Career Advice: Career Types, Portfolio Careers, and What Keeps People Engaged at Work
What does the FIFA World Cup tell us about leadership communication? And what kind of career do you actually have?
In this June advice episode, Dr Luella Forbes and Associate Professor Michelle Gander explore how organisations communicate difficult news, how careers have changed, and why real employee engagement is much rarer than most organisations realise.
In this episode:
- What two different World Cup squad announcement approaches reveal about leadership values and communication
- Why the sequence of delivering difficult news matters as much as the message itself
- The traditional career is not dead - what the research on university students actually shows
- Portfolio, contemporary and hybrid careers: the differences, the trade-offs, and the financial realities
- Gallup's 2026 finding: only 1 in 5 employees globally are genuinely engaged at work
- What the best leaders do differently - without being prompted by systems or processes
- Book recommendation: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant
- Preview of July's AI-themed guest episodes
Resources mentioned:
- Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
- Hidden Potential by Adam Grant: https://adamgrant.net/book/hidden-potential/
All opinions are the guest's own.
New episodes on a Wednesday, with interviews with leaders or experts every week and a monthly discussion on what we've heard in the last week of the month.
We'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts on recent episodes or questions you'd like Luella and Michelle to answer at [email protected].
Career Stories is hosted by Dr Luella Forbes, who works with organisations on leadership, change and storytelling. To find out how she can support your leaders and teams, visit luellaforbes.com/services
More about the podcast: luellaforbes.com/career-stories
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Creators and Guests
Host
Associate Professor Michelle Gander
Michelle is an Associate Professor at Murdoch University, specialising in careers.
Host
Dr Luella Forbes
Dr Luella Forbes is a consultant specialising in Organisational Change and founder of The Career Library and it's podcast, Career Stories.
