Executive, Leadership and Team Coaching Insights
Practical thinking for leaders navigating complexity, pressure and change
Under the Surface
One thoughtful leadership briefing each month on the human dynamics behind leadership, pressure, politics and performance.
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Surviving Transformation: The Hidden Pressures of Leading Change
Leading organisational transformation can be rewarding, but the personal pressures don’t usually appear in the programme plan. Explore six challenges transformation leaders face, from uncertainty and competing priorities to difficult decisions, organisational politics and the risk of taking on too much.
Leading Across Cultures: A Practical Guide to Cross-Cultural Leadership
Leading across cultures is not about memorising cultural rules. It is about recognising when assumptions about trust, authority, communication, challenge and decision-making are not shared. This practical guide explores where cross-cultural leadership problems show up, and how senior leaders can respond with greater awareness, judgement and range.
Why Are Teams Trickier? What Changes When Capable Leaders Work Together
Why can highly capable leaders still struggle when they work together? This article explores what changes when individuals become a team, including power, trust, group dynamics, anxiety, decision-making and the wider system around them.
Executive Team Coaching: What It Is, How It Works and When Senior Teams Need It
A practical guide for CEOs and HR leaders considering executive team coaching, including how it works, when it helps, what happens in practice and when another intervention may be better.
Choosing the Right Leadership Development Intervention: Coaching, Training, Mentoring or Something Else?
Not every leadership challenge needs coaching. This evidence-based guide helps HR and L&D leaders decide whether a senior leader needs coaching, training, mentoring, assessment, team development or wider organisational change, starting with the real development need rather than the preferred solution.
Why Executive Presence Is More Than Charisma
Executive presence is often confused with charisma, confidence or the ability to command a room. But sustainable presence is broader, shaped by credibility, judgement, composure, communication and how others experience your leadership over time.
Developing Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide for Senior Leaders
Emotional intelligence is not just empathy. This practical guide explains how senior leaders can build self-awareness, composure, room-reading and trust under pressure.
Leadership Team Reset: 7 Signs Your Senior Team Has Outgrown Its Old Way of Working
A leadership team reset helps senior teams re-contract when old ways of deciding, challenging, collaborating and holding accountability no longer fit the business. Explore seven signs your senior team may need a reset, and what needs to change around purpose, roles, authority, trust and decision-making.
The Role of Storytelling in Organisational Change: Why Meaning Matters as Much as the Message
Storytelling is not just a communication technique. In organisational change, stories shape how people interpret uncertainty, trust leadership, understand their role and decide whether to commit. This article explores the evidence base, neuroscience, Manfred Kets de Vries’ psychodynamic perspective and practical ways leaders can use storytelling without slipping into spin.
What Is Cross-Cultural Coaching? How It Helps Leaders Build Trust, Influence and Credibility Across Cultures
Cross-cultural coaching is not about memorising etiquette or reducing people to national stereotypes. It helps leaders understand how trust, authority, communication and influence are interpreted differently across cultural contexts, then adapt with greater judgement, confidence and range.
11 Influence Tactics for Leaders
Discover the most effective leadership influencing tactics grounded in psychology. Learn how to inspire your team ethically and authentically
Leadership Success: Breaking the Drama Triangle towards the Winners Triangle
Explore the journey from the Drama Triangle's entangled roles to the empowering realms of the Winners Triangle. Discover how this shift can revitalise your leadership and interpersonal dynamics. Dive into our latest blog for interpersonal insights
Sanfords’ Challenge and Support Theory: Empowering Growth Through Coaching
Explore successful coaching through the perspective of Sanford's Challenge and Support Theory, a pivotal framework guiding coaches to foster growth by balancing encouragement with the right level of challenge. Discover how this approach helps individuals stretch their limits while ensuring a supportive environment for personal and professional development.
Developing Executive Presence: A Practical Guide for Senior Leaders
Welcome to our latest blog post where we explore the fascinating concept of executive presence. Often the defining factor between good and great leaders, executive presence melds confidence, poise, authenticity, and emotional intelligence. It's not just about what leaders say, but how they are perceived - through their knowledge, demeanor, and empathetic communication.