Anna Liumaihetau Darling learned about people by working with horses. Two days on a leadership course, outdoors, reading animals.
"Funnily enough, horses were the key to unlocking me understanding people," says Anna Liumaihetau Darling, GM of People Experience at Sharesies and one of twelve winners of the HR Influence Awards 2026. But it was a conversation with a team member a few years later that gave her the language for what she'd learned.
"I said I always treat people how I want to be treated, and he goes, no, no, Anna, you should treat people how they want to be treated," she says. "And that stuck in my head ever since."
It's a small shift in wording that changes everything about how you lead a team. Across the seven winners we spoke with about this topic, the message came through clearly. The best people leaders aren't trying to make everyone the same. They're doing the harder work of understanding what makes each person different and adjusting how they lead accordingly.
Having been on the call for all twelve winner interviews as the producer of the awards, I noticed this theme woven through almost every conversation. The answer was never "treat them all the same." It was always more considered than that.
Drew Mayhills, Chief Learning and Innovation Officer at AIM WA, gives the concept a name.
"I was raised on the golden rule. Do unto others as they want to be done, right? And that was just hammered into me through primary school," Drew says. "But I think we ought to subscribe to the platinum rule, which is treat others how they wish to be treated. And that actually is more complex and nuanced work for people leaders because it really requires them to understand the individual."
Drew doesn't think it's the job of a people leader to flatten personality differences.
"I actually don't think it's the job of a people leader or an executive or a team leader or a manager to flatten or otherwise kind of achieve some kind of consistent level of behaviour. I think in many ways, the skilled leader translates effectively between them."
That word, translates, is worth sitting with. The skilled leader doesn't sand down each team member's style. They learn to speak each person's language, and they help the team learn to speak each other's.
Drew also has a practical approach for new leaders stepping into an existing team. Three questions, asked in one-on-ones.
"Tell me about you. Then tell me, what would be really unhelpful for me to muck around with here? Like what's good that we should look after?" And the third: "If you had a magic wand, what would be one thing you'd really like me to try to work towards improving or changing?"
He's seen what happens when new leaders skip this step. "New leaders barge in and often just throw things around and they really get people offside by failing to take stock of what is valued and sacred here."
Run those three questions past a team of 20, Drew says, and you'll get 20 individual stories. But you'll also see trends and patterns that point to quick wins the team has been waiting for someone to act on.
Edan Haddock, Head of Talent and People Experience at Movember, pushes back on the idea of sorting people by personality.
"I don't think you can judge the success of an individual or their performance or their engagement necessarily just based on their personality," Edan says. "What you want to look at is a values assessment."
At Movember, the organisational values are fun, courageously kind, change agent, better together, accountable and remarkable. Edan uses those values as the lens for understanding how people work, what motivates them, and whether there's a fit between the individual and the team.
"If you're able to link it to values, that's when you're gonna be able to drive that out and you're gonna know whether that's gonna work both for them and both for you as a leader."
He calls it "work personality," the version of someone that shows up through their motivations and the way they like to operate. By framing it through values instead of personality labels, Edan avoids putting people in boxes while still getting to the information that matters.
He's also honest about the bias that creeps in when leaders build teams. "We are drawn to people that are like us and we pick up on cues of people like us. We form a natural connection with people that are like us."
His solution is simple. "If you move away from that and you focus on values as being the core driver, then you build this wonderful rich diverse team around you that the contribution is so much greater than if you've got a team of five Edans."
Alex Pusenjak, Global VP of People and Culture at Fluent Commerce, puts it in sporting terms.
"If you're hiring or recruiting for an AFL football team, you don't need 18 ruck men, but you need people to play different roles across the ground as well," Alex says. "And it also then comes back down to that diversity of thought, diversity of background and experience."
His advice to hiring managers is direct. "Don't be afraid of hiring someone who wasn't part of your initial makeup. Don't be afraid of hiring someone who wouldn't have been initially on your radar."
Alex has seen what happens when teams lack that variety. "Having everyone who's come from exactly the same company or the exact same makeup can make things pretty boring."
His structural fix is equally practical: don't let a single person make the hiring decision. "Have multiple decision makers. That's not going to then be the detriment of slowing down a process but ensuring that you've got multiple sets of eyes looking at candidates because one wrong hire can often just take you back six months, 12 months to where you're looking to get to."
