I’ve made decisions throughout my career that felt like the right only to appear significantly different shortly.

Not necessarily dramatic ones, just decisions I made when moving quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. Sometimes they were judgement calls I made in the absence of enough information or without engaging all the right people. There’s been many times I’ve made a decision that seemed perfect in my head only to land awkwardly with the people who then had to put that decision into action. In the moment, those errors of judgement are easy to justify, and unfortunately, they’re a part of leadership that’s grounded in progress rather than perfection. You rarely have the luxury of all the right information, at the right time, with the right people present, so you just do the best you can.

The genuine test of leadership is what happens after that bad decision is made. Once a leader realises they’ve made a poor decision, the first instinct is rarely noble and that’s an aspect of human nature I touched on with an everyday example in my recent article, The Power of a Quick Sorry.

At times when I’ve made a poor decision, and there has been many, my first instinct is often far from noble. I wish I could claim it always was, but sometimes my first impulse is to explain, add context or, at my worst, subtly shift the blame, while emphasising “I don’t mean to blame” while clearly doing so.

I don’t like admitting that, but it’s true.

There have been many times when feedback on a decision has come to me, and rather than show curiosity my position has been to protect my competence and the version of me that I want people to see.

Between a poor decision and correction of that decision there is a space where trust can grow, or rapidly descend in the opposite direction. Trust does not erode in that space because a leader got something wrong, because people can live with that. Reasonable people acknowledge that leadership is messy, and they know decisions get made under pressure, with scant information and trade-offs. What they struggle with is the performance that follows the mistake. They grow cynical when a poor decision is followed by a long explanation and staged or disingenuous apology.

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Glassdoor’s Worklife Trends 2026 report was recently released and it highlights the point I’m driving at here. There’s a growing use of words like “disconnect,” “miscommunication,” “distrust,” and “misalignment” when people mention senior leadership or management. In fact, from 2024 to 2025, Glassdoor reviews showed a 149% increase in the use of the word “misalignment” when describing leaders (Glassdoor 2026) and that points to something we should all take notice of.

Trust doesn’t drop in one single moment but happens when people keep noticing a leader won’t take accountability for poor decisions. When a team raises a concern and gets an explanation instead of a hearing, they may not react in isolation. However, when it happens enough, people begin to question the leader’s authenticity. Eventually in these situations, the leader stop hearing the truth early enough to do anything useful with it.

Certainty and credibility are not interchangeable. Certainty in leadership emphasises strength, commitment to decision-making and absence of doubts. While there is a place for this, certainty without self-awareness can make any challenge feel like a threat to leadership and have you protecting your pride while believing you’re protecting the team. That’s a deception of the ego, and most of us are more vulnerable to it than we think.

Real self-awareness is practical and not the version we talk about in leadership programs. Self-awareness is noticing when your body tightens because someone has challenged you and catching the moment before you build your defense rather than listening.

That sort of self-awareness is not soft, rather it is peak emotional intelligence.

Progress over perfection, a phrase I use routinely, applies, but only if we use it with honest intent. Progress over perfection emphasises progress, implying that there is an intent and movement towards the right outcomes. The phrase cannot be called upon as a convenient excuse for poor decisions or failing to be openly accountable for them.

To grow trust from our people, our learning must be real, visible, and lead to a change in behaviour.

Private reflection matters, but it doesn’t always repair the public impact of a poor decision. If you made the call in the room, then some part of your learning may also need to happen in that same room. That public learning can’t be some performative and awkward leadership confession. The learning must have enough honesty and vulnerability that people believe change is possible.

Such a moment can be as simple as; I’ve thought more about yesterday’s decision and recognise that I moved too quickly. I didn’t have enough of the right people in the conversation, and I can see that created confusion. We’re going to pause, get the right input, and reset the approach.

That kind of statement does not make a leader look weak; it earns them easier trust.

The Edelman 2026 Trust Barometer adds another useful layer to the discussion, reporting that 70% of people globally are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values, facts, problem-solving approaches, or cultural backgrounds. Edelman also argues that employers are well-placed to help broker trust because workplaces still bring people together across these differences (Edelman 2026). And that matters because workplaces are full of different pressures, perspectives, values, and backgrounds.

A leader’s job is not to bulldoze through all those differences with confidence and hope people follow. Their job is to create enough trust that people can tell the truth before the damage is done, and that takes humility from them.

I am better at this than I used to be. I’m far from perfect but getting better.

Your team does not need you to be flawless. They need to know that when you get it wrong, truth has a better chance than your pride.

For years I sat through meetings in silence. I usually understood what was being discussed and often had ideas to contribute, but I stayed silent as a longstanding story played over in my head; You’re the least experienced person in the room. Keep listening. Someone smarter will come up with the answer.

Initially, there was some truth to that. I was young, relatively inexperienced, and surrounded by people who had far more experience than myself. The problem was that I kept telling myself that story long after it had stopped being true.

Years passed and I gained experience while advancing into more senior roles. No longer was I the new guy with nothing to say, but whenever I walked into a room full of senior executives, that old story would surface.

Don’t embarrass yourself. Just listen.

I’d think of an idea, run it through my head, then decide someone else probably had a better one, only to see that same idea raised a few minutes later and receive enthusiastic agreement from the room. I would sit there thinking, That’s exactly what I was going to say.

Eventually, I realised I’d grown professionally, but the story I told myself repeatedly, hadn’t kept pace with that growth.

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I suspect most of us do this in one way or another. Human beings are remarkably loyal to the stories they tell themselves. Once a self-narrative becomes part of our identity, it can be difficult to let go of, even when the evidence no longer supports it. Over time, those stories stop feeling like beliefs and start feeling like facts.

Someone who lacked confidence as a teenager may still think of themselves as insecure at forty. Someone who failed in business years ago may continue to see themselves as a poor decision-maker, despite years of good judgement and success.

The longer a story survives, the harder it becomes to notice. Eventually, it becomes the lens through which we interpret ourselves and the world around us. The trouble is that we often grow faster than our self-image. While skills improve and experience accumulates, we continue judging ourselves using information that is years, sometimes decades, out of date.

The cost of an outdated self-story isn’t always significant, but it can narrow what’s possible. The story becomes the reason we don’t apply for a role, share an idea or put our hand up for the opportunity. These stories often encourage caution when confidence would be more appropriate.

This is where unlearning becomes important. Not because we should ignore weaknesses or convince ourselves we’re capable of anything, but because some beliefs eventually outlive their usefulness.

Most limiting beliefs begin as reasonable observations. At one point, you genuinely may have lacked confidence, skills or experience, but the mistake is assuming those observations became permanent truths.

A question I’ve found useful is: Is this belief describing who I am today, or who I was years ago?

It’s a simple question, but it can reveal just how much of our thinking is based on outdated information.

Psychologist Carol Dweck built much of her work around the concept of a growth mindset. At its core is the idea that people can learn, improve and develop through effort, practice and experience. That idea challenges one of the assumptions hidden inside many limiting self-narratives; that personal qualities are fixed.

A related concept comes from Albert Bandura whose research showed that people are more likely to take action when they believe they can succeed. In other words, belief influences behaviour before results appear. The stories we tell ourselves shape what we’re willing to attempt.

Updating an old narrative doesn’t require significant reinvention. It usually starts by identifying a belief you’ve carried for a long time. Not a preference or personality trait, but a statement about capability. Maybe it’s, I’m not strategic, I’m not confident or, I’m not good at difficult conversations.

Once you’ve identified the outdated belief, look for current evidence rather than historical evidence. Reflect on recent experiences or ask a trusted colleague for feedback. Many people are carrying stories about themselves that nobody else believes anymore and identifying contrary evidence is a key step in shedding those outdated stories.

The final step is action, to create new evidence and start shaping an updated and valid story. Speak up in the meeting. Volunteer for the project. Have the difficult conversation. Put your hand up for the opportunity. Every time you step outside of the outdated story provides evidence it no longer applies.

We often think growth is about adding something, like skills, knowledge and more experience. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s about letting something go.

Perhaps the hardest person to unlearn is yourself.

And perhaps your next stage of growth doesn’t begin with learning something new. Perhaps it begins with recognising that one of the stories you’ve been carrying around is no longer true.

On my way to the office this morning, while travelling along the motorway at some speed, a light truck suddenly drifted across into my lane, causing me to hit the brakes. It wasn’t aggressive driving and his indicator was on but, I presume, he just hadn’t seen me.

As I hit the brakes, I instinctively thumped the horn and braced for the reaction we’ve all come to expect in those situations. A shrug, some dangerous brake tapping or even the universally recognised single digit signal for, whatever mate.

Instead, the driver immediately wound down his window, reached out his arm with obvious intent, and gave me a quick wave. It wasn't an angry wave though, it was clearly apologetic and seemingly saying, sorry mate, that was my mistake.

