Navigating career changes, mastering mindset, and leading authentically with business psychologist Eleni Dracakis

Hello, hello. Welcome to the place for offbeat health professionals who bravely swap their healthcare hats for non clinical creative caps. I’m Caitlin, a psychologist turned copywriter, and this is Healers with Hustle.

Caitlin: I have a special treat for you today. I’ve got another psychologist. Eleni Joining me today. Who’s a Brisbane based business psychologist who helps high-performing leaders go from good to great. She’s been mastering mindsets and driving peak performance for corporate and business leaders since 2018. Very impressive. Well, Eleni, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really excited for our chat.

Eleni: Me too. Thanks, Caitlin. It was lovely to meet you.

Caitlin: Yes. Lovely to meet you too. I found you online and then reached out and supported a stranger contacting me and asking to be on the podcast. But I super appreciate that you’re here with me today.

Eleni: Yeah, the power of the internet. But, you know, I think it’s great, when you do have a digital footprint, it doesn’t feel like a stranger. If someone reaches out and, you know, makes contact with you, you feel like you can almost check them out a little bit. And yeah, I definitely felt like, you know, you’d be a very worthwhile connection.

And here we are.

Oh, that’s such a good point you say, actually, and that just reinforces the need to put effort into social media, particularly like Instagram and things like that. Sometimes I think, oh, it’s such a waste of time, but you’re right. It’s that when people do, they’re like due diligence.Definitely. Apparently I was just had a consult with my marketing strategist this morning and she was saying that at the moment, apparently it takes about 20 touch points to convert a cold customer into a, a paying lead at the moment. Such other, yeah. So I think it’s very important to have that digital footprint.

Caitlin: wow. That’s insane. That’s so much, isn’t it? So it just goes to show it takes, takes time. Gotta be patient, which is one of the things I’m learning in business. But I’m so excited to be talking to you about an organizational psychologist. Because like I was saying in my email, you’re a rare, you’re a rare breed and I haven’t really, I don’t think I’ve ever, like none of my friends or colleagues have done the org psych route.

So I’m really keen to hearlike all about your, particularly all about your journey, but also why you chose organizational psych.

Eleni: Well, I think I probably fell into it because like most psychology undergraduate students, I guess, all we ever hear about is clinical psychology. And I guess we don’t really realize at that stage. I think there is a 7 or 9 different specializations that we can take in psychology. But. sheer to the due quantity of clinical psychs, I think we just all go into it thinking that that is the only type of psychologist that is in fact out there.

Caitlin: Exactly.

Eleni: So like most budding psychology students, so I I did all of my study at the University of Queensland and I did that straight out of high school. I got into honours of psychological science and, you know, loved the first. Three years, it was pretty cruisy, just enjoyed student life and all the subjects that we take in psychology are so inherently interesting anyway, regardless of whether or not you apply it professionally.

So, I found the first three years very interesting. And then, obviously, the honors year, it’s quite a tough year and a year of high commitment because we do have to undertake the thesis and the research project. So, yeah, you know, it was a tough year, but I had a great cohort of friends that went through it together and I came out with the 2A class, Class A, 2A honours and I did qualify.

I think I had two different university institutions that I was invited to interview with for clinical psychology, and from one of those institutions in Brisbane, like I did receive an acceptance, but interestingly enough, I I did at that point decide I wanted to take a year off anyway, before I started the postgraduate component, because back then, I don’t know if it changed when you went through, but back then, you know, we got honours degree in psychology and we hadn’t actually spent one hour in front of

Caitlin: Exactly. It’s so true.

Eleni: So I thought, oh, you know, it’s all well and good that I’ve done 4 years of study now and I have this qualification, but I think I better go and get some real life experience first to make sure that this is, in fact, my calling. So I did that. I actually got a role as a social worker. Social welfare officer in a local community in a city organization in Brisbane, and I worked there for about a year and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and the diversity of clients that we saw.

So we were a bilingual community center. So my background. So, it was actually really good. So I got to, you know, utilize my 2nd language and yeah, you know, I suppose, maximize being a multicultural and,

Caitlin: That’s amazing.

Eleni: yeah, so we saw like Greek clients from all kind of different stages in the lifespan and help connect them to more mainstream services that were out there.

We also service our local local community that, for a city had quite a high kind of Indigenous population. So we provided emergency relief to the local community as, as well as seeing that really, you know, broad range of clients for, for different reasons and different issues. So I suppose as a new grad, it was a pretty good role in terms of

Caitlin: Yeah.