For people and culture teams thinking about how to bring more diversity of thought into their hiring processes, the ruck men analogy is worth remembering. You need different positions across the ground, and you need decision makers who can see beyond their own reflection.
Teresa Lilly, Founder of Culture Pilot Co, frames the work of leading diverse personalities as an act of constant adjustment.
"You can't change people. All you can do is adjust how you interact with them," Teresa says. "You have to understand your audience and understand what they care about, what concerns they have, and adapt accordingly."
She points to neurodivergence as a factor that often goes overlooked, particularly in startup environments with founder-led teams. "There's a lot of neurodivergence as well. And so just understanding that that is a component. Sometimes you can be pulling your hair out because a founder is doing something else, like actually that might be related to neurodivergence."
Teresa is also honest about the cost. "You have to decide how much you want to adapt how you are working, how you're speaking to the people. Some things can be just a minor tweak, but some things can actually be quite taxing for you personally if you have to dramatically alter how you're working with different individuals."
Her best piece of advice came from a CEO she once worked with. "He said, just assume you don't know. Assume you don't know what's going on."
"If you bring a lot more curiosity, you tend to have less frustration and a greater understanding. And you also have a greater opportunity to get to a good place with that person."
Sharon Gray, Chief People Officer at OzHarvest, starts with the same instinct as Teresa. Listen first.
"Don't make presumptions. I've been very guilty of that," Sharon says. "I think that was my growth goal for 2022 was stop making presumptions. So rather than guessing, just ask the question and listen and then work from that position of understanding."
Sharon has also built a practical framework around this principle. OzHarvest uses a tool called the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument), a whole-brain thinking model that helps people understand their own thinking preferences and how they differ from colleagues.
"That is giving us a really great understanding in how we work in teams and individually, understanding our preferences in the way that we solve problems and communicate," Sharon says. The result is what she calls "a really shared language through the organisation where people understand what type of brain they're dealing with, to look out for different brain types when you're putting a working group together so that you've got that diversity of thinking."
The HBDI gives everyone a common vocabulary for differences that already exist, so teams can work with those differences instead of being frustrated by them.
For people and culture teams looking at how to improve team dynamics, the combination of listening first and giving teams a shared language for their differences is a strong foundation.
Matt McFarlane, Founder and Director of FNDN, adds one more layer. Before any framework or tool can work, someone has to go first.
"When it comes to understanding everyone's unique essence and what they bring to the role, to the company, or how they work with one another, the first step for me is always acknowledgement," Matt says.
Being open about your working style and preferences requires a level of safety that most workplaces haven't built yet.
"It's a big step for a company to have a culture where people can be comfortable sharing those sorts of things," Matt says. "I know I would certainly in some companies I've worked for have a bit of baggage or be a bit reluctant about sharing those sorts of things."
His answer is leadership by example. "The more in particular I think a leader can share themselves and be upfront with the team about themselves, the more likely they are to create the safety and the space for their team to do the same."
This sits beneath everything else in the article. Drew's three questions only work if people feel safe answering them. Edan's values conversations only surface real information if people trust the process. Sharon's HBDI tool only creates a shared language if people are willing to be open about how they think. Matt's argument is that the leader has to model it first.
Anna's reframe is where this conversation started, and it's where it ends. "How I want to be treated might be quite different to how Rudy wants to be treated," she says. "I had to think about that and understand my team better too."
Each leader in this article found their own way to the same principle. Drew calls it the platinum rule. Edan looks through the lens of values. Alex builds it into hiring structures. Teresa names the energy cost and meets it with curiosity. Sharon gives her teams a shared language for their differences. Matt says the leader has to go first.
The golden rule is easy. Treat everyone the way you'd want to be treated. The platinum rule asks you to learn what each person actually needs, and that takes time, attention, and genuine interest in the people around you.
For people and culture leaders building high-performing teams, the evidence from these seven winners is clear. The best teams aren't built from people who think alike. They're built by leaders who've done the work to understand how each person thinks differently.
Read the full feature articles for each winner mentioned in this piece:
About the HR Influence Awards
The HR Influence Awards recognise the top 12 HR and people leaders across Australia and New Zealand who are shaping the future of work. Presented by Compono, the awards celebrate leaders who go beyond policy to drive real business and cultural outcomes.
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