The gesture caught me off guard. In an instant there was nothing left to be angry about, and the irritation that’d flared up seconds earlier dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

As I continued driving, I pondered why such a small interaction had felt so significant. The mistake had happened, yet a simple acknowledgement of responsibility had completely changed my response to it.

We all make mistakes; it’s human. We forget to return a call, miss a deadline, or make a poor decision that affects our team. However, the mistake itself is often not the cause of the greatest damage; rather, the actual damage comes from what happens next.

Most of us instinctively protect ourselves when we realise we’ve got something wrong. We explain the circumstances, point to the pressures we were under, or focus on our intentions rather than the outcome. Nobody enjoys being wrong. But in leadership roles, we see countless examples of how differently people respond to their own mistakes. While one leader explains why it wasn’t their fault another says, “I got that wrong. Here’s what I’ll do differently next time.” The latter diffuses problems, while the former fuels conflict.

Most people don’t expect leaders to get everything right. What they want to know is whether someone can recognise an error, own it, and move forward. Accountability, particularly when shown rapidly, builds credibility far more effectively than defensiveness ever does.

The same principles operate in our personal lives. People can usually forgive a forgotten birthday, or an insensitive comment. What often causes the lasting damage is the refusal to acknowledge and own those oversights.

I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself. There have been times when I knew I should apologise but wanted the other person to understand my intentions first. I wanted them to know I had meant no harm, as though good intent somehow erased poor impact. Of course, it doesn’t work that way. You can mean well and still get it wrong. Acknowledging the impact of our actions doesn’t diminish us; it shows maturity.

So why do so many of us struggle to apologise quickly? Pride and fear are commonly the drivers. We worry that admitting fault will make us look weak, incompetent, or foolish. We see apologising as losing when, in reality, a genuine apology is simply an acknowledgement of reality. More accurately and in its simplest form, it’s honesty. And honesty has a remarkable ability to defuse tension before it has the chance to grow. The longer we avoid apologising, the more complicated things become.

By the time I arrived at work, the near miss had already faded. What stayed with me was the wave.

That driver will probably never know it, but his moment of humility changed the tone of my morning. What could have become another frustrating commute became a quiet reminder of the person I want to be when I get something wrong.

Not a bad outcome from a near miss on the motorway.

Live Well, Lead Better is a publication about leadership, culture and personal growth. Today I’m sharing something related, but a little different.

The Way Through (working title) is in the late stages of drafting and will be my debut book. It’s a memoir about struggle, recovery and identity, while also exploring my 10 Principles of Recovery that emerged from those experiences. Following is a chapter from that manuscript, and I’d genuinely love any feedback on the writing, impact, or simply what resonates with you as a reader.

The Way Through - Move, then begin

We were on the Hume Highway and barely past Kalkallo when I felt it for the first time.

Relief.

Not happiness exactly because happiness feels too neat for what it was. This was more like space opening up inside my chest as though I’d been clenching every muscle in my body for years and had finally loosened my grip without realising it.

The highway stretched out in front of us while the early morning slowly pushed the night away. Headlights cut through the fog and green road signs flashed past. The car was packed with bags, clothes and random bits of our life shoved wherever they’d fit. Monica sat beside me with her feet up on the dash, calm as ever, while I gripped the steering wheel like I was ultimately responsible for keeping the whole plan together. Ironically though there wasn’t much of a plan.

We had no jobs lined up in Brisbane and nowhere to live as such. and just a little bit of money courtesy of mum and dad.. All we had was a rough agreement that if we could find work and somewhere to live within two or so weeks, we’d stay. If not, we’d come home.

Privately, I didn’t want to come back.

I’d spent years wanting out of Melbourne. Back in school, escape had become its own fantasy. I used to imagine schools, friends, versions of myself. Somewhere nobody knew me as the awkward kid, the easy target, the boy who could get mocked, cornered or humiliated and somehow still be expected to laugh along with it. Later, the fantasy changed shape but not substance. I still wanted some clean break from everything that’d happened and from the person I’d slowly become while trying to survive it all.

Now, at twenty-two, I was finally doing something that felt like escape. Weirdly though, it didn’t feel dramatic at all. There was no movie moment. Just the road, the hum of tyres against bitumen and Monica beside me while the early morning lights of Melbourne faded in the rear-view mirror.

I glanced across at Mon and she caught me looking.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just looking forward to it, I guess.”

“Do you reckon we’ll stay up there?” I asked a moment later.

She shrugged. “Who knows. It’s a fate thing. We get jobs and find somewhere to live, we stay. We don’t, we come back.”

A fate thing.

That was Monica all over. She had this ability to sit with contentment inside uncertainty. She didn’t need guarantees before moving forward or every possible outcome mapped out in advance. I envied that having spent most of my life craving certainty because certainty felt safe. If I knew what was coming, I could prepare for it and if I could prepare, maybe I could
protect myself.

That wiring had started years earlier in school corridors and locker rooms where unpredictability never felt exciting. It felt dangerous.

But somewhere along the Hume, uncertainty started to feel different. Not safe exactly, but possible.

The fresh start mattered more than I let on. I wanted Brisbane to work with a desperation I tried to disguise as excitement. I wanted jobs to appear quickly, a rental to be ready and  I wanted the move to become permanent before doubt had time to catch up with us.

“First thing’s jobs,” Monica said with a laugh. “Otherwise we’ll be broke in about five minutes.”

There it was again. Practical. Grounded. Real.

I focused back at the road as dawn spread over the hills beside the highway, washing everything in a soft blue-red light, and for the first time in years I let myself believe something might actually get better. Maybe distance really could change things.

Back at Mum and Dad’s place, the whole decision had happened ridiculously fast. After everything that’d gone on and feeling completely stuck, Mon and I ended up sitting at the kitchen table with an atlas trying to figure out where we could disappear to.

At first, the destination barely mattered.

“What about Darwin?” I’d asked.

“Too hot,” Mon said instantly.

“Perth?”

“Looks nice on TV.”

That was honestly the level of research we were working with.

Eventually Monica said, “What about Queensland? I’ve been there on holidays before. Loved it.”

“You mean Brisbane or the Gold Coast?”

“Nah, Brisbane,” she said confidently despite having absolutely no evidence to support the claim. “More jobs there.”

“What about Sydney?” I asked.

“No chance,” she said. “Too busy. And it’s expensive. We may as well stay in Melbourne.”

And somehow that settled it.

So we sat there staring at a map of Brisbane as though it magically explained our future. We didn’t know the suburbs, didn’t know where people lived or worked or even what areas were good or bad. But maps have a funny way of making uncertainty feel organised. Everything looks manageable from above.

“What do you reckon?” Mon asked eventually. “Should we?”

“Why not?” I said.

Not exactly a carefully considered plan, but honestly, if we’d overthought it, we probably never would’ve left. We would’ve found too many reasons to stay put, too many risks. Sometimes overthinking is really just fear pretending to be logic.

Within half an hour we’d decided. Brisbane.

Looking back now, I can see I misunderstood part of what we were doing. I thought I was leaving pain behind, like pain belonged to Melbourne and couldn’t cross borders. I thought Brisbane might somehow give me a clean slate.

That’s not really how it works, but I didn’t know that yet.

All I knew was Melbourne had become crowded with versions of me I didn’t know how to carry anymore. Brisbane felt blank, and blank felt hopeful.

The further north we drove, the lighter I started to feel. Open highways do that when you’re convinced you’re driving toward something better.

As we took turns at the wheel we talked about where we might live, what jobs we’d get and whether Brisbane would feel like home, but scattered amongst my hope was some fear. I worried Brisbane wouldn’t work out that we’d run out of money and have to crawl back to Melbourne embarrassed and defeated again. There was scant strength left in me for more failure

Deeper than all that though, there was another fear I couldn’t say out loud.

What if Brisbane worked and I still felt exactly the same?

That’s the part nobody wants to think about when they’re building their whole future around escape. You don’t want to admit the past might’ve packed itself into the car with you.

So instead, I focused on the road. Movement felt like progress, and at that point in my life I needed progress in any form I could manage.

When we finally reached Queensland, it honestly did feel different. The air felt warmer, the light seemed sharper somehow and even the roads helped. I didn’t have memories attached to every street corner yet, and that alone was a relief.

We found somewhere temporary to stay and began turning the move into a real life. There’s nothing glamorous about that part. Fresh starts sound romantic until you’re reading classifieds, filling out rental applications and trying to calculate whether you can afford petrol and groceries in the same week.

Still, there was energy in it. Every application felt like a small step forward. Every inspection felt like a possibility.

Within two weeks we’d found both. Jobs and somewhere to live.

I got a job working as an internal sales clerk for a packaging company. Not exactly dream-career material, but it was work. It was structure and gave shape to my days again.

