Hi Reader
This is my first note for January. I didn’t land in your inbox over the break, because most leaders I work with needed recovery, not content.
Now we are back where the work actually is.
Most services already have “leader support”.
A mentoring program. A leadership course. A wellbeing initiative. A supervision rhythm. A check-in cadence.
But here’s the problem I keep seeing, and it matters for workforce stability and front door risk.
The support system is often measuring the wrong thing.
Attendance. Completion. Satisfaction.
Meanwhile, the front door stays exposed, and managers keep patching it with their own bodies.
Here is what that looks like on a normal Tuesday.
A daughter sits in a car park on her lunch break, aircon running, one earbud in. My Aged Care on hold. Notebook open. Two highlighters. Three reference numbers that do not match.
She is not there because she has time.
She is there because her mum fell again, the GP said “more support”, and she has stepped into a maze.
By the time she finally reaches your service, the system has already spent her trust.
And someone inside your organisation will pay for that spend.
Not the policy team.
Not the portal.
Your coordinators and managers.
The leak you’re not measuring
When the front door is hard to enter, three predictable things happen.
- Navigation work shifts inward
Families and frontline staff become de facto translators, advocates, coordinators.
Staff spend real hours explaining letters they did not write.
- Narrative harm kicks in
The story keeps changing.
“We were told there would be no co-payments.”
“We thought this was free.”
“No one explained hardship without making us feel like we were begging.”
- Leaders become shock absorbers
Managers and coordinators absorb anger, fear, and confusion that belongs to the system.
They de-escalate. They rewrite scripts. They translate board language into waiting-room language.
They patch, so the corridor stays calm.
Your “leader support” system might still look like it is working.
Because the manager is still showing up.
They still attend.
They still deliver.
But the front door stays exposed, and the cost shows up elsewhere, slower decisions, longer first appointments, escalating complaints, and eventually, churn in the exact roles you cannot afford to lose.
The Spark, what holds
In services where this pressure eases, leaders do one thing differently.
They stop treating navigation pain as background noise, and start treating it as design feedback.
Not a big reform.
Not a new portal.
One step tightened at a time.
Three moves that actually reduce the damage:
- Log navigation friction, not just formal complaints
Track how often staff are explaining co-payments, hardship, eligibility, or external letters.
Not the story, the frequency.
- Fix one step in one common pathway
Pick one “normal” scenario and make it calmer.
One script. One letter. One handover. One welcome pack line.
Small enough to stick.
- Align the story from board paper to waiting room
If the internal story is cost recovery and the external story is care, your managers become translators forever.
Bring the narrative closer, so leaders stop carrying the gap.
The Fizzle, what doesn’t
What rarely works is asking people to be more resilient inside the same confusing structure.
When leaders are expected to:
- explain what they do not control
- apologise for what they did not design
- absorb what has nowhere else to land
the system may hold for a while. Your people do not.
The simplest test for your current leader support
If you already have leader support in place, ask this:
“What changed at the front door as a result?”
Not confidence.
Not engagement.
Not completion rates.
What changed for families and for the people doing intake, care coordination, and escalation?
If you cannot point to a change in:
- navigation friction
- narrative clarity
- time spent translating the system
then your leader support system is not failing, it’s measuring the wrong thing.
Read the full piece
I wrote the full blog here, with practical moves leaders can make inside real rosters and real pressure:
👉 Who Pays the Price for a Confusing Front Doorhttps://www.hyphaenetwork.com/latest-news-2/who-pays-the-price-for-a-confusing-front-door
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Your reflection for this week
Take two minutes and write down:
→ ere is the “front door” doing the most damage in our service right now, access, cost, eligibility, or communication?
→ Who is absorbing that damage, a coordinator, a manager, a clinician, a carer?
→ What is one step we can tighten this quarter so our people stop acting as “shadow navigators”?
If you can answer the first two but not the third, that is not a failure, it is a design gap. That is where I can help.
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The next step (if you want one)
If you want a second set of eyes on your current leader support or mentoring system, specifically whether it is measuring what matters and whether it is protecting the front door, this is my work.
Options are here: https://www.hyphaenetwork.com/organisations
Or start a conversation here: https://www.hyphaenetwork.com/contact
No pitch. Just clarity, and a practical next step.
Warmly,
P.S. I'd love to work alongside you with bespoke consulting work, not cohort selling. If you want a second set of eyes on what you already have, that’s where I fit.