by Julia Felton | Oct 7, 2025
We’ve all been there. You’re working hard to keep your team focused, but the leader at the top – maybe even your CEO – is creating chaos instead of clarity. In this week’s episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast, I unpack why chaotic leadership is so disruptive, what it means for your culture and performance, and most importantly, five practical strategies to help you navigate the storm.
Because let’s be honest: chaos at the top ripples down faster than anything else. It stifles innovation, undermines trust, and often leaves teams firefighting instead of thriving. Yet from the outside, the business can still look like it’s booming. Revenue may be up. The board may be satisfied. But inside? Teams are exhausted, disengaged, and wondering how long they can keep holding things together.
The good news: while you can’t always change a CEO’s personality, you can influence how your team responds and how you lead through the turbulence.
The Hidden Cost of Chaotic Leadership
McKinsey research shows that 45% of company performance is directly tied to CEO effectiveness. That means when the person at the top is scattered, controlling, or constantly changing direction, the whole business pays the price. Add to that Gallup’s finding that 70% of employees leave managers they don’t trust, and you start to see how quickly chaos erodes momentum.
Chaotic leadership:
- Creates toxic cultures where psychological safety vanishes.
- Fuels “organisational whiplash” as priorities change daily.
- Blocks collaboration and accountability.
- Leaves teams stuck in survival mode instead of performance mode.
And yet, from the outside, everything can look fine. Numbers go up. The board turns a blind eye. It’s the people inside – people like you – who carry the hidden cost.
5 Strategies to Navigate Chaos with Clarity
In the podcast, I share a playbook for dealing with a chaotic CEO. These strategies are grounded in research from Harvard Business Review and shaped by the natural intelligence of horse herds, which always find coherence in the face of disruption.
1. Manage Up with Intention
This isn’t about appeasement. It’s about alignment.
Find out what outcomes matter most to your CEO – growth, investor confidence, customer satisfaction – and frame your conversations through that lens.
Action Step:
Use the SCR framework (Situation – Complication – Resolution) when presenting to the CEO. Concise, outcome-driven messaging reduces overwhelm and positions you as a strategic asset rather than a blocker.
Just like a lead mare signals danger clearly to her herd – here’s the risk, here’s the way forward – your clarity cuts through the noise.
2. Build Agreements on Communication and Roles
Chaotic CEOs often change direction midstream, creating confusion and wasted effort. What you need are clear agreements: Who decides? Who executes? Who gives input? What’s the cadence of meetings?
Action Step:
Set explicit agreements with your peers about decision-making and communication. Think of them like fences in a pasture. Boundaries don’t stifle flow – they create safety and predictability so momentum can build.
3. Amplify External Voices
Sometimes, internal feedback falls on deaf ears. But CEOs rarely ignore clients, investors, or board members. Bring those external perspectives into the conversation.
Action Step:
Back up your recommendations with social proof – a frustrated customer quote, investor feedback, or board observations. If you don’t already have one, consider forming a “virtual board” of trusted external advisors who can provide unfiltered insight.
Nature mirrors this: horses respond instantly to shifts in their environment. Leaders who ignore external signals put the whole herd at risk.
4. Form Coalitions with Your Peers
A lone voice can be dismissed. A united leadership team is much harder to ignore.
Action Step:
Build trust with your peers and agree on a joined-up approach before meeting the CEO. Presenting a united front shifts influence from ego to eco – from individual agendas to collective stewardship.
In horse herds, safety comes from staying together. Isolation is dangerous. For leaders, the same rule applies: coherence beats chaos when you stand as one.
5. Practice Strategic Patience
You won’t change a chaotic CEO overnight. Progress happens in layers – small wins that build credibility, quarter by quarter.
Action Step:
Ask yourself:
- What quick win can I deliver this week to build trust?
- What shift can I demonstrate this quarter to show momentum?
- What long-term seed can I plant for next year?
Horses model this beautifully. In a storm, they don’t fight the wind – they conserve energy, huddle for safety, and wait it out. Patience, positioning, and persistence are what carry them through.
From Chaos to Coherence: Lessons from the Herd
These five strategies align directly with my Unbridled Teamship Roadmap:
- Trust grows when you manage up with clarity and build coalitions.
- Contribution is amplified when external voices and aligned roles are brought in.
- Adaptability is lived through patience and learning to reframe chaos into coherence.
The shift is from ego to eco, from chaos to clarity, from compliance to candour. And that’s what creates turbo-charged teams – even when turbulence reigns at the top.
Your Turn: Reflect and Act
So where does this leave you? Ask yourself:
- Is your team stuck in toxic, turbulent, or tolerable mode? Or are you already moving toward turbo-charged?
- Which of the five strategies could you apply this week to bring more clarity into your team’s world?
- What external voices could you amplify to make your case stronger?
Remember, you don’t have to transform a chaotic leader overnight. But you can protect your team, influence the system, and create a ripple of clarity that steadies the whole organisation.
And if you suspect chaos is quietly draining your team’s performance, take my Turbo-Charge Your Team Quiz to find out where trust is breaking down, contribution is blocked, and adaptability is needed most.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Chaotic Leadership
01:52 The Impact of a Chaotic Leader
03:16 Research Insights on Leadership Effectiveness
04:57 Strategies to Manage a Chaotic Leader
05:15 Scenario: Navigating Chaos as Susan
06:29 Strategy 1: Manage Up with Intention
09:47 Strategy 2: Build Agreements on Communication and Roles
11:54 Strategy 3: Amplify External Voices
14:33 Strategy 4: Form a Coalition with Peers
16:59 Strategy 5: Practice Strategic Patience
19:05 Conclusion and Reflection
by Julia Felton | Sep 30, 2025
Start with the obvious: nothing moves without your people
Here’s the uncomfortable truth many leaders forget: if nobody shows up, or they show up disengaged there is no business. In service-led companies especially, your people are the product. Their energy, attention, and care are what clients feel and what your bottom line measures. That’s why Ulli Hildebrand, the Strategic Talent Architect at PinPoint Solutions and I meet in the middle: I say teamwork is the competitive advantage; she says talent is the competitive advantage. We’re both pointing to the same north star that results flow through humans.
Action: Ask yourself, “What would stop if my team didn’t show up tomorrow?” Whatever you list is the real engine of your business. Protect and fuel it.
Leadership is motivation and mindset before mechanics
Too many people stumble into leadership because it’s the next rung on the ladder, not because they’re motivated to help others succeed. Competence in an individual role doesn’t equal readiness to lead. Leadership is the daily choice to make your people’s progress your priority. That means asking more than telling and listening more than fixing. If it isn’t your natural pattern, you can still lead, just install prompts to nudge the behaviour.
Action: Add one daily cue on your screen: “Who needs my support today?” Then check in with one person to remove a blocker.
