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Deborah Hartung (she/her)

London, United Kingdom

Deborah Hartung is one of the world’s leading voices on leadership, culture, and the future of work and she’s been quietly (well, not that quietly) dismantling the systems that make work unnecessarily hard for over 25 years.

A South African-born, UK-based consultant, coach, facilitator, author, and speaker, Deborah’s work sits at the intersection of human psychology, organisational behaviour, and the stubborn belief that most people don’t need to be managed, they need to be freed.
That belief is the foundation of her book Talent Liberation and the golden thread running through the REAL Leadership System - her proprietary body of work built from two and a half decades of in-the-trenches experience across employee relations, corporate HR, talent management, digital transformation, and culture change.

REAL - Recognise, Examine, Adjust, Liberate - is not a buzzword framework. It’s a complete operating system for leaders and organisations serious about doing the work: 13 interconnected tools spanning leadership development, employee engagement, culture transformation, and change management. From the 8C Engagement Multiplier to the CLEAR Path to Change, and from Lighthouse Leadership to Synapse™ (a board-level risk intelligence tool), Deborah’s frameworks are practical, evidence-based, and built for the real world- not the consulting brochure version of it.

Her philosophy is simple: the organisation’s job is to stop getting in the way of the talent it already has.
Deborah works with leadership teams, HR functions, and boards across the UK and internationally, as a strategic advisor, facilitator, executive coach, and keynote speaker.
Deborah’s style - on stage, on the page, and in the room- is the same: direct, warm, evidence-led, and utterly intolerant of corporate theatre. She asks hard questions. She challenges inherited assumptions. And she helps leaders and organisations find their way back to what actually works: people, first.

Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Speaking
Travels From: London, UK
Speaking Topics: Culture, Leadership, Future of Work

Deborah Hartung (she/her) Points
Academic 0
Author 133
Influencer 65
Speaker 0
Entrepreneur 15
Total 213

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Areas of Expertise

AI 30.01
Analytics 30.04
Business Strategy 30.03
Change Management 30.06
Coaching 30.40
Culture 32.52
Future of Work 31.96
HR 35.52
Leadership 30.24
Management
Transformation 30.92

Industry Experience

Publications & Experience

7 Article/Blogs
The TRUST Protocol: Why Human-Centred Leadership Will Define the Winners in the Age of AI
Linkedin
May 11, 2026
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing work faster than any person or organisation can emotionally process and that is the real problem. It’s not the technology itself or the automation. It’s not even the speed of innovation. The true challenge facing leaders today, is whether organisations can integrate AI without creating what Deloitte has called ‘AI Cultural Debt’: the long-term organisational cost that accumulates when businesses optimize for efficiency whilst simultaneously (and often totally unintentionally) eroding trust, agency, meaning and human connection.

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Tags: AI, Culture, Leadership

Absenteeism: 5 Tips to Progressively Manage Duvet Days
Linkedin
August 23, 2023
Absent employees not only impact on your ability to deliver products and services to your clients, but also cost you thousands every year in lost productivity.

Don't hide from the problem any longer! Here are 5 handy tips on how to manage absenteeism in the workplace in a progressive and supportive manner:

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Tags: HR, Leadership

Why we need both qualitative & quantitative performance measures
Linkedin
April 14, 2023
In today's competitive and ever-changing world, high performance at work remains a top priority for organizations around the globe. Most companies focus on achieving the quantitate targets such as sales, revenue and profitability to measure their success and to recognize and reward employees as 'high performers'. While these quantitative measures are essential, they only provide a partial picture of an organization's performance. This is where qualitative measures can help companies achieve a more holistic and accurate picture of their success.

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Tags: Analytics, Business Strategy, Leadership

Time for an integrated, agile Performance & Culture Management Model
Linkedin
March 01, 2019
With rapid changes to technology and the ways we work, it has long been no secret that the annual performance appraisal is very much ineffective and dead and we need to create better ways to manage the performance of employees in a competitive work environment. At the same time, however, we need to focus more on the important aspects of workplace culture and employee engagement and we need to find a way to incorporate all aspects of operating within the workplace, in our performance management methodology.

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Tags: Culture, HR, Leadership

5 Tips for Managers to Rev Employee Morale - even on a budget
Linkedin
September 17, 2017
Employee morale and motivation is directly linked to productivity and research has shown, time and time again, that leadership style and work environment has a much bigger impact on morale, than job security and remuneration does.

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Tags: HR, Leadership

Integrity: 5 Questions to gauge a candidate's Moral Compass
Linkedin
September 05, 2017
During the past week, South Africans learned of the university student receiving government funding to complete her studies, who blew close on a million ZAR after 14 million was erroneously deposited into her account by the finance provider. Somewhat surprisingly (at least to me) people disagree about whether this student should be held accountable for her actions in not reporting the error and then spending a record amount of money in less than 3 months.