Mon found work in payroll earning slightly more than me. We didn’t have much money that first year and some weeks were genuinely tight. There were nights  trying to work out whether we could afford takeaway or whether we needed that money for petrol instead.

But weirdly, those years still felt hopeful because for the first time in a long time, it felt like we were building something instead of just surviving.

And we’d made it out.

That mattered to me more than anything.

I wanted the move to mean I was fixed now. I wanted Brisbane itself to be the cure, but slowly cracks started appearing in that idea.

At work, even normal conflict rattled me. Customers getting frustrated , managers questioning something or internal disagreements. Nothing major, but my body reacted like danger had walked in the room because underneath it all, I was still carrying the same wiring I’d developed years earlier.

Conflict still made me panic. A sharp tone still made me shrink inside myself and criticism always felt personal.

I’d changed cities, but my nervous system hadn’t caught up yet.

That was the hard lesson Brisbane started teaching me. Changing your environment creates space, but it doesn’t automatically change you.

The move helped, more than I can explain, honestly. It gave me distance from the places where I’d fallen apart. It gave Mon and me something new to build together. It gave me room to breathe. But fear came with me. So did shame. So did all the survival habits I’d built over years without realising it.

At first, that felt disappointing. I thought the fresh start would feel fresher than it did, but over time I realised something important. The move wasn't healing. It was the beginning of healing.

Sometimes you need to leave before you’re capable of changing. Sometimes you need distance from the noise, the routines and the memories before you can hear yourself clearly again. But distance alone doesn’t do the work. You still take yourself with you.

Back then, I was carrying a lot.

Still, I’m grateful for that version of me sitting in the driver’s seat on the Hume Highway believing change was possible, even if he misunderstood what change actually required. Hope still got us moving, and sometimes movement comes first, long before understanding does.

I was in a meeting a few years ago where a clunky process requiring no less than three levels of approval for a simple action was being discussed. The process was slow, frustrating to team members and far from customer centric.

Being relatively new to my role, I simply asked, “Why do we still do it this way?”

I didn’t intend it to be a loaded question, and I genuinely thought it would be easy to answer. I was just curious as to why a particular action required so many sign offs.

The room changed in an instant, as though I’d asked something deeply personal of everyone present. Nobody became defensive, or aggressive, but there was a palpable change in the mood.

Finally, someone voiced what I sensed was the case, “That’s just the process Ash.”

And on we went, as though that question was put to bed and never to be raised again.

I’ve thought about that moment numerous times since, because it captures something that sits underneath organisational culture more often than we acknowledge. People don’t just follow rules because the rules are good, they follow them because the broader group has taught them what happens when you don’t.

This is why the old five monkeys’ story has stuck around for so long.

You’ve probably heard some version of the story. Five monkeys are in a cage with a ladder leading to a bunch of bananas. Every time one of the monkeys tries to climb up to the bananas, they all get sprayed with cold water. It doesn’t take long before they all stop going anywhere near the ladder, fearful of that cold water spray.

Then, the monkeys are all replaced, one at a time. The newcomers have never been sprayed themselves, but they quickly learn the same rule because if they head for the ladder the other monkeys pull them back. the sequence persists after all originals are gone. By that point, none of them know where the rule came from, they just know that this is how things are done.

Now, the exact version of the five monkeys’ story that gets shared in leadership circles has probably done more rounds in slide decks than research journals, but it certainly didn’t come from nowhere. The five monkeys story traces its roots to Gordon Stephenson’s 1967 research, which introduced ‘cultural acquisition’ and showed how groups transmit learned behaviour. Essentially, groups pass behaviour on and teach each other what’s safe, what’s risky, and what not to touch. The challenge is that often the rules continue to propagate long after the original risk has passed.

That idea holds up very well in corporate life and often manifests as the infamous line, “We’ve just always done it that way.” Because every workplace has “ladders” with bananas at the top. Every organisation has things no one questions anymore and processes that exist but can’t be fully explained. When we look around any organisation, we see reactions that were built for a particular moment, under a particular leader, in response to a particular problem, and then never revisited once the moment passed.

Culture often hangs around long after the reason for it has disappeared.

A lot of redundant workplace habits began as useful systems, in fact if you look far enough back in time, they were usually created in response to a specific problem and never revisited. For example, a hiring freeze introduced during a past downturn.

That stuff leaves a mark.

The issue is that most organisations are very good at introducing controls and not nearly as good at removing them, so the response becomes the routine and then the routine becomes tradition. Eventually, traditions become untouchable practices.

People learn culture from social cues far more than formal messaging.

Organisations spend a lot of time talking about values, which is an important discourse to encourage, but most people don’t learn values from a laminated poster or a polished all-hands presentation, they learn them by watching what happens;

Who gets backed?
Who gets shut down?
Who gets quietly sidelined?
Who gets called troublesome?

That’s culture.

You can tell a team to challenge ideas, but if the first person who does gets the look, the silence or the polite shut-down, everyone else gets the message fast.

That’s one of the reasons the five monkeys story remains useful. It points to something true about group behaviour; that we take our cues from the crowd, watch the reaction and then we adjust.

Conformity can look healthy right up until it starts costing you.

Most culturally stuck workplaces don’t look messy from the outside; in fact they look aligned. A tidy exterior can hide avoided questions.

But settled doesn’t always mean healthy. Sometimes it means people have worked out which questions aren’t worth asking anymore, like “Why do we still do it this way?”

Quiet conformity stalls improvement and people stop asking ‘Why do we still do this?’ so small inefficiencies persist. When no one challenges the routine, useful changes never get suggested.

New people usually spot cultural nonsense first.

That’s the gift of fresh eyes; new starters haven’t had time to normalise the odd bits yet. Consequently, they notice duplication, waste and clunky workarounds that appear normal to those in the organisation with tenure.

As a result, newcomers often ask the best questions and the real test for organisational culture is what happens next. Does the team stop and think? Or does it smile, say “that’s just how we do it,” and teach the new person to stop asking?

That moment tells you nearly everything you need to know about the organisation’s culture.

Good cultures stay open long enough to look at their habits and don’t assume almost every process is wise just because it has survived. They make room for challenge.

In the end, that’s why the five monkeys story still lands. Not because it gives us a perfect science lesson, but because it gives us a very recognisable human lesson about how organisational culture can operate.

A lot of organisational culture is just shared behaviours that nobody has properly re-examined in years. And once that sets in, people stop checking whether the ladder is still a problem, they just learn, from everyone around them, not to touch it.

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A few years ago I sat through a particular leadership conference where speaker after speaker talked about the transformation journey their organisation was on. Every one of them was going to become more innovative, more customer focused, more agile or in some cases, all of the above.

The presentations were polished, the vision statements were compelling and I have little doubt the intentions were good. But what left me curious wasn’t what happened on the day, it was what happened afterwards.

I’ve thought about that conference multiple times since and wondered, did they really achieve the visions outlined in their bold and compelling resolutions?

You see, it’s easy to declare a destination. It’s much harder to make the hundreds of small decisions and take the actions required to reach it. Those little decisions are the ones that really count, the ones that compound and drive is towards that big resolution.

Whenever I find myself reflecting on that idea, I think of Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and the song, Little Decisions, from his 1985 album, Post.

Confession time; I’ve been a fan of Paul Kelly for as long as I can remember. His music has always felt uniquely Australian to me, not because of the places and characters in his songs, but because of his ability to find meaning in everyday life. Kelly notices things most of us overlook, like a conversation, a memory, a street corner or even a relationship under strain. For Kelly, small moments become stories and ordinary experiences become something worth paying attention to.

Listening to the Kelly’s Little Decisions now, more than forty years after it was released, it feels less like a song about decision-making per se and more like a reminder about how life actually unfolds, one small decision at a time.

Most of us can point to a handful of moments that changed our direction, perhaps that role we accepted or an opportunity we pursued. Those moments matter and they often become landmarks in the stories we tell about ourselves. What we ignore in the narrative however is everything that came afterwards. The initial decision creates possibility while the outcome depends on what happens next. That’s where things become less exciting and considerably more important. That’s where the little decisions we make and the actions we actually take decide whether that big decision comes to fruition.

Across multiple organisations, I’ve seen leadership become captivated by the big decision but failing to follow through with all the required little decisions and actions to make it happen. For a while, everyone talks about the future, but the little decisions required to continue in that direction fall away as reality resumes.

The real work in a big decision or resolution begins when leaders decide whether to have the difficult conversation they’ve been avoiding or when they respond to setbacks. It begins when people choose whether to behave in ways that support the change or retreat to familiar habits. Those choices rarely attract attention. Nobody writes case studies about them, yet they’re often the difference between a successful transformation and another initiative that quietly disappears.

Cultural transformation as an example is largely a collection of repeated little decisions aligned with the direction set; it’s built in meetings, conversations and moments of pressure. It takes shape through what leaders tolerate, what they encourage and what they consistently model.