Boundaries aren’t indulgent; they’re performance infrastructure
The always-on culture blurs work and life until both feel foggy. Stress rises, focus drops, and productivity gets replaced by presenteeism. Ulli’s take: boundaries are a leadership responsibility. If you send emails late at night, your team will mirror you, no matter what you say. Schedule messages, make response windows explicit, and model switching off.
Action: Choose a visible boundary this week (no weekend replies, scheduled sends, or shared “focus hours”). Tell the team what you’re doing and why, then keep the promise.
Remote work needs real rituals, not wishful thinking
Flexibility is fantastic, but without structure it becomes a stress loop, lots of microbursts of activity that feel like constant work yet don’t add up to focused output. One simple fix we both love: the “fake commute.” Step outside before you start and after you finish to mark transitions. It separates the roles and clears the head.
Action: Experiment with a start/stop ritual for five consecutive workdays (walk round the block, journal for three minutes, or tidy the desk). Notice the difference in your attention and mood.
Culture is behaviour at scale and it either accelerates or suffocates strategy
Most companies are clear on what they want (revenue, margin, market share) and vague on how they’ll behave to get there. That gap is where trust leaks and performance stalls. If you claim to value innovation but punish mistakes, creativity dies. If you promise bonuses for last year’s results and withhold them because this month looks weak, trust dies. Culture lives in what leaders do, not what they say.
Action: Name the three non-negotiable behaviours that would make your strategy inevitable. Publicly reward them when you see them, even in small ways.
Scaling exposes the cracks you’ve been tolerating
At 20 people, you can hustle and “shoot from the hip.” At 100, the same habits become bottlenecks, usually at the CEO’s desk. Growth needs systems, not heroics. As Ulli put it, there’s only so much any one person can carry. If everything routes through you, you’ve designed a queue, not a company. The fix is smarter structure and shared ownership, not a bigger to-do list.
Action: List the last five decisions only you could make. For each, write a simple threshold or rule that would let a capable team member decide next time.
If your team must ask before they act, they aren’t empowered; they’re permissioned. That’s slow and exhausting. Teach decision-making, define guardrails, and then celebrate “not calling the boss.” When you’re away, tell the team, “Make the call; I’ve got your back.” Nothing builds confidence and speed like being trusted with real responsibility.
Action: Pick one decision category (discounts under £X, service recovery up to £Y, content approvals within Z standards) and hand it over with clear examples. Review outcomes, refine the rule, repeat.
The less you’re the expert, the better you can lead
When you’re the deepest expert, it’s tempting to grab the wheel. That smothers initiative. If you aren’t the expert, you must lead through clarity, coordination, and trust. Your job becomes designing the game so your experts can win—setting outcomes, aligning interfaces, and removing friction. It’s liberating for everyone.
Action: In your next meeting, resist solving the hard problem. Instead, frame the outcome and constraints, then ask, “What’s your best way forward?”
Reward the try if you want innovation to survive
Every leader says they want creativity; few protect the conditions it needs: psychological safety, time to think, and the freedom to make small mistakes without blame. Trial and error is how new value is found. If the first failed attempt equals punishment, the smartest people will stop trying—or leave.
Action: Add a five-minute “What did we learn this week?” slot to your team meeting. Celebrate a thoughtful experiment—even if the result was “not that way.”
Horses don’t read job titles, they read energy
In the arena, horses mirror us. Ulli shared how her horse would wriggle in the cross-ties until she calmed and focused. The message is universal: your presence sets the tone. Scattered energy confuses teams; grounded attention settles them. The fastest way to shift performance is to shift the energy you bring into the room.
Action: Before your next tough conversation, take two slow breaths and choose one intention (clarify, encourage, or decide). Enter with that single focus and notice how the dynamic changes.
The quiet courage of keeping promises
Perhaps the most under-rated leadership move we discussed is simply doing what you said you would do. Pay what you promised. Give the time off you endorsed. Hold the boundary you modelled. When leaders keep commitments, trust compounds; when they don’t, cynicism spreads fast.
Action: Scan your open promises (big and small). Close one today and communicate it clearly.
What this all adds up to
Talent truly is your unfair advantage but only when leadership is a service, boundaries are honoured, and culture aligns with strategy. Scaling then becomes the art of distributing capability, not hoarding control. Empowered teams move faster. Clear behaviours make decisions cleaner. Focused leaders create calmer, more effective rooms. And yes, your clients feel all of it. If you want a practical boost, tune into this week’s episode with Ulli Hildebrand on Impactful Teamwork. We unpack these ideas with real stories you can apply immediately—and we keep it human, because performance without people isn’t sustainable, and people without performance isn’t a business.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Impactful Teamwork
00:53 Guest Introduction: Ly Hillebrand
01:36 The Importance of Talent in the Workplace
03:37 Challenges in Leadership Roles
05:33 Setting Healthy Boundaries in the Workplace
07:51 The Impact of Remote Work on Productivity
14:40 Scaling Companies: Challenges and Solutions
19:06 Creating a High-Performance Culture
19:52 Understanding Business Goals and Culture
20:29 The Importance of Tolerating Mistakes
21:50 Contradictions in Viewing Personnel as Costs
24:58 The Ripple Effect of Leadership
26:57 Encouraging Work-Life Balance
29:11 Empowering Teams Through Decision-Making
34:13 The Value of Non-Expert Leadership
35:44 Lessons from Horses on Leadership
37:54 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
You can connect with Ulli on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrikehildebrand/ and find her solutions at https://pin-pointtalent.net/
by Julia Felton | Sep 23, 2025
Reinvention isn’t optional anymore. It’s the lifeblood of sustainable business momentum. And right now, with the world in flux—markets shifting, AI rewriting industries, and customer expectations changing daily—leaders who cling to “the way we’ve always done it” are essentially planning their own decline.
Research shows that once a company stalls, it has less than a 10% chance of ever fully recovering. That’s terrifying. But it doesn’t have to be your story.
In this edition of The Unbridled Business Revolution, I’m unpacking why reinvention matters, what stops leaders from doing it soon enough, and how you can weave reinvention into the very DNA of your business.
Reinvention Is Nature’s Playbook
The autumn equinox is nature’s reminder that renewal and rebirth come from letting go. Trees shed leaves not because they’ve failed, but because they’re preparing for what’s next. Businesses need the same rhythm. Yet too many leaders cling to strategies and products that worked once but now drag them into decline. Reinvention means spotting the signs early and planting seeds for the next curve before the old one peaks.
Try this: Ask yourself: What am I clinging to in my business that served me once but is now slowing me down?
The Hidden S-Curves You Can’t Afford to Miss
Reinvention isn’t just about financial results. Research shows successful businesses track three hidden S-curves that shape long-term success:
- Competition – How is the basis of competition shifting in your industry? Price? Service? Values? Are you playing yesterday’s game?
