Embracing Change: The Inner and Outer Journey of Transformation

This week feels significant—not because there is anything particularly significant happening, but because it’s the week where I’m celebrating two important milestones in my life!

25 years in the professional world, beginning with my first graduate job at 优利系统 .? 25 years feels like a lot of years to me!!!? In addition, it’s also the week we moved to Singapore, 13 years ago.? Singapore is a place that was never part of my life plan, I was a reluctant mover here but has come to be an integral part of my personal and professional identity.

In fact, as I reach this milestone, I realize that over half of my career has now been spent in Asia. It’s remarkable to reflect on how a region I never planned to move to has become so foundational to my career and growth. Those 13 years in Asia have been the most developmental of my life. I am not sure I am the same person who moved here all those years ago.

A friend once pointed out to me, somewhat ironically, that although I was a change manager, I wasn’t always comfortable with personal change. I can now happily say I think I am A LOT better at personal change, even if I still don’t always love it. (Still remember your words Kathryn Forsyth ??)

So much has happened personally and professionally in those 13 years and I’ve gone through so many inner and outer changes, and they have all shaped me not only as a person but also as a leader.

As Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance, said, “The success of the intervention depends on the interior of the intervenor.” Can we really lead change if we haven’t gone through the messiness, discomfort, and growth ourselves?        

Honestly, I haven’t enjoyed every part of the last 13 years, but I do know that life has given me the leadership development I needed. These experiences have shaped me into a better human and a more compassionate change leader. I wanted to share some of my story and some insights that might help others who are navigating their own transitions and leading others through change.

?Grab a coffee because it's a long story!!

Can You Lead Organisational Change Without Personal Transformation?

Change is constant. In today’s fast-paced business environment, organisations must continuously adapt to survive and thrive. As leaders, we are tasked with driving these transformations. But how can we effectively lead others through change if we haven’t first experienced it ourselves?

In my experience, being able to navigate personal change is foundational to being an effective change-maker. When we’ve navigated our own transformations—whether professional or personal—it deepens our empathy, sharpens our decision-making, and enhances our resilience. It’s not just about understanding change on an intellectual level; it’s about living through it, learning from it, and growing because of it.

Change brings discomfort, uncertainty, and sometimes failure. Leaders who have gone through their own personal changes can better relate to the emotional and psychological impact of organisational transformation on their teams. They are better equipped to guide others through the turbulence, because they’ve been there.        

So, can you lead without personal experiences of change? Perhaps. But leading with authenticity, empathy, and true understanding of transformation comes from having walked that path yourself.

To lead change, you have to start with yourself. Embracing your own evolution and watching how it shapes your leadership.? Here are a few of my huge shifts and transitions over the past 13 years which have been highs and low but pushed me to grow and evolve.

Moving to Singapore, no friends, network and 1 year old baby!

Like many who move overseas for work, I came to Singapore for two years, with my now ex-husband’s job. My son was 13 months old, and we packed up our lives with the expectation that this would be a short stint. Thirteen years later, we’re still here.

Arriving in Singapore, I had no network, no local reputation, and no established credibility oh and no childcare either. I knew only two people, who were very loose connections, but their first introductions became pivotal in helping me build connections and settle in. Thank you Sharon Connolly Juliet Fallowfield and Danielle North

Re-establishing myself in a new country, away from everything gave me a masterclass in building and nurturing a network from grass roots. Those early days forced me out of my comfort zone, pushing me to ask for help, a skill that I am still not very good at!

Starting an adjacent career, same same but different

I had a successful career back in the UK in change and transformation consulting, so when I came to Singapore, I imagined I’d just do what I did in UK here.? I totally underestimated this!? Couple of factors I hadn’t considered, whilst I had a great network in the UK, I was an unknown entity here in Singapore and I found that many of the experiences and networks I had built in UK and Europe didn’t literally translate here.?

I basically had to start again from scratch and work my way up from what felt like the bottom again to rebuild my career, my network and my expertise in a whole new context.? Not to mention, getting a visa to work as a ‘dependent’ so much amazing ‘trailing spouse’ talent goes to waste in expat moves, but that’s a whole other blog post!

I also realised when I moved here that change management just wasn’t really a thing in Singapore and Asia.? Even now 13 years later, I still feel it’s an emerging thing, not yet fully embedded skill in organisations.?

