

Following on from the Cert IV, I extended the training to include Wellness Coaching, which led to me starting a small business with my husband, with Wellness Coaching, Yoga and Personal Training services. This work is inspiring as I am able to have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals in our community.

Coaching skills also come in handy in my auditing and consulting work, giving me different techniques and tools to use with clients to help workshop ideas, develop solutions and draw out others expertise in different ways. It also gives me the confidence and skills to have performance discussions with my team, tools to use in difficult conversations, and helps me to look at the workspace through a different lens.

This exciting journey that I am on started from what I thought was ‘just another leadership course’. Through my access to education I was able to spark an interest that has given me great enjoyment as well as allowing me to continue to grow both personally and professionally.