- Capabilities – Do your systems, skills, and technology serve the future—or only the past?
- Talent – Are you growing and retaining the very people who will fuel new growth, or are you cutting the muscle you’ll need most?
Revolutionary shift: If you’re not monitoring these three curves, your financial curve will eventually collapse.
The Talent Trap That Kills Reinvention
Here’s the irony: when times look good, many businesses stop investing in talent. They freeze development, reduce headcount, and push harder for margins. But the people they lose are often the ones with the vision, energy, and creativity to reinvent.
And here’s the hard truth—different stages of business need different leaders. Start-ups need game-changers. Mature companies need strategists. Transformation requires visionaries. The same CEO isn’t always right for every phase.
Ask yourself: Do you have the right leadership energy in place for this stage of growth—or are you holding on to the wrong fit because it feels safer?
Reinvention Is Personal Too
This isn’t just about organisations. Leaders must reinvent themselves. In my corporate career, I thrived at creating new concepts and markets. But as the business matured, it needed a detail-focused operator, not me. I went from star player to misfit almost overnight.
The lesson? Reinvention isn’t failure—it’s recognising when your energy fits the curve, and when it’s time to pivot.
The Meta-Skill That Fuels Reinvention
The CEO of Google DeepMind recently said the single most important skill for the future isn’t coding, or even AI—it’s learning how to learn. Why? Because knowledge dates faster than ever. Industries reinvent in the time it takes a student to finish a degree.
That’s why I call so-called “soft skills” meta-skills. Curiosity. Adaptability. Critical thinking. These are the jet fuel of reinvention.
What to do now: Build a culture where curiosity is rewarded, not punished. Encourage experiments. Celebrate lessons from failures. That’s where reinvention thrives.
Lessons From the Herd
Horses don’t cling to the past. They adapt moment to moment. They entrain with one another to move as one herd, flowing seamlessly to safety and opportunity.
From working with my herd, I know this: radical reinvention happens when three levers come together—trust as the bedrock, energy as the fuel, and curiosity as the catalyst. That’s how you move from stagnation to unstoppable momentum.
Key Takeaways for Leaders Who Dare to Reinvent
- Anticipate disruption. Don’t wait for decline—reinvent while you’re still winning.
- Track hidden curves. Monitor competition, capabilities, and talent as closely as profits.
- Invest in people. Don’t cut the very muscle you need to grow.
- Audit leadership fit. Different growth phases need different leadership energy.
- Make curiosity a core value. Reinvention is born from questions, not certainty.
Final Provocation
The world is reinventing itself whether you like it or not. Economies, industries, even leadership itself are shifting under our feet. The real question is: will you shape the future—or will the future leave you behind?
This equinox season is your invitation to release what no longer serves and step boldly into your next chapter. Reinvention isn’t a one-time event. It’s a way of leading, a way of being, and the only way to thrive in chaos.
So—what will you reinvent first?
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Impactful Teamwork
00:54 The Significance of the Autumn Equinox
01:32 The Necessity of Business Reinvention
03:06 Understanding the Product Lifecycle
06:02 The Hidden S-Curves of Successful Companies
10:31 The Importance of the Right Leadership
14:44 Learning to Learn: The Future of Skills
20:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
by Julia Felton | Sep 16, 2025
This week on Impactful Teamwork, I sat down with Andy Price, founder of Initial IT, for a straight-talking tour of small-business cybersecurity. He cut through the myths fast. Most attacks on SMEs aren’t cinematic, targeted capers; they’re opportunistic scans that probe the internet for weak doors. Find one, and the attackers walk in. When that happens, it’s not only systems that go down — trust, sales and team morale go with them. Let’s stop treating this as “the IT guy’s job” and start treating it as teamship.
The uncomfortable truth about modern attacks
Forget the hoodie-in-a-dark-room stereotype. Cybercrime runs like an industry, with office hours, targets and KPIs. Automated tools sweep for vulnerabilities and strike wherever they find one. Two patterns cause the most pain. First, data exfiltration: client information gets stolen and sold, and you end up notifying regulators and apologising to customers while your reputation takes a beating. Second, ransomware: your files are encrypted, operations stall and you’re left choosing between a ruinous payout or a slow, painful recovery. Either choice hurts. Crucially, small doesn’t mean safe. Attackers often don’t know who you are until they’re already inside.
Cyber Essentials: your minimum viable defence
There’s a sensible baseline every scaling business should adopt: Cyber Essentials. It’s a UK government-backed standard that forces practical discipline. Are your devices patched? Do you kill default passwords? Are joiners provisioned correctly and leavers fully removed? Is multi-factor authentication enabled as standard? None of this is glamorous; all of it is effective. Increasingly, bigger clients and public bodies expect suppliers to meet this bar. In other words, good security posture is now commercial hygiene and a competitive signal, not a box-ticking chore.
Your people are the perimeter
Breaches rarely start with world-class codebreaking. They start with a busy human who clicks a convincing link, shares a credential or skips a process. If the organisational response is blame, people learn to hide mistakes — and silence turns small incidents into disasters. Psychological safety isn’t fluffy; it’s operational security. Train the team regularly. Show real phishing examples. Run simulations that feel authentic. Most importantly, praise early reporting. When “I think something’s off” is celebrated, people speak up faster. Speed reduces damage.
Backups: worthless until priceless
Here’s a line from Andy I’ll repeat forever: backups are worthless; restores are priceless. Leaders usually get serious about backups after getting burned. Don’t wait for that lesson. You need offsite, immutable backups that can’t be altered or deleted — even by an attacker with access. USB drives on a desk won’t cut it. Nor will a simple sync to a cloud folder that could be encrypted or wiped. Go for snapshot-based backups stored in a separate, managed vault, and actually test restores so you know the real recovery time. Think seatbelts: you don’t plan to crash, but you plan for the possibility.
Keep policies brutally practical
Security theatre wastes time; security clarity protects it. Keep the rules short and usable.
- Passwords: longer is stronger. Use a password manager and enforce multi-factor authentication across systems.
- Access: apply least-privilege. People get what they need to do the job — no more.
- Joiners/Movers/Leavers: automate provisioning and deprovisioning so no “zombie” accounts linger.
- Vendor sprawl: prune ruthlessly. Every extra app is another door to guard.
- Incident drills: table-top your worst day. Who talks to clients? Who informs the regulator? Where’s the playbook?
- Device hygiene: patch cycles, encrypted drives and remote wipe as standard.
AI: accelerate the good, anticipate the bad
AI is changing the game on both sides. On the inside, it helps us triage tickets, detect anomalies and eliminate drudge work. On the outside, criminals use it to craft flawless phishing emails, clone voices and create slick lures. Consequently, your threshold for “looks legit” needs to rise. At the same time, human skills — judgement, curiosity and candour — become even more valuable. Use AI to reduce noise, not to outsource your relationships or ethics. Write the first draft yourself, then refine with AI. And always verify through a second channel: if “the bank” calls, you hang up and call the number on the back of the card. No exceptions.