The same principle applies well beyond the workplace.

Looking back over my own life, I’m increasingly aware that many of the outcomes I’m grateful for weren’t created by dramatic acts of courage or a single brilliant decision. They emerged gradually from choices that seemed fairly ordinary at the time. Indeed, my life has been shaped by all the little decisions, akin to those that Kelly sings of.

None of the little decisions I’ve made felt significant in isolation. There was no sense that they were shaping the future. In fact, most passed unnoticed. That’s the nature of little decisions, they don’t announce their importance when they arrive.

We tend to notice outcomes more than processes. We see the successful business, the healthy lifestyle, the trusted leader, the strong relationship. What we don’t see are the years spent making little choices that appeared insignificant on any given day. Perhaps that’s why people often underestimate the power of consistency.

We want change to arrive in dramatic moments because dramatic moments are easier to recognise and they make for a more dramataic narrative. However, life is usually less tidy than that. Most meaningful progress happens slowly enough that we barely notice it while it’s occurring. Then one day we look back and realise we’ve travelled much further than we thought, driven by all the little decisions we’ve made along the way.

That’s what I enjoy most about the song, Little Decisions, it doesn’t celebrate heroic achievements or life-changing revelations. Instead, it draws attention to something much more familiar, the small choices that fill our days and the way they quietly shape our future. And the older I get, the more convincing that idea becomes.

Don’t get me wrong, the big decisions matter. They give us direction and help us decide where we want to go. But when I look at the people I most admire, whether they’re leaders, athletes, artists, business owners or simply good human beings, their success rarely seems to rest on a handful of defining moments. More often, it reflects years of making thoughtful little decisions when nobody was watching.

The little decisions rarely feel important when we're making them but looking back, they're often the only reason the big decisions mattered at all.

I write about emotional intelligence because it is the most powerful way to positively shape life and leadership outcomes. I've spent years researching emotional intelligence and finding effective ways to apply it to life and leadership. I've progressively improved my application of the skills , but I've not mastered them , I'm not even close. This article, like most of my writings, centres on practical awareness rather than perfection. When it comes to recognising reactive instincts in the heat of a discussion, I've made progress over many years, but I'm still nowhere near perfect.

There are still times when tired, stretched, or feeling criticised when I react before I've really listened. Indeed, times when my words or actions race ahead of rational thought, often with regrettable outcomes. It might be in a meeting where someone legitimately questions a decision I've made, or at home when a conversation catches me at a bad moment. In both situations the same thing happens: my body tightens, my stomach fills with an anxious energy, and I feel a pull to respond before I've properly comprehended what's actually being said. It's as though my words are spilling out before I've ever formed them in my mind.

That moment has a name, the amygdala hijack.

The phrase amygdala hijack was popularised by psychologist and author Daniel Goleman, who drew on neuroscience research including the work of Joseph LeDoux. LeDoux's work in relation to the brain and fear responses helped explain how we react to perceived threats or danger before slower, more considered thinking has a chance to catch up. 

The almond-shaped amygdala sits deep in the centre of the brain and functions to detect threats. This neural configuration goes back to early human evolution, when the fight-or-flight response developed as a reflex to the many physical dangers around us. When the amygdala senses danger, it triggers a fast emotional response before the frontal lobe gets involved. The frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions such as rational thinking and sound decision-making. The sensory pathway to the amygdala is much quicker than the one to the frontal cortex, which is useful when a threat is real and immediate.

When the amygdala quickly hijacks your thinking it temporarily crowds out the more deliberate parts of the brain. During a hijack, with your frontal lobe relegated to a back seat, you have less access to impulse control, perspective, and good judgement. You're less able to pause, weigh things up, and actually choose your response. Instead you interrupt, misread tone, jump to conclusions, or say something you end up regretting. What I find useful about understanding this is that it explains why a moment can feel so much bigger than it is or why an innocent question from a family member or colleague can suddenly feel like a full frontal attack.

At work we're most susceptible to the amygdala hijack when the pressure is already building and someone challenges something we care about. At home it might be a small comment that lands heavily on a day when you're already carrying too much. The setting changes but the pattern doesn't; stress accumulates quietly in the background, resilience slowly erodes, and then one more thing tips you over the edge.

That's part of why emotional intelligence matters, and I don't mean that as a leadership buzzword, it as a practical, everyday skill in both life and leadership. The ability to notice your own state, manage your reactions, and stay functional when emotions rise affects how you lead, how you work, and how you show up with the people around you. It also shapes whether people trust you.

Amygdala hijacks are more likely in environments marked by constant urgency, low trust, poor communication, and no real opportunity to recover. That's as true in personal life as it is at work. When you're exhausted, overloaded, or already carrying frustration from earlier in the day, there's less in the system to draw on when challenge arrives and your brain is more likely to choose that neural short out to your amygdala.

I recognise this in myself clearly. If I'm stressed or short on sleep, I'm more likely to get defensive in a conversation that was never adversarial to begin with. I can hear criticism in something that was only curiosity and I can quickly find myself responding to the feeling I had, rather than the words that were actually spoken. That's the real cost of an amygdala hijack. It doesn't just affect how you feel. It distorts how you think.

The question, though, is how does knowing about this neural shortcut risk help us?

For me, the first step is learning to notice the early signs. They nearly always arrive in the body before they show up in the mind: a tightening in the chest, thoughts speeding up, a strong urge to defend my position before I've heard the full picture. If I can recognise these sensations, I still have choices; the hijack is imminent but not inevitable.

The second step is deliberately slowing the moment down. A pause or deep breath helps. I might buy myself a little time by asking a question like, "Can you walk me through what you mean?" 

The third step is reminding myself that discomfort isn't danger. If you're like me, it might be worth reading that last sentence again. Feedback can sting and a tense exchange can feel like an attack even when nothing is actually under threat. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is simply register that this is a hard moment, not a harmful one. Those two things aren't the same.

The fourth step is doing something about the conditions that make reactivity more likely in the first place. It could be a sleep issue, workload or just the fact I am generally rundown. Emotional intelligence is much harder to access when you're already running on empty.

And when I still get it wrong, which happens, I try to repair it quickly. That means owning the tone rather than defending it and acknowledging when I was reactive. That's probably the part I care about most in all of this. Understanding the amygdala hijack doesn't hand me an excuse , rather it hands me a responsibility. If I know that stress degrades my judgement, I need to take the signs seriously and if I know I'm capable of reactive behaviour under pressure, I need to keep working on catching it sooner.

I'm better at that than I used to be. Not perfect. Better.

So now, whether I'm sitting in a meeting or standing in the kitchen at the end of a long day, I try to catch the shift before it becomes something I have to walk back. Because the real issue is rarely just the comment sitting in front of me.

It's whether I let stress and an amygdala hijack do the talking instead.

Leadership gets tested when things don’t go to plan. Not in the smooth quarters or polished strategy sessions, but in the messy moments where decisions carry weight, pressure builds, and people look to you for clarity. In the second part to our Q&A leadership series, Liza Lau and I look candidly for a candid Q&A at leadership when things go wrong, including resilience, accountability, communication, and what people actually need from leaders during difficult periods.

What does owning a mistake actually look like at senior level?

AW: Owning a mistake as a leader isn't just about saying the words "I was wrong", in fact making such a statement in the absence of conviction and action will do more harm than good to your credibility. ownership of a mistake, as a leader, is about taking full accountability without pivoting to excuses or shifting the blame up, down or sideways. Speed of response in the situation is also important. By rapidly accepting responsibility, without reservation, I’m also modeling appropriate authenticity through vulnerability. When that's paired with strong self-awareness, it stops being a "failure" and becomes a powerful leadership tool that builds deeper trust and psychological safety across the entire organization.

LL: It starts with courage. The courage to stand up and say — this didn't go the way it should have, and I own that. But owning a mistake isn't just the acknowledgement. It's what comes after. Go back to the source. Understand where it went wrong and why. Then bring solutions — not just an apology, but a clear path to mitigate the damage and prevent it happening again. Use it as a case study. What do we do differently next time? What do we put in place so we catch it earlier — or ask for guidance before it becomes a crisis? That's when something powerful happens. The people around you — your team, your stakeholders — watch how you handle it. And when they see a leader own it fully and move forward constructively, it creates safety. It tells everyone in the room: this is an organisation where you can put your hand up, learn, and do better. That safety is one of the most valuable things a senior leader can build.

When things go wrong, how much do you tell your team — and how much do you hold back?

AW: I aim for radical transparency on the "what" and the "why," of the situation while holding back the "noise" that doesn't help the team move forward. For me, it is about being honest about the reality of the situation so that the team feels respected and informed, while steery away from counterproductive discussions of blame. I consciously filter out any chaotic, unverified information or high-level pressures that would only serve to overwhelm my people and distract them from what we need to do. In a situation like I am the filter that provides clarity, ensuring my people have all the context they need to execute on the solution without the weight of unnecessary distractions.

