Alumni: Practitioner Insights

I am a recent graduate of MOrgPsych. Since March 2022, I have been working as an Organizational Development Advisor for PwC. I feel quite fortunate to use my knowledge from my Masters’ degree in practice, especially within such a challenging, competitive environment and steering through these uncertain economic times.

My main area of expertise is the leadership development and talent management. I look after PwC leadership programmes, which are designed to build our people’s leadership skills, deepen their self-awareness, and emphasise the role of emotional intelligence in their leadership role. I strongly advocate making these programmes available to anyone within the company, regardless of their roles and background. I believe that great work experience produces great leaders. Hence, I’m passionate about providing self-development opportunities to people early in their careers to develop their potential. I believe that such an approach boosts their motivation and commitment, which enhances their performance and produces long-term positive results for the company.

I particularly enjoy the transformation of people’s attitudes towards leadership. In many cases, their journey starts with viewing leadership as team management, and through our programme, they gain the opportunity to shift their focus inwards to explore the deeper meaning of leadership. There is an emphasis on individual well-being by exploring their perceived threats, allowing themselves to be vulnerable, growing their support network, and building trust with their peers. By truly embracing this experience, they are able to broaden their perspectives of their relationships with others, improve their ability to connect with their teams and get a feel of what it means to lead themselves before they lead others. These things have not been spoken about in big corporations before, and I am delighted to be part of this change.

Additionally, I am passionate about people’s motivation to maximise their performance. I would like to further explore the topic of psychological safety as the fundamental aspect of trusting relationships at work. I think corporate culture has been failing in this regard for many years. Hence, we often hear of “burnout” and “imposter syndrome” in the modern business world. With a stronger focus on people’s well-being at work, I aim to assist big corporations with their people policy transformation while using recent scientific research to navigate this change.