We measure everyyy KPI in business. Revenue, churn, pipeline, deadlines. We obsess over those numbers.

But culture… The single biggest predictor of whether a business will succeed or fail? We do a survey once a year, cross our fingers, and hope for the best.

That always felt insane to me. So built something to change it.

It's called Custard. Real feedback from your team in under 30 seconds, anonymously. And then AI (responsibly trained on everything I know about leadership) tells your managers exactly what to do about it.

And in less than a week, we’ve got 700 people on the waitlist. Don’t miss out:

[Join the Custard waitlist]

Now.. Back to the point

6 words the greatest leaders NEVER use

Earlier this month I was running a workshop with a senior leadership team. An incredibly talented group of middle managers, but with some big pressure to perform from their seniors. And within the first ten minutes, I’d heard one leader on the phone say three times:

“I just need to check…”

Just.

It’s one word. 4 letters. And it was sneakily dismantling everything this leader was trying to say before she’d even finished her sentence.

And I don’t want to sound preachy here, because for years, one of my biggest insecurities as a leader was my vocabulary. I would avoid speaking in meetings because I was convinced I sounded stupid.

I thought if I knew more fancy words, I’d sound like I belonged. But in truth, it was never my lack of vocabulary that was the problem, it was certain small words I was hiding behind.

The way you speak is a skill. And like every other leadership skill, it can be practiced and improved. So I started small. One word at a time.

That’s exactly what I’d recommend here. Pick one from this list this week, then notice how often it comes up, and eventually replace it altogether.

So here are the 6 I’d cut first.

[Quick disclaimer: Not all of these are single words. Some sit inside phrases, but it's usually one word doing all the damage]

1. “Just”

“I just wanted to check…” “I just thought maybe we could…” “I just need five minutes…”

Every time you use it, you’re shrinking yourself before you’ve even made your point. You’re apologising for taking up space and signalling that what you’re about to say probably isn’t that important.

Cut it entirely. Say what you mean and own it.

2. “Always.” “Never.” “Everyone.”

This one changed how I communicate at work and at home.

In psychology, these words are called ‘absolutist language,’ and they’re one of the most well-documented triggers for defensive behaviour in human communication. Therapists flag them in couples counselling. Conflict researchers flag them in negotiations. And managers use them every single day without realising the damage they’re doing.

Here’s why they’re so dangerous: When someone hears “you always do this”, they don’t hear the feedback. Their brain immediately goes hunting for evidence to disprove it. Every exception. Every counterexample.

“You always miss deadlines.” “Actually I hit the deadline in March.”

And just like that the conversation is no longer about the behaviour you needed to address. It’s about whether your word choice was accurate. You’ve handed them an escape route and the real issue got buried.

It’s just as destructive at home by the way. “You never listen.” “You always do this.” The moment an absolute lands, the other person stops hearing the feeling behind it and starts building a defence case.

Swap it for the specific.

“In the last three weeks I’ve noticed…” “This is the third time this month that…”

Specific is harder to argue with, and it keeps the conversation on the behaviour.

Which as a leader, is exactly where you want to be.

3. “Sorry”

Apologising for asking a question, having a thought or for existing in a meeting.

I see it constantly (especially in women). Sorry should be one of the most powerful words in our entire vocabulary. It should mean something. But when you use it forty times a day as a social reflex, it stops meaning anything at all and it starts eroding all the authority you’ve worked hard to build.

Save your sorry for when you genuinely mean it.

4. “Does that make sense?”

This one is sneaky because it sounds like good leadership. Like you’re making sure everyone’s with you. But what you’re actually doing is asking for reassurance.

Does that make sense? translates as: I’m not sure I explained that well. Please tell me I did.

Swap it for: “Let me know if you have any questions?”

Same intention but with slightly different energy. One signals doubt whilst the other signals confidence.

5. “I don’t mind”

Ok I must admit this is one I have a personal vendetta against. When I ask Char what she wants for dinner and she says:

“I don’t mind.”, then I suggest doing a salmon pasta and she says “mm I’m not sure about that”.

So… You minded, Char. You minded the whole time!! haha.

But back at the office, this looks like:

“Which approach should we take?” “I don’t mind, whatever the team thinks.”

“Should we go with option A or B?” “Honestly, I don’t mind either way.”

But you do mind. Even if you need a little longer to think about it, you do have an opinion and that opinion is valid. You have a preference. And every time you say “I don’t mind” you’re not being collaborative, you’re opting out of making a decision.

You don’t need to always dictate the answer… You can still invite input, i.e: “I’m leaning towards option A, what are your thoughts?”, but lead with your view first.

That’s what both your team, and seniors, are looking for from you.

6. “Hopefully”

“Hopefully we’ll hit the target this quarter.” “Hopefully the team will get there.”

Every time we say hopefully, we’re handing our power to chance. We’re telling our team (and ourselves) that outcomes are out of our hands and that we’re a passenger.

Great leaders don’t hope. They plan, act, course-correct, then communicate. Replace hopefully with “We’re on track to…” or “Here’s what we’re doing to get there.”