Eleni: spinning and breadth of kind of different issues and conditions and life transitions that people go through to help me understand maybe which kind of route of psychology to

Caitlin: Yes. It’s so smart to do that because like you said, it’s when we finished honours, it’s such a hectic year and it’s like, oh, well, I guess I’ll apply for, yeah, masters and clinical seems to be the one that everyone does. So I love that you did that, took a year off and really it seems such a smart thing to do.

Eleni: Thank you, because I think, it can get quite competitive and we can be quite perfectionistic as a, as a bunch, because, you know, I just think everything in the program is really driven to get that high honors score so that you can get entry into the clinical path. And when we look at it through the lens of diversity.

Actually, and maybe things have changed now, I would hope that, you know, the undergraduate program should providea lot of exposure and a bit of an introduction to all the different specialty areas of psychology that we can kind of practice and make a difference in. So that’s actually what happened to me.

So when I was working in that role as a social welfare officer and community development officer, I actually found that I had a real, Interest in the inner workings of the organization and the management. And the people structure. So while I love to list up with the clients, I just found myself in my manager’s office all the time debriefing, asking questions, being asked to kind of run staff seminars on different topics.

Because even though I was the youngest person in the office, I was probably one of the more formally educated. Um, and. The team and so I was able to kind of bring a lot of that psychology to the staff and the culture of that organization and it’s actually really interesting fast forward 10 or 15 years and I actually returned to that organization as a member of their board.

Caitlin: Oh, well. Thanks everyone.

Eleni: as my manager said, you actually became your manager’s manager, which was, yeah, it was an absolute full circle moment, but I always kind of was a very career defining moment for me working there in that that’s actually what really I guess was a main motivation in me, ultimately declining the offer for the Masters of Cynical Psych.

And then I applied for mid year intake into the Organizational Psychology Master’s program at the University of Queensland, which. I did undertake for two years and I absolutely loved.

Caitlin: Yeah. It’s that’s the thing because a lot of the unis only they have like the clinical pathway. What was that like when you turned down that clinical acceptance? Was that an okay thing for you or did you kind of have a bit of doubt or

Eleni: I think I felt very relieved to be honest.

Caitlin: for Yeah,

Eleni: But I think I had to prove to myself that I was academically capable enough to be accepted.

Caitlin: yeah. Yeah.

Eleni: Yeah. So, and I think, you know, back then we didn’t have the awareness around diversity and following your kind of career path according to your strengths and interests.

And you know, your personality. So I think I’m quite an empathetic person in my nature. And what I did learn working at the Greek community was that we use quite a narrative style of therapy with a lot of our clients. So, they really wanted us to listen to their life story and you kind of had to go through that, go through the motion and give the clients in front of you that time in order to get that buy in and get that trust to be able to work effectively with them and transition them effectively and connect them with the right services.

So, I really found that in clinical psychology, it felt a lot more one sided. So it felt a lot more like here I am as the therapist behind the clipboard and, you know, asking a whole heap of one way style of questions. to a patient, which kind of felt very unnatural to me to kind of ask someone else to expose themselves and be so vulnerable while I stay safe over here.

So I suppose in organizational psychology and in coaching, there’s a little bit, well, there’s a lot more flexibility around, being able to build that rapport and engaging in more of that two way dialogue. And I guess coaching, but also playing that role of the advisor as well. So, yeah. It’s a bit of a cross between coach and consulting and technical expert.

So I, I really personally enjoy that. And taking your really solution focused approach, I suppose I still use a lot of the brief interventions and solution focused therapy, the motivational interviewings. So yeah, more of a, the short form therapy that we tend to use in our coaching because it needs to be a lot more kind of outcome based and you know, has to be able to demonstrate commercial outcomes.

Caitlin: That’s such a good point about the commercial. Yes. But then you also bring that lens of like, you said, like the empathetic, like the humanistic kind of lens to it, which I think. Well, I don’t know a lot about it, but I assume that’s what an organizational psychologist would have an amazing point of difference and say, yes, some, another type of executive coach or something like that.

Eleni: Yeah, I think we’ve got the scientific depth in undertaking a psychological science degree as opposed to you know, HR, which is more of a business level type of qualification that you get. So, with the, I guess you’re a scientist practitioner, you’re still using an evidence based, you’re asking for.

Questions, creating hypotheses, coming up with a range of different solutions and having to evaluate and analyze that, you know, you know, in a highly kind of scientific and robust way. So, yeah, it’s being able to bring kind of science to the real world for people at work.

Caitlin: Yeah. It’s so cool. And what is your day to day look like? Because you have your own business now and so you do your own consulting.

Eleni: Yeah, that’s right. So in my day to day world and in the, in the world of, I suppose, being a sole trader, the best thing about having stepped out on my own since 2018 now is the ability, I guess, to work both business to business and business to client. So. The individuals who come to me privately, be it for leadership development or career transition, or just life transition a lot of the time.

