Confidence does not appear on command; it grows from evidence, belonging, and rhythm. When people doubt their capability, leaders can help them rebuild belief through intentional design. This piece explores six practices grounded in behavioural science and everyday leadership experience. A practical, human answer to the question: How do I lead when people lack confidence?
John Scherer’s Five Questions That Change Everything is a guide to authentic leadership and self-discovery. By asking five simple but profound questions: What confronts me? What am I bringing? What runs me? What calls me? What will unleash me? He shows how everyday challenges become opportunities for growth and purpose.
Most leadership challenges are not about choosing between right and wrong, but between two versions of right. This article explores how to recognise and manage those recurring tensions, known as polarities, so that leaders can balance control and trust, stability and change, without losing coherence.
How can you tell what kind of problem you’re really facing and lead accordingly? Using the Cynefin Framework, this article explores how leaders make sense of complexity, adapt their approach across five domains, and find clarity amid uncertainty. A practical guide to leading with awareness, experimentation, and collective sensemaking.
When pressure rises, most of us speed up. We act before we think. The simple sequence Stop, Breathe, Refocus, Choose helps leaders reclaim presence in the moment, quiet the body’s stress response, and choose composure over reaction. A practical guide to staying calm under pressure.
Like the woodcutter who paused to sharpen his axe, effective leaders know progress requires renewal. The SHARP EDGE framework helps teams reflect, refocus, and stay sharp over time.
Leadership maturity begins where control ends. The Circle of Control reminds us that what defines us is not what happens, but how we meet what happens. This piece explores the mindset that turns reaction into responsibility.
In today’s leadership culture, speed often masquerades as competence. This article explores why constant urgency narrows judgement and how senior leaders can restore reflection, clarity and performance through simple disciplines, including executive coaching. Slowing down may be the most strategic move a leader can make.
Discover how great leaders use the E + R = O formula: Event plus Response equals Outcome, to stay composed, intentional, and effective under pressure. Learn practical ways to lead with awareness, shape outcomes through choice, and build a culture of conscious leadership grounded in self-awareness and reflection.
Many leaders reach a point where their work feels effective but empty. This article explores how job crafting helps leaders rediscover purpose by reshaping what they do, who they connect with, and how they interpret their work, drawing on research from Wrzesniewski and Dutton, Gallup, McKinsey, and Deloitte.
Executive coaching gives senior leaders a confidential space to think, challenge assumptions, and act with greater clarity. This article explores how coaching helps leaders navigate complexity, improve decision quality, strengthen resilience, and align culture and strategy for lasting impact.
Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team is one of the most popular leadership models today. Its simplicity and storytelling make it appealing, yet it misses how real teams grow. This article explores why the model falls short and introduces a more human, sustainable alternative: the Living Cycle of Team Effectiveness, built around Safety, Dialogue, Clarity, Accountability, and Learning to create lasting team performance.
Most teams don’t fail for lack of effort but for lack of clarity. The Clarity Canvas helps you move from vague expectations to shared commitments, turning accountability into partnership. Learn how to create clarity without control and build a team that knows what “good” looks like.
Self-expression is how we bring our inner world into the outer one. In the EQ-i model, it includes emotional expression, assertiveness, and independence. Together, these skills shape how we share feelings, state needs, and act with confidence.
We live in cultures that prize collaboration and connection. In workplaces, “team player” is often the highest compliment, while in families and communities, loyalty and togetherness are praised as the ultimate virtues. Yet beneath this emphasis on belonging lies a quieter challenge: the ability to act independently, to make decisions without leaning too heavily on approval, advice, or reassurance. In [...]
Assertiveness sits between silence and aggression. It is the practice of voicing your needs with clarity while respecting others. This article explores why assertiveness matters for resilience, decisions, and relationships and introduces eight practices to help you build confidence, set boundaries, and engage in honest dialogue
Setting boundaries is not about control but clarity. Learn how to use boundary mapping to create shared agreements that build trust and improve performance.
Grumbling is part of organisational life, but when it becomes the culture, energy drains away. This article explores five research-based pathways leaders can use to shift teams from complaint to contribution, rekindling agency, pride and possibility.
Emotional expression helps us connect, decide, and lead with clarity, yet many find it difficult. Discover why it matters and how to voice feelings with confidence and authenticity.
In times of uncertainty, strategy alone is not enough. Learn ten practical ways leaders can help their teams steady themselves, build resilience, and sustain trust and creativity in the face of constant change.
Learn how to answer tough questions under pressure with clarity and confidence. A simple five-step approach to stay calm, connect, and lead.
The most important conversations we ever have are the ones we have with ourselves. Who am I? What do I believe about my abilities? What am I working toward, and why does it matter? These questions are not abstract. They shape how we respond under pressure, how we relate to others, and whether our efforts add up to a life [...]
Self-actualisation is more than achievement, it is the lifelong pursuit of meaningful goals that reflect your values, strengths, and potential. This article explores why self-actualisation matters and offers eight practical exercises to help you align daily choices with long-term purpose.
How can I identify my leadership strengths? This article explores strengths-based leadership through VIA Character Strengths. Discover all 24 VIA strengths explained in depth, plus ten practical ways to bring strengths into business leadership.
