Aged care needs energised leaders honouring best-fit career growth – Clare Grieveson of Southern Cross highlights the powerful impact of listening to our strengths

Clare Grieveson is the CEO of Southern Cross Care WA and has been so since 2021. She also wears many other hats and is on numerous boards to boot. Suffice to say she is a busy professional working at a high standard to deliver results for those that need them most. But what is striking when hearing Grieveson’s story is that she is exactly where she should be. An alignment of personal conviction and professional intelligence sees her perform in corporate excellence without foregoing individual compassion and kindness. Digging deeper into how she arrived where she is showcases a story of stepping into growth opportunities not in the desire to ricochet up the ladder but a passion to stretch the muscles that had so far been fizzing at unexpected start lines. For professionals starting out, and those tried-and-true considering the vehicle of mentorship and career advice, Grieveson’s story shows the oxygen that is listening to ourselves at each pivot in career. To avoid the bleakness that is being in a role, particularly leadership, that is not a good fit must be a part of the narrative of aged care’s career progression. Grieveson champions landing professionally in best-fit. That does not necessarily mean the need to always go up.

Guided by strengths

Grieveson good-naturedly laughs when asked if she had any inkling as a 6-year-old, on the playground, if she’d be in her current role, “no, no inkling at all, in fact if I cast my mind back to 26-year-old Claire, I’d still have had no idea”.

“I knew I loved people. I cared about people and I had a lot of friends, and I liked to be social and I enjoyed reading and studying and speaking, so moving into the career that I’m in, and the career I’ve had, it isn’t a surprise when you look back at what I was good at as a child.”

But Grieveson recalls, “I wasn’t one of those kids that had a clear idea that they wanted to be a doctor but I did gravitate to my strengths.”

While she didn’t have the crystal clear beacon of wishing to be a CEO or doctor, it was in listening and honouring her strengths that Grieveson first made the choice to study speech pathology, “I loved English and the sciences and biology, and so finding a career that combined those loves, the love of language with healthcare and caring and biology, and the challenge of speech pathology, it just ticked all the boxes.”

“It was a natural fit”.

Spending time with an experienced speech therapist, as they were called in England, solidified Grieveson’s understanding and decision, that combining the passions she loved studying school, in speech pathology, would be a good path to start down. It would be one of the first instances where mentorship, close relationships and honouring what ‘made her tick’ would yield invaluable insight to make career decisions.

Doing things differently

Grieveson points to a particular atmospheric ingredient that she sees as helping her understand her fit. In the NHS in the 90s, there was an appetite to, “do things differently”. Stepping into this in the southeast of England, she “had one of those fabulous new grad jobs where you can actually see lots of different types of patients”.

For those starting out, the ability to be able to be exposed to a range of needs, situations and growth opportunities is invaluable. Grieveson sees the environment of being open to doing things differently, flexing your interests and skills, as a core opportunity for professionals and leaders figuring out career progression.

“I started my career as a speech pathologist going into age care and I also did work in hospitals and I also worked in schools with children with specific language impairment, so I had a really fantastic grounding across all the various types of people that would need to see you as a speech and language therapist.”

“I loved going into aged care, it was great fun, I really enjoyed it.”

Not only can understanding come from the variety but also in the unexpected results of professional meeting moments. Grieveson recalls, “one of the unexpected things I found is that as a young person I had a lot of compassion for older people, I loved talking to them and I loved listening to their stories.”

Listening and leadership

It was in listening to these stories that Grieveson first got her taste of personal connection leading to thoughts of systemic change. While she may not have known exactly where this would lead, it was to be an accepting of leadership so as to make someone’s life better. Organic leadership growth need not be lit by neon signs and a marching band but in sitting in a car after a hard conversation with a senior and wanting to do something about it.

“I remember seeing this gentleman, he couldn’t swallow very well so he was on a restricted diet, he said to me, ‘I just wanna have some sausages, Clare, I just want sausages’ and even as a young person, as a new graduate working in speech pathology, I started to think about advocating for older people’s rights to choose and for dignity of risk”.

“It is such an important thing now in age care but didn’t really exist back in the 90s, it wasn’t talked about and so I was starting to think about, how do I support these people who have been put on diet and actually that’s not the quality of life that they want? How do I support them to make decisions about their own care? So that was something that surprised me when I first started work.”

Next steps – following intuition

Grieveson shares that to this day, talking to this gentleman is vivid in her memory, “sitting on his sofa and having the conversation about his just wanting sausages but he wasn’t allowed”, these little moments are as important as the steps she took to seek finance and director training later on, as they are moments where passion clarifies into the decision to act.

Grieveson shares that her mind organically went from that conversation to, “how do I navigate the rules in healthcare? The paternalism in healthcare? To enable him to have the quality of life he wanted and that was the big question.”

However in terms of formally stepping into leadership, happy accidents can also happen. Grieveson found herself running a community clinic while a large restructure of the NHS was underway, roles were up in the air, and so it eventuated that she had other staff in the clinic she needed to lead.

“With those staff I got my first taste of management really early in my career and I thoroughly enjoyed it and that was unexpected.”

Grieveson’s response to the new responsibility is telling and critical for professionals in their career growth, it was in the ability to shape and guide that she found herself becoming energised, “I really enjoyed the mentoring and development side of it all, so while it was an accidental first step it was a welcome one.”