So, with that context, I sort of pivoted into leadership and talent development, supporting leaders through change.? With hindsight it’s been amazing, because now I have a huge bag of skills and experiences that are all interrelated and part of inner and outer change! In reality, quite a lot of those early years in my Singapore journey and transition I spent feeling like a fish out of water and right at the bottom of the ladder again.

Professional Growth: Sometimes you need to be the student again

During my nearly 10 years with Bridge Partnership I spent 1000’s of hours designing and delivering leadership development and culture change programmes.? Something I had not done before to that depth, and across so many different cultural contexts.? There was a lot of failing, growing and a need for resilience to the max.

Standing in front of rooms full of senior leaders, navigating their dynamics, and leading them through transformational processes was so rewarding, I know I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve helped many leaders find themselves, their authenticity and have a bigger impact.

But I can also tell you of a lot of things that didn’t go well in the room and the destruction of your confidence and the energy and resilience it takes to get back up and do it all again tomorrow. Simon McKenzie (Mac) have we recovered yet from our 3/10? ??

Anyone who works deep in facilitation knows it’s not training – it’s deep change work where you are often the mirror for other people’s stuff being projected onto you. Its working at multiple levels of content, process, personal dynamics.?         

Facilitating and supporting senior leaders isn’t something you can learn from a course or programme, it’s 1000’s of hours in the trenches, things not going right, getting bad feedback, building your own confidence and client’s confidence and always learning and improving.?

It's not just about developing professional skills; it requires deep personal resilience, humility, self-awareness and lots of therapy and supervision.? Being mixed into lots of people’s energy and dynamics can take its toll on your own energy too if you don’t have your own place to be supported.

Alongside doing great work, joining Bridge also allowed me to be part of creating something bigger than myself. When I joined the team back in 2011, there were just three employees in APAC and no real operational foundation yet. During my time there we grew the team and the infrastructure from 3 people to, at its height, a team of 20+ employees and associates across the region.?

We took a previously unknown UK brand and made significant strides in APAC of building a brand and reputation and supporting amazing clients regionally and globally. Yet, growth wasn’t the only chapter of change, as MD of our Singapore and Australia business, during my final chapter I also had the difficult task of leading the downsizing of our team during the post-COVID reorganisation. Guiding others through that period, while navigating my own emotions, was one of the hardest but most developmental experiences of my career.

Behind the scenes, the personal changes

Just before moving to Singapore, I became a mother for the first time. Motherhood is a developmental shift like no other. Moving from a high-achieving intense career to a stay-at-home mum for 9 months, and then back to the professional world, felt like a yo-yo. Each transition required me to navigate new emotions, responsibilities, and ways of being. Looking back, I realise how formative that experience was—it wasn’t just about managing work-life balance; it was about evolving into a new version of myself.

The birth of my second son, who is now 11, was another big change and struggle in my life. After my son was born, he had jaundice and colic, and I now realise, in retrospective that I struggled with postnatal depression.? I couldn’t allow myself at the time to even admit that I was depressed as I just felt like I had to keep going. For anyone who has experienced this, you know it’s not just about being sad; it’s about losing yourself and feeling disconnected from everything and everyone around you.

I had joined Bridge Partnership a few months before falling pregnant and I remember having to tell my boss that I was pregnant and that I was going to go on maternity leave within my first year of joining! The guilt (and gratefulness was immense) and I know I pushed myself to return to work far earlier than I should have out of fear of not being a team player. ?Consulting is a high-stakes business, and professional services mean you’re always on, and clients are paying you to deliver. The pressure to perform while struggling behind the scenes was immense.

Hitting rock bottom during that time forced me to confront some hard truths about my life and my marriage. It became clear that I couldn’t continue living the way I was, and neither could my marriage. It was a moment of reckoning—realising that to move forward, I had to make significant changes, both personally and within my marriage.        

Breaking down to breakthrough: Divorce and Resilience

Behind all this professional growth was a period of personal upheaval. My postnatal depression, combined with the challenges of my second son’s birth, and other factors going on at home set the stage for a difficult chapter in my personal life. My ex-husband and I did go through a divorce, and anyone who has been through this knows how life-altering it can be. Navigating a separation while supporting my then three- and six-year-old children and trying to keep it all together at work was immensely challenging. It wasn’t just about the emotional toll, but also the financial and logistical strain of managing everything while living in a foreign country without a large support network.