And then also I can still engage with corporations at a business, as a business to business in that, you know, do team workshops and other kind of organizational development style of interventions, leadership development programs. doing engagement, organizational culture pieces.

So, a great thing about organizational psychology is thatno two days are the same and you just, you have that ability to work with people one on one, individually work with people at the team level and also work a lot more kind of at that enterprise or systems or organizational or even industry level, you know, the sky’s the limit.

Caitlin: it’s really exciting who you could work for and like the things that you would do. It’s just, when you were talking, it made me like think, Oh my gosh, wow. It sounds so, so fun and diverse, like you said before.

Eleni: Well, it’s amazing. It’s really diverse. And that is something that our lecturers did used to say to us always in the month program. You know, it’s a great qualification to have because there’s really so many different branches and offshoots as I think sometimes as opposed to clinical psychology that it can be a little bit more set sometimes in terms of the settings that you can kind of work in.

Yeah.

Caitlin: absolutely. And also working with patients, like with like the clinical, we work with people who are like, you know, like disorder, dysfunction, it’s all like very negative and in the negative. And we, oftentimes it’s about getting people to like say zero or neutral, but really what you’re doing is helping people like go into the positive and like expand what they’re, yeah. I guess, but

Eleni: You’re exactly right. And that’s another thing as a practitioner, when you’re looking at avoiding burnout is certainly is, you know, very motivational and highly compelling when you can say that positive change that positive difference, because I hear you when you’re working with an atypical population, or someone that’s struggling, it really is about just bringing them up to like everyday functionality.

And. That’s a huge effort to, to get people and to sustain that and keep that there. But I don’t know what you mean. You can’t always kind of see that, yeah, so it’s a lot of behind the scenes work and effort

Caitlin: let’s see. And when, what you were talking about before about like life changes and like people are changing their work and things like that, it just, I, I thought immediately, of course, like to when I first. I was doing my copywriting and like juggling the two and like psychologist, copywriter, how can I have these two things at the same time?

And it was just the biggest internal conflict. It seems almost amazing. Cause I’m so over that now that it, it just seems natural, but at the time it was huge and I was curious because you would say that quite a lot, what are the biggest challenges and road blocks you see people have when they’re diversified?

Yeah. Diversifying or changing their. Work we’ve been thinking about it.

Eleni: so look, I think my personal philosophy on this is, Once a psychologist, always a psychologist, so I guess probably a little bit like a police officer, but even when you’re not wearing your uniform, you’re still always a cop, right? And if you found yourself out in public somewhere, I guess, you know, or a doctor same thing, you might not be wearing your stethoscope or your scrubs, but, if you were out just every day in public and emergency arose, you would You kind of obligated aren’t you to kind of in terms of the oath that you take to kind of step in and help.

So I think that’s the same for us in terms of our, you know, our registration and our ethical requirements and responsibilities. I think whatever we touch and however we operate kind of personally and professionally, I almost think about that, it does have more more weighting, like what I say, even in a personal context, people know I’m a psychologist.

So when I give my opinion or where I, when I give my advice, I guess people always thinking, oh, well, she must know because she’s a psychologist. And I think sometimes you can forget that the power of the word. So, I think the same thing applies professionally, but I think it can be really advantageous to have that.

Understanding of the mind and that psychological expertise. And I think it can only be beneficial to any endeavor outside of psychology because that ability to understand people can only help you to service your customer in a more positive and effective manner. Yeah.

Caitlin: Absolutely Yeah. And it’s always something that I find really easy to go to when people like us, like, what are you doing? And it’s just like, psychologist comes out and people like, know what that is. And it’s like, Oh yeah, that’s easy. But then when I, I don’t usually say the other thing, which is yeah, copywriter, which is curious there, but what about, so you work with people who, do you do career, like career counseling?

Yeah.

Eleni: Yes, as part of my role. Absolutely.

Caitlin: Cool. What is that? Like, how do you use like personality tests and things like that?

Eleni: So the personality tests, I usually use more profiling when I’m doing leadership assessment and leadership development work. So, from my background working in kind of corporate consulting I was in worked at a recruitment and a talent firm where we undertook a lot of online kind of personality, aptitude testing, bringing people into the office and doing full day simulations.

So people would have to do strategic presentations, role plays yeah, really quite full on. So, assessment of their capability and their potential to be a leader. certainly when people, you know, if they do want some information about how to improve their emotional intelligence, or, you know, I have a profiling as a leader in terms of the good, bad and the ugly.