LL: Transparency is non-negotiable for me. But there's a difference between being transparent and sharing everything. I communicate what is factual. What we know, what we don't know, and what we're doing about it. What I hold back is anything based on assumption, speculation, or incomplete information — because sharing that doesn't help the team, it just creates unnecessary fear. I also filter out anything that introduces politics into the situation. A crisis is hard enough. The last thing a team needs is noise that distracts them from solving the problem in front of them. Give people the facts. Be honest about the gaps. Focus everyone on what comes next.

What do your team need from you in the first 24 hours of a crisis?

AW: Those initial 24 hours are about providing a calm influence, steady guide and the clearest possible direction for your people. My experience is that my team needs three things immediately from me; presence, prioritization, and cadence. In those initial 24 hours I make it a point to be visible and accessible so they feel supported and safe to work towards the required solution. Stripping away secondary tasks gives them a singular, clear focus on the immediate problem. Finally, I set the cadence ensuring we are moving with urgency but not so fast as to overwhelm or drive poor decisions. It’s about being the person who absorbs the chaos so they can execute with a clear head.

LL: Presence and accessibility. Be there. Be reachable. That alone tells the team they're not navigating this alone. But the thing I've found matters most in those first 24 hours is giving the team space to speak. Not jumping straight to solutions — letting people share what they're seeing, what they're feeling, what they think needs to happen. That process of talking it through does something important. It helps the team absorb the situation together and move from reaction to action as a unit. A leader's job in that room isn't to have all the answers. It's to create the conditions where the answers can surface. When people feel heard and supported, problems get solved faster. That's what the first 24 hours are really about.

Keep your eye out for Part 3 of the Q&A, next week, when Liza and I look at the conversations that matter for a leader.

Whenever I’m anxious or under pressure, I catch myself doing this one little thing. At first I don't realise I'm doing it, but others often notice, glancing down and then politely looking away or, if they know me, giving a knowing grin.

That’s when I realise, I’m doing it again.

I’m untying my shoelaces, pulling up my socks and then re-tying those same laces. And to be clear my laces and socks we're fine to begin with. Yes, peculiar I know, but stay with me.

Yep! I have a nervous habit of untying my laces, pulling socks up and then re-tying my shoelaces. Not figuratively pulling up my socks like we’re always told to do, but literally pulling them up, occasionally taking my shoes off to make the adjustment, for good measure.

I’m unsure when or why it started, but for a long time I viewed it as something strange I needed to curb. After all, kicking off your shoes and adjusting  your socks is a bit, well, weird. It felt like one of those unconscious habits that revealed more than I wanted people to see, particularly in professional environments where composure is valued, and taking your shoes off is generally frowned upon.

Let's face facts, it’s not exactly a subtle habit.

Over time though, I’ve started to see this quirk a little differently. The sock-pulling itself isn’t important; it’s a signal that my body feels stress before my mind does

In a strange way, the sock ritual has become a somatic awareness, a small physical cue that my body is generating stress signals before my mind has caught up. The more I’ve paid attention to it, the more I’ve realised this otherwise odd unconscious habit is often connected to my nervous system regulation and my body’s attempt to manage pressure in real time.

Maybe you’re reading this thinking you don’t have an unconscious habit like mine, but the reality is most of us do, even if it's a little more subtle than kicking off your footwear for some sock readjustments. For some it’s coughing unnecessarily during tense moments, rubbing their nose when they’re uncomfortable, tapping a foot under the table or the old favourite, clicking pens repeatedly.

Unconscious habits like mine are often dismissed as quirks, but many are signals that our nervous system has recognised stress before our conscious thinking has fully processed it. 

Research increasingly shows unconscious habits are stress signals, providing an early warning of disequilibrium in our nervous system. Psychologists and neuroscientists studying interoception, the brain’s interpretation of bodily signals, have found that physical responses to stress frequently appear before consciousness catches up. 

The challenge is we have been conditioned to ignore those stress signals presenting as unconscious habits, even the ones a little more discrete than my sock and shoes routine. Professional environments reward composure and emotional control, creating the impression that capable people should remain unaffected by pressure. As a result, people become dangerously good at managing appearances while ignoring early stress signals that come from our unconscious habits.

Whether or not we heed the early warning, the stress being signalled doesn’t disappear, rather surfacing as impatience, defensiveness or the inability to switch off. Organisational psychologists have long found that emotional strain often becomes behaviorally visible long before people openly acknowledge what’s happening internally.

This comes back to subconscious habits and how the nervous system manages stress. When stress isn’t recognised via the early signals of our unconscious habits, the body often keeps signalling in subtle and, eventually, not so subtle ways until the pressure becomes too difficult to ignore.

That's why I’ve begun to embrace the sock and shoe routine that has haunted me for years. When I catch myself pulling my socks up, I now take it as a cue from my nervous system instead of feeling embarrassed. Sometimes this reason is obvious, like I’m avoiding a necessary conversation, carrying pressure I haven’t acknowledged or I’m trying to control an outcome that simply can’t  be controlled. The stress signals manifesting as my need to adjust my socks and footwear creates the opportunity for me to respond earlier and more thoughtfully. It’s part of my nervous system regulation, allowing me to consider and deal with what my consciousness may not yet be aware of.

The more we become attuned to stress signals via unconscious habits, the better chance we have of responding constructively instead of operating purely from reflexive and reactive behaviour.

I still pull my socks up and re-tie my shoes when I’m anxious, and I probably always will. But I no longer see it as something I need to hide or eliminate, it helps me notice when I’m downplaying pressure so I can deal with it before it gets worse. 

For years, I thought the unconscious sock and shoe habit itself was the problem, but really, it was merely a subtle warning.

Is there an unconscious habit you have that could well be a stress signal?

Authenticity can feel risky, a moment that can strengthen your leadership or dissolve your influence if the foundation isn’t solid.

While often touted as key to leadership success, authenticity has the potential to erode effectiveness, authority and reputation if poorly executed. For this reason, many leaders view authenticity as a gamble, one they are unwilling to take, or conversely take without thought and preparedness. However, when self-awareness, context and timing are aligned, authenticity shifts from a gamble to an effective and powerful leadership tool.

Authenticity isn’t just saying what’s on your mind, rather it’s knowing when your voice adds value to the discussion. Leaders often confuse authenticity and authority, or fail to strike the right balance between timing, context and self-awareness. However, despite eluding many leaders, establishing the appropriate tension between these factors can result in an effective leadership authenticity that ceases to feel like a risk.

The tension is one that Tash Callewaert, founder of Boardroom HQ and creator of the Certainty Code, has seen consistently in her extensive work with leaders, where the challenge isn’t knowing who you are, but deciding when and how to stand firmly in it.

Walk into most boardrooms and you’ll notice a pattern. The loudest voices are rarely the most certain ones. Volume, I’ve come to understand, is often just anxiety in a good suit.

Real authenticity isn’t unfiltered openness. It’s knowing what you actually think, and trusting it enough to say it once, clearly, without needing the room to confirm it.

And while there exists a clear delineation between authority and authenticity, leaders frequently blur the line between them.

I once worked closely with someone who had significant authority but very little authenticity. He didn’t invite disagreement, he penalised it. Meetings weren’t exchanges, they were confirmations. And over time, the people around him stopped offering their real thinking and started offering him what he wanted to hear.

That’s the hidden cost of authority without authenticity. It doesn’t just affect the leader, it hollows out the people around them too.

The leaders who struggle most to balance the two are usually those who’ve confused authority with agreement. Real authority doesn’t need the room to comply. It’s secure enough to be questioned.

So why does authenticity feel like such a gamble, and does it need to?

I spent years in high-stakes rooms where the unspoken rule was simple: speak when you have something that matters and make it land. I learned to let the conversation run, read the room, and then, in a few carefully chosen words, drop my point at exactly the right moment. Not because I was managing anyone’s perception of me, but because I knew exactly what I thought and I trusted my timing.

What I was doing wasn’t performing authenticity. It was leading from certainty. And there’s a meaningful difference. Authenticity without self-certainty is exposure. You’re sharing yourself before you know yourself well enough to do it cleanly. That’s when authenticity feels like a gamble — because it is one.

Performative authenticity is simply that, while effective authenticity comes when it is backed by self-awareness and a clear understanding of the value a leader brings. This self-awareness, coupled with timing and context, drastically changes the dynamic and dissolves the perceived gamble. People can tell the difference between someone being open with purpose and someone simply trying to appear real.

The risk for leaders comes when they try to be authentic in the absence of these other key elements. In those moments, authenticity often gets blamed when their comments or behaviour don’t land as intended. The core issue usually runs deeper.

The question isn’t “how do I show up more authentically?” It’s “what am I certain about right now?” Those are very different starting points. One looks outward for feedback. The other looks inward for ground.

