Do you believe that confidence and performance are linked? In most leadership programmes we run, confidence becomes a hot topic. Leaders believe that confidence helps them make clearer decisions. Confident teams move faster. Confident cultures create momentum. Despite 20 years of developing leaders and helping them build confidence, I've never found credible research linking confidence and performance at work. So I'm working with a brilliant group of students at the London Sc

The Moment That Changed the Room I facilitated a leadership development group recently for a brand new cohort of leaders. Day one always matters, but this one felt different. Our executive sponsor walked into the room, sat with the group, and shared her leadership story. Not a script. Not a corporate speech. A real, honest, human account of challenge, growth, failure, and resilience. The atmosphere shifted immediately. People leaned in. They connected. They saw themselves in

One of the most common mistakes organisations make is believing that culture issues can be fixed with training. A team is not collaborating, so they get communication skills. A department is avoiding accountability, so they get a workshop on ownership. Leaders are not inspiring confidence, so they attend a leadership programme. People feel busy. L&D feels useful. Leaders feel like they have taken action. And nothing changes. Because culture is not created in classrooms. It is

When we ask CEOs what keeps them awake at night, succession is always in the top five. Not because they do not have talented senior managers, but because too many potential successors reach the brink of executive level without being properly prepared for it. The challenge is that if you want a strong, confident, aligned Executive Team in 12 to 18 months, you need to start developing your Execs of tomorrow today. Here are the four pillars that you must focus on to get your lea

In my experience over the past 30 years, I still observe many L&D teams spending far too much time trying to fix problems that were never really learning problems in the first place. Leaders ask for communication training, resilience workshops, or accountability sessions, and L&D responds with energy and good intent. Yet the issues they are trying to solve are almost always deeper than the request suggests. The real cause is rarely the skill the workshop was designed to addre

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” W. Edwards Deming Your organisation might say it wants empowered people. But are you creating the conditions where your people can  be empowered? Here are three practical ways to shift the system so people think for themselves, make smart decisions and take genuine ownership. 1. Make coaching 'the way you do things around here ' If you want empowered people, start with coaching. Not as a development initiative for middle mana

One of the biggest misconceptions in Learning and Development is that information leads to transformation. It does not. If it did, every organisation would be performing at a world class level because everyone has access to more information than at any other point in history. People are drowning in content. They can search, scroll, click, and consume endlessly. The problem is not a lack of knowledge. The problem is converting knowledge into action, confidence, and capability.

Does this sound familiar? Two strong teams. Talented people. Clear roles. Good leaders. Individually, they perform. But when they come together, something feels off. Decisions slow down. Conversations get defensive. Priorities clash. Problems bounce between teams instead of getting solved. Everyone is working hard. But the organisation isn’t moving at the speed and with the confidence it should. If that sounds familiar, the issue isn’t capability. It’s misalignment. And it is

When I started in Learning and Development more than thirty years ago, the focus was simple. If you delivered great content and people enjoyed the workshop, you were doing a good job. Back then, L&D was measured by the quality of the materials, the smoothness of delivery, and the number of sessions you could run in a month. Those days are gone. The organisations we support today need something very different. They need L&D teams who can diagnose real performance issues, partn

Early in my career, I thought great L&D was about delivering great courses. If people enjoyed the session, learned something new, and gave me good feedback at the end, I considered that a win. Over time, I realised something important. You can deliver world-class learning, but if it isn’t connected to the organisation’s purpose and culture, it won’t stick. The impact fades, the energy drops, and people drift back to old habits. That’s when L&D becomes seen as a service provid

In an excellent recent article, Founder & former CEO of Ipsos Karian and Box, Ghassan Karian, nailed what many leaders miss about authenticity. “Authenticity at work isn’t about baring your soul; it’s about aligning your story, your decisions, and your follow-through so people actually believe you.” Karian's point is simple but powerful. Authentic leadership isn't a vibe or a personality trait; it's a pattern of behaviour that earns trust over time. His research with Ipsos Ka

I’ve spent three decades in Learning and Development, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: the best learning experiences aren’t about content, slides, or clever models. They’re about connection. Some of the most powerful sessions I’ve ever run didn’t rely on a single model. They worked because people felt seen, heard, and understood. That’s empathy in action, and it changes everything. At TwentyOne Leadership, we see this every day through the L&D Academy, where

Culture doesn’t live on posters or intranet pages. It lives in how people think, behave and decide  every day. That’s why the best Learning & Development teams aren’t just running programmes, they’re quietly shaping culture, one conversation, one workshop, and one mindset shift at a time. Beyond Courses and Compliance Too often, L&D is seen as the department that ‘delivers training’. But the great teams know their real job is much bigger: to build the culture the organisation

This article is for you if you're a leader of leaders are senior managers and you think they can work ever better together. I posted on...

You’ve got a seasoned training team. They know their stuff. They deliver confidently, get great feedback, and have years of sessions...

After 20 years of developing leaders, I maintain that the biggest transition in most people’s careers is from a senior manager to a true...

Think about the last training your team delivered. Was the focus on delivering a great session, or building a real skill? If you’re...