Culture beats criminals
You can buy tools. You can’t buy trust. Security culture grows the same way team trust grows: clear standards, consistent behaviour and mutual accountability. As leaders, our job is to make the secure path the easy path. Remove friction from good practice rather than piling on hoops people will dodge under pressure. Treat cyber like health and safety — embedded in the way you work, not bolted on at the end. When protecting the herd becomes part of everyone’s role, your team acts like an immune system. Threats still come; your response becomes instinctive.
The real cost of a breach
Let’s be candid. A breach isn’t a single invoice; it’s a momentum killer. Pipelines pause while you firefight. Prospects hesitate because they sense risk. Your best people burn out cleaning up chaos. Leadership attention gets hijacked for weeks. The external bill stings, but the invisible costs bite harder. If you pride yourself on being values-driven, protect the value clients trust you with: their data. That’s table stakes for modern leadership.
From command to collaboration
Old school says security belongs to IT and IT belongs in the corner. Teamship says security is a shared responsibility because everyone has influence. In practice, that might mean a five-minute “security moment” at your all-hands each month. It could mean a rotating “threat spotter” in each team who flags suspicious patterns. It might mean OKRs that link security hygiene to business outcomes. This isn’t driven by fear; it’s fuelled by pride. We are the kind of business that looks after our people, our clients and our future.
Talent, energy and finding the spark
My favourite part of talking with Andy was his backstory — the student labelled “not academic” who discovered the right environment and lit up. That’s the essence of Impactful Teamwork. When people find work that fits their natural energy, performance soars. Cyber follows the same logic. Spot the Spades who love “winning” the defence game, the Clubs who obsess over patch cycles and process, the Diamonds who’ll evangelise new tools, and the Hearts who will coach psychological safety. Harness that mix and your resilience multiplies.
Try this this week
- Run a “phish freeze.” Show three real emails — one genuine, two fake — and have the team vote. Discuss why.
- Enable MFA everywhere that touches client data. Do it today, not next quarter.
- Book a Cyber Essentials gap review. Even if you’re not ready to certify, close the obvious holes.
- Audit backups with two questions: when did we last test a restore, and how long did it take? If you don’t know, you don’t have a strategy.
- Rewrite your incident playbook in plain English. Remove blame, add speed and make the first step obvious.
Key take-aways
- Opportunistic attacks are the norm; exposure equals risk.
- Cyber Essentials provides a strong, commercially credible baseline.
- People form your first and last line of defence — train them and reward early reporting.
- Offsite, immutable and tested backups turn crises into recoveries.
- AI raises the bar for both attackers and defenders; keep the human in the loop.
- Culture, not tools, determines resilience.
- Breaches drain trust, energy and momentum far beyond the incident itself.
If this sparked a “we should sort that” moment, gather your leadership team for a 20-minute huddle and pick one action to ship this week. Want an expert lens on your setup? Connect with our guest, Andy Price of Initial IT — his details are in the show notes. Protect the herd. Protect the momentum. That’s what impactful teamwork looks like.Words cyber security and a padlock
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:54 Understanding Cybersecurity Threats
02:48 Strategies for Small Businesses
14:58 The Importance of Data Backup
20:13 Andy’s Journey into IT
27:11 The Impact of AI on Business
34:16 Conclusion and Resources
Connect with Andy at https://www.initialit.co.uk/ or via his email an**@**********co.uk
by Julia Felton | Sep 11, 2025
by Julia Felton | Sep 9, 2025
Today I want to challenge the myth that soft skills are somehow “soft.” Let’s get real: there’s nothing soft about the skills that keep businesses alive—skills like communication, empathy, adaptability, and trust. These are survival skills. They’re leadership superpowers. And in a world increasingly shaped by AI, automation, and constant change, they’re the difference between teams that thrive and teams that fracture.
The Myth of “Soft” vs “Hard” Skills
The term soft skills actually comes from the US Army in the 1960s. Hard skills were about weapons and machinery—tangible, technical capabilities. Everything else got dumped into the “soft” bucket. That language stuck, but here’s the danger: words shape perception. Call something “soft” and leaders undervalue it. Call it what it really is—your leadership superpower—and suddenly we treat it with the weight it deserves.
Hard skills might get you hired. But it’s your ability to lead, build trust, and inspire others that will keep you—and your business—at the top.
Action point: Stop using the term soft skills in your business. Reframe them as leadership superpowers or professional essentials to elevate their importance in your culture.
The Business Case for Soft Skills
Let’s cut through the fluff with some facts. The World Economic Forum lists 10 out of 16 top skills for the 21st century as soft skills—creativity, collaboration, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and curiosity. Deloitte predicts that by 2030, two-thirds of jobs will require soft-skill intensity. And here’s the kicker: the UK economy alone loses £29 billion annually to the soft skills gap.
Meanwhile, research shows that investing in these skills can boost productivity by 12% and revenue by up to $90,000 per employee. That’s not soft—that’s hard ROI.
Action point: Audit your team’s current strengths in communication, collaboration, and adaptability. Where are the gaps? Fill them now before they cost you.
Why AI Makes Human Skills More Valuable
There’s panic in some circles about AI stealing jobs. I see it differently. AI is stripping away the repetitive, process-driven tasks that drained our energy. That frees us to focus on what machines can’t replicate: empathy, curiosity, connection, and trust.
Think about it: AI can crunch your P&L faster than you ever could. But it can’t build psychological safety in a team meeting. It can’t resolve conflict with empathy. And it certainly can’t inspire people to go the extra mile because they believe in your vision.
Action point: For every AI skill you upskill your team in, pair it with a human skill. If you train someone on data tools, also invest in their communication and collaboration training. Balance tech with trust.
Agility: The Real Competitive Advantage
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: 85% of jobs in 2030 don’t exist yet. So technical skills are a moving target. The only sustainable edge is agility. And agility is powered by communication, adaptability, and creativity—yes, soft skills.
This is why in the Unbridled Teamship Roadmap we focus on three levers:
- Game-Changing Trust: Without trust, teams fragment.
- Impactful Contribution: Everyone has a role, a rhythm, and a responsibility.
- Unbridled Adaptability: The ability to reinvent again and again.
These aren’t abstract concepts. They’re exactly what horse herds teach us. Under pressure, horses don’t scatter—they come together, move in unison, and adapt. That’s agility in action.
Action point: Ask yourself—does your team scatter or convene under pressure? Build rituals that strengthen unity when challenges hit.
The Cost of Ignoring Soft Skills
Without these superpowers, hybrid and remote work collapses. Research shows 70% of employees will work remotely at least five days a month by 2025. Without emotional intelligence, resilience, and self-leadership, that quickly turns into disengagement and burnout.