Self-certainty isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about knowing your values clearly enough that you can express them without needing the room to validate them. When that’s your foundation, authenticity stops being a risk and starts being a natural byproduct of simply knowing who you are.

A useful starting point: before your next high-stakes conversation, ask yourself one question: “What do I know to be true here?” Not what you think others want to hear, not what feels safe to say. What you actually know. That’s the ground. Stand there first.

Years ago I was invited to speak at a business networking event. I had a choice about how to use that platform. I chose to share my failings out loud. A business that had suffered. Decisions I hadn't made when I should have. A relocation that felt like starting over from scratch.

I didn’t do it to be liked. I did it because I’d already made peace with the story, and I knew that owning it was the only way to move cleanly forward.

What happened next surprised me. People leaned in. Not because I was polished, but because I was certain. Certain enough in who I was and what I’d learned that I didn’t need the room to receive it kindly. I just needed to say the true thing.

That’s when authenticity stops feeling like a gamble. Not when you’ve perfected your story, but when you’ve stopped needing anyone else to validate it.

In January 2009, a US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff, losing all engine power over one of the most densely populated areas on earth, New York City. With only seconds to react, Captain Chesley "Sully” Sullenberger was forced to navigate a dual-engine failure that would most likely end in disaster.

In the 208 seconds that followed, Sully reassured passengers, coordinated the crew and executed a seemingly textbook emergency landing, albeit in the Hudson River.

For those in leadership roles, Sully’s composure serves as a masterclass, proving that the ability to remain grounded and in emotional control is far more critical than any technical brilliance.

While hopefully none of us ever have to navigate the landing of an aircraft with 155 passengers onboard in the freezing Hudson River, the workplace operates in a similar way. In fact, we learn a lot about a leader by watching what happens around them, particularly in times of heightened pressure. How quickly do people raise problems or bad news? How direct are the conversations when the heat is on? What happens under pressure?

The patterns which emerge at such times clearly signal whether or not people trust their leader, and one of the biggest drivers of that trust isn’t technical brilliance, as you might expect. No, it’s whether the leader stays calm and steady when things don’t go to plan.

Otherwise capable leaders often get it wrong when pressure mounts. They rely on being right, speed of thinking, strong opinion and sharp analysis. Often these qualities assist, but if their emotional response is inconsistent, all of that brilliance amounts to very little.

When people can’t predict how you’ll react as a leader, they start managing you, in fact managing you becomes their primary focus, as opposed to managing the problem at hand. They focus their energy on choosing words carefully and holding back crucial details until the right moment. As a result, problems arise later than they should, communication fails, and the team spends energy managing interactions instead of focusing on the issue.

No measure of brilliance will compensate for a leader who becomes unpredictable under pressure. In fact, potentially it makes it worse, because the leader assumes the quality of their thinking will carry them through. It doesn’t. Their instability quickly becomes infectious and the problem spreads.

Let's break this myth right here; the trust of your people isn't built on how often you’re right, it's built on how people experience you when things are uncertain. Calm leaders create an environment where their emotional control makes it easier for people to be direct and to stay engaged, even when conversations get difficult. When this trusting environment exists and something goes wrong, the focus stays on understanding and responding, not on anticipating and managing your reaction.

When a leader exhibits emotional control, people raise problems earlier, even if things seem uncertain. They speak more openly and tolerate difficult conversations instead of avoiding them, and that brings better decisions. This is why emotional control is a trait of strong leaders. Emotional control builds trust as people learn what to expect from you, especially under pressure.

One way to understand your impact as a leader is to look at how predictable you are when it counts. People don’t need leaders who are perfect, they need leaders who are consistent enough that they don’t have to second-guess your reactions. People need leaders who demonstrate consistent behavior.

Fortunately emotional control isn’t fixed and is built through small actions you repeat until they become an engrained part of your leadership style. Some simple ones include:

1. Try the tactical summary. Restating other people's points helps shift your thinking from defensive to clear reasoning,

2. Use a physical anchor. Just pressing your feet firmly into the floor or holding a pen can ground you and arrest a stress response.

3. Try being a third-party observer. Rather than feel you need to be actively engaged, step back and observe for a moment to avoid reactivity.

4. Normalize the strategic pause. You do not have to react instantly. Simply saying you want a moment to reflect projects confidence and gives you space to breathe.

5. Frame challenges as puzzles. Instead of seeing a problem as a threat, talk about it as a something for the team to solve together, again moving the group’s energy away from just being reactive

Brilliance grabs attention, but steady behavior builds lasting trust.

Over ten years ago, I had a manager we’ll call Dave for the purpose of discussion. Dave would regularly say to you, “I’m open to feedback.” He’d say it sincerely and he'd add it at the end of most meetings, almost matter-of-fact, like someone who was genuinely keen to hear your ideas, or have you build upon his thoughts. Dave also accepted your feedback, allowing you to suggest an idea, even challenge a decision or offer an alternative viewpoint, rarely shutting you down.

What took me some time to understand was what came next...

If the feedback happened to go along with where Dave was heading, then great, it fell on open ears and an equally open mind. If it didn’t, something would shift, ever so subtly. He’d listen, really listen. And then he'd begin walking you through why he was thinking that way. He'd give more context, a better explanation. By the time he was done, you understood and, routinely, you agreed. If you didn't agree, you at least had enough information to move past it.

When you spoke with Dave you felt heard, but nothing material actually changed.

Over time, people adjusted, not dramatically, but in small, invisible ways. They stopped pushing as hard, or filtered what they said, and they started offering feedback that was easier to receive. So after a while all Dave heard, almost always, was agreement dressed up as feedback.

I didn't think much of it back then, I actually thought I was working for one of the most open and approachable leaders around. But I do reflect on it considerably now, mostly because it's a pattern that's far easier to spot in someone else than in yourself.

Here’s the problem. The version of you that’s making work harder is the one you don’t see. It’s the one asking for feedback and assuming that means you’re open to it. A lot of the time, you’re not and all you're looking for is positive reinforcement. And it shows up not in whether you ask, but in how you respond once it arrives.

In this situation, you want to know you're on track, that you should stay the same course. You want to move forward without reopening decisions you've already spent energy on. So when something challenges your thinking or shows a potential to undo what you have already done, you engage with it, but in a way that's mostly about protecting your original position. You explain your reasoning or perhaps add context that somehow wasn't there before, or even go over the constraints. All of that is reasonable on the surface, but it also makes it harder for the feedback to land as it's intended, let alone convince you to make needed changes.

The pattern is this; you ask for input once the work is mostly formed and then respond quickly when something doesn't sit right, tightening your argument rather than sitting with the alternative. You take the parts that fit and conveniently gloss over the rest. Sometimes you ask a few more people until the response feels more comfortable.

None of this looks like resistance, in fact it looks like diligence.

What's happening underneath though is a filtering process, slick and automatic. Feedback that supports your direction moves through and feedback that challenges it gets explained away, softened, or filed somewhere you never return to.

Real feedback creates exposure. It can slow you down, force a rethink, surface something you got wrong and potentially create some rework. That all comes with a cost, especially when you've already put serious time into the outcome. Reinforcement protects you from that cost and while it feels efficient it almost never is. You see, when ideas don't get challenged early, the work carries more weight later. More time gets spent refining something that needs a rethink. The friction doesn't disappear, it just moves further down the line where it's harder to deal with and inevitably creates even more work.

The people around you notice too, they see when feedback leads to something changing and when it gets absorbed without impact. Over time they recalibrate. The sharper observations get held back and eventually what you hear gets pre-filtered for your comfort. That's when work starts feeling heavier than it should.

A better measure than how often you ask for feedback is what happens after the conversation ends. What changed because of what you heard? What did you sit with longer than you wanted to? Where did you actually adjust your thinking Those are harder questions and I confess that I don't always answer them honestly. Like everyone, I can be found traversing the short-term easier route at times.

I think back to Dave sometimes. He genuinely believed he was open to feedback, and in some real sense he was. He listened, engaged and created the conditions for people to speak up. What he didn't do, not consistently, was let any of it change his mind.

It's an easy pattern to repeat because from the inside it feels like you're doing the right thing. You asked, invited constructive feedback and listened, even nodded with empathy and understanding, as people gave it.

But the version of you that makes work harder than it needs to be isn't the one avoiding feedback…

It's the one who's learned to ask for it in a way that keeps everything exactly as it was.

My phone rang at work today which is nothing unusual really, happens many times a day. Although, it was my daughter calling and she rarely calls, especially during the work day. She's at university interstate and our communication is predominantly a funny text or the occasional FaceTime, rarely is it a call during the workday.

Within a split second of her name appearing on my phone screen I was jumping to the conclusion that something was wrong and that was the only reason for the unexpected call. I didn’t notice it happening in that moment, but I was jumping way ahead and filling in blanks quicker than I could answer the call.

