Sustainability has moved firmly into the boardroom. Companies are setting Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets, publishing sustainability reports, making climate commitments, and introducing...

Leadership is often measured by what happens around us: results, revenue, productivity, team performance, and growth. But some of the most important leadership decisions happen before we ever speak...

Many organizations do not fail at purchasing technology; they fail at the subsequent digital transformation activities: how the workflow changes, whether staff have the skills to adjust and perform...

I will never forget meeting a senior colleague at a community event where we were both volunteering. He had just returned from a six-month sabbatical to fulfill a dream of traveling the country. After...

The “black box” isn't actually black, and after failure, the truth is rarely as obvious as it looks. When something goes wrong, suddenly everyone knows what should have been done. The warning signs seem obvious...

In fast-moving organisations, responsiveness is usually seen as a sign of good leadership. Leaders are expected to act quickly, respond to new information, and keep pace with change. Yet in recent conversations...

I have never finished a 60-minute meeting and thought, I wish we'd booked 90. I have, however, left plenty wondering why seven people needed to be there, why something that could have been decided in...

For the past several years, I have been developing a framework called the Seven Dimensions of Self (7DS). What began as an attempt to understand my own experiences gradually became something much larger: a way...

For decades, the glass ceiling has given us a useful way of talking about women and ambition. You can see the next level. You know you are capable of reaching it. Yet somewhere between where you are and where you...

The National Health Service (NHS) is not struggling to recruit internationally trained professionals. It is struggling to keep them. Overseas-trained clinicians now make up a significant and growing...

For decades, organisations have invested significant amounts of time and money attempting to change human behaviour. We develop leadership competencies, introduce values and behaviours frameworks, run...

Over 25 years at sea and in the boardroom, I have developed a framework that sits at the heart of everything I teach. I call it SHINE. Each letter represents a dimension of leadership that every...

Legacy leadership is not measured by how long your name remains on a door. It is measured by how deeply your influence continues to live in people. This article explores how leaders shape people, cultures...

Most crisis management focuses on processes, plans, protocols, and decision trees. What it rarely considers is the nervous system of the person managing the crisis. Leaders often believe they know...

For years, burnout has been treated as the point at which something has gone wrong. By then, a high-achieving professional woman may be exhausted, struggling to think clearly, questioning decisions...

Have you ever been genuinely surprised when a highly valued employee resigned? Their performance appeared strong, no serious concern had reached senior leadership, and the reason they gave sounded...

The Headteacher Compass offers a practical way to examine whether leadership can remain effective over time. Its four connected dimensions, Balance, Clarity, Impact and Renewal, move the...

You are about to walk into a difficult conversation. You just received an email that makes your stomach tighten. A board member questions your decision. Your team is looking to you for clarity, but you are...

It is the meeting that went sideways, the decision you regret, or the day when everything required twice the effort and nothing landed right. You might attribute these experiences to distraction, a...

The danger isn’t learning from people getting great results. The danger is trying to copy the result while shortcutting the work that created it. Learning from high-performing people is not the problem...

When someone is struggling to develop or perform consistently, we often look first at the individual. We question their confidence, motivation, discipline, resilience, or willingness to work. In many...

Boards are approving AI training budgets faster than they can spend them. Executives are learning the tools, the models, the prompts. And almost none of it touches the thing that decides whether an...

Have you ever been in a team meeting when an uncomfortable topic has been raised and the leader has simply brushed past it? Or worked in an environment where subtle bullying has been...

Organisational change is a part of working life. Whether it’s a restructure, a merger, a new system or a completely different way of working, every organisation will experience change at some point.