And let’s not forget customer experience. AI bots can handle simple requests, but when problems get complex, customers want humans who listen and empathise. Every unresolved complaint is a missed chance to build loyalty—or a reason for a loyal customer of 30 years to finally walk away.
Action point: Train frontline staff in empathy, listening, and conflict resolution. Every complaint is an opportunity to deepen trust and create raving fans.
Soft Skills as Drivers of Transformation
Here’s the paradox: digital transformation isn’t driven by technology—it’s driven by people. PwC estimates 30% of jobs could be automated by 2030, but you can’t automate trust, creativity, or curiosity. Transformation succeeds when teams have the resilience, adaptability, and influence to navigate disruption.
That’s why I always say: your business is a living system. Just like a horse herd, it thrives when every member contributes, trusts, and adapts together.
Action point: Build time for reflection and reinvention into your culture. Encourage your team to ask “what if?” and “why not?”
From Survival to Superpower
Horses have shown me that leadership isn’t about control—it’s about connection. They don’t follow the loudest or strongest, but the most trustworthy and emotionally intelligent. That’s the same in business.
So let’s ditch the outdated language. Soft skills aren’t soft. They’re survival skills. They’re your hardest currency in a volatile world. And they’re the foundation of your lasting leadership legacy.
Final Action Steps:
- Run a Soft Skills Audit: Where is your team strong on trust, empathy, and adaptability—and where are they brittle?
- Pair AI with EQ: For every tech skill you invest in, invest in a human skill.
- Model Curiosity: Ask more questions, invite new perspectives, and reward reinvention.
- Strengthen Trust Daily: Keep your promises, show vulnerability, and prioritise psychological safety.
Because let’s be clear: technical skills may open doors, but it’s your leadership superpowers—trust, empathy, adaptability—that keep you in the room and ensure your team thrives with unstoppable momentum.gift you can give your team. It’s the foundation of your leadership legacy.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Impactful Teamwork
01:10 The Misconception of Soft Skills
04:31 The Importance of Soft Skills in the Modern Workplace
06:41 AI and the Future of Work
08:25 Building Relationships in a High-Tech World
10:09 Soft Skills as a Competitive Advantage
19:10 The Role of Soft Skills in Customer Experience
24:26 Final Thoughts and Call to Action
by Julia Felton | Sep 2, 2025
What’s the biggest gift you can give your team members? No, it’s not a pay rise. It’s not beanbags, a beer fridge, or even a shiny new gym in the office.
It’s your attention.
In this week’s edition of Impactful Teamwork, I unpack why attention is the rarest currency in business right now—and why the ability to be fully present might just be the leadership superpower that separates high-performing teams from those stuck in chaos.
Because let’s be honest: in a world that glorifies busyness, multitasking, and distraction, true attention is radical. It’s disruptive. And it’s exactly what your people are craving.
Why Attention Matters More Than Perks
We’ve been sold a lie that perks, pay rises, and ping-pong tables keep people motivated. Sure, they have their place—but none of those matter if your team feels invisible.
Attention is powerful because:
- It signals worth. When you stop, look, and listen, you tell someone: you matter.
- It creates connection. We are wired for belonging, and undivided attention builds trust at lightning speed.
- It fuels safety. Teams that feel heard are more willing to experiment, take risks, and speak the truth.
Action point:
👉 This week, swap one meeting or email for a 15-minute check-in with a team member where you give them your undivided attention—no phone, no laptop, no multitasking.
The Brutal Truth: Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows
Here’s the kicker: your attention is contagious.
When you’re scattered, your team is scattered. When you’re grounded, they align with you. In fact, attention isn’t just information—it’s an energetic exchange.
Think of sunlight in a forest. The areas you shine your light on grow and flourish. The areas you ignore wither.
So ask yourself: where are you placing your attention right now? On firefighting? On noise? Or on the people and priorities that actually grow your business?
Action point:
👉 Journal for five minutes: What am I paying attention to that drains energy? Where could I redirect attention to spark growth?
Horses Don’t Follow Distracted Leaders
Let me take you to the horse arena. Horses, as prey animals, constantly test for attention. If you’re distracted, they won’t trust you to keep them safe.
A horse sneaking up behind you while you’re lost in thought isn’t just curiosity—it’s a trust test. Fail to notice, and you’ve lost your credibility.
It’s the same in business. Your team won’t give you their trust—or their best work—if you’re half-listening while tapping on a keyboard.
Action point:
👉 Next time someone speaks to you, practise horse-level presence. Stop what you’re doing, turn fully toward them, and hold their gaze. Notice the shift in how they respond.
The Attention Triad: Mental, Emotional, Energetic
Attention isn’t one-dimensional. To truly lead, you need to align three types:
- Mental Attention – Are you actually focused on the conversation, or replaying the last meeting in your head?
- Emotional Attention – Are you dragging frustration, resentment, or distraction into the room?
- Energetic Attention – What vibe are you radiating? Calm focus or frantic chaos?
When these three line up, you create a forcefield of presence. People feel safe, seen, and inspired. When they don’t? Confusion, mistrust, and miscommunication creep in.
Action point:
👉 Before your next meeting, pause. Ask yourself: Where’s my head, where’s my heart, what energy am I transmitting? Adjust before you walk in.
The Three Levels of Attention Every Leader Must Master
- Attention to Self – Tuning into your gut, body, and intuition. (Ignore it at your peril—it often knows before your brain does.)
- Attention to Others – Reading tone, hesitation, and body language. What’s not being said often matters most.
- Attention to Environment – Scanning the bigger picture: market shifts, team dynamics, culture currents.
Miss one of these, and you miss critical data. Nail them, and you become the kind of leader people instinctively follow.
Action point:
👉 In your next 1:1, practise listening not just to words, but to what’s beneath them: body language, tone, energy.
The Cost of Scattered Attention
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you can’t lead what you’re not paying attention to.
The average leader is interrupted every 8 minutes. Every distraction costs around 20 minutes of recovery time. Add that up, and you can see why so many leaders feel exhausted but unproductive.
And it’s costing more than productivity. Scattered attention erodes trust, drains energy, and leaves your team questioning whether you really see them.
Action point:
👉 Audit your week. Track how often you’re interrupted—and how often you allow it. Then block 90-minute “deep attention zones” where you protect focus fiercely.
The Attention Continuum: Putting vs Placing
Most leaders put their attention where the noise is loudest—the urgent ping of an email, the latest drama, the squeaky wheel in the office. That’s reactive leadership.
Great leaders place their attention where it matters most—on the priorities, people, and conversations that build momentum. That’s deliberate leadership.
Action point:
👉 Identify one noise-driven task you’ll stop putting attention on this week—and one area you’ll consciously place it instead.