By the time I picked up I’d already concluded that something was wrong and she was calling for help. Surely that was the only reason she'd be calling me during the day?

So what was it she needed? Nothing. Just a chat and nothing remotely like what I'd speculated. We talked about her week, what she’d been working on and her recent marks on some assignments, which were great by the way! It was easy, relaxed and non-eventful.

After the call I sat for a moment, realising I’d rushed straight to assuming the worst, even though there was no reason compelling me do so.

That gap between baseless speculation and reality is where a lot of unnecessary stress resides. Dr David Burns calls it “fortune telling" and it's one of numerous distortions he writes about in his work on cognitive behavioural therapy1. The idea is simple; we predict an outcome, frequently negative in nature, and then we treat that prediction as if it’s already true. We have no facts or anything at all that logically points us to the dire conclusion, but we land on it in nano-seconds. What makes it even trickier is how natural it feels, there’s no obvious line where you stop guessing and start believing. It just sort of happens, and once it does, everything else follows. Your mood shifts, your body tightens and you start reacting to something that hasn’t actually happened.

I catch myself in these small moments of fortune telling all too often. An unanswered message that someone has read or a conversation that seemed strained which I replay, looking for what I missed. In today’s example, my daughter calls unexpectedly and I instantly assume something bad has happened. None of these situations come with a clear explanation, especially in the absence of any real facts, so my mind provides one scenario and frequently that explanation is a negative one.

While I wasn't quick enough to catch my "fortune telling” today, I’ve found a few things help when I do. The first is just calling it out to myself, whether silently or even out loud; perhaps a simple statement like "I'm predicting the future again.” It sounds basic, but it changes my relationship with the negative thought. Externalising and calling out a thought is a powerful way to arrest it. Then, I check the evidence, asking what’s actually in front of me? What unknown facts am I replacing with assumptions?

Inevitably, there’s more than one explanation for everything, even if your brain has already locked onto a negative one. You don’t need to land on the most positive version, you just need to remember that your first explanation isn’t always the most realistic. Often I find the best thing to do is nothing at all, just for a moment, and I let the situation unfold before deciding what it means. You're not trying to stop those thoughts from showing up, that’s unrealistic, they’re part of how we’re wired, especially when it comes to people we care about. All you are trying to do is get a bit quicker at catching them, because when you don’t, you end up reacting to something that exists only in your head.

That call from my daughter was a good reminder that sometimes the story you tell yourself feels completely real, despite being divorced from reality. Often it turns out to just be exactly what it was at that moment, like a daughter calling her dad for a chat.

I doubt myself regularly and if you never do, you're likely working well inside your comfort zone.

I've had two different professional roles in the last few years and the prelude to starting both roles has been similar; excitement liberally threaded with nerves. I mean those nerves that sit in the pit of your stomach, churning from one moment to next, but never really leaving.

Once I’m into the swing of things, that feeling often sharpens before subsiding. I second-guess my decisions for a while and I silently wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew. I sense what I’m lacking more than what I’m offering and that feeling builds in the background like I’ve stepped into something larger than I’m ready for. Eventually, like all strong emotions, it fades, making space for me to contribute productively in my new role.

That's imposter syndrome. Most people know it and while I haven't figured it out entirely, I'm establishing a more constructive relationship with it.

For too long imposter syndrome has been viewed in a villainous light, as though it's a sign that you’re not ready or that you’ve somehow overreached your experience or ability. The uncomfortable emotions it triggers awaken our primitive flight or fight response, instinctively urging us to quash or dodge it with speed and vigour.

However, I'm learning that reflex is futile and counter-productive. Imposter syndrome is trying to tell you something. Routinely it’s a form of self-awareness and it surfaces when your subconscious senses the gap between where you are and what the situation demands. Imposter syndrome arises when you’re operating at the edge of your capability, where outcomes aren’t guaranteed and the path ahead is unclear. It thrives on the uncertain and is fuelled by the unknown.

If you never experience imposter syndrome, there’s a strong chance you’re working within a range you’ve already mastered. You’ve seen the problems before and you generally know how things play out but you’re relying on experience rather than growing. While that feels good in the short term, it rarely leads to meaningful growth.

Growth costs, and discomfort is part of that cost. Imposter syndrome is usually the emotional signal that you’ve stepped into an uncomfortable space, and we should learn to sit with that discomfort. It is not the feeling itself that's the problem, but how you respond to it. Some may pull away and become more prudent. They keep quiet when they should contribute, postpone decisions they know they can make, or over-prepare almost obsessively. They wait for confidence to come before taking action and their growth stalls.

A more helpful approach is seeing imposter syndrome as a signal to be welcomed rather than something to eradicate or run from. If you feel out of your depth, it’s worth asking yourself why. In some cases, there’s a genuine skill gap that needs attention by building capability, seeking feedback, or asking better questions. In other cases, the capability is already there, but you haven’t built enough evidence to trust it yet and imposter syndrome will pounce and compound this doubt. That gap your subconscious senses only closes through exposure, repetition, and action.

Many people get stuck, assuming confidence should come first, when in reality, confidence follows action. You don’t build belief by waiting, you build it by doing. Each time you step forward, despite the discomfort, you create another small piece of evidence that you can handle what’s in front of you and eventually your subconscious catches up.

The key question is whether you’re willing to persevere while the discomfort lingers, because if you’re serious about growth, it will keep showing up from time to time. When it does, you can either retreat or view it as a signal to grow.

If you persevere the odds are good that success is waiting for you on the other side. A level of capability, confidence, or perspective that you don’t yet have are often waiting to reward your perseverance in the face of imposter syndrome.

Granted, my research involves a mere study of one; me. But in the case of both roles I've held in recent years I've made it out the other side. Have I become a master overnight? Far from it, but on both occasions I've emerged with greater awareness of gaps in capability and expertise, with a clear view to growth.

Imposter syndrome isn't shouting retreat, it's signalling that you're exactly where you need to be.

This piece is a momentary departure from my usual; a little less advice and a lot more of me. In some ways it is a reflection, in others it's self-serving therapy, regardless and as always, I hope you find value in it. I don’t want to go into detail about what prompted this piece, that story is not mine to share.

Someone I care about is carrying the weight of tragic and unexpected loss right now, and being close to that kind of grief brings a particular kind of helplessness with it. I’m finding it hard to watch up close. I can see it in their face, hear it in the pauses, feel it in the moments where conversation just runs out. Something has shifted, and I can’t reach in and make it better and that helplessness is my story.

Despite knowing I simply can't fix the situation, my instinct is to try regardless.

I’ve always been someone whose love language is action. If I care about someone, I do something. I step in, take something off their plate, try to make things easier in a practical way. That’s how I show up. So when someone I care about is grieving, that instinct doesn’t fade, in fact it sharpens. I find myself looking for something to fix, something to carry, some way to ease the load.

But there’s nothing to pick up, no load I can carry, I must simply be.

I can’t organise grief. I can’t solve it. I can’t take it off them, no matter how much I want to. And that runs straight into how I’m wired. I’m used to being useful through action and in this moment, absent of action, I am useless.

What I’m learning is that my role has to change and I must adapt to a new love language, if only for now. Less action, more presence. Staying close without trying to direct anything. Listening without trying to fix it. Showing up in a steady, consistent way, even when it feels like I’m not making anything better.

That doesn’t come naturally to me. But it matters right now.

I can’t take the pain away. I can’t speed up the healing; grief must complete its cycle. I can’t solve it. What I can do is stay, care, and make sure they’re not carrying it alone.

And I have to accept the part that’s hardest to accept. I cannot fix grief. Time is, in the end, the only thing that softens it.

If you find yourself in this space, on either side of it, I hope you give yourself permission to let it be what it is.

I’ve seen good leaders lose a room full of people instantly with a three-letter word… But. It’s small and easy to miss, however it obliterates everything that came before it.

Early in my leadership career, I relied heavily on what a lot of us know as the feedback sandwich; you know the one, start with praise, deliver the criticism and end with more praise. It felt balanced, considered and always had that but right there in the middle.

One day, I was force feeding another feedback sandwich to some team members along the lines of, “You’ve been doing some really strong work lately…”. Before I could get any further one of them cut in. “And what’s the complaint?” they asked. That was the moment it landed for me.

They were not getting the feedback, they were just waiting for the but.

You hear it everywhere. “You’re doing great work, but…”, “I really value what you’ve done here, but…”, “I like them, but…”. The message changes the moment that word appears. Everything before it fades to nothing and what follows becomes the only thing people take away.

That’s the problem with but, it doesn’t balance a message, it changes it. We use it with good intent, to soften the blow, all the while devaluing the praise and sharpening the criticism. People learn the pattern over time. The opening becomes predictable and the trust in what you’re saying starts to slip.

