Blog & Insights
Blog insights & reflections on leadership, career decisions, organisational dynamics and personal mastery.
Executive Presence Has Nothing to Do With Confidence (and everything to do with this)
There is a version of this conversation that happens in almost every leadership coaching intake. The person sitting across from me is credible and...
After the Rupture: What Your Repair Style Says About Your Psychological Maturity
A single human brain contains more neural connections than there are stars in the observable universe. Now take two of those unfathomable systems. Put...
The Fallacy of “Bring Your Whole Self to Work”
Please don’t bring your whole self to work. A company doesn’t exist to meet all of your needs. It exists to perform and create...
Why ‘Distance Travelled’ Matters More Than Pedigree in Hiring
In volatile environments, past performance tells you less than you think. Distance Travelled refers to how far someone has come given where they started....
Are modern offices designed for collaboration or for visibility?
The open-plan office is framed as a tool for creativity and transparency, but historically, large shared spaces were designed to make behaviour observable. The...
Case Study 3: Confidence in Ambiguity
Metric Detail Client Context High-intellect professional seeking significant career development Core Challenge A lack of clear, refined five-year vision and a high reliance on...
Case Study 2: Boundary-Setting for Balance
Metric Detail Client Context Highly driven professional in a demanding work environment Core Challenge Instability and constant “over-functioning” resulting in fatigue and lack of...
Case Study 1: Reclaiming Self-Authority
Metric Detail Client Context Executive/Professional in a demanding role with high familial/cultural obligations Core Challenge Deep emotional exhaustion, feeling stuck, and sidelining personal wellbeing...
What am I willing to tolerate being misunderstood for?
There was once a town jester who loved to dance about wildly in the streets. He would wail, laugh and cry out without abandon...
Discipline: an Act of Kindness
Discipline is one of the most reliable expressions of care for the future self. It is the practical side of self-respect. Small, repeatable actions...
The Paradox of Fear: Stop Fighting It
We tend to think fear must disappear before we can move. That courage begins when calm arrives. That action waits on confidence. Most of...
Choose your “Difficult”
We rarely frame our choices in terms of suffering, yet behavioural psychology tells us that almost everything meaningful involves some kind of discomfort, sometimes...
Wrong Often, Right Enough
A pattern I’ve noticed in successful people: they’re a little delusional about their abilities. They’re irrationally optimistic about what they can work out. While...
Complexity is the Landscape You Lead In
The tech landscape is more complex than most anticipated. Roles blur, authority is tested and innovation cycles collapse into shorter spans. ThoughtWorks describes this...
When Coaching Works and When It Doesn’t
We live in an age where every difficulty at work seems to have the same solution: “get a coach.” Struggling leader? Get a coach....
How Does An Emotionally Healthy Person Relate To Their Career?
It is not instinctive to think that the state of our emotional health shapes the way we choose, engage with and sustain a career....
Why Do We Work So Hard?
We work so hard because deep down, we’re driven by fears and insecurities we seldom acknowledge openly. There’s a persistent anxiety about not being...
Learning to Manage Up (aka Making Your Manager Look Good)
One of the lessons of working life is that being good at your job is rarely enough. Many of the most competent people remain...
Your Job is a Mirror
Work trains how we respond to pressure, make decisions in uncertainty, hold boundaries, navigate power, work across difference and recover when things go off...
Criticism: a Source of Shame or a Source of Strength
A common theme that comes up in professional coaching is how people respond to critique at work. It could be a blunt comment from...
Leadership Lessons from my Trip to the Kruger Park
Just joking! Not every life experience needs to turn into a leadership lesson for a LinkedIn post. We spent last week in the bush, devoid of meetings, cell signal,...
Why Great Individual Contributors Struggle When They Become Leaders
Moving from being a strong individual contributor into a first-time leadership role is one of the most misunderstood transitions in professional life. What earns...
Changing Careers in Your 40’s
Changing careers in your 40s, once seen as a sign of instability, is now often a mark of discernment and clarity. Career change coaching...