This week’s blog looks at the gap between leadership theory and what actually happens at work. It explores the bit where the neat theoretical frameworks meet real people, messy dynamics and the occasional organisational plot twist. Drawing on my MSc and doctoral research, I reflect on why leadership rarely fits neat and tidy models and why self-awareness may be what helps bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This week, I went to the launch of the Global Workplace Happiness Report 2026, by The Happiness Index at Google Head office in London.
I left with my head buzzing from all of the insights and ideas shares. During the day, it became very apparent that there was a lot of overlap in their findings and my model of self-aware leadership, specifically, the 9 behaviours of my compass. So, here’s a review of how my model overlaps with what the data is telling us about workplace happiness.
Hello KSKOers This week’s blog captures a thread that’s been running through my thinking for a long time. It started with a simple question I asked early in my career, and over the years that question has shifted, stretched and grown alongside my own experience of...
A couple of week ago, I went for an extraordinary swim with the wonderful Penelope Allard C.FICB PM.Dip.
Unaccustomed as we are to doing things by half, we combined a glorious swim in the warm high tide in Southend on Sea, with a conversation about charities, business, fundraising and commercial skills.
And now, it’s live!!!
Every Friday, I write a LinkedIn post, reflecting on my week. I’ve been doing this for the last few months. It’s a good habit to form and reminds you of just how much you’ve achieved. It also lets you celebrate your small wins and develop your transparency and ‘working-out-loud- skills. I realised that if you’re my Substack subscriber, you may never have stumbled on my posts. So, here’s a collection of reflections about leadership, my world of work and being people centric.
Every Friday, I write a little LinkedIn post, reflecting on my week. One of the things I wrote about on Friday, was the importance of leaders getting out and about, visiting frontline staff and talking to them about what’s going on, and meeting service users. In this week’s blog, I wanted to talk to you about the research behind my advice to leaders to go out, go visit and get talking.
Hello KSKOers… In 2025, I found myself getting interested in Founder’s Syndrome. It was an issue that kept surfacing in conversations about charities and founder-led organisations. It’s not a comfortable term. It can sound accusatory, even personal. But the more I...
Hello KSKOers You may remember my ranty blog from February 2024. If you’re finding leadership a lonely place, you’re just doing it wrong. Well, now felt like a good time to reiterate my rant and add that developing a network and finding your tribe is a critical way to...
Hello KSKOers On the 5th December, my grandfather would have been 124 years old. What was the world like when he was young? What was work like and what were leaders like? When I joined the Gloucestershire AiSpire Network a few week ago, we talked about how we’re...
Over the last year, I’ve been gradually transitioning my wardrobe to navy. Plain navy, dark navy, light navy, stripy navy and ‘will go with navy’. What started as a practical decision slowly became a moment of reflection, one of those everyday choices that quietly...
You’ll remember that ‘tenacity’ is one of my watchwords for 2026. It’s made me think about the whole doctorate thing and what’s really happening when people are doing study through research. Join me in this week’s blog where I share my thoughts on why almost anyone can do a PhD or any Big Work, with a bit of tenacity and why I think it’s more about persevering than being a genius.
Wiring Your Brain for Positivity It’s 2026 and the new year has begun in earnest. Time and tide waits for no man, but before we’ve really got going, we’re already telling ourselves stories about what this year will be like. Busy. Hard. Uncertain. Our new year’s...