Blog & articles

13 min

Almost nobody builds their own team. Taking over an existing one is the default condition of management. Five fair-first moves for the first 90 days, what changes with a struggling team or a harsh predecessor, and the two clocks deciding when the team becomes yours.

13 min read

Manager development stops after the first year in most organisations, and the middle years are where your leadership bench gets built. What to develop in years two and three, and how to design it with the rooms you already run.

9 min read

Empathy without boundaries is avoidance dressed as kindness. How to hold someone to a high standard, stay warm, and run the conversations avoidance never has.

6 min read

Manager and leader describe two kinds of work, not two kinds of people. The distinction turned into a status game, and teams pay for it in vague expectations, soft feedback and slow decisions. The real difference, and which kind of work your team needs from you first.

12 min read

First-time managers fail in predictable ways, and the fix is structural. How to set a new manager up across the first quarter, then develop them well past it.

11 min read

The skills that earned you the promotion are not the ones the job now runs on. A four-stage guide to what a newly promoted manager needs to build in themselves, from the identity shift to the presence that gets them trusted with more.