Yoda said it best. "Do or do not. There is no try."

Final thoughts

Although it can feel scary, language truly is one of our greatest leadership tools, and most of us are using it against ourselves without even knowing it.

I’d LOVE to hear from you, drop a comment and let me know which one you’re most guilty of:

Leave a comment

Peace,

H x

P.S. If you haven’t joined the Custard waitlist yet, you’re truly missing out on all the behind-the-scenes fun. See you there.

It is my HONOUR to finally share this with you.

The team and I have spent the last 5 months building something to raise the standard of management forever.

Introducing… Custard.

A professional-grade AI platform that turns managers into powerhouse leaders, using weekly team pulse surveys, real feedback, and tailored action plans using all my education.

So here we go, the Custard waitlist is officially open

👉 Join the waitlist here (for all the juicy behind the scenes and updates)

But… Wtf is Custard?

Google spent years studying team performance. Their conclusion: 70% of team engagement variation comes down to the manager. Not a strategy. Not the SLT initiatives. The direct manager.

That means our managers can either be our biggest risk… Or our greatest competitive advantage. Custard makes sure it’s the second.

With weekly, anonymous pulse feedback surveys, it takes less than 30 seconds for each team member to share their real-time thoughts, feelings and feedback.

Based on your team’s responses, every manager gets a personalised dashboard with actionable suggestions pulled from my proven leadership frameworks.

Think:

• “Your team is scoring low on psychological safety, here’s a direct conversation to have in your next 1:1” or

• “Recognition is down this week, here are three ways to fix it before Friday.”

I’ve been working on this with my incredible team (and a world-class developer) for the last few months and I can’t believe we’re finally showing you.

👉 Join the waitlist here to get all the exclusive info (including how you can be one of our Founding members)

You’ve been here for so many milestones

From my first Instagram videos, to Fresh Start, to my book…

And now this is the most important next step for me. Because i’m on a mission to raise the standard of management globally. For good. Custard is how we do that.

Launching publicly in June 2026.

Thank you for being part of this, always.

H x

If you caught the sneaky teaser I posted yesterday… you’ve already had a tiny glimpse. But the team and I have been building something in secret for the last 5 months, something I wish existed when I was managing teams.

Tomorrow marks the start of a whole new era both for me personally, and for our business and team. I can’t wait for you to see what we’ve built.

11am sharp tomorrow morning, keep an eye on your inbox for the details.

But today we’re here to talk about the the a point in most management journeys where things start to feel so much heavier than they should.

This is the moment many managers describe in similar ways:

“My team won’t take ownership.”
“I feel like they don’t take accountability unless I micromanage the outcome”
“They only act when I tell them what to do.”

Was I the problem?

I remember a period early in my management career where I felt constantly interrupted. My team was engaged, communicative, and clearly comfortable coming to me, which I initially saw as a positive sign. I had worked hard to be approachable, supportive, and present and I wanted to be the kind of manager people could rely on.

But they reled on me for everything.

Small decisions were brought to me and work was paused until I gave input. People would message with “quick questions” that, if I am honest, they already knew the answer to. At first, I took this as trust. Over time, it became something else entirely.

The more I stepped in, the more they stepped back. And eventually, I reached a point where I realised something uncomfortable.

My team was failing to take ownership because I’d trained them not to.

Accountability is not a personality trait

One of the biggest misconceptions in management is that accountability is something individuals either have or do not have. That some people are naturally “owners” and others are not.

In reality, accountability is not a personality trait. It is a response to an environment.

If a team consistently defers decisions, avoids responsibility, or waits for direction, it is rarely because they lack capability or ambition. More likely it is because the system they operate within has taught them that this is the safest, or most efficient, way to work.

For example:

• If decisions are always checked or overridden, why would people keep making them?

• If managers regularly step in to “fix” things, why would the team try to solve them?

• If ownership is unclear, it naturally will flow upward.

And so, without intending to, many managers create teams that are highly dependent on them, while simultaneously feeling frustrated by that very dependency.

The micromanagement line

Micromanagement does not usually begin with a desire to control. It begins with a desire to care.

You want things to go well. You want to support your team. You want to ensure standards are met and deadlines are hit. So when something feels uncertain or off-track, you step in. You offer guidance, provide clarity, or take something back to move it forward.

In isolation, these actions feel helpful. But over time, they create a pattern. And that pattern sends the clear message that: “The manager is ultimately responsible for making this work.”

Once that belief is embedded, behaviour follows. People escalate sooner, they seek reassurance more frequently and they hesitate to act independently because they have learned that they do not need to.

This is where many managers find themselves stuck. They are working harder than ever, trying to drive performance, while unintentionally reinforcing the very behaviours that are holding their team back.

My 4 step accountability system

After 10+ years managing teams myself, and training thousands of managers across different industries, I’ve seen the same pattern over and over again.

When a team lacks accountability, it’s rarely because the people are wrong.

It’s because the system is.