Absolutely. It comes in very handy being a psychologist and having accreditation in various kind of psychometric profiling tools, but usually to begin with, I guess I would. be doing more of a diagnostic. Probably, probably in clinical terms, the easiest way to describe it is using acceptance commitment therapy.

So the life wheel doing, you know, some kind of adaptation of the life wheel. Cause to me, I think the biggest thing is understanding where work sits in the broader life picture and looking at, all the other areas to start. To think actually what’s going to be possible and what’s going to be the most enjoyable strengths lie in terms of helping you to navigate that.

And yeah, do you know what I mean? Be the most aligned kind of as possible. So as opposed to, how to write your resume or how to write your, you know, that there’s probably, there’s probably other career coaches or recruitment people that can help with that kind of nuts and bolts of it once you’re on your, so I suppose for me, it’s more about that career and that life alignment,

Caitlin: Yes. The happiness, the values. That’s, oh, that’s excellent that you use. That and people must love that because I know every time I remember learning like act and doing that and people just absolutely loved all of that values work. And I think it, it would be such a nice thing to do.

Eleni: Oh yeah when you were talking about like career counseling,

Caitlin: Did you ever see a career counselor when you were at school?

Eleni: We did have one at high school. I’m struggling even to bring their face to mind. And I hope now that, you know, there’s more expertise in that area and more effect in that area. Look at that. It’s not that they weren’t, they weren’t good, but I just think there’s so much out there. And I think the more exposure we can give to young people at that stage of high school, we can set them up on the right path from earlier, as opposed to many people, ending up going partway through university degrees and, you know, building up a big HECS debt and then realizing that maybe that’s not for them.

Caitlin: True. That’s exactly what it’s like, and even similar to what you’re talking about before that, and maybe it was before we hit record about how even with psychology, you don’t even know what basically what a psychologist, like a therapist does or a psychologist does until you get into the program.

And that’s it. And it’s so hard to do that. And so I love what you said there about, I hope now that in schools, it is a bit more like holistic rather than just being like doctor, lawyer, like whatever the few things. There’s a.

Eleni: you’ve got to be able to earn money and make a living, but I really do believe that you’ve got to love what you do for work too.

Caitlin: Oh, I’m so glad you said that because I was really curious to hear what your take on that is, because. I feel like we’ve come a long way from say that all like your work is just work and you know, you have fun outside of it. And so I think I wondered what your experience of that is in your work with leaders in particular.

Eleni: Yes I think any

good organizational psychologist will tell you that that work life happiness alignment purpose. It’s essential for high performance. Yeah. So, basically, if you want to be. A sustainable, if you want your career to be sustainable and your happiness to be sustainable and your career to be sustainable, essentially, you have to be doing something that you’re good at and something that you motivationally enjoy, because just because we can do something If we don’t want to do it, like it’s that motivational piece that is actually predictive of stickability and tenure and long term success and viability.

So I would actually say that that motivation and that passion piece is actually essential to success. And you can’t have it you know, without kind of being able to find some kind of personal alignment or some kind of carrier, like, Do you know what I mean?

You might say you’re stuck in a career. So I had a girlfriend of mine who ended up doing medicine and going down the route of a particular specialty area because she felt that would be the best specialty area to go down the path of for kind of having some kind of work life balance in order to have kids and balance motherhood and family.

And partway through that program, she found that inherently she wasn’t really enjoying that. So she had to do a lot of work actually to, to, to be able to reframe that and she decided in the end that she wanted to stick that program out in that specialty area out because she’d already spent so many years going down that path and she was able to find a subspecialty Area that she was very, very passionate about where she could have that more patient contact and you know, feel that she was doing a more fulfilling job at work.

So, I think that’s really important being able to recalibrate that according to what’s important to you, because we just spend so much time and put so much energy into our work. And that’s what will lead to that, that draining and that, that burnout ultimately, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing.

Caitlin: I agree with, yeah, so much of what you said in there about, particularly on so many levels, like with the, you know, the medical piece. Cause this is like friends who are doing that. And it’s just such a long process. And then when you’ve, once you’ve done so many years of study to go, actually, do I even, do I like this? And that’s a huge thing to even recognize, but yeah, I’m so glad that your friend found a subspecialty that they enjoy for sure.

Eleni: you know, that’s when people might in a moment of crisis kind of come to a career counselor, but then there’s also a lot of people that you know, work with someone like me in a really proactive sense to kind of chart out their career and really take control of their, their career progression and manage their career, career management.

So, in the corporate world, that’s becoming a lot more popular now,

Caitlin: is it right?

Eleni: And if you’re working in a big organization, you know, the levels are very structured and the pathway is very clear. So, like, in law firms, for example, or in engineering firms, accounting firms, you might, you tend to have two typical pathways that you can take.

