January brings a false sense of momentum. After the planning session, the strategy gets set and then…..nothing. Leaders wait for the perfect moment to commit but that moment never arrives. So what does it actually take to start acting?

We made it- Another year done! After a year in a lot of different rooms with a lot of different leadership teams, a few things kept showing up that are worth talking about. Here's what we saw, what it taught us, and what we're taking into next year.

Every strategy session has this: the person dreaming about the next big horizon, and the person across the table wondering how they'll fix the handover process first. Both are right, but when the tension between the two goes unaddressed, good ideas just fizzle out. Here's the framework we've been using to help teams work through it.

With ten weeks left, the panic sets in. Leaders stop leading and start firefighting, and before long, the end of the year just kind of... happens to you. Here's how to take back control of the final stretch and finish in a way that sets you up for what comes next.

In busy environments, high performance becomes a reaction rather than a habit. Something that gets attention when things go wrong and gets forgotten about when delivery takes over. So what does it actually take to build it into how a team operates every day, and what changes when you do? Here's our take.

Too many capable people are being trusted with transformation and then left to figure it out alone, don’t you think? When it doesn't land, they blame themselves. But it's not them. It's the conditions. Here's what it looks like when leaders are given the strategy, structure and support they need to make change stick.

When deadlines pass and nothing moves, it's easy to point at the team. But what if the accountability problem is actually yours to fix? The good news is it doesn't take a culture overhaul. It takes knowing where the gaps are, building in the right conversations, and creating the kind of regular rhythms that mean nothing falls through the cracks.

It's Q2 and the grind is real. Teams are delivering and leaders are pushing, but somewhere in the chaos, the bigger picture has got lost. When no one's holding the vision, busy-ness fills the gap. It's time to lift your heads before the engagement starts to slip.

The new year energy has gone, the strategy is set and now it's time to actually do the work. Teams are being asked to show up completely differently, but the old habits haven't gone anywhere. Q1 is done. The stretch begins now.

Chaos isn't just bad luck. It's a signal that leadership habits haven't kept pace with the business. The good news? It ends when you decide it does.

Your team hasn't had the months you’ve had to process the strategy. So when you're ready to sprint, they're still figuring out what it means for them. Sometimes the fastest way to build momentum is to slow down just enough to bring people with you. Here's what that looks like in practice.

If you want to ensure you show up for your team to see them through this time of uncertainty make sure you reflect on what they need from you, not what you think they need from you.

Does golfing style reflect work style?

This year has been one of pivotal shifts. From embracing AI advancements to navigating macro challenges, leaders across industries have leaned into change, aligning their strategies and resetting their teams for success. It’s been a hard year—and you all deserve a break.

Leadership transformation has been front and center of the client challenges we’ve been thrown this month and there’s one theme that keeps coming up: the step change. Many of the organizations I’ve been working with are realizing that their “comfortable” ways of operating aren’t cutting it anymore. To get to the next level, leaders are having to shift—not just how they operate, but also what they tolerate.

It’s hard as a leader /manager when you’ve been told to deliver hard news on behalf of someone else’s decisions, especially one that you weren’t even involved with making or shaping. You’ve been given the script but you don’t have all the context, and you don’t have the answers.

Over the past few months, myself have the team have been leading team collaboration workshops across a range of industries, teams, and company sizes. What was interesting were the patterns that started to emerge which we can only attribute to the fact that no one was spared the changes and challenges brought on over the past few years.

In both my practice as aa practitioner and managing expectations of some fleeting founders, and as a business owner, navigating the grey that is my client’s “leadership” needs, I’ve had to excel at creating clarity through their uncertainty. When I reflect on how I do this, it brings me right back to my coaching fundamentals.

“Venting doesn’t extinguish the flame of anger. It feeds it.” - Adam Grant

Agree with Adam Grant’s position above?

How many of you use a good ol’ vent sesh to let off some steam about someone you’re working with?

There are many scenarios at work that can trigger that kind of frustration within you, scenarios like….

I was catching up with a good friend who works in a large tech scale-up. The organisation has been built by happenstance, piling on people after each funding round. Now that they are public, it’s a mess but can’t afford the optics of a complete restructure. So there you have it - a lot of folks with inflated titles trying to prove their worth on the daily.