High-performing teams don’t rely on motivation, pressure, or “stepping up.”
They run on clear ownership and consistent behaviours that make accountability the default. And the good news is, this is something you can build.

Here are the four shifts I’ve seen work time and time again to move a team from dependency to real ownership:

Step1: Make the ownership explicit.

Every piece of work, every project, every outcome should have a clear owner. Not a group of people involved, not a shared responsibility, but one person who is accountable if it succeeds or fails. Without this clarity, accountability becomes diluted, and decisions are delayed.

Step 2: Change how you respond to your team.

When questions come your way, particularly those that do not require your expertise, resist the instinct to answer immediately. Instead, redirect the responsibility back. Asking “What do you think?” or “What would you do if I wasn’t here?” creates a moment of ownership.

It feels slow at first, but it builds capability far more quickly than providing answers ever will.

Step 3: Resist the urge to rescue

When something begins to slip, it is natural to want to step in and fix it. But each time you do, you reinforce the idea that accountability sits with you. Instead, hold your team within the problem. Ask them how they plan to resolve it. Support them, but do not take it away from them.

Step 4: Use questions, not answers

If you want your team to take ownership, you need to stop jumping in with answers and start leading with questions. The moment you tell someone exactly what to do, you take the thinking away from them, and over time they learn to rely on you instead of figuring things out themselves.

Questions do the opposite, they push responsibility back to the individual and force them to think, reflect, and come up with solutions.

For example, when something goes wrong, like missing a target, it’s easy to default to direction:

• ❌ “You’ve struggled to get responses, try emailing or posting next time.”

• ❌ “I don’t want to see the same results next month.”

But this keeps ownership with you.Instead, shift to questions:

• ✅ “Since we’ve struggled this month, what projects could you work on now to build better systems for next month or quarter?”

• ✅ “How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?”

Instead of being told what to do, your team is thinking through the problem, owning the solution, and taking responsibility for the outcome.

A final reflection

If you recognise yourself in this, you are not alone. This is one of the most common challenges managers face, especially the ones who care the most about doing a good job. And the frustrating part is, it can feel like a people problem. Like your team just needs to step up.

But in reality, it’s almost always a system problem. And the good news is, that means it’s fixable.

That’s exactly what I’ve become a bit obsessed with solving over the last 6 months. And tomorrow, I’m going to show you what I’ve been building that solves this in a very scalable and fast way inside every team on the planet.

Something that gives you real visibility into ownership, accountability, and what’s actually happening inside your team, so you’re not guessing, reacting late, or carrying everything yourself.

But… More on that tomorrow 👀

H

We’re standing just over a week away from announcing something we’ve been building for a long time. We’ve got a big photoshoot tomorrow, and you’ll hear from me next week 👀 22nd April. 11am BST.

But, back to the very important topic at hand, we need to discuss…

An uncomfortable truth for middle managers about AI

Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, published a blog post arguing that AI could take over much of what middle managers do. Track projects. Move information up and down. Keep teams aligned. Of course all the news outlets lapped it up.

And to be fair, he has somewhat of a point. A lot of what happens in the middle layer of organisations is information admin: status updates, progress reports, chasing approvals. If AI can handle that, fine. Literally nobody went into management because they wanted to be a human relay station.

But here’s the part that the article (and Dorsey himself) glosses over. That coordination work is never what management is supposed to be. It’s just what management becomes when organisations haven’t developed their people properly.

And that distinction, between managing and actually leading, is one we’ve always understood. We just never truly had to choose between the two. Until now.

Management vs The Roman Empire

In his blog post, Jack Dorsey uses the Roman army as his metaphor for management in modern organisations. He explains that layers of command existed because humans couldn’t move information fast enough due to long distances. Therefore, her argues that we don’t need as many layers now that AI can move it faster than any human ever could.

But Roman centurions weren’t just passing messages down the line. They were the person their soldiers would follow into something terrifying, they held the line when strategy collapsed at first contact, they read the field in real time and made judgment calls that no general, however well-informed, could make from a distance.

That’s not a manager. That’s a leader.

And that part can’t be automated. Not because AI can’t track a project or flag a risk, it can. But because leadership at it’s core isn’t about processing information, it’s about building people up to be courageous enough to do hard things. It’s the conversation after someone gets passed over, or the team that’s quietly burning out before it shows up in any dashboard.

A manager coordinates. A leader makes people feel like it’s worth showing up.

AI is coming for the first one. It was never going to touch the second.

How most managers operate

Think about how most managers end up in the role. They were brilliant at their job, so they got promoted, but nobody really prepared them for what came next. So they defaulted to what they knew… Doing and tracking, rather than leading.

They weren’t shown how to step into a difficult performance conversation, so we avoided it and filled the diary with status update meetings instead.

Decisions escalate upward because nobody had built the courage or clarity for people to make calls themselves. Meetings multiplied because alignment hadn’t been built through trust, so it had to be manufactured through process and tracking.

The managing expanded to fill the space where the leading should have been. And for a long time. So AI isn’t replacing middle management, it’s just filling the admin space where real leadership should have been all along.