These changes—motherhood, personal upheavals, and professional demands—were happening simultaneously. My inner and outer worlds were deeply connected, with one impacting the other. Looking back, I realize I was probably not always at my best given everything happening. This period taught me the value of grace, compassion, and the importance of giving yourself space when you need it.? One of my biggest lessons is also that you never know what’s going on in someone else world, no matter how well they look like they are handling everything.

There were times when I had to hibernate and retreat from the world just to cope, and that’s okay. If you’re going through something similar, know that it’s normal to need that time for yourself.        

Starting all over again and bringing together the before & after

All these experiences culminated a few years later, in my decision to leave Bridge and start The Purpose Collective Here I’ve created a business which allows me to integrate both halves of my career, the UK me and the Singapore me and help clients on the inner and outer aspects of change, the hard design and implementation and softer, yet definately not easier inner work.? Nearly four years in, I’ve built a business that I’m passionate about, where I have some amazing clients and team of amazing associates, but it also hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to learn a whole new set of skills again.?

I do think people idealise starting your own business and, on the surface, it seems all very freeing being an entrepreneur especially if you are looking at it through a lens of leaving a stifling corporate job, but it isn’t for the faint hearted and you really do have to be okay with next level change and transformation.        

When you start your own business, you are doing everything!! ?From finding, developing and managing clients, sales and associates to handling the minutiae of running a business, like invoicing and content creation. You go from corporate life of having a team who can support you to doing literally everything by yourself.?

You also have to put yourself out there, you are your brand, and people can see through any cracks and mismatches of who you are and what you say you do, so you have to be okay with next level role modelling. No hiding behind a big corporate brand anymore!

Let’s talk about energy, change and self-care

A deep connection to my spiritual practice has been a crucial element in sustaining me through all this change. I’ve learned the importance of solitude, of knowing when to disconnect, and of prioritizing my mental and emotional well-being. Back in 2020, I was on the edge, if not slightly over the cliff of burnout.

It was a huge wake-up call and a back log of everything above that I hadn’t allowed myself to process and integrate.? But breakdown to breakthrough, hitting this wall supercharged my journey into wellbeing and performance.? You just can’t perform at high levels without a foundation and reserve of rich and deep wellbeing.?

Nothing great can be accomplished by running on empty and we all have much more power and agency over our energy than we give ourselves credit for.? I have had to learn to say no much more than I like to, in order to say yes to myself.        

My Advice for Navigating Change

For anyone going through significant change and leading others through change—whether it’s personal or professional—here’s what I’ve learned that might help you:

Build and nurture your network: You can’t do it alone. The connections you make, especially when starting in a new place or career, are invaluable.? Make that network really diverse to cater to all versions of the support you need, be that practical, spiritual, emotional, or just those fun people you don’t have to be intense with.

Give yourself grace: Change is hard. Don’t be too hard on yourself when things feel overwhelming. It’s okay to step back and take time to heal when you need it, and if you don’t heal you will likely not be having the best impact you can in your organisation.

Stay connected to your purpose: Whether it’s through spirituality, community, or simply knowing what drives you, staying connected to something bigger than yourself can keep you grounded and lift you higher too.

Embrace the chaos: Life, especially during periods of transition, can feel chaotic and uncertain. Learn to sit with that discomfort—it’s where the growth happens, don’t try to rush yourself out the other side.? Know you are building an immense set of skills of being able to navigate ambiguity which will hold you in strength in your organisational life too.

Embrace the discomfort of sharing your story when you feel ready, because it can be a lifeline for others on their journey: By opening up and sharing your personal experiences, not just the professional ones, you create space for others to connect, learn, and grow.

Speak from your scars, not your wounds – don’t share too much too soon if you don’t feel ready, but know that those who need your wisdom and support want to find you.  People resonate with authentic stories, and your journey has the potential to inspire, uplift, and guide others through their own change transformations in ways you may never fully realize.        

Life has a way of delivering the development we most need—even if it doesn’t come with a prestigious business school brand. The lessons may be tough, but they transform us in ways no formal education can.

And as I think about eventually moving back to the UK, I know I’ll be going through the reverse change, rebuilding my personal and professional network once again. Life’s a continual journey of change, and I’m learning to embrace the ride. Carla x