What Keeping People Waiting Says About Your Leadership
Years ago, I was told to arrive thirty minutes early for a presentation to the Board, just in case they were running ahead of schedule. They weren’t. I sat outside that boardroom for four hours. Then, my sixty-minute presentation got cut to thirty minutes. Then fifteen. Then ten. Eventually, the door opened, and I was told […]
Bored at Work? Pay Attention
You are three slides into an update when you realise you stopped listening two slides ago. Your eyes are on the screen. You may even look attentive, but your mind has quietly gone elsewhere. Or perhaps it is the report you have written so many times that it has become almost automatic. The meeting where you know what […]
Skip-Level Meetings: How to Build Trust, Not Suspicion
One of my clients was recently preparing for a skip-level meeting with their C-suite leader. The invitation landed in their inbox with no context or supporting details. In a highly political and complex environment, the hardest part was not deciding what to say. It was working out why the meeting was happening and what was expected […]
Who Holds the Leader? Why Authentic Leadership Needs Trusted Challenge
Recently, several senior leaders have asked me for advice as they navigated genuinely difficult situations. There were complex relationships, competing expectations and decisions with no obvious or risk-free answer. I asked questions and challenged assumptions, offered analysis and different perspectives, and we worked through options. Yet when they later reflected on what had helped the […]
Is Your Face Giving Away More Than You Realise
Early in my career, after a significant meeting, my boss pulled me aside and gave me feedback I have never forgotten: “You need a better poker face.” It was not said unkindly, but it was direct. My face, apparently, was sharing my reaction. Surprise, frustration, disagreement, concern. Whatever I was feeling, it was visible. At the […]
The Negotiation Trap That Starts Before The Conversation Begins
Early in my career, I was involved in a high-stakes negotiation that required far more preparation than I had expected. Before we entered the room, we went through intensive negotiation training. We prepared the issues, mapped the stakeholders, tested our assumptions and rehearsed how the conversation might unfold. At that time, I thought that succeeding […]
The Blind Spot That Power Creates at the Negotiating Table
In 2006, researchers from Northwestern University, New York University and Stanford ran a deceptively simple experiment. They handed participants a marker and asked them to draw the capital letter E on their own forehead. There are two ways to do it. You can orient the E so you can read it yourself, which produces a […]
From Colleagues to Connection: Why Work Friendships Matter
Workplace friendship is easy to dismiss as a nice-to-have: good for morale, helpful when it happens, but not something leaders need to actively consider. However, that view is increasingly out of step with how we experience work today. KPMG’s 2025 Friends at Work research found that 45% of employees surveyed feel isolated and alone at […]
Finding Your Crunch Point: How Leaders Navigate Pressure Without Breaking
Picture this scenario… You’re three weeks out from a major deliverable. Your calendar has no white space. Two of your direct reports have flagged issues that need your attention. A senior leader has just added a last-minute meeting for Monday morning. Your inbox is filling faster than you can clear it, and every conversation seems […]
The Messy Middle: Why Influential Leaders SCAN Before They Push Harder
Some concepts stay with you because they keep proving themselves to be true. For me, that applies to Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s observation that everything can look like a failure in the middle1. I first heard her talk about this concept many years ago, and it makes perfect sense. Beginnings carry energy. There’s excitement, momentum […]