The Five Hijackers of Attention
If attention is a superpower, here are the villains trying to steal it:
- Digital Distractions – Phones, pings, notifications.
- Multitasking & Context Switching – Spoiler: only 2% of humans can truly multitask. You’re probably not one of them.
- Reactive Work Patterns – Responding to noise instead of priorities.
- Mental Clutter – Overthinking, replaying, pre-empting.
- Environmental & Lifestyle Factors – Messy desk, poor sleep, skipped meals.
Action point:
👉 Choose one hijacker to tackle this week. Maybe it’s muting notifications, maybe it’s clearing your desk. Small shifts add up.
Attention as a Radical Act of Leadership
Attention is not a luxury. It’s survival. It’s the foundation of trust, energy, and connection—the very things the Unbridled Teamship Roadmap is built on.
When you give attention, you say: I see you. I value you. I trust you.
And here’s the challenge: your attention is contagious. If you’re distracted, your team will mirror that energy. If you’re fully present, they’ll rise with you.
Call to Action
So here’s my challenge to you: this week, choose one place to deliberately place your attention. Watch how it shifts the energy in your team.
And if you’re ready to take this further, discover where your team most needs your focus right now. Take my Turbo-Charge Your Team Quiz at businesshorsepower.com/quiz. Twelve simple questions will show you exactly where attention is leaking impact in your business—and how to redirect it for unstoppable momentum.
Because attention isn’t just the biggest gift you can give your team. It’s the foundation of your leadership legacy.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to the Biggest Gift for Your Team
01:18 The Power of Attention in Leadership
05:36 Creating Psychological Safety Through Attention
13:09 The Attention Triad: Mental, Emotional, and Energetic Focus
19:21 Attention Hijackers and How to Overcome Them
24:20 Conclusion and Call to Action
by Julia Felton | Aug 26, 2025
Most leaders obsess over performance targets, quarterly results, and shareholder demands. Yet here’s the uncomfortable truth: without a compelling purpose, all that effort is wasted. Purpose isn’t fluffy marketing speak. Instead, it’s the magnetic field that pulls your team together, ignites energy, and sustains momentum when the going gets tough.
In this week’s edition of Impactful Teamwork, I dive into why purpose is the beating heart of high-performing teams—and why you can’t afford to ignore it.
Why Purpose Beats Paychecks Every Time
Research from Deloitte reveals that 84% of millennials believe it’s their duty to improve the world through their career choices. Let that sink in. A salary won’t keep your brightest people, and neither will a ping-pong table in the office. They’re looking for meaning, contribution, and a reason to care.
When people connect their daily grind to something bigger, they stop seeing work as “just a job” and start treating it as a mission. That single shift transforms productivity, boosts retention, and yes—drives profitability.
👉 Action Step: Ask yourself—could every single person in your business clearly articulate your company’s purpose if you weren’t in the room? If not, you’ve got work to do.
The Herd Knows: Purpose Creates Belonging
In a herd of horses, survival depends on unity. Every member knows their role, and the mission is shared: safety, connection, and thriving together. There are no hidden agendas.
In business, purpose is the same glue. It fosters:
- Belonging: People feel they are part of something larger than themselves.
- Belief: A shared story of why we’re here and what we’re fighting for.
- Behaviour: Clear guidelines for how we work together.
Without purpose, friction creeps in—disengagement, politics, and silos take over. With purpose, flow emerges.
👉 Action Step: Audit your team meetings this month. How often do conversations link back to your organisation’s purpose? If the answer is “rarely,” start changing the script.
Purpose Is Your Umbrella for Reinvention
Simon Sinek nailed it with Start With Why. Apple doesn’t exist to make gadgets—they exist to challenge the status quo through innovative design. That clarity allows them to reinvent endlessly: from computers, to iPods, to watches, to AirTags.
In today’s relentless environment of disruption, products and services expire fast. Therefore, businesses need an umbrella that allows them to keep evolving while staying true to who they are. That umbrella is purpose.
👉 Action Step: Define your umbrella. Can your purpose hold space for reinvention, or is it so narrow it boxes you in?
Purpose as a Magnet: Attracting the Right Energy
Another overlooked benefit of purpose is its magnetic pull. A clear, authentic purpose draws in: the right customers, the right team members, the right partners and investors. At the same time, it repels the wrong ones—and that’s healthy.
Misalignment is costly. Think wasted energy, endless conflict, and toxic turnover. Purpose alignment prevents all of that.
👉 Action Step: Review your recruitment and onboarding. Are you selecting people for skills alone, or are you actively screening for alignment with your purpose?
The Hidden ROI of Purpose
Still think purpose is “nice-to-have”? Let’s talk numbers. Companies with a strong, communicated purpose can boost financial performance by 17% (IMD Corporate Purpose Impact study). Purpose-driven brands are six times more resilient after negative publicity (Monitor Deloitte). Firms with sustainability-led purpose reduce supply chain costs.
On the talent side, 78% of workers actively prefer purpose-driven employers, and many millennials will even take a pay cut to join them. Clearly, purpose isn’t soft—it’s strategy.
👉 Action Step: Run a quick “purpose audit.” List all your current initiatives. Which ones clearly link to your purpose? Kill or reframe the rest.
When Purpose Goes Missing: A Client Story
Just this week, I coached a leader wrestling with constant team frustration. The root cause? Values and purpose misalignment. Team members felt disconnected from the company’s stated goals and quietly disengaged. Some had already left.
It was a stark reminder: people don’t quit jobs. They quit meaningless jobs.
👉 Action Step: Book a listening session with your team. Ask them: “What’s our purpose as you see it? What excites you most about it? What feels missing?” Listen hard. The gaps will show you where to focus.
Purpose Creates a Virtuous Circle
When businesses do good, they do well. Customers reward them with loyalty. Employees stay longer. Investors back them harder. In turn, the business has more fuel to amplify its impact.
That’s the circle of purpose → profit → impact → purpose. Break the loop, and momentum stalls. Protect it, and your team will soar.
The Spiritual Edge: Purpose as True North
Purpose isn’t a KPI you tick off. It’s aspirational. It’s your True North, the compass that keeps you steady when storms hit. Market shifts. Projects tank. Clients walk. Yet purpose keeps you moving forward when everything else tells you to quit.
When you invite your team into that vision—when they see how their contribution matters—the energy in your business transforms.
👉 Action Step: Write your “purpose manifesto.” Keep it short, bold, and human. Share it. Live it. Revisit it when you wobble.
From Purpose to Profits: Your Next Step
Purpose isn’t theory. It’s the foundation of your business ecosystem. It’s the herd instinct that drives belonging, belief, and behaviour. It’s the magnet that attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones. And it’s the umbrella that allows you to keep reinventing without losing your soul.
