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The Altitude Question
From expert to strategic leader A five minute read for senior leaders and founders whose role changed before their reputation did. There is a kind of expertise that quietly stops paying. Not because you got worse at it. Because the room changed around it. It rarely announces itself. Sometimes there is a promotion. Often there is not. The company doubled. The board turned over. You hired someone better than you at the thing you were best at. Or nothing visible happened at al
Executive Communication: When knowing enough is no longer the hard part
In the last post, I wrote about the gap between knowing what to say and being able to access it under pressure. This post is about the next gap. The one that sits between finding your clarity - and making it land. Because access is only half of it. The harder question, particularly as roles become more senior, is whether your thinking actually reaches the person on the other side of the table. Whether they can follow it. Whether they can act on it. Often, they can't. Not beca
Start As You Mean To Go On
Why the first few weeks of a team quietly decide the next six months There is a moment most leaders walk straight past. The first meeting of a new team. Or the first meeting after something shifts: a reorganisation, a new joiner, a wider remit, a bad quarter everyone is politely not mentioning. It feels like a beginning. Something to get through before the real work starts. It is the real work. Week One What gets decided without anyone deciding it Teams settle fast. Faster th
The In-Between
As the year draws to a close, many people sense a shift. Something ending. Something wanting to begin. And a quiet discomfort in the space in between. I’ve written before about transition moments — the small, often invisible shifts we move through every day — and how the energy we carry from one moment into the next shapes our presence and performance. This piece stays with the in-between itself a little longer. Because year end has a way of bringing it into focus. Change a
Executive Presence - Why It Matters
You may have heard it before. "You need to develop your executive presence." It often appears in feedback or promotion conversations - and is rarely unpacked. Leaders are left wondering what is meant, what is missing, and how to work on something that feels intangible. So what is executive presence, really? And why does it carry so much weight? Because in moments that count - when pressure rises, uncertainty looms or change is unfolding - people do not just listen to leaders.
Leading with Your Core Values
Your inner compass in times of change Somewhere in a drawer, or a photo on an old phone, there is probably a flipchart page with your values written on it. Freedom. Integrity. Growth. Then Monday arrived. Board papers, a team issue that could not wait, three things that were already late. And the words went quiet. This is not a failure of seriousness. It happens to most of us, and it has happened to me more than once. Values tend to go quiet precisely when the pressure rises
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