So what does this mean, for us managers?

Middle management isn’t going anywhere. But the version of it that hides behind a full calendar and a project tracker is on borrowed time.

The managers who survive and fly in an AI-augmented organisation will be the ones who push back on prioritising the admin work in the first place.

The ones who were having the honest conversations, developing their people, and building the kind of culture that allows a flatter structure to actually function.

That’s not a management job, its a true leadership role. And it turns out it’s the same role most organisations have undervalued for years, because the admin layer was so visible and so measurable that it crowded out the harder, quieter work.

AI removing the admin layer doesn’t remove that harder leadership work, it just makes it unavoidable. So the leaders left standing will need to be genuinely, not just administratively, good at leading people.

Final thoughts

The leaders vs managers debate has been around for decades.

We’ve written the books, rann the workshops, drawn the Venn diagrams. And somewhere along the way, most organisations nodded along, but just quietly carried on rewarding the wrong things.

AI hasn’t changed what good leadership looks like. It’s just starting to remove the hiding places.

For the managers (myself included) who once upon a time built our identity around being across everything, filling in the reporting spreadsheets, knowing every update, owning every decision… I’m afraid that role is shrinking.

But the leaders who built trust, grew their people, and made themselves less necessary over time? They’re exactly what a leaner, faster, AI-augmented organisation needs more of.

We’ve always known the difference between a manager and a leader.

It’s just that until now, we got away with never having to choose.

Peace,

H

P.S. I'm being deadly serious about this announcement on the 22nd. The middle management revolution is incoming.

We’re gearing up over here to make a huge announcement on the 22nd of April. An announcement that will be our biggest ever business pivot to date. It’s something we’ve been working on very secretly since last year. But don’t worry, you will absolutely be the first to know (reply to this email with your best guesses 👀).

Oh, and it's officially Q2. Which means we’ve got 3 months of learning behind us and 9 months of opportunity ahead. What you do with yours is entirely up to you.

But one of the best places to start is your 1:1s. Because let me guess… They’ve become just a status update meeting? Or a moaning session?

You run through the task list, check in on the project, ask “anything else?” and wrap up in 20 minutes feeling like you’ve done your job as a manager. Tick.

But deep down, you know. Neither of you left that meeting feeling motivated, connected, or any different than when you walked in.

But it’s so very easy to turn that around (often with just ONE question)…

The problem with most 1:1s

For the business, our 1:1s matter more than you we think. Disengaged employees cost businesses more in turnover, lost productivity and quiet quitting than almost anything else. Your 1:1s aren’t just a cute connection tool, they’re truly a business one.

1:1s are one of the most powerful tools a manager has. And most managers are wasting them.

Here are the biggest mistakes we make:

• Turning them into progress reports. If your 1:1 could be replaced by a Slack message, it should just be one.

• The manager is doing all the talking. Managers who dominate 1:1s think they’re being helpful, but what they’re actually doing is filling the silence where their team member’s honesty should be.

• Staying on the surface. “How are you getting on?” answered with “Yeah, fine.” Fine is not a conversation. Fine is a door you forgot to open.

• Only having them when things are going wrong. By then, you’re already in damage control.

Most of us managers truly care about our people. It’s just that nobody taught us what a great 1:1 actually looks like. So lemme change that today:

The question that changes everything

A while back, I started introducing a new question into my 1:1s, and it was by far the most impactful.

Here it is:

“If you were to hand in your notice tomorrow, what would be the reason?”

Read it again.

This question does something most 1:1 questions don’t… It bypasses the polite, surface-level answer and goes straight to what actually matters to your team member.

It gives them permission to be honest without it feeling like a complaint, and it gives you intelligence you can actually act on.

People don’t usually leave out of nowhere. They leave after months of feeling unheard, undervalued, overlooked or stuck. And they’ve often already answered this question in their own heads long before they hand in that notice.

You’re just asking it before it’s too late.

What to do once you have the answer

There was a time I avoided asking questions like this entirely, simply because I was scared of what I’d hear. What if the team want more money? A promotion? Bigger opportunities? What if they wanted something I simply couldn’t give them? It felt safer not to know.

But the single biggest lesson I learned is this: Not asking doesn’t make the need go away. It just means your team member is sitting on it alone, and quietly making decisions about their future without you in the conversation.

But remember, our job isn’t to immediately deliver the thing they want. Our job as their leader is to take it seriously. To go away and find out if it’s possible, and if so, when. If it’s not possible, say that, honestly and directly. What people can handle is the truth. What they can’t handle is being strung along or kept in the dark.

But here’s where it gets really powerful. Once you know what someone wants, ask them two follow-up questions:

“What are you doing personally to get there?”

“How can we, as a company, support you?”

These two questions change the entire dynamic of the conversation, because suddenly you’re not the sole owner of their development, they are. You’re a partner in it, but you’re asking what they can do to achieve the goal (instead of it all being on you).

