Most leadership development treats people as problems to be fixed, one behaviour or competency at a time. But what if the entire premise is wrong? In this episode of The Secret Life of Great Leaders, Michael Bunting speaks with organisational psychologist and systems thinker Bryn Edwards about why breaking people and organisations into isolated parts, and trying to fix each one separately, almost never produces lasting change. Drawing on his background in psychology and management consulting, Bryn argues that human beings and organisations are living systems, and that the only way to create genuine transformation is to understand the deeper patterns holding dysfunction in place.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why traditional psychology and leadership development often fail to produce lasting organisational change.
- How to understand organisations as living systems rather than collections of isolated behaviours.
- Why toxic cultures and dysfunction persist despite genuine good intentions from leaders.
- The role of self-awareness and systems thinking in creating healthier, more adaptive workplaces.
- How leaders can identify the deeper patterns driving behaviour rather than treating surface symptoms.
- What it takes to create sustainable performance, learning, and wellbeing in complex organisations.
Bryn Edwards is an organisational psychologist, systems thinker, and management consultant with decades of experience helping leaders understand the invisible forces shaping their organisations. He argues that most workplace dysfunction is not a people problem but a systems problem, and that without understanding the underlying patterns, even the best-intentioned leaders will keep producing the same results.
Episode Highlights:
- [00:00] Introduction
- [03:06] Why psychology is failing organisations
- [08:14] What it means to be a living system
- [15:22] The limits of competency-based development
- [22:40] How dysfunction persists despite good intentions
- [31:05] Self-awareness and systems thinking in practice
- [42:18] What sustainable organisational health actually looks like
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