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As a Manager, your staff talk about you as someone with a lot of empathy. Why do you think that’s an important quality to have, in management?

I think it helps to build trust.

I think that people do rely on their leaders to build that culture, and based on that, is how they adapt to their work. It creates an environment where members feel understood and respected, and it fosters open communication.

You know, it is so important when you’re working with a team with so many diverse individuals, that people feel a sense of belonging and that their voice matters.

It also improves engagement, and it improves staff morale. Our team collaborates really well.

I see that with your team – anybody can consult with anybody else for information or support. It’s never the same two people, it’s always a different combo! It’s very visible that everybody can benefit from everybody else’s skills.

Yes! That’s really the culture I wanted to build.

But I do think that my past experiences have led me to lead in this way. I was bullied at school, and I also learned from my parents. My mother is a Palestinian woman, who was stateless at the time, and my father was a Lebanese refugee.

What I witnessed with my parents was that they came here and they started a family at a time where there were no organisations like Spectrum, there was no grants for people in those situations, there was no Settlement support. So I saw them try, and try, and start jobs, and try and start businesses, and they were let down by the systems all the time.

A lot of my team are migrants and refugees, and I see my parents’ journey in them.

[Read more about Renee and her amazing mother, Spectrum Workforce Coordinator Henriette, here]

And they are an amazing team. I can’t appreciate them enough – they are diverse professionals, with so many different skill sets. We’ve got four religions in the team and there are nine languages spoken between us.

Also, I do recognise overseas qualifications and experience – I don’t think that someone needs to start at ground zero when they come here. But rather, they should be able to continue the journey that they’ve worked so hard on.

So, in my team there’s qualified lawyers, migration agents, finance managers, human resource managers, community service providers, aged care professionals, and all of those skills together have built the most amazing team.

You know, cucumber is not as nice on its own, as it is in a salad. So put together, our team is the perfect salad with all different ingredients included.

I can’t take any credit for how far they’ve all come. They’re the ones that are doing the work and kicking the goals. So it all goes to them.

But for me, it’s past experiences from previous workplaces – learning from bad managers more than good managers.

It comes from being the kind of manager that I wish I’d had as a teacher when I was a child, or my parents had had [in their settlement journey].

Other than the fact your team are all great at what they do professionally, what other benefits do you think there are to having this kind of diversity?

You get diverse perspectives, and that enhances problem-solving as well. You get new solutions to challenges when your meetings are round table. It’s fascinating to hear what different people’s solutions might be to a particular problem, and then finding the best one for the individual clients that we serve.

Lived experience is also really important – many of our staff have the refugee lived experience, and that’s also the people we work with. So it allows us to connect deeper with their clients and their needs.

So many times, my staff with refugee experience will say “When I was on the journey, I wished that this particular thing would happen” or “When I was a refugee, I really needed this thing”. The fact that they’re now in the position of power to make that change for our clients, it’s really rewarding.

And our diversity as a group ensures that we understand that multicultural communities have unique needs and means we can address them.

Worldwide, a lot of people are coming to work each day right now, feeling impacted by global conflicts and political instability, and worrying about our loved ones, and the safety of our clients and colleagues.

Yes, many of these events impact our staff personally – they’ve still got people overseas that are caught up in them. It does effect their emotional wellbeing. So it’s very important that we create an environment where staff feel supported and understood. It helps maintain their engagement and morale during these times. And again, I’ve learned more from what managers got wrong as to what I want to do right.

For professionals, there’s also this kind of expectation for them to be resilient. I really want to emphasise that word – resilient. Resilience is often seen as a form of strength. But it’s important to remember that it doesn’t mean we have to ignore our hard times. It’s okay for someone to feel sad or not be okay. It’s normal to need time to heal.

Being sensitive or emotional during these times is not a weakness – it’s a part of resilience. Resilience also means being a realist and understanding that you’re a human, and you do get impacted. It’s okay for staff to struggle and need help and to take a break. A break doesn’t make them less strong, it’s a part of healing – going through the grief to become strong again.

How can managers support their staff during these times?

For managers and leaders, open and empathetic communication, regular check ins and providing safe spaces for employees to share concerns is crucial for emotional wellbeing. Flexibility. Flexibility is always perceived as beneficial for the employee, yes, but I really want to push employers and managers to see it as beneficial for them too.

If, for example, a single mother can be at home [when she needs to] so that she can pick up her children from school and know that they are safe, instead of coming into the office worrying, she’s actually benefiting the manager by being at home where she can be most productive.

It’s all about being person-centred – how can I get the best out of this person? That’s going to benefit us, as managers.

It’s something they definitely need to be aware of, and providing access to mental health supports, actively reminding about EAP, team building and engaging in activities that foster unity and connection.

And what are the practical ways that anyone can be more culturally safe or responsive, especially at work?

Active listening, fully engaging with others when they speak. Inclusive language. Showing genuine interest and 100% respect to that person’s perspectives. And you know, acknowledging that we are all adults – and professionals. Rather than thinking you have authority over someone and what they’re saying or feeling or thinking.

Self-education is really important. You need to take the time to learn about these different people, different cultures, to increase cultural competence. Staying away from what you might have been taught growing up, or what media teaches, or what your society’s biases are.

For me, if we think about it like an intersectionality map, I know there were areas that I had high knowledge, and others where I had less – so I made it an important priority for myself to learn about that culture and community and show up like an advocate for them, not just picking and choosing based on my personal interest.

Creating a culturally safe space is really important.

Finally, lets talk about working in the migration sector. You get first-hand insight into the ways that things like discrimination, conflict, and violence impact your clients and staff.

And migration is an area that, in Australia, gets a lot of criticism and misinformation. So, what keeps you going? What gives you joy and purpose in this work?

What keeps me going is the direct impact we have on individual lives. Helping someone achieve safety and a new beginning is one of the most rewarding aspects. The most rewarding thing in the world for them is a visa grant, yes? Because it’s a promise of hope.

We work with people when they’re in the phase of hope, and their hope is that we do the job with competence – and we always do – and we bring them here and they start a new life in a safe place. We have more power than our clients, and we can use that for good purpose.

My role allows me to fight for people’s rights. To be advocating for justice, and it’s usually people facing the most discrimination and exclusion, that we’re fighting to support.

So every success reminds me that our work has strength. We meet them when they are at their lowest, in unsafe environments, even in [refugee] camps. So we are their hope. And to be able to turn that hope into a promise, that is so rewarding.

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As we wrap up our conversation, I’m feeling buoyed and restored by Renee’s commitment to empathetic leadership. It’s the type of approach that, I imagine, can make a worried humanitarian migrant see a speck of light at the end of a dark tunnel, or can support a staff member to see their idea turn into a reality.

I’m reminded that while we often think of empathy as something that comes naturally to people, it’s also something that it is important for each of us to cultivate. It takes effort and time and critical thinking and energy. It takes self-education and using our power.

But as Renee shows, it can change lives, build teams, and create hope for others even during the most difficult times.