As managers, we can for sure open doors, create opportunities, and remove obstacles, but we cannot work for their growth more than they do. The accountability has to sit with them, and these follow up questions just make that clear in the most empowering way possible.

Final thoughts

Your 1:1s are not an admin task. They are your single greatest lever as a manager to retain, develop and genuinely connect with the people you lead.

The managers who get this right aren’t doing anything magical I promise, they’re just asking better questions, listening more deeply, and treating their team members as whole human beings who have ambitions, fears, and things that matter to them beyond the to-do list.

One slightly awkward question. Followed by one honest conversation.

That’s all you need to start.

Peace,

H

P.S. If you want my full 90 Day 1on1 agenda, please use and steal it here.

I asked on my Instagram story a few weeks ago: “If you’re not feeling good about work this week, DM me the problem to halve it”

And I got 100s of DMs, hearts pouring into work worries, anxieties and complex situations. But this one caught my eye…

So whilst this issue is complex (and crappy) it’s actually super common.

In this case, team members are leaving and bringing in more people simply isn’t an option.

I was in a similar predicament back in 2021, we desperately needed more developers to build our app, but it was near impossible to hire devs and we just couldn’t afford to bring more on, so we had huge gaps in expectation vs capacity and the existing team we’re struggling.

As their leader, I knew that even though I couldn’t add more people, I still needed to do something.

That’s when I built out my 5-Step Role Refresh. To reduce wasted resource as much as humanly possible.

But first, we need to be a little honest right now, I need to tell you something you won’t want to hear. Your team probably isn’t under-resourced. They’re under-organised.

So before you go back to your senior leadership asking for headcount you’re unlikely to get, try this first. It won’t cost you anything except honesty, and that’s exactly why most managers avoid it.

Step 1: The Role Report

You cannot fix what you cannot see.

Every person on your team needs to write up an accurate Roles & Responsibilities document of exactly what they do day to day. Not their job description. Not what they were hired to do. What they actually do.

If someone is taking out the bins, cleaning the windows, restocking the coffee… That goes on the list. All meetings included.

Most managers are shocked by what comes back and that’s the point.

Step 2: Traffic Light It

Now you take every task on every role report and you colour it.

Green: It plays to their strengths and adds genuine value to the business.

Amber: They’re OK at it, it gets done, but it wouldn’t be a tragedy if it disappeared.

Red: It’s a waste of their time and your money. It needs to go.

Step 3: Do, Ditch, Delegate

Now you act on what the traffic light is telling you.

Do the greens. Protect that work. Make space for more of it.

Ditch the reds. Automate or remove.

Delegate the ambers. Either to someone better suited, or out of the business entirely.

This step is where most managers go a littttle soft. They convince themselves the red tasks are actually necessary. They’re usually not. Be ruthless.

Step 4: Lay Down Boundaries

Without this step you’ll be back to square one within a fortnight.

As the manager, your job is to be the filter. Your seniors will keep pushing work down. That’s what they do. Your job is to push back. Not by moaning about capacity, but by being clear about what the team can and cannot absorb in a given week.

You set the boundary. You hold it. Nobody else will do it for you.

Step 5: Fiercely stick to the system

The last step isn’t a task. It’s a commitment.

No more pointless meetings that could have been an email. No more hours lost in inboxes. No more tasks that exist because they’ve always existed. You hold your team accountable to the new way of working and you hold yourself to it too.

This only works if you staight up refuse to let it slide back to normal.

Most workload problems aren’t a headcount problem, they’re a clarity problem. It’s just that nobody has stopped to ask whether the work actually needs doing, or whether the right people are doing it.

The Role Refresh won’t solve everything. But it will show you exactly where the waste is. And once you can see it, you have no excuse not to act on it.

Final thoughts

Good luck, be ruthless, it is in processes like these that your truly strengthened leadership will shine through.

Peace,

H

P.S. For the last 4 months, I have been building something very sneakily behind the scenes. This is a new direction for us as a business and for me entirely. You’ll find out more next week.

P.P.S. Want to go deeper? My book, Your Boss Era, is the whole playbook. 16 rules, frameworks and systems that turn good managers into the kind of leader people actually want to work for.

People are already running book clubs with it which I LOVE to see. Buy 20+ copies for your team, reply to this email with the receipt, and I’ll show up live for a 20-minute Q&A with your team.

Yesterday I was over at the Zoopla offices running my signature Leadership Level-Up day and as always, the conversations in the room reminded me why I love this work so much. The team are fab, 25 managers, all at different stages, all brilliant, but of course all facing different challenges.

But no matter the industry or the company size, and I hear some version of this story come up in my workshops all the time:

Someone gets promoted, they’re good at their job, they care deeply about the people around them, and honestly, that’s maybe why they got the role … Their manager saw someone who brought people together. Someone the team trusted.

And then the job starts. And almost immediately, something feels off.

They avoid the difficult conversation because they don’t want to make things awkward. They take work back from a team member rather than push back on a missed deadline. They agree in the meeting and quietly get annoyed afterwards or they say yes when every part of them wants to say no.

