The Leadership Stack

Hi Reader, Did you watch the curling at the Winter Olympics? GB's team came so close to gold. What makes curling compelling to watch is that it is a team sport. You cannot win it through individual excellence. The skip reads the ice, calls the shot, the sweepers respond in real time, adjust, communicate. Everyone has to represent the collective … not just their own stone. Assemble four elite speed skaters and ask them to curl together and you won't get a curling team. You'll get four...

Hi Reader, Over a third of companies are planning to replace entry-level roles with AI. Only 22% are planning for what that means for succession. That gap matters. Right now, AI is being treated almost exclusively as an efficiency play….reduce headcount whilst increasing output. But entry-level roles have never been about just the grunt work. They have also been the training ground. Early in my career as a consultant, I learned by watching experienced people work. I expect you did too. I did...

Hi Reader, I was at a private equity networking breakfast in November and a Chair mentioned they'd replaced three CEOs in one portfolio company over four years. I asked: "What changed in the company between CEO number one and CEO number three?" Long pause. "Well... the business model got clearer." You might not be in private equity. But you'll have seen this pattern. A new leader comes in with a strong CV and high expectations. Six months later, same problems. A year later, they're gone. And...

Hi Reader, You spent £15,000 on a leadership team offsite. Two days with a professional facilitator. Team-building activities and a session on "What Google can teach us about high-performing teams." Everyone left inspired. A month later, the same patterns returned. Your leadership team who are smart people, still can't make decisions. They're performing like a newly formed boy band that can't agree on the first single. Away days promise transformation that they seldom deliver on. When you get...

Hi Reader, A director and her team achieved more in three days than they had in three weeks. Because their boss was out of the business. She shared with me that it wasn’t just an increase in the output, but the office vibe was upbeat and positive. Then he came back. And the late-night WhatsApp demands returned. His habit of swooping into negotiations, then vanishing. Creating urgency around his anxiety. She’d called me because this week, her best team member resigned without a job to go to...

Hi Reader, If you had to choose, would you rather share the contents of your phone or your ChatGPT logs? Most people say their phone. Because increasingly, we're asking our deepest questions of AI. We want a judgment-free zone to do it. A few months ago, a new Corgi puppy moved into my house. In the bleary-eyed early weeks, I leaned on ChatGPT at all hours for questions like, "Why won't he sleep when he's tired?" or "When is it serious enough to take him to the vet?" (after a particularly bad...

Hi Reader, I have a weird question for you. If the world ended tomorrow and you found yourself at the gates of the last functioning community on earth... What would you tell them you bring to the table? Not your job title. Not your technical skills. Not your industry expertise. What essence of you would actually matter to a group of humans trying to rebuild? I've been asking this question to leaders for months. The answers always surprise them: "I'd help people remember their worth." "I'd...