If someone’s doing well, then say it. Let it stand on its own. If something needs to improve, say that too, but respectfully and without the proverbial sandwich. I've learned that you don't need a bridging word that depletes trust, you need brevity. People can handle direct conversations. What they struggle with is mixed signals and rehearsed patterns.

I stopped using the feedback sandwich from that day on, not because its intent is bad, rather because people loose trust in your messages when they are punctuated with those buts.

When you sense a but is about to spill over your lips, pause. Decide what you really want to express and say it, cleanly. It’s a small shift that makes your message easier to trust, and a lot harder to misinterpret.

Among the many exciting things that happen in my street, Tuesday morning is bin collection day.

Every week, the general waste bin goes out and every other week, it’s a double header, with the yellow-lidded recycling bins joining the party curbside. The only real challenge is remembering which week is which. Yes, I admit, it's not exactly a major life problem, but this week it got me thinking about how we make decisions in groups.

I have a simple, generally reliable system. I put the bins out late Monday night and quickly scan the street. If others have their recycling bins out, I follow suit. It’s quick, easy, and usually right, but this week, it wasn’t.

I saw recycling bins out across the street and followed without a second thought. on reflection, it’s amazing how quickly we trust and follow others without checking the facts or thinking independently.

On Tuesday night, I went to collect the bins and found my recycling bin still sitting exactly as I'd left it, full! It wasn’t recycling week it seemed.

What had happened was simple. One person got it wrong and put their recycling bin out. Someone else wasn’t sure and followed. Then another and then another, until most of the street had done the same, including me. Unremarkable I hear you say? No real damage done beyond an extra trip to the curb for my trusty recycling bin, but it highlights something more important.

There’s a term for this behaviour in psychology; the herd effect. It describes how people follow the actions or opinions of others without deliberate thought, often leading to decisions that aren’t fully considered.

In everyday life, it’s mostly harmless but in business, that's not always the case. Decisions start to form around momentum rather than merit. People align before they’ve fully thought things through, and confidence is often mistaken for the right decision. Over time, this creates a subtle but real drift away from independent thinking.

It’s worth asking, how independent are the decisions being made in your team? Are people thinking critically, or are they taking cues from the group and moving with the crowd?

When was the last time you changed your mind not because the room shifted, but because your thinking did?

For a long time, addressing poor performance, or any difficult conversation with team members, was my Achilles’ heel.

Any time someone on the team was underperforming, I’d feel uncomfortable before I even walked in the room. I knew what needed to be said, but once the conversation started, I’d lose my edge, second-guessing my wording, filling every pause with extra fluff, and dancing around the point instead of actually landing it. The more uncomfortable it felt, the more I tried to smooth it out.

At the time, it felt like I was handling it well, keeping things light, calm and positive. Team members would leave those conversations feeling upbeat and convinced there was little that needed to change, and that was the problem.

These days, I’m not like that all the time. My desire to avoid uncomfortable discussions or unnecessarily cushion them presents occasionally, but I catch it earlier and correct it faster. Like I always say, it’s progress over perfection.

Those leadership moments early in my career had little to do with the team members involved and everything to do with me. It was about me wanting to be seen as supportive, fair and easy to deal with. I didn’t want the conversation to feel heavy, so I shaped it to avoid the real issues and softened it with superfluous context, misplaced praise and random stammers. The succinct term is people-pleasing and I was a world class proponent of the people-pleasing sport.

There’s a version of leadership that rewards the behaviour I've described, at least in the short term. Its the version where you’re approachable, people enjoy working with you and every conversation feels smooth. In short, you're liked by all.

But leadership isn’t measured by how easy interactions feel in the moment and success doesn't come from pumping up your team when what they really need is a firm steer. True leadership is measured by what people are able to correct and achieve after a conversation and that’s where the difference between being liked and being respected becomes clear.

When you lean too far on being liked, you hesitate before speaking or soften feedback until it loses its usefulness. You may even delay or dodge decisions because you don’t want to disappoint people. None of it feels significant on its own, but it shapes how people experience your leadership. Standards start to feel flexible and your expectations become murky. Sure, you’re still liked, but you’re much harder to rely on

Respect isn’t built upon just being a likeable leader, it comes from clarity and consistency. People need to know where they stand with you and they need to understand what good looks like. When your people have this foundation, they trust that if something needs to be said, you won’t avoid or dilute it. That doesn’t mean every interaction feels easy, but it does mean your leadership feels more authentic and dependable.

What I’ve had to get better at is noticing the moment where the choice is evident and rarely is it obvious. The point of digression shows up as a slight hesitation before speaking, or the instinct to rephrase something that was already clear. It’s the pull to make things smoother when what’s actually needed is precision.

A few practical shifts have made a real difference for me, so allow me to share them with you.

First, say the thing you need to say in one clean sentence before you add anything else. To borrow liberally from Mark Twain, bite the head off the frog and get it done without hesitation or fluff, then only add more context if it genuinely helps. If you can’t state the core message simply, you’re more likely to dilute it.

Second, pay attention to what you’re adding just to make yourself more comfortable. Extra qualifiers, softening language, over-explaining, it all has a place, but a lot of it is just there to reduce your own discomfort in the moment.

Third, close the loop and don’t leave conversations open to interpretation. Make sure your team member is clear on what’s expected and what happens next. Clarity at the end of a conversation will build respect.

Finally, notice what you avoid, as counterintuitive as that may sound. The conversations you keep pushing out and the points you keep skirting around are usually where the gap between being liked and being respected is widest.

This isn’t about becoming blunt or ignoring how people feel, empathy should always play a role in how we communicate. Too many leaders mistake the need for directness and clarity for brashness. This is about saying what needs to be said without overcomplicating it, and holding the standard while still treating people with respect. Most people can handle directness far better than we think and what annoys them is a lack of clarity.

I still care about being someone people enjoy working with. That hasn’t changed and I suspect it never will. But these days I pay a lot more attention to what’s driving my choices in those tough moments. If I’m shaping a conversation to avoid discomfort, that’s usually a signal I’m straying and need to course correct.

As leaders, we can't be liked all the time, but we can be respected and that will carry us a lot further in the long run.

In 1997, Apple was in trouble. Steve Jobs had just returned, and the proposed campaign was built around the simple line, “We’re back.” Most of the leadership team supported it but Jobs didn’t. He pushed for something bolder, something that actually reflected the kind of company Apple needed to become.

What followed was the iconic slogan, Think Different and the “crazy ones” campaign, kicked off with an incredible Superbowl commercial (check it out here on YouTube if you've never seen it). It landed because it wasn’t just good advertising, it captured an ambition. Apple wasn’t trying to reintroduce itself, rather it was positioning as a challenger, built for people who saw the world differently and wanted to change it. Central to the campaign was a very simple idea; the people who change things are often the ones others struggle to initially understand.

History makes that point clearly. Thomas Edison faced early dismissal of the light bulb as impractical and early concepts of the telephone were brushed off as having no real use. Guglielmo Marconi was treated as if his ideas belonged in an asylum rather than a lab and George de Mestral couldn’t convince manufacturers that Velcro had a place in the market. Even John von Neumann believed computing had limits we’ve long since moved beyond.

Breakthrough ideas rarely arrive to applause. More often, they’re met with doubt, confusion, or outright rejection. History shows us that those who first present the crazy ideas are dismissed or even rificuled. That pattern hasn’t changed. It plays out every day inside organisations when someone brings forward an idea that lies beyond the bounds of normalcy.

What’s often happening underneath the surface, is that people are assessing your idea through the lens of their own experience. If it doesn’t connect to something they already understand, it feels risky or unrealistic, regardless of its actual potential. If you are to persist, and persist you should, it’s less about selling the idea in isolation and more about helping others see it in a way that makes sense to them. The most effective pitches build a bridge between what’s familiar and what’s new. They show where the idea overlaps with something proven, then extends from there.

You can build this bridge by anchoring parts of your idea in examples that have worked before, even if they’re smaller or less ambitious. You can break it down into components that feel recognisable and, over time, that expands how your audience thinks about what’s possible and moves the conversation forward.

Rejection, especially early on, isn’t a reliable signal that an idea lacks value. It often means the story hasn’t landed yet, so instead of stopping at “it won’t work,” the more useful path is to keep the discussion open. Why doesn’t it work in their view? What assumptions are driving that response? What would need to change to make it viable in their eyes? These questions create movement and turn a closed judgment into a problem worth solving.

The ideas that go on to materially matter rarely succeed on the first attempt. They evolve, they get reshaped, and they’re presented in ways that others can finally connect with. That all takes persistence, but also a willingness to adapt how the idea is communicated. Because in the end, the ideas that fundamentally change things tend to follow a familiar path; they’re questioned early, resisted often, and only understood properly in hindsight.

And more often than not, to steal from the 1997 Apple campaign, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.