And they tell themselves it’s because they’re a good person. That they lead with empathy. That they’re just not the kind of leader who rules with an iron fist.

But underneath all of it, if they’re honest, is one quiet, persistent fear:

What if they don’t like me anymore?

Where it comes from

Most of us didn’t just wake up craving being ‘liked’

Somewhere along the way, being liked became proof that we belonged, and for a lot of us it started way before any job title. Families where keeping the peace just felt easier, schools where being agreeable kept you out of trouble, and then workplaces that quietly punished anyone who pushed back too hard.

Think back to the moment you first realised that being agreeable got you further than being honest. For me I think it was laughing at a joke that wasn't funny or going along with staying out late into the night drinking, because the alternative, the disappointment on someone's face when you said you wanted to go home, felt unbearable.

So we learned. We adapted. Approval felt like safety, and safety is a hard thing to walk away from even when you can see it’s holding you back.

But the very thing that makes you a genuinely good human, the fact that we care, that you feel things, that other people’s opinions actually matter to you, is the same thing that, left unchecked, chips away at your ability to lead them.

What it’s actually costing you

So it’s time we get honest about the bill here. Chasing being ‘liked’ feels easy in the moment, but it has a cost:

Your team stops growing: When you protect people from hard truths, you protect them from the feedback that would actually help them. They stay stuck. Their potential goes unrealised.

Your best people get frustrated. High performers don’t want a manager who keeps the peace at all costs. They want someone who will make the call, set the standard, and deal with the person who isn’t pulling their weight.

You carry everything. Every avoided conversation becomes a weight you carry instead. The same weight that lives in your chest on Sunday evenings.

You stop trusting yourself. You draft a message to your team, then rewrite it four times because you're not sure how it'll land.
You make a decision, then immediately wonder if you should have handled it differently.
You lie awake replaying a conversation from Tuesday.
Your instincts are still there, but you've overridden them so many times to keep others comfortable that you've stopped believing they're worth listening to.

How to stop

So what do you actually do with all of this?

I’ve watched the shift happen (in myself and in others) and it’s rarely a dramatic overnight change. It usually starts with one uncomfortable moment of honesty when you realise that by staying quiet, by keeping the peace, you haven’t been protecting anyone. You’ve been letting them down. That the approval-seeking you dressed up as empathy wasn’t really empathy at all.

I remember sitting across from someone on my team who had been struggling for months. I'd softened every piece of feedback I'd given her, told myself I was being kind, that she'd get there. But the truth was I didn't want the awkwardness. I was being a coward, softening feedback because I didn't want her to be upset with me.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that’s where the work began for me.

I am absolutely still a work in progress on this one. Wanting to be liked ran deep for me, and unlearning it has been one of the slower, messier parts of my own leadership journey. But here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier:

1. Get curious about the discomfort
Next time you feel the urge to soften something, avoid a conversation, or say yes when you mean no, just pause. Ask yourself: am I doing this for them, or because I can’t tolerate how it might feel?
You don’t have to change anything yet. Just notice it. The awareness alone starts to loosen the pattern’s grip.

2. Separate being respected from being liked
Write down the names of the leaders who have had the biggest impact on you and I’d bet most of them weren’t the ones who kept the peace.
They were the ones who told you the truth, held you to a standard, and made you feel like your growth actually mattered to them.
That’s the leader your team needs you to be.

3. Start small by having one conversation you’ve been avoiding
Not every conversation all at once. Just one. Pick the smallest, lowest-stakes version of something you’ve been putting off, maybe a piece of feedback, an expectation you haven’t set clearly or a boundary you’ve been tiptoeing around.
Notice that the world doesn’t end and notice how much lighter you feel afterwards. You’ll build up the evidence which will slowly replace the fear with something more useful.

So what now?

If you recognised yourself anywhere in this, I’m not asking you to become someone you’re not. The care, the empathy, the deep investment in your people, those are assets. The world needs more leaders who actually give a damn.

But caring about people and needing their approval are not the same thing. One makes you a better leader. The other makes you a hostage.

The work is learning to tell the difference.

Peace,

H

BTW - I’m hosting a free live workshop tomorrow, Wednesday 25th March at 3pm GMT / 11am EDT and I’d love to see you there.

Why your culture feels off (and how to fix it)
and if today’s newsletter hit a nerve, this is the natural next step.

Working to be liked doesn’t just affect you, over time it shapes the culture around you. Standards drift. Ownership disappears. Energy drops. And suddenly everything feels polite but not productive, and you can’t quite put your finger on why.

In this session I’ll walk you through the exact process high-performing managers use to diagnose what’s really going on in their team, reset the culture fast, and make sure it doesn’t quietly slip again.

It’s free, it’s live, and there’ll be plenty of time for questions at the end

[Secure your spot here]

See you there

Maybe it’s because of the rain, but I’m reminiscing today about a holiday I went on to Greece back in 2018, where I spent the first three days answering Slack messages from my phone (woops).

“Quick question…”
“Can you check this?”