One is becoming more of a technical expert that doesn’t have the people leadership component. Component and one that one is more leadership driven. So it’s really like, you know, do you have that love and passion for leading and coaching and engaging people and a team? And do you want to be a leader? Or do you really just love your craft and want to work on being it?

Absolute expert and guru in that area, but someone that more continues to work as an individual contributor. So they’re usually pathways that we kind of prep and train and coach and grow people into. And, you know, we make decisions on that early on to help kind of guide people to success and kind of happiness and yeah, that kind of thing.

Caitlin: Because that’s so true because probably not everyone would want to be a leader and not everybody would necessarily have the temperamental things like that. So for instance, when I started my business, like, yeah, I’m going to go into business, but I’m like, not the best. I’d be a terrible CEO. I’m like, Oh, no, I’ll just sit on the couch and work today kind of thing.

I don’t want to do all the boring things. It’s Oh, it’s been such a struggle. Cause I, I guess not having any idea about what businesses are or how they operate and things like that. It’s yeah, it’s a big, big, big learning curve. And I’m sure you would see that all the time with.

Eleni: It’s in a lot of different professions, a lot of allied health professions where we, you know, are taught to be allied health professional in our specialty areas. However, we’re probably not taught too many business skills about how to set up a business. So, yeah, again, I hope that, I hope that’s slowly changing and evolving in the

Caitlin: absolutely. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure it is. Yeah, absolutely. I like the piece that you said in there about like burnout, and if there’s something about it that you don’t like, or it’s not, you don’t enjoy it, or there’s that like little bit of motivational piece in there that’s eventually going to lead, to burnout, because I think that’s A lot of the time what happens with both people in allied health professions, they’re doing their job and they might enjoy their job, but there’s like something missing or there’s something about it that isn’t aligned with how they want their work and their life to be. And, and eventually it’ll be, yeah, lead to burnout.

I’m curious, how do you diagnose that little something that’s not right with people?

Eleni: Well, and I was going to say the worst thing that can happen is when people do get to that stage is that they pull the plug and they leave their profession completely. So, in teaching, that’s become really you know, common. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers justfinding that, it is a really full on job and leaving the profession and ending up with shortages of teachers.

So, yeah, it’s always really good, obviously if we can provide a lot of that education and a lot of that support and that a lot of the mentorship and gaining the skills that you need out there in the real world. You know, we can provide that to graduates early on and medical graduates as well to prevent people from getting to that point of burnout.

But I guess ultimately it all comes back to self awareness and knowing yourself and knowing when you’re about to hit your boiling point, which again is something that we often do you. Learn or experience early in our career. At some point, we do have a burnout moment. And look, I mean, sometimes in a way, the earlier it happens, the better, because usually the stakes aren’t as high you know, when someone burns out or someone.

hits, hits her boiling point or does something really out of character just because their glass or their battery is really empty. It can really have a knock on effect. And the higher you are up in an organizational change of structure, if you’re a leader, that can have a really big kind of effect on things like a ripple effect.

So, that’s always fun. Something in any of our leadership programs, or just any of our kind of employee support programs, we’re always trying to teach people about stress tolerance, resilience building. So I think, yeah, always trying to tackle things in that proactive way. But in terms of how to identify that burnout, I think it’s just people no longer finding enjoyment in a career or a profession that they once.

really enjoyed and had so much passion for. So I think it’s when that passion really goes away and people are saying, oh, you know, I think I’d rather just work as a barista for a while where there’s much less pressure. So I think people just go on and on and on and keep saying yes, yes, yes, or keep saying yes to the extra shifts because they’re you know, short staffed in the hospital until it all gets too much.

And then that’s when we know some of those. Human errors, they can, they can really be catastrophic. So I think really it’s on everyone as a professional to, to have that good self awareness and, you know, know your limits. And

Caitlin: that

Eleni: should be part of everyone’s training, shouldn’t it?

Caitlin: be, it should, exactly. No limits, self awareness, oh, such a big fan of, self awareness and also, yeah, the passion, enjoying, enjoyment. Actually, I was curious, when you were talking, what is your, your dream, not dream job, but the job that you, you like fantasize about when you like work is getting a little bit too hard?

Eleni: I would love, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a show on Stan called Billions. It’s a stockbroking firm.

Caitlin: heard of it. Yeah.

Eleni: There’s a therapist called Wendy, and she works as an in house therapist within the stockbroking firm. And her role, she’s got her own office and she’s employed as an in house psychologist and the brokers can just go and see her anytime for any Mental blocks they’re having and I can’t wait till we get to the stage in Australia that every big organization has a wellness officer or a psychologist or someone that is there.