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Tags: HR, Leadership

"Culture Fit"doesn't just apply to Employment Relationships : 3 tips for JV's & Collaborations
Linkedin
August 29, 2017
This past Friday afternoon, I had a meeting with a potential Joint Venture (JV) partner. It had been arranged by a business acquaintance, and, as a consultant and entrepreneur, I’m always on the lookout for great JV opportunities. I learned a long time ago that collaborating with the right people can lead to so many rewards and opportunities that the ROI is often difficult to quantify.

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Tags: Culture, HR, Leadership

6 Author Newsletters
Be the Lighthouse, not the Tugboat - a Modern Leadership Mantra
Linkedin
March 03, 2025
Ever feel like you’re constantly dragging your team toward deadlines, pulling them out of problems, and just generally shouldering way more than you should? Like, if you stop pushing, pulling, and prodding for even a moment, everything might grind to a halt?

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Tags: Culture, HR, Leadership

Quiet Quitting: Check-In before your Employees Check Out Completely
Linkedin
May 03, 2024
engagement, wellbeing, performance and retention? Check-in conversations are the game-changer that all managers have been missing.

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Tags: Culture, Future of Work, HR

Curiosity over Criticism: A Simple Trick to Improve Engagement, Performance & Culture
Linkedin
March 05, 2024
I'm not really sure how best to describe the feeling of having a new idea or being excited to share learning and insights with colleagues and leaders, speaking up and then having them either look at you like you just made no sense whatsoever, or hit you with a barrage of reasons why your idea won't work or has failed in the past.

I could say

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Tags: Culture, Future of Work, HR

Culture Clash: Why Most Culture Transformation Efforts Fail
Linkedin
November 08, 2023
Imagine your workplace culture as the personality of your organization. It's a unique blend of attitudes, behaviours, and values that set the tone for every employee's experience. This personality is not something that just happens; it's carefully crafted by the leadership team, from the C-suite to the first-line supervisors.

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Tags: Change Management, Culture, Leadership

From Blame to Growth: Transforming Workplace Culture
Linkedin
May 24, 2023
TRANSFORMING WORKPLACE CULTURE THROUGH ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING
Pointing fingers and blaming others doesn't aid learning or continuous improvement and it sure as hell doesn't help to promote psychological safety or a positive workplace culture in any way - quite the opposite, actually. Thankfully, more organisations are recognising the need to shift from a blame culture to one that embraces learning and improving. Blaming individuals for mistakes only hinders progress, while creating an environment that promotes accountability and learning, empowers and enables employees to take ownership of their actions and to grow as a collective.

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Tags: Change Management, Culture, Leadership

Culture is about how we make people feel
Linkedin
March 30, 2023
For me, workplace culture has always very much been something that I am able to sense from walking into an office, chatting to a few people and attending a meeting or two. Everything from the architecture, design and decor, to how people are dressed and how they interact and converse with each other or the design of the company's slide decks, gives me a glimpse into the true soul of a company - no matter how well they try to disguise it with classy finishes or modern touches and expensive coffee.

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Tags: Culture, Leadership

2 Books
Talent Liberation: The Blueprint for Performance Management in the New World of Work
Tablo Publishing (Pty) Ltd
August 31, 2020
Talent Liberation is the book for every business and HR leader who has been wanting to axe the annual performance appraisal process but is unsure of either how to do that or of what to replace annual appraisals with.

In this candid how-to-guide, Deborah Hartung clarifies and explains:
• The outdated attitudes and beliefs towards work,
• performance and culture that we need to permanently retire;
• The link between performance management methodologies and toxic workplace culture and how to break the cycle;
• How to manage and measure on outcomes instead of hours worked;
• How to improve performance and engagement through regular feedback and recognition; and
• How to use the DIRC model of performance management to improve both overall organisational performance levels and workplace culture.

By the end of Talent Liberation you will have a blueprint to implement in your organisation to help you unleash human potential, whilst ensuring that you improve collaboration, transparency and accountability in your teams and reach new levels of organisational efficiency,innovation and profitability.

WHO SHOULD READ TALENT LIBERATION
- Entrepreneurs and business owners
- Startup founders
- Team leaders, supervisors, managers
- HR professionals

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Tags: Culture, Future of Work, HR

Talent Liberation: The Blueprint to Performance Management in the new world of work
Tablo
August 01, 2020
Talent Liberation is the book for every business and HR leader who has been wanting to axe the annual performance appraisal process but is unsure of either how to do that or of what to replace annual appraisals with.

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Tags: Culture, Future of Work, HR

1 Executive
Head of Culture Transformation
Teamphoria
March 01, 2024
Award-winning employee engagement software.

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Tags: Culture, HR, Transformation

1 Mentor
Leadership Development Consultant
Kind.
April 01, 2024
Workshop Facilitation
Leadership Development
Manager Training and Coaching
Culture Transformation Projects

An evidence-based approach to personal and professional Team Building & Development.
We partner with our clients to make a profound impact on their goals, purpose and business-running, by unlocking the human potential in their organisations.

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Tags: Coaching, Culture, Leadership

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