I remember sitting by the pool thinking it was ridiculous. I naively told myself it was because I was a good manager. My team needed me, I was the manager, so of course, they wanted my input, right?

But as we all know, the truth is far less flattering…

I hadn’t built a strong team, I had built a team that needed me to think for them.

I was the bottleneck and the problem.

The job of a leader isn’t to run the team, it is to build a team that can run without them. And the more I learned about building high-performing teams, the more obvious it became that I had accidentally designed a team that revolved around me…

I answered questions quickly.
I fixed small problems because it’s faster.
I jumped in to help when something felt messy.

All completely reasonable decisions in the moment, but stack enough of those moments together and suddenly the team learns something dangerous: When in doubt, ask the manager.

The KPI I now care about more than anything else

So after that holiday, I decided it was time to make some big old changes. There was one question I started asking myself regularly:

If I fully stepped away for two weeks, would my team still perform?

I call this my Independence KPI, a quick litmus test for how healthy my leadership actually is.

The answers are simple: yes or no.

Not “sometimes.”
Not “they’d probably manage.”

Yes or no.

And the question isn’t about whether the team would survive without you. It’s about whether they would continue performing and moving forward.

Would projects still progress?
Would decisions still get made?
Would the work stay at a high standard?

If the answer is no, it tells me something important… That my leadership system still depends too heavily on me. That’s why I use this KPI regularly. Because it forces a different kind of thinking as a manager.

Instead of asking, “Did I do enough this week?”
I start asking, “Did I level my team up enough that they don’t need me?”

It pushes me to coach better, delegate properly, and design clearer ownership inside the team. And over time, that’s what separates busy managers from genuinely high-performing ones.

High-performing teams don’t rely on one person to keep things moving, they run because the capability, judgement and ownership exist across the whole team.

But how do you actually build a team that runs without you?

Here’s the 5 steps I’d take today, to build independence inside my team

1. Coach the thinking, not just the outcome

Teams that run well without the manager require us to do something that managers rarely permit themselves to do: Slowwww the hell down.

One of the biggest shifts I made as a manager was resisting the urge to immediately answer questions. When someone comes to you with a problem, the natural instinct is to help.

You already know the answer and it would take ten seconds to explain it.

But that ten-second answer can, over time, create a ten-year dependency. So instead, I started responding differently:

• “Okay, talk me through what you’re thinking.”

• “If you had to choose right now, what would you do?”

It takes longer in the moment but your team start developing judgment. And once someone develops judgment, they stop needing permission for every decision.

2. Delegate properly, not just dump tasks

A lot of managers think they’re delegating when they’re actually just redistributing tasks.

“Can you send this?”
“Can you handle this piece?”

But that’s not actually delegation i’s task management.

Real delegation looks like this: Instead of giving someone a task, you give them ownership of the outcome. You explain the purpose and context, why it matters and what success looks like.

Then you step back.

The first few times this happens it will probably feel uncomfortable for both of you. That’s normal. Stick to it.

3. Make ownership visible

Another thing that helps teams operate independently is clarity about who owns what. If ownership is vague, everything drifts back to the manager. Because when nobody is clearly responsible, someone eventually has to step in.

So inside teams that run well, ownership is extremely clear.

Everyone knows:

• What they are responsible for

• What decisions they can make

• Where their boundaries sit.

Once that clarity exists, managers stop being the centre of every conversation and the team starts running more like a network than a hierarchy.

4. Practice letting go

This might be the hardest part.

Even when managers say they want more ownership in their team, they often struggle when it actually happens because everyone in your team will do things differently, to different standards and with different skills.

They might structure a project differently.
Approach a problem differently.
Communicate differently.

And your instinct might be to jump in and ‘correct’ it or change it. But unless the outcome is at risk, sometimes the most powerful leadership move is doing nothing.

Let them run with it, let them learn and let them refine their own style.

5. Measure the right thing

And finally, come back to the question that inspired this whole piece… could you step away for 2 weeks and the team would still perform?

That question forces you to think about leadership differently.

Instead of asking: “Did I do enough today?”

You start asking: “Did I build enough capability in the team?”

Peace,

H

Want to keep learning with me?

I’m running a free, online masterclass next week on exactly how to build a culture inside your team that people WANT to work in. It’s free, register here.

The first quarter of 2026 is coming to a close and if you’re anything like me, the new year goals are getting evvvver so slightly off track… That’s ok. We’re all in the same boat. Leading a team is no easy feat, so if you have started to feel any of the below:

• You’re repeating yourself more

• People need more chasing

• Standards feel a bit looser

• Meetings happen, but nobody really takes ownership afterwards

Before long, you might start doing what most managers do when this happens…

Add more. More reminders, more check-ins, more pressure, more of your own energy.

But usually, that’s not the real fix.

The managers who keep their teams performing well won’t push harder when things start to drift. Instead, they know how to spot the early signs, and reset standards before the whole thing turns into frustration, dependency and underperformance.

