At some point in your leadership career, the question changes.
It stops being, “What is the right call?” and starts being, “What is the safest call?” That shift feels responsible. It is not always helpful.

This article is about that moment.

They’ll work it out. Usually.

This article looks at why most leadership promotions succeed eventually, and why that’s not the whole story.

It explores what actually changes when someone is promoted, how good people end up carrying more than they should, and why the real cost of leadership transitions is often hidden rather than dramatic.

It’s written for people who’ve been promoted, and for the leaders who promote them, and who might underestimate how disruptive that shift can be.

If you’ve been promoted or promoted someone else, you’ll recognise the pattern.

If January feels productive, that might be the problem.
Busyness is easy. Progress isn’t

As the year draws to a close, it felt right to gather the questions I normally post on a Tuesday together and offer them as a small Christmas gift.

Not something to complete, but something to return to. A few lines of inquiry you might carry with you into quieter moments, or into the year ahead.

You don’t need to read them all at once. Just notice which one you’re curious about.

We learned curiosity, acceptance, and resilience from a bunch of puppets on a noisy street, then spent our adult lives unlearning the

You can work hard. Really hard and still feel stuck.

Someone said this to me recently:

“If all it took was hard work, the donkeys would be running the farm.”

It made me laugh, but it also hit a nerve.

This article is about what happens when effort isn’t enough, and how curiosity, not just discipline, might be the real unlock. It’s for anyone who’s been head down for too long and is starting to wonder, “Is this still working?”

The real leadership risk isn’t conflict. It’s silence.

Most senior leaders avoid tough conversations.

Not because they’re afraid — but because the system quietly teaches them to. We reward being “collegiate.” We celebrate being “supportive.”

And somewhere along the way, clarity can often gets lost.

This article builds on my ongoing exploration of what sets effective leadership apart, especially under pressure.

Like previous reflections on EQ, resilience, and the realities behind “fast quitting,” it looks beyond titles to examine how leadership is actually experienced.

It’s not a defence of middle management. It’s a question about what we still need from that space, and how we show up for it.

You can grow.

You can still lose yourself.

One word changed how I see it.