Self-regard is the capacity to respect yourself with both strengths and imperfections intact. This article explores why it matters for resilience, decision-making, and leadership, and offers eight practical exercises to help you build steadier self-worth.
Emotional self-awareness is the starting point for emotional intelligence. This article explores what it is, why it matters for leadership and life, and offers eight practical exercises, from daily reflection to emotional mapping, that build deeper understanding of your inner world and its impact on others.
Leaders often ask, “How do I leave work at work?” This article explores boundaries, recovery, role transitions, autonomy, and resource management. Grounded in research and written with a reflective tone, it offers practical ways to switch off and reclaim balance without guilt.
Saying no at work is not easy. Many of us keep saying yes out of habit or fear, but it leads to stress, burnout, and strained relationships. This post explores how to say no at work without damaging trust or respect, using a simple rhythm: acknowledge • pause • respond.
Tired of endless meetings? Learn how to reclaim time by distinguishing between one way and two way door decisions, empowering people, and making meetings matter again.
The Waterline Principle helps leaders and teams decide when to act alone and when to consult. It offers a shared language for risk and responsibility, anchored in three questions: the upside, the downside, and whether you can truly live with the loss.
Most meetings drain time without delivering value. Research shows up to one third are unnecessary and 35% unproductive. This article explores ten practical yet human-centred ways to make meetings meaningful, focused, and effective.
Should leaders be friends with employees? Explore the benefits, risks, and strategies to balance trust, fairness, and performance at work.
Explore the three dimensions of trust; character, communication, and capability, with simple practices to strengthen collaboration and confidence at work.
Teams often get stuck in the same patterns of talk. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats offer a way to think differently, creating space for facts, feelings, risks and possibilities to emerge in turn.
Discover how Nancy Kline’s Ten Components of a Thinking Environment help leaders practise stewardship, build trust, and create shared responsibility.
Discover how proactive coping helps leaders build resilience, anticipate challenges, and cope better in today’s volatile workplace.
Resilient leaders are not born, they are built through daily practices that strengthen emotional self-regulation. From mindfulness and reflection to protecting boundaries and practising gratitude, leaders can create stability for themselves and their teams. This guide explores five proven strategies backed by research to help leaders stay composed, focused, and effective in the face of pressure.
Learn how to use OKRs to give your team focus. Discover their origins, benefits, pitfalls, and practical steps to connect daily work with purpose.
When a team has faced layoffs, turnover, and shifting leaders, stability becomes the true test of leadership. This guide shows how to rebuild trust and resilience after constant change by focusing on four resilience behaviours, shared identity, and strengths-based teaming. It also offers a clear sixty-day path for creating steadiness your team can believe in.
How can I influence others without manipulating them? I explore five doors of influence: rationalising, asserting, negotiating, inspiring and bridging, to persuade with respect.
Unclear decision rights are one of the biggest reasons meetings stall. In this article, I explore five ways decisions can be made and offer practical invitations for leaders who want to bring more clarity, trust, and accountability into every meeting.
A team member dislikes their role but refuses to resign. As a leader, how do you respond? This article explores five research-based frameworks that explain why people stay unhappy in jobs and what you can do to re-engage them with meaning, trust, and choice.
When senior leaders choose a path you would not, how do you respond without losing integrity or influence? This post explores evidence-based practices for regulating your reactions, acknowledging loss, practising self-compassion, reframing the situation, and grounding in values so you can lead with steadiness through disagreement.
Being promoted early can feel daunting when you are asked to lead older, more experienced colleagues. This article explores four proven psychological theories, impression management, social identity, leader–member exchange, and self-determination, that help young leaders show up with steadiness, build belonging, earn trust, and empower ownership.
How can you lead with authority when you don’t have all the answers? Drawing on behavioural science and self-stewardship, this article explores impostor phenomenon, self-compassion, growth mindset, tolerance of ambiguity, and narrative identity to help leaders stay steady and trusted in uncertainty.
Conflict between strong personalities can drain a team or strengthen it. Leaders who steward these moments with care can turn heated clashes into progress. This guide shows six evidence-based approaches and practical tools to host conflict in ways that protect dignity, regulate tension, and anchor people in shared purpose.
Teams often miss deadlines despite reminders, leaving leaders frustrated. This article explores six behavioural science insights and the principle of stewardship to redesign accountability. Learn practical ways to address optimism bias, vague promises, hidden risks, and motivation gaps so deadlines become shared commitments instead of recurring sources of stress.
Burnout is at record levels in 2025, with two-thirds of employees at risk. Drawing on Maslach’s burnout framework, this guide shows leaders how to motivate burned-out teams by addressing six critical mismatches in hybrid workplaces.
When trust is broken in leadership, clarity and control rarely repair it. This article explores the psychology of trust: ability, integrity, benevolence, fairness, and psychological safety and offers practical ways leaders can rebuild confidence through convening, fairness, and community.
Town halls and webinars are efficient at spreading information but rarely build ownership. This article explores why big formats fall flat, using insights from behavioural science and group psychology. It also shows how to redesign gatherings, physical or virtual, so people co-create meaning, commit to action, and leave with a sense of shared ownership rather than passive compliance.