So here’s my challenge to you: stop treating purpose as a poster on the wall. Start treating it as your most powerful performance strategy. That’s exactly what we’ll be unpacking in my upcoming 20-Minute Teaching: From Purpose to Profits. I’ll share my 3-step Purpose to Profits Framework to help you cut the noise, ditch the silos, and finally get your team pulling in the same direction.
📅 Join us on Tuesday 9th September at 9.30am. 👉 Register here: businesshorsepower.com/teamship-teachings
Final Thought
Purpose before profit isn’t just a philosophy. It’s the only path to building resilient, adaptive, high-performance teams in today’s world. Horses know it. Nature shows it. Now it’s time for us as leaders to embody it. So, what’s the purpose that’s going to galvanise your team this month? And how will you make sure it doesn’t stay locked in a drawer?
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Purpose in Business
02:11 The Power of Purpose
03:27 Generational Perspectives on Purpose
04:45 Simon Sinek’s ‘Start With Why’
07:19 Purpose-Driven Collaboration
11:16 Purpose and Profit
12:15 Research on Purpose-Driven Companies
16:38 The Aspirational Nature of Purpose
17:42 Upcoming Webinar and Personal Insights
21:37 Final Thoughts and Invitation
by Julia Felton | Aug 19, 2025
Let’s be blunt. Most people don’t quit their jobs—they quit their bosses.
In the latest episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast, I unpack research that shows 85% of employees believe their boss negatively affects their work-life balance, and 70% are considering leaving because of it. That’s not just a culture issue—it’s a business risk.
So let’s call it out. Here are the 15 types of horrible leaders you’ll meet in the workplace, why they wreck performance, and how to do better. Spoiler: if you see yourself in any of these, it’s time for a course correction.
Because leadership isn’t about control—it’s about trust, adaptability, and contribution. That’s how you build unstoppable teams and create a lasting leadership legacy.
1. The Royal Highness 👑
The narcissist boss who demands admiration, treats disagreement as disloyalty, and shuts down other people’s ideas.
Why it fails: Kills innovation. No one speaks up. Team intelligence goes to waste.
Action: Ditch the crown. Adopt shared leadership—your team knows more than you do.
2. The Mood Swinger 🎭
Happy one day, raging tyrant the next. Team members walk on eggshells.
Why it fails: Creates fear and inconsistency. No psychological safety.
Action: Build emotional intelligence. Regulate your state before you wreck the room.
3. The Insecure Boss 😬
Feels threatened by talent, blocks opportunities, rejects ideas to protect their ego.
Why it fails: Your insecurity caps the team’s growth.
Action: Hire people smarter than you. Celebrate their brilliance—it makes you look stronger, not weaker.
4. Big Brother 👀
The classic micromanager. Wants to see every email, approve every task.
Why it fails: Slows everything down. You become the bottleneck.
Action: Delegate authority, not just tasks. Trust people to deliver.
5. The Underminer 🪓
Cuts others down in public to make themselves look good.
Why it fails: Destroys trust instantly. Motivation nosedives.
Action: Credit your team publicly. Praise in meetings. Elevate others—it lifts you too.
6. The Favouritist 🎯
Creates an “inner circle” and sidelines the rest.
Why it fails: Breeds resentment. Fuels silos.
Action: Build relationships equally. Inclusion isn’t optional—it’s essential.
7. The Metrics Maniac 📊
Obsessed with numbers. Doesn’t care about the people hitting them.
Why it fails: Burnout, attrition, disengagement.
Action: Balance performance with people. Targets matter—but so does wellbeing.
8. The Yeller 📢
Equates authority with volume. Shouts to get their way.
Why it fails: Creates a climate of fear. People hide mistakes instead of fixing them.
Action: Lower your voice. Raise your presence. Influence is earned, not screamed.
9. The Emo Blackmailer 💔
Uses guilt trips and passive-aggressive comments to manipulate.
Why it fails: Breeds resentment and confusion.
Action: Have direct, honest conversations. Stop emotional hostage-taking.
10. The Thief 🕵️♂️
Steals credit for other people’s work.
Why it fails: Kills morale. Your best people will walk.
Action: Share the spotlight. Acknowledge contributions openly.
11. The Ghost 👻
Always missing in action. Never around for feedback or guidance.
Why it fails: Leaves the team directionless. Paralysis sets in.
Action: Be present. Show up consistently. Availability is leadership.
12. The Conservative 🛑
Clings to the past, shuts down new ideas. “We’ve always done it this way.”
Why it fails: Blocks reinvention. In a changing world, that’s death.
Action: Embrace adaptability. Experiment. Reinvention is survival.
13. The Gossiper 🗣️
Spreads rumours and breaches confidentiality.
Why it fails: Destroys trust. No one shares openly.
Action: Zip it. Model candour, not gossip.
14. The “Meet-Me” Manager 📅
Loves meetings for meetings’ sake. No outcomes, just endless talk.
Why it fails: Wastes hours. Productivity collapses.
Action: Only meet with purpose. Agenda, decisions, actions. Otherwise—send an email.
15. The No-Clock Man ⏰
Always late to meetings and deadlines, but expects punctuality from others.
Why it fails: Hypocrisy. Kills respect.
Action: Walk the talk. If you want discipline, embody it.
The Ripple Effect of Horrible Leaders
These 15 traits aren’t just annoying—they’re corrosive. They drain trust, fracture collaboration, and poison performance. The reality is that great people don’t stay in toxic environments. They leave. And when they leave, your business momentum evaporates.
The Shift: From Control to Teamship
The antidote is Teamship. As I share in the Unbridled Teamship Roadmap, the future of leadership isn’t about control—it’s about:
- Game-Changing Trust – Build safety, credibility, and fairness
- Impactful Contribution – Unleash people’s potential. Let them own results
- Unbridled Adaptability – Stop clinging to the old way. Reinvent boldly
That’s how you turbo-charge performance and create a lasting leadership legacy.
Action Points: Ditch the Horrible, Lead with Impact
- Audit yourself. Which of the 15 horrible habits do you slip into? Be honest.
- Ask your team. Invite feedback—anonymously if needed. What’s it like to be led by you?
- Course correct. Replace control with trust, fear with safety, ego with contribution.
- Invest in growth. Train emerging leaders now so they don’t repeat these patterns.
- Adopt Teamship. Build a culture where leadership is shared, and everyone thrives.
Final Word
The truth is—horrible leaders don’t just damage culture. They destroy businesses.
If you want to retain top talent, unlock contribution, and thrive in today’s fast-changing world, you can’t afford to lead like a dinosaur.
The choice is yours: cling to control and watch your best people walk… or embrace trust, adaptability, and contribution, and create a business where people (and performance) flourish.
If you want to dive deeper, listen to this week’s episode of Impactful Teamwork where I unpack these 15 leadership fails in more detail. And if you’re ready to discover where your leadership style is helping—or hindering—your team, take my Turbo-Charge Your Team Quiz today.
