I'm looking forward to working with you during our final workshop of the year. In this session, we'll be exploring several tools, techniques, models and tricks which we'll group under the banner of Advanced Communications. Here is a short video with a small amount of prep for the session. As always, if you have any questions ahead of the session, please get in touch via richard@twentyoneleadership.com.

I’ve worked with managers whose first instinct is to help. Someone gets stuck, they step in. A deadline slips, they take over. A difficult decision lands, they make it. Their intentions are good. But over time, everything starts coming back to them. DDI’s 2025 Global Leadership Forecast found that 71% of leaders reported significantly greater stress since taking their current role. Its research highlights delegation and organisational support as important responses to that pr

Over the past six months, I’ve worked with a lot of expert managers. Exec chefs. Programme directors. Heads of IT, Marketing, HR and Finance. Almost all of them are delivering great results. All of them are juggling multiple projects. All of them are in a regular state of overwhelm. Long hours. Missed family events. Cancelled plans with friends. Not enough sleep, not enough exercise. Most telling of all, every one of them has a nagging sense that their people could be doing m

It was great to work with you at the first Operational Leadership Programme workshop. Thank you for your energy, openness and focus. Here are the flipcharts from the session. When we looked at the state triangle, how to be inspiring and how to lead and manage emotions, I mentioned Dr Amy Cuddy's work on body language. Here is her brilliant TED Talk on the impact it has on you and the people around you. It is well worth a watch. Several of you said you want to take the learnin

It was great to work with you at the first Next Gen Leadership Programme workshop. Thank you for your energy, openness and focus. Here are the flipcharts from the session. When we looked at the state triangle, how to be inspiring and how to lead and manage emotions, I mentioned Dr Amy Cuddy's work on body language. Here is her brilliant TED Talk on the impact it has on you and the people around you. It is well worth a watch. Several of you said you want to take the learning f

It was great to be back with you for our third session together. I enjoyed hearing how you stuck to your commitments over the summer, and exploring strategy and vision and how they work together. Here are the flipcharts from the session. Please take a moment to reflect on the six aligned questions: What is strategy? What is your strategic objective? What is culture? On a scale of 1 -, 6 to what degree does the current culture support the delivery of the strategy? What is the

I’ve always believed that developing people is part of a manager’s job. It happens through the work they allocate, the questions they ask and the conversations they make time for. Yet LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report found that only 15% of employees said their manager had helped them build a career plan in the previous six months. That leaves plenty of room for improvement. Look Beyond Today’s To-Do List It’s understandable that managers focus on immediate delivery.

Last week I shared a few positive reflections on how AI is helping leaders be better for their people and their business. This week, the other side of the coin. These aren't doom-laden headlines about an impending dystopia. They are practical implications I'm seeing in boardrooms and senior leadership communities right now. 1. Don't outsource your judgement. AI is brilliant, fast and occasionally confidently wrong. It will hand you data that looks authoritative and a recommen

Well, what a final couple of days. Great presentations, brilliant feedback, and moments to stop and reflect on the journey you've been on over the past few months. Here's a short video with some final thoughts from me. On the last day, I asked you to identify some areas that you commit to building habits around. I've captured these below. (If you don't see yours here, email them to richard@twentyoneleadership.com and I'll add them to the page). Kate: Mindful of state – specif

There’s plenty of discussion about training people to use AI. I’m interested in whether we’re preparing managers to manage the changes it creates. Leaders set direction. Managers create reality. That applies just as much to AI as it does to any other organisational change. McKinsey’s July 2026 research found that 70% of respondents felt personally ready to adopt AI, yet only 27% of leaders believed their organisations were ready for the changes required. That suggests knowing

If you read anything about AI and leadership this year, you'd think we're all about to be replaced, outsmarted or made redundant by a chatbot. Here is a question I ended up asking myself. When did you last read something about AI that made you feel optimistic about leading? When it comes to leadership, I think there are clear upsides of AI. Let me have a go at sharing a few. What I'm seeing in the leaders I work with gives much more reason to be optimistic than the daily head

I enjoyed working with you as we explored the secret of confidence together, along with a deep dive into managing and leading emotional states. Here are the flipcharts from the workshop. Here is the TED Talk from Dr Amy Cuddy that I mentioned during the session. It is an insightful and valuable watch for anyone who wants to develop presence, authority and the ability to show up as their best selves even in challenging situations. While we spent the morning scratching the sur

I am really looking forward to working with you during the upcoming Next Gen Leadership Development Programme. The programme has been created for people in the business who have the potential to be senior leaders in the organisation in the future. Over the coming months, you will experience and explore some of the latest and best in leadership, team development, strategy, culture, communication and coaching and influencing. Please watch this short video, which will give you a

I am really looking forward to working with you during the upcoming Operation Leadership Team development programme. Over the coming months, you will experience and explore some of the latest and best in leadership, team development, strategy, culture, communication and influence. Please watch this short video, which will give you a flavour of what to expect from the session and the learning environment. Inspiring Leadership - Workshop 1 Preparation The first event focuses pr

The warning signs are familiar I’ve met managers who are working late, picking up tasks their team should own and replaying difficult conversations on the drive home. They’re still delivering, so from a distance everything looks fine. By the time someone suggests development, they’re often exhausted. What strikes me is how predictable this can be. We promote someone because they’re brilliant at their job, give them a team and assume they’ll work out the people side as they go

It was great to work with you again as we explored leadership and in particular how to be authentic, inspiring leaders. Here are the flipcharts from the session. I referenced Dr Amy Cuddy's work on presence. Here's her brilliant TED Talk. I'd love you to remember the core premise of the day. That is, if you demonstrate the top four characteristics that followers want from leaders, as identified in Kouzes and Posner's work, you will be an even better leader and will be perceiv

It was great to meet and work with you all during the event last week. Here are the flipcharts from the session, including your three commitments. As I reflected on the session, it occurred to me that the majority of things that will make a big difference to you are iterative rather than revolutionary. Whether we need to become more outcomes focused in how we communicate, use 4MAT when structuring a message or working even more closely as a management community, it is the sma

Thank you for being a great group to work with, and for living up to all expectations of a UK BUL group. Here are the flipcharts from the second workshop. During the coaching workshop, I mentioned Michael Neill. He is a coach who was really formative in my career. Here is his brilliant TED Talk that links really closely to the messages I shared during the Maps of the World session. It's well worth a watch. Here's a quick video I found which includes a useful recap on the SCAR

“I’m not sure I’m very good at this” I’ve worked with managers who can solve problems at speed, keep a team going through a difficult week and spot things everyone else has missed. Then, in a workshop, they’ll quietly say, “I’m not sure I’m very good at this management thing.” I’ve heard some version of that more times than I’d like. A promotion changes the job Often, they were excellent at their previous job. That’s why they were promoted. But now their success depends less

Welcome to November's Leadership Collective session, where we will be delving into the art of coaching. During the session, we will explore what coaching is, what it isn't and even have an experience of coaching and being coached. One of the interesting things about coaching is that many people think they know what it is, only to have their perception changed in a session like that. So, to help the process and to give us as much time as possible for the practical element of t