I guess it’s an extension of the HR department, but someone is there for employees and leaders to make, to make that booking and just be able to go and, you know, talk to someone and get some kind of real time feedback on how to tackle a problem or something that’s worrying them, whether that be intrapersonal, in the individual, you know, personal or work related.

Caitlin: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. How cool would that be? I’ve never seen this show, but I’ve seen it advertised. It looks like it’d be a nice office.

Eleni: So that’s, so that’s my ideal job, because I guess at the moment most organizations have something that’s called a EAP, Employee Assistance Program. And, you know, but I guess that I guess that really takes a lot of confidence from an individual to reach out. And if you’ve got a great manager who reminds you that that support is available to you, because sometimes when we’re in a bit of a crisis, you know, we’re not always thinking clearly.

But, you know, that’s great as well that we’ve got that, but it doesn’t have that context of the organizations. That’s what I really like about. Something like billions and having a psychologist role that sits inside the organization that understands different personalities. So my first job in the recruitment agency, part of my role was actually doing the psychometric assessment for every new recruit that came into the business.

And because I knew all the different teams, I knew all the different leaders that sat on the floor. Not only was I able to interpret the profile technically, but I was also able to. Give advice on how I thought this new individual would gel with various members of the teams and various leaders. So that would be my dream job.

Caitlin: that’s so cool. Then that would just be so invaluable rather than outsourcing it to like a different third party where they, yeah, they don’t have that other, not subjective, but it’s like that personal like knowledge that you can’t test for necessarily, it’s more about, like the dynamics of the team.

And that’s so cool.

Eleni: definitely. And I guess in this world of AI now, we really have to think about where we can place ourselves to be most valuable human beings.

Caitlin: That’s so true. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s so true. What have you, like, what is your experience of AI been in your day to day work? Has it impacted you?

Eleni: It’s like, I don’t use it too much because I’m a sole trader. But you know, I think, oh, I think organizationally and it’s, it’s just technology is just, Amazing. Now, what is possible? And so I certainly think us as a professional psychologist, I never forget going to a personality conference. It was before COVID and the CEO of a big kind of leadership assessment house said to us, As a profession, psychologists, we really need to get on the front foot of AI and be there around, from an ethical standpoint around the implementation of various technology and AI to make sure that the way that the technology is being implemented is ethically aligned and.

Or the greater good. So that’s something that’s always stuck with me. So the importance of implementing any technology in the right way. So we do a lot of change management processes as organizational psychologists. So, you know, I think there’s always that kind of that ethical layer to things that we can bring a lot of value to a psychologist.

Caitlin: Hugely. And people might not necessarily even think about that as well, like other, because of course it’s so like drummed into us, it’s such like a foundational thing of it’s synonymous with being a psychologist, but I think a lot of organizations and, and it’s The negative thing on their behalf. It’s just not part of the general ethos of

Eleni: Yeah, I think. I think we have a role to play in terms of the impact of technology on people.

Caitlin: Yeah, definitely. Such an interesting, Oh, wow. Your, your work must be so I was thinking about like what your day to day must be like, it must be so varied. It’s so cool. But switch gears a little bit. This is something that I’m really curious about. I think we’ve kind of touched on it a little bit, but what’s your take on like professionalism and personality?

Part of the reason why I contacted you, I found your website and you’ve got your personality all over it. And I loved it so much. I thought like, yes, this is so exciting seeing a health professional. Yeah, like showing that personality, but what is your experience like in your work and maybe with leaders and your take on that whole debate?

Eleni: So I think with leadership, so I don’t know if you’ve heard of something called authentic leadership. So authentic leadership is really quite popular today in terms of developing our people’s leadership style. So it’s based on the, it’s based on a diversity premise basically where it’s not one size fits all.

It’s not cookie cutter. There’s not. One way to be a leader. And if you try to emulate someone else’s style that might actually come across as quite inauthentic feel quite unnatural and actually not be very effective because as human beings, we really do have that inbuilt BS detector, and we can kind of see if something’s not gelling or it doesn’t seem genuine or, or real.

So we always try to That’s where profiling comes in and is really handy because you can really look at someone’s natural personality and look at where are the areas of one’s personality that’s really naturally aligned to good leadership, what the science tells us makes a good leader, and where are some areas where we can probably give people some tips and strategies to strengthen themselves up, to be more kind of well rounded leaders and be effective in a range of different situations.

So, I think personality is essential to professionalism. And I suppose when I was building my brand back in 2018 and stepping into my own business, I really did want to kind of remove that shield of psychologist, that faceless kind of psychologist shield again, and kind of show more of myself and my own uniques.