“True leadership”

Whether accidental or carefully thought over, Grieveson’s story highlights the relevancy of self-reflection in career growth. In the organic opportunities she found herself in, there were consistent confirmations she should keep pursuing opportunities to lead.

Clarity of place, and having her ‘cup filled’ was key, “the moment for me was realising I enjoyed the development of staff, I enjoyed organising, I enjoyed setting KPI’s for a team and us achieving it”, Grieveson recalls, sharing she came to understand some responded differently, “and realising that most of my colleagues didn’t enjoy it at all.”

Joy was front and centre, “I thoroughly enjoyed it, I enjoyed work, I enjoyed improving the service.”

“Improving services particularly for clients, reducing the waiting lists, making the environment better for staff and for clients, putting in new models of care, and that the way that I could do that and have the most influence doing that, [that] was true leadership.”

Enjoyment can and must be a clear and enduring ingredient in the course of leadership. Competency, drive, intelligence are integral to those who step into leadership but in speaking to Grieveson what resounds is that in coming alive in developing staff, seeing them achieve their best, seeing systems work with greater efficacy, meeting KPIs, the tone of leadership is not just achievement but having a whale of a time on the way to results.

Best fit

Part of Grieveson’s gift is that she unequivocally supports people pursuing best fit in work, not only an upward trajectory. Organic career growth is not necessary to climb the ranks but to pursue work that ticks the majority of our boxes.

“As a single clinician I could impact my clients but as a leader I could influence so much more.”

Grieveson’s “true leadership” has the ring of ‘true support’ front and centre, “it allowed me to release colleagues who didn’t enjoy the leadership demands, to provide amazing care, and for me to listen to them, support them, and implement improvements meant they could care”.

Grieveson is impassioned in explaining what this means, “so I got to take their feedback and think about how things could be done better and then I’ve got to be able to actually make that change because I was a leader. That was the moment in that first role in the NHS where I thought this is probably where I need to focus my energy.”

Pursuing growth

Lost in the language of leadership textbooks and dominant ideology is the concept to see best-fit career growth, devoid of stigma and shame. Pursuing growth in the professional sense need not only be upwards. Grieveson provides a clear and kind reminder that not only should professionals be pursuing growth in a way that sparks enjoyment, there is not a shred of shame in not skipping up the ladder.

At each level of opportunity to grow and step into leadership Grieveson found that she was thrilled to meet the leadership components she found there. In stepping into these new areas she was energised, not drained. Not only should professionals be listening to how they feel, leaders must be looking out to support best-fit career approaches for their staff.

In wondering where to pursue growth, in considering management, Grieveson attests that in response to taking on more responsibility, we should want to thrive, that an organic component of strengths meets the moment and helps land the career move, “that’s right”, she says, “it’s got to be what you love.”

“I don’t like this idea that to move forward, you need to move up in the corporate ladder or leadership.”

“The important thing is to find what you love and to focus your energy on that”, Grieveson advises, “the thing I loved was leading and improving and making the experience for clients, patients and staff better.”

“I really loved being a grower of services and improver of services for that end.”

Without straying into platitudes, a difference of strengths, interests and convictions is evident in the adage, ‘we are all unique’, Grieveson came to know this, [Respected colleagues] they didn’t enjoy the leadership component and I really enjoyed it.”

Changing the narrative

In the corporate area of aged care there is an undertone of moving up, a pressure to consistently climb. Not only have psychologists and studies found this to result in declining mental and physical health for some but where best-fit leadership roles have a mis-match, the most vulnerable at the heart of aged care, seniors, have the potential to be negatively impacted.

It is vital that a change in attitude occurs at all levels of aged care, from leadership to the newest front-line staff. Pursuing career growth of best-fit, in honouring strengths and the tasks and roles that allow a person to ‘come alive’, and energised, has the potential to have countless benefits to professionals and seniors across the country and world.

Grieveson found herself energised and impassioned afresh with each leadership opportunity she was able to step into, and also at the same time respect, “but a lot of people don’t love that, and I don’t want them to feel the pressure of ‘this is the thing I need to do’”.

Systemic change for best results

In the pursuit of growth, of leadership, Grieveson opens up a critical narrative. In honouring a way of thinking about professional trajectory, that suits each person and their strengths, to centralise pursuing best-fit career growth as a respected corporate and personal strategy, is to inch away from stigma towards satisfaction.

“It’s about finding what makes you want to get up in the morning, what you really enjoy, what you think about when you’re driving home, what’s your passion and focusing your energy on that.”

While pursuing your passion is the mantra of many a self-help book, the critical change that aged care leadership can meet is to systemically honour and respect pursuing career growth in dynamic ways. This has the potential to impact thousands of lives, for residents, for front-line staff, for the next generation of executives managing a complicated and critical industry.

When driving home, when waking up in the morning, what brought enjoyment and energy, Grieveson knew, “leadership was that thing for me.”

In the conversations with mentors and ourselves, in contemplating processes and movements within an aged care organisation, a key focus can and must be whether current and future roles, in leadership or otherwise, result in strengths used and energy unfurled.

Of course, if that is not the case for a professional, it should be to the thrill of the leader at hand to take that feedback and run with it, to, “think about how things could be done better” and “be able to actually make that change”.