Inside The Hive, we talk a lot about leadership in the real world. Not the polished version.

Recently, Lisa had a moment that quietly reframed how we think about the impact of our work. It wasn’t in a boardroom. It wasn’t in a strategy session.

It was in a school hall in Queensland.

---

Recently, I was up north delivering a workshop for a staff Professional Learning Day at Norris Road Primary School. It was my second time working with the school, and as I was setting up, a woman approached me with a smile and said;

“Oh, how awesome. You’re the wellbeing lady. You were here with us last year, weren’t you? Are you here to do more on wellbeing again today?”

I was genuinely surprised. Not because wellbeing isn’t important to us, but because it is not how we describe or market our work. Thinking that perhaps she was remembering someone else, I paused and checked with her to make sure she was remembering accurately.

What followed genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

She clearly remembered the Difficult Conversations toolkit. She spoke about ‘assuming positive intent’, ‘seeking first to understand before being understood’, and the value of Donna Hicks’ Dignity Framework. She described how these ideas had stayed with her long after the session and had shaped the way she approached conversations at work and at home.

By putting those ideas into practice, she had experienced a greater sense of wellbeing. Work felt easier to navigate. Relationships felt more respectful. Difficult moments felt less overwhelming. Those outcomes were what she associated with Be Challenged.

That moment has stayed with me.

It revealed something quietly powerful about the work we do. While we do not position ourselves as wellbeing facilitators, the outcome of our work often shows up that way. When people feel more capable in difficult conversations, more confident in their interactions, and more respectful of themselves and others, greater wellbeing becomes a natural consequence.

At our recent company conference, we spent time revisiting our vision, our mission, and our values. We talked about purpose as something lived, not just stated. We reflected on how the work we do changes the quality of relationships people experience at work and beyond it.

This single interaction with an educator in Queensland felt like a clear reflection of that impact.

At its heart, our work is about the quality of interactions people have when things are hard. It is about giving people language and structure so they can move from reaction to intention, without losing themselves or diminishing others in the process.

There is something humbling about being recognised for the outcomes of our work rather than the labels we use to describe it. Our real impact lives in what people carry forward months or years later, when no facilitator is in the room and when a difficult moment presents itself.

If someone remembers us as ‘the wellbeing people’ because they handle conversations differently, experience greater dignity at work, or feel more whole in their relationships, then that is the kind of work worth doing.

Lisa Kelliher

CEO Be Challenged

---

A Provocation for Hive Leaders

If our work is sometimes remembered as “wellbeing” (even when we didn’t label it that way) what are the unexpected by-products of the work you do?

You might be delivering strategy, operational efficiency, performance targets or transformation programs. You might be leading classrooms, clinical teams, construction sites, community services, start-ups or national organisations.

But what else is being created alongside that?

• Does your leadership reduce anxiety — or amplify it?
• Do your systems create clarity — or quiet confusion?
• Do your meetings leave people energised — or depleted?
• When pressure arises, does dignity rise with it?

Because whether intentional or not, your work produces a by-product.

For some leaders, that by-product is trust. For others, it’s burnout.

For some workplace cultures, it’s quiet confidence. For others, it’s guarded compliance.

Human impact rarely arrives as a headline initiative. More often, it shows up as the side effect of how we communicate, how we respond under pressure, and how we treat people when it would be easier not to.

So perhaps the real question is this:

What are the by-products of your leadership and the work you do, for the people around you?