Style and approach that I take to working with my clients. and actually I think a lot of business psychologists and clinical psychologists have followed suit the opportunity with covid and social media and technology and more opportunity for more practitioners to be more accessible have their own websites and show more of themselves you know, to encourage people to come and book in for therapy.

I think it’s a great thing and. I think as a profession, we do need to continue to be mindful of our accessibility to the public, especially when there’s a lot of life coaches and other people who may not have that level of qualification and expertise as ourselves. Sometimes they do a wonderful job marketing themselves and being there and being highly accessible.

Whereas with clinical psychologists, you know, a lot of the time you need a GP referral, there’s actually a lot of hoops. There’s sometimes stigma associated with seeing someone from our profession as well. So, I think kind of being able to show more of our personality really helps break down some of those walls and yeah, helps us be more effective at professionals and kind of get to the people who need us in the first place.

Caitlin: Yeah, I love, I love what you said there in terms of, yeah, like that marketability, but also people just, that attraction base, like being authentic and people coming to you because like, yes, I really, yeah, I really love Eleni’s style. And I think we would gel together because that’s so, so important.

But what has been a coach, cause you do coaching as well. Can you tell me, I’ll talk a little bit about that because I, yeah. Tell me about that.

Eleni: I guess coaching is, is the way that we work with a lot of one on one on one clients out in the business world. And I suppose if you look at Coaching in its purest form, it is the art of asking a lot of questionsasking a lot of open ended questions and you know, allowing that time and space for our clients to arrive at their own solutions.

So I think myself probably do it’s a little bit of a blend. I probably. Do quite a bit of advising in there as well, like coming from a consulting background and having built my, you know, technical expertise as an organizational psychologist and expert, I suppose when it comes to recruiting, engaging and developing people, I suppose I will always help people come up with a solution bank, not imposing my ideas, but I think I am someone who Does use that approach of coaching and advisory in the work that I do with my clients.

But certainly coaching in its purest form is just that, you know, it’s other led inquiry, I guess. So the, the psychologist or the coach kind of just asking a series of questions and. Allowing that time and space and helping people arrive at their own solution. So, yeah, it’s definitely a tool in the toolbox that I use very, very often.

And like any good psychologist, I love asking questions.

Caitlin: Yeah. So, but like you said, it’s I can imagine that working in that business environment, people would want advice as well. So it’s probably that like delicate blend of like having them arrive at their own like solutions, but at the same time, it’s yeah, something that’s putting them on the right

Eleni: for it. Yes, absolutely.

Caitlin: Exactly. Oh my God. Oh, dear. That’s

Eleni: walking that delicate time rope. Yeah, all the

Caitlin: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But what is your, like, favorite, favorite area? Is that, that workplace, like, kind of more of a HR wellness or,

Eleni: So, I’d say I actually really enjoy diversity and inclusion space. I had a lot of experience running women in leadership programs and helping women feel the most empowered version of themselves. So are they in one on one scenarios or in group based settings? So, yeah, I, you know, I’ve I’ve been in corporate roles, organizational development roles where I’ve had responsibility for rolling out flexible work solutions kind of before covid even became a thing.

And then obviously during Covid you know, how to manage multi-generational workforces. So when you’ve got generation generational and you’ve got right up to the boomers, I think we’ve got about five generations in the workforce at the moment. So how leaders can. Be flexible and deploy their, leadership skills to satisfy all the generations in the, in the workforce and for us to leverage that diversity because we know that diversity ultimately leads to good organizational culture and better organizational outcomes and performance.

So, I love all things diversity. I think neuro diversity is a really, awesome space now in the world of work, and a lot of the big organizations are really well set up to employ and support neurodiverse employees and kind of, you know, add that level of diversity to the workforce too. So, yeah, you know, I definitely.

I definitely love yeah, supporting women at work. But that said, I’ve also worked in male dominated industries and in really masculine industries as well. And yeah, have really enjoyed exploring what diversity means in those types of environments and you know, how to, how to make that really genuine and make that really real because yeah, you know, sometimes if you take a bit of a quota approach or a tick the box approach, consequences.

So, yeah, I guess that diversity and inclusion area is a real strong passion of mine.

Caitlin: Yeah. Oh, and that makes so much sense with your role when you were working. oh, so interesting. But like you said, that diversity, but it has to come from a, like a really authentic, genuine place. Like in a real care from the organization rather than just a tick box.

And yeah, what a cool time to be an organizational psychologist in this. Now we’re

Eleni: And, you know, COVID was a really good key because all of a sudden organizationally, leaders and managers had to take a more, a broader interest in their people that had to worry about their safety and well being outside of work. And so that really unlocked, the opportunity to have that broader kind of, caring and compassionate style approach and really having to get to know your team at a more human level, rather than just managing them for the hours that they were at work.