That’s how you turbo-charge performance and create a lasting leadership legacy.
.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to Impactful Teamwork
00:50 The Importance of Avoiding Negative Leadership Behaviors
02:11 Exploring Toxic Leadership Behaviors
08:50 The Royal Highness: Narcissistic Leadership
09:56 The Mood Swinger: Emotional Instability in Leadership
10:57 The Insecure Boss: Fear of Competence
12:08 The Big Brother: Micromanagement
13:02 The Underminer: Discrediting Others
13:45 The Favors: Favoritism in Leadership
14:26 The Metrics Man: Obsession with Targets
15:03 The Yeller: Authority Through Loudness
15:38 The Emo Blackmailer: Emotional Manipulation
16:32 The Thief: Taking Credit for Others’ Work
17:21 The Ghost: Missing in Action
17:54 The Conservative: Resistance to Change
18:32 The Gossiper: Spreading Rumors
19:05 The Meet Me Manager: Meeting Overload
19:50 The No Clock Man: Punctuality Issues
21:48 Conclusion: Creating a Positive Leadership Legacy
Source: HR World: Kick Resume Research
by Julia Felton | Aug 12, 2025
In this week’s episode of Impactful Teamwork, I had the absolute pleasure of being joined by the brilliant Judith Germain, founder of The Maverick Paradox and one of Brains’ 500 Global Honourees. Jude is a strategic leadership consultant, author, and speaker who brings a fresh, dynamic lens to leadership through her Maverick methodology. We unpacked the often misunderstood concept of influence—and why it’s so much more than charisma or presence.
If you’ve ever thought, I need to be more influential, but had no idea where to start—this conversation is for you.
Influence Isn’t a Trait—It’s a System
Jude challenged the traditional view of influence being about personality or status. Instead, she presented her Influence Blueprint, which sees influence as a dynamic system powered by four core drivers:
- Capability – The foundation: your skills, credibility, emotional intelligence, and clarity of vision.
- Decisiveness – How you make decisions, demonstrate intent, and build your reputation.
- Power – Not positional power, but internal authority—your ability to act, innovate and lead without coercion.
- Impact – The ripple effect of your actions—how your influence spreads through people and systems.
“Influence isn’t about pushing people. It’s about aligning what you want with what others want—and what society needs,” Jude shared.
This holistic approach helps shift the narrative away from manipulation and into alignment, connection, and flow. Something that deeply resonates with my own experience partnering with horses.
Influence Exists at All Levels—If You Choose to Use It
A huge myth Jude busted is that only senior leaders have influence. Influence can come from any level in an organisation—from the CEO to the janitor. What matters is not your job title, but your ability to create movement and connection.
She used a lovely example: “When you’re out with friends and someone asks, ‘Where should we go?’—do they turn to you?” That, right there, is influence in action.
🟢 Action Step: Ask yourself: Where do people naturally seek my opinion or guidance? That’s the start of your influence zone.
What Stops Influence? Blocked Systems and Leadership Presence
One of the biggest barriers to influence is when it gets stuck in the system. This could be due to rigid hierarchies, poor communication flows, or ineffective leadership styles.
Jude and I both agreed—too often we see people say, “You just need more presence,” and then leave it at that. But what does that actually mean?
Her answer: Presence is built through your capability, reputation, and how well you use your power to make an impact. Influence can be amplified by others (like my former boss did for me), but you have to have it in the first place.
🟢 Action Step: Reflect on your reputation. Are you seen as competent, emotionally aware, and trustworthy? If not, where could you grow?
Let’s Talk About Power (Without the Eye Rolls)
Power gets a bad rap—but only if you think of it as control. Jude reframed power as something internal—what she calls Maverick Power. It’s the self-assurance, resilience, and innovation to act without needing permission.
She gave a great example: when there’s no hammer to hang a picture, a Maverick doesn’t say, “Oh well.” They pick up a screwdriver and get the job done.
🟢 Action Step: Where in your life or leadership are you waiting for the right tool or permission? How could you create a solution right now with what you have?
Leadership Is Influence in Action
In high-performing teams, influence is distributed. There’s an unspoken flow of leadership—people step up when needed, and decisions are made based on capability, not just hierarchy.
I loved how Jude described this as calibrated influence—where tools like the GC Index and her Influence Blueprint come together to reveal where people naturally lead and contribute.
This is something I see all the time with horses. If you don’t have the right energy, intention, and trust, the horse simply won’t follow. It’s not about domination—it’s about relational influence.
🟢 Action Step: Consider how leadership shows up across your team. Who’s actually influencing the direction of work, decisions, and morale?
Culture, Complexity, and the Need for Flow
As our conversation evolved, we delved into culture. Jude emphasised that real culture isn’t just “what we do around here”—it’s “who we are when we’re here.”
In today’s complex business environment, culture fit can be dangerous if it creates sameness. Influence thrives when there’s diversity of thought and energetic contribution—when people are hired for their potential impact, not just their similarity.
“Flow is what happens when presence meets trust meets clarity,” I added. And Jude agreed—businesses must now navigate energetics as much as strategy.
🟢 Action Step: Run a mini influence audit. Where is influence flowing in your organisation—and where is it getting blocked?
Influence Gone Wrong: The Trust Tax
We closed the episode reflecting on what happens when influence is missing. Jude shared examples of leaders who relied on control, but couldn’t motivate their teams. Change slowed, people left, and performance dipped. That’s what Stephen Covey calls the “trust tax.”
Conversely, when influence is present—when there’s alignment, trust, and shared goals—teams fly. Jude shared a story from early in her career when, despite holding others accountable, her team rallied to support her under pressure. That’s the power of relational influence at work.
Final Reflections
This conversation with Jude reminded me how crucial it is that we expand our definition of leadership beyond presence or performance—and see it as systemic influence.
Influence is the heartbeat of high-performing, agile teams. It’s what allows Teamship—not just leadership—to thrive. It’s what moves us from ego to eco, from chaos to coherence, from compliance to candour.
Your Next Steps: Build Your Influence Ecosystem
If you’re ready to deepen your own influence or diagnose what’s blocking it across your team, here’s what I recommend:
- Download Jude’s Influence Blueprint – available via The Maverick Paradox website.
- Take the GC Index with your team – and map where your team’s energy for influence lies.
- Book a Turbo-Charge Your Team Audit – and I’ll help you identify the key friction points in your team and how to unlock momentum using the Unbridled Teamship Roadmap.
Let’s stop talking about influence as a “soft skill” and start treating it as the strategic advantage that it really is.
.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
02:10 Understanding Influence
03:50 Leadership as a System
06:42 Influence in Practice
10:14 Women and Influence
11:15 Power Dynamics in Leadership
14:11 Influence and Organizational Culture
17:19 Practical Applications of Influence
33:14 Conclusion and Resources
