A leader loses her temper over an expensive mistake, sends everyone home, then sits alone in her office and cries. It is hardly the leadership story most people want to tell. For Tameka Bramwell, though, it became the moment that changed how she managed people.
Now the co-founder of HR consultancy Bramwell Partners, Tameka spent her early career in her family’s furniture transport business. She became its general manager in her twenties, managing 65 people across three states in an industry with tight margins and relentless operating costs. The experience gave her a practical view of HR leadership: people problems cannot be separated from the pressures of running a business.
Learning to Lead in a Family Business
Tameka began by helping out as a receptionist while her children were young. Over time, the role grew into general management. It was a considerable responsibility, but she worried that employees saw her position as a result of being the owner’s daughter rather than her ability. That sense of imposter syndrome helped drive her decision to study business, majoring in management and HR.
The family business brought challenges that went well beyond a job title. Relatives worked alongside one another, so difficult workplace conversations could follow everyone to dinner or Christmas lunch. Transport operated around the clock. A truck breakdown might mean a call at one or two in the morning, while rising fuel costs added constant commercial pressure.
She also saw leadership habits she did not want to repeat. The approach around her could be controlling and heavily focused on giving instructions. Yet under pressure, she found herself falling into the same pattern.
After one costly mistake, Tameka stormed into the shed, shouted at the team and sent people home. Back in her office, she realised she had damaged the trust she needed to lead. The next day, she brought everyone together, apologised and committed to doing better.
An apology did not erase the mistake, but it gave the team a reason to believe change was possible. It also gave Tameka a new question to ask herself: was she becoming someone people would choose to follow?
Why Practical HR Support Matters
Eventually, the family decided to leave the transport business. The work was consuming their lives without delivering enough return. Tameka remembers sitting on the edge of her bed after an alarm went off at 3 am and admitting how unhappy she had become. Her husband, Wayne, recognised that something had to change.
Starting Bramwell Partners allowed Tameka to use both her HR qualification and her operational experience. She and Wayne have since spent 16 years building the consultancy. Her original focus was family-owned businesses because she understood how valuable an experienced sounding board would have been during her own years as general manager.
That support need not mean taking every decision away from an owner or manager. Sometimes it means helping them identify who the business needs, recognise valuable employees, address behaviour that is causing harm and prepare for a difficult conversation. For Tameka, studying recruitment or people management was most useful when she could apply it to a real workplace problem.
Her confidence took time to build. Business coaches, mentors, reading and continued self-development helped her move beyond the belief that she had to prove she belonged. Her advice to people early in their HR careers is straightforward: back their judgement, keep learning and do not let self-doubt make every decision for them.
When HR Work Becomes All-Consuming
Urgency is familiar to anyone working in HR. Employee concerns, executive deadlines and unexpected incidents can spill into evenings and weekends. Tameka does not dismiss the pressure. During her transport career, a driver died in a truck accident, an experience that remains with her.
That perspective helps her distinguish between a matter that feels urgent and one that truly cannot wait. An important board deadline still needs a plan, but treating every request as a crisis leaves little room for clear thinking. HR professionals need to establish priorities, understand the consequences of delay and protect time away from work.
For Tameka, that time might mean walking, reading, crocheting or swimming in the ocean. The activity matters less than having space in her head that work does not occupy. Without it, the capacity to support other people steadily wears down.
Senior HR Leaders Do Not Have to Know Everything
Senior people and culture roles can be lonely. An HR leader may understand what needs to change while lacking the time, specialist expertise or executive support to deliver it alone. Tameka’s advice is to stay close to what is happening across the workplace and collaborate rather than pretend to have every answer.
Bringing in another specialist is not necessarily a sign that an internal HR team has failed. It may give the team capacity to complete a piece of work, or help senior decision-makers understand why additional resources are needed. The point is to be clear about what the HR team can do, what support it needs and how the work fits the business’s priorities.
Psychosocial Safety and the Right to Disconnect
Two challenges currently stand out for Australian HR teams: psychosocial safety and the right to disconnect.
Psychosocial risks sit within workplace health and safety, but many of the actions involved in responding to concerns fall to HR. Claims can be especially difficult to navigate when there is a pre-existing mental health condition and questions arise about the workplace’s role. Tameka does not claim there is an easy answer. The challenge calls for careful processes, attention to the facts and appropriate advice rather than assumptions about an individual’s health.
Safe Work Australia provides national resources on work health and safety, including psychosocial hazards.
The right to disconnect raises a different practical question: how should a business manage out-of-hours contact while meeting its operational needs? Tameka’s view has become more nuanced as she has considered how different industries work. Each organisation needs to decide what the rules mean for its roles, then explain expectations to managers and employees. A generic policy will do little if it does not reflect how the business operates.
Clear guidance should address both what the right involves and what it does not. South Geldard Lawyers’ guide to the right to disconnect for Australian employers and HR teams explores the change and its exceptions. The Fair Work Ombudsman is another source for current workplace rights information.
Good HR Combines People Skills With Business Judgement
Easy access to online information has not made workplace disagreements easier to resolve. Employers and employees may each arrive convinced that a search result, an AI-generated response or their own interpretation settles the issue. Tameka sees the resulting insistence on being right as a barrier to useful conversations.
The better question is often what outcome the business and its people need. That does not mean ignoring legal obligations or abandoning principles. It means checking the facts, listening properly and considering whether holding a rigid position will actually solve the problem.
This is where Tameka sees the future of the HR business partner role. People decisions affect operations, finance and the rest of the organisation. A strong HR partner understands those connections and can speak from practical experience, not just a textbook. Time spent learning how other teams work makes HR advice more credible and more useful.
That practical approach also shapes her stance on feedback. Difficult conversations should not be postponed until a problem grows. If the moment or setting is wrong, a leader can acknowledge the concern and arrange to address it promptly. Being honest early is kinder, and often more effective, than avoiding the issue.
Jonathan Mamaril, host of the HR Engage Podcast and director of employment law at South Geldard Lawyers, brought these threads together in his conversation with Tameka: leadership is not simply about having the right answer. It is about taking responsibility, seeking help where needed and understanding the business as well as its people.
Tameka’s guiding thought comes from her father’s advice about friendship: anyone who wants a good friend must be one. The same principle travels well to work. A leader who wants trust must act in a trustworthy way. A business that wants a strong team must help build one.