Caitlin: less thinking that outside box and holistically and thinking of people as humans rather than, yeah, just like employee robots kind of doing their, their role.

Eleni: That’s

Caitlin: Well,

Oh dear, but I’ve, really enjoyed this chat, just, time’s flown by but is there anything that I haven’t asked you or that you feel like you need to say that, like, maybe an idea that’s popped up that you, yeah, would like to talk about or?

Eleni: I’d just like to find out more about the area of psychology that you work in and what you’ve kind of taken away from our chat today.

Caitlin: Yeah. So I work one on one psychotherapy with patients. I work from a,psychodynamic therapy Framework. that’s my area, which I love.

So working with adults, so people who are going through, yeah, big transitions in their life as well. So it’s kind of, when you were talking about that, it really, I thought, Oh gosh, yes, this is the area that I quite, quite enjoy as well. Yeah. And, It just made me think about how broad, being a psychologist and how oftentimes we think about, yeah, therapy and just counseling, right.

But there are just so many jobs and so many areas that we can go into that. I’ll hope people recognize that and take that away.

Eleni: Yeah, so I think that’s great with the side hustles, because ultimately it’s encouraging creativity, right? And thinking outside of the box in terms of how we can use our skills to better people. So,the power of the word with copywriting. That’s a really, you know, powerful application of psychology

Caitlin: You’re really, it is. And that’s probably what drew drew me to it as well. I was like, wow, this is all this stuff. Similar things that I do, but just on a different, in a different way. And so that was a beautiful thing, but absolutely like with side hustles and creativity and like enjoyment in work.

It, yeah, it all just ties in beautifully. I think with what everything that you were saying, I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. I found myself nodding away. But what is one thing that you hope people take away from our chat today?

Eleni: to think outside of the box. And to develop your own way and your own personal style and don’t be afraid to do that. There’s room for everyone. And while you might not be every single person’s cup of tea, that’s okay. The more confident you are to show your personality and do your work in your own authentic way and approach, the more likely you are to, connect with the people that you really can kind of influence and impact.

So yes, that’s what I hope people take away from this.

Caitlin: Oh, it’s so beautiful. I yeah, no, I think this will be such a important, such an important conversation to have. All right now, it’s time for the rapid fire questions. Uh, Eleni, I’m super curious to hear, what is your favorite film?

Eleni: My favorite movie and relevant movie, I think, to psychology is Inside Out. I love all the different characters and the emotions, but particularly the red hot headed one.

Caitlin: Oh yes, Inside Out. I actually recently saw the new one, which, is a fantastic film. And of course, like most therapists, I particularly love the emotions. I do like the angry one too, and I actually resonate with the disgust character, which I don’t know what that says about me, but hey. Um, and now what’s a concert that you’ll never forget?

Eleni: A concert that I’ll never forget, I have to say the Ricky Martin concert.

I’m giving away my age now. I was 14 and it was the first concert I ever went to and back then we all absolutely loved Ricky and to shake our bonbon. So that was a concept that I’ll never forget.

And lastly, what’s an absurd thing that you love or a quirky thing about you? And an absurd thing that I love, well you made me think about I think your, one of your original questions.

one thing that I can’t live without is every morning I need to drink my coffee and have warm one and water, before I do anything else.

I had to have a fast, fasting blood test this morning and I found it just so cognitively challenging to choose my outfit and get going, without my beloved coffee. So luckily there was a coffee shop right next to the, the blood collection place. And so I quickly ordered that straight after and felt much better.

Caitlin: Ooh, a blood test. I’m glad that you were able to get your coffee. , and so that sorted you out. Right. , but

I really appreciate your time today, how can people get in contact with you and find you?

Eleni: I’d love for them to follow me on my on my social. So, at Eleni Drakakis on IG and I also hang out on LinkedIn as well. So, yeah, a little more business clients, leaders kind of tend to hang out on LinkedIn and then a lot more of the female audience tends to hang out on IG. So, yeah, I really enjoy.

IG is great. You get to share a little bit more of your personality in the behind the scenes. And LinkedIn’s great for the, the business updates and yes, I also have my website as well. If you want to find out a little bit more about me the types of services I offer and yeah, how to get in touch and how to work with me.

Caitlin: I’ll pop all of those in the show notes, but you’re so right. Instagram is yeah, a bit more fun. I’ve always struggled with LinkedIn. I find that it’s it’s an interesting one, but yeah. To be continued with that, with the old LinkedIn.

Eleni: It’s getting more personalized to all the time. So

Caitlin: It is. It really is. Yeah, it really is. But thank you so much.

I really appreciate your time today and yeah, have a good rest of your week.

Eleni: thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

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