Leading Through Influence
In a matrixed organisation, outcomes rarely come from title alone. Increasingly, senior leaders are required to deliver through teams and people they don’t directly lead across functions, competing priorities and stakeholders. Therefore, leading through influence is no longer just a secondary capability. It’s becoming an important part of every leader’s skillset. The challenge is that […]
The Leadership Skill Most Teams Get Wrong
Your team is capable. Your strategy is solid. So why does it feel like people are holding back? In most workplaces, the gap between a good team and a great one isn’t skill — it’s trust. Not the kind of trust that comes from knowing someone for years, but the kind that’s built deliberately, through the way you lead every single […]
Preparing for an Honest Conversation
Most people avoid honest conversations not because they don’t care, but because they do and they don’t want to make things worse. However, silence usually costs more: resentment builds, expectations stay fuzzy and small issues turn into patterns. When approached with care, honest conversations restore trust, improve relationships and help people move forward when things feel stuck. Why honest conversations are important When honest conversations are required If any of […]
Great cultures don’t manage up. They lead down.
There’s a quiet dysfunction that exists in many organisations and most senior leaders don’t even realise they’re contributing to it. Strategies get set, directions get communicated and then somehow, the people responsible for executing them find themselves pushing upward. In pushing upward, they’re seeking clarity, chasing decisions or waiting for permission just to get things moving. If your teams are spending more energy managing up […]
Misalignment breeds underperformance
Lack of accountability, meetings after the meeting, ambiguous strategic direction, these are symptoms of a bigger issue. They are signifiers that the five dysfunctions of a team are quietly eroding your team’s potential. Most executive teams look functional on paper. Smart people. Clear roles. A strategy everyone nodded at in the last offsite. In light of all of the positives; decisions are stalling, accountability is slipping and the same conversations […]
Check in before you jump in: The leadership habit that changes everything
You know it the moment you sit down for a one-on-one. Something’s off. A deadline is at risk, a standard isn’t being met, and every instinct is telling you to step in and sort it out. But before you do, have you actually checked in with your team member? Most leaders skip this step entirely. When leaders jump in without checking in We’ve all been there. Your […]
Training to perform or just performing?
What if the reason your leadership team is underperforming has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with how they spend their time? There’s a striking contrast hidden in plain sight between the world of elite sport and the world of corporate leadership: athletes spend the majority of their time training, while corporate leaders spend the majority of their […]
Humour is the Strategy
Is humour at work really considered just a “nice to have”? Too often it gets dismissed, considered being a distraction from the real work. But the story culture leaders need to lean into is exactly the opposite: humour can be one of the most powerful levers for belonging, engagement and productivity. And it doesn’t take much, just […]
No Problems is the Problem
If you’re not hearing about problems in your team, that is not an opportunity to relax. It’s your opportunity to lean in. Typically, the absence of problems isn’t always a sign of excellence or comfort. It’s a sign of silence. And silence under pressure is rarely healthy. As a leader, you sit in the tension point. You translate strategy downward and absorb expectations […]
Culture is what you reward and what you tolerate
Most leaders say culture matters. However, few can clearly describe the culture they are actively creating. That gap is where culture drifts. Not because people do not care, but because culture is shaped less by intention and more by behaviour. What gets reinforced. What gets ignored. What leaders are willing to address and what they […]