So… I’m running a free live workshop to show you exactly how that works:

💥 Why your culture feels off (and how to fix it)💥

The 4 fastest ways leaders rebuild standards and momentum

📆 Wednesday 25th March

⏰ 3pm GMT / 11am EDT

👉 Save your free spot HERE

In the session I’ll walk through the exact process strong managers use to reset standards and rebuild momentum inside their teams.

You’ll learn:

• The real reason most team cultures quietly drift
• The fastest way to spot what’s causing the dip in standards or ownership
• How to fix the issue using data, not guesswork
• How good managers keep culture strong so problems don’t creep back

If you’re sat there thinking nothing is drastically wrong in your team’s culture, but something isn’t right either.

This workshop will help you diagnose it and fix it.

Hope to see you there,
H x

P.S. If you manage people, culture is part of your job whether HR is involved or not. This session will show you how the best managers take control of it.

I had a request from one of our In The Making community members, Libby. She said something that really stuck with me:

“I think managers get a bad reputation online, and it can sometimes feel like a battle trying to prove you’re not a bad manager, that you’re genuinely trying to be a great leader.”

And she’s right.

Managers often spend a huge amount of time thinking about how to support their team, but very little time actually saying those things out loud. And showing their team how to be good team members.

Work moves quickly, conversations stay focused on tasks, and the bigger messages about trust, expectations, growth, and support often go unsaid.

Over time, that silence then creates guesswork. Team members start filling in the gaps themselves, sometimes assuming the worst.

So this week, we’re doing something a little different.

Below are 21 things us managers wished our teams knew, but we don’t always get the chance to say clearly.

I’m writing it as a list beacuse so you can use them as a starting point for a conversation with your team.

Sometimes the most powerful leadership move is simply saying these phrases outloud to them, so they don’t have to fill in the blanks.

And while this list is written from a manager’s perspective, it’s also a good moment for a bit of reflection. Some of these are things our own leaders might quietly wish we understood too.

So with that in mind…

Here are 21 things your manager probably wants you to know.

21 things your manager wants you to know

1. If you’re stuck, tell me earlier rather than later. Small problems are easy to fix.

2. When you bring a problem, bring an idea for a solution too.

3. I do notice the effort, even when the result isn’t perfect.

4. If you disagree with something, I’d much rather hear it than have you quietly resent it.

5. You won’t lose respect by asking questions, but you might by pretending you understood something you didn’t.

6. If something takes longer than expected, letting me know before the deadline goes a long way.

7. You don’t need to CC me into everything to prove you’re working.

8. I’m juggling more context than it probably looks like. If something seems odd, there’s often a reason behind it.

9. Not every piece of feedback is a huge deal. Sometimes it’s just a small tweak.

10. I genuinely appreciate it when someone takes initiative without being asked.

11. When meetings run well, it’s usually because you came prepared.

12. If something feels frustrating to you, chances are it’s frustrating to me too.

13. If you tell me what you want to learn or get better at, I’ll look for opportunities to help you practice it.

14. Your attitude on difficult days has more impact on the team than you might realise.

15. When you own a mistake quickly, it actually increases my trust in you. Please don’t try to pretend it didn’t happen.

16. The people who progress fastest are usually the ones who ask for feedback, not just wait for it.

17. I want you to succeed here. Your growth makes the whole team stronger.

18. If something feels confusing in a process, it’s probably confusing for others too. Pointing it out helps us improve the system.

19. The small things you follow through on are often what build the most trust over time.

20. Sometimes I’m under pressure from above too. I’m doing my best to balance that while still backing the team.

21. Just like you, I’m learning as I go too.

Drop a comment, I’d love to know which one resonated with you the most and why…

Leave a comment

Peace,

H

P.S. I’m running our next free community online masterclass in 2 weeks time, more details coming later this week

But if you want to have a sneak peak, check it out and register here

I’m in a very sunny Brighton today, running my full Leadership Level Up day with a brilliant sales team down here.

But before I step out, I’m sat in my hotel room thinking about something that keeps coming up in leadership conversations lately.

Change.

More importantly, our team’s resistance to any kind of change or newness.

And how the hell, as their leaders, do we lead through it? Especially if we don’t agree with the change ourselves?

Do we just lie, and pretend it’s all rosy? Or admit we don’t agree either, at risk of causing more resistance?

Let’s unpack…

Firstly, change is necessary. It’s what keeps businesses growing, teams improving, and results getting better.

But even with that in mind, it rarely has a positive reception.

If you’ve ever tried to introduce a new system, process, or way of working, you’ve probably been met with some (or all) of these responses:

• “This won’t work.”

• “We tried something similar before, and it failed.”

• “But this won’t work for me because…”

• OR silent resistance (more frustrating) where people just don’t do the new thing because they silently don’t believe in it.

Sound familiar?

As a leader, your job isn’t just to announce change. It’s to make it happen. And that means overcoming pushback, getting buy-in, and making sure the change actually sticks.

Here’s some ways I navigate change without pulling my hair out in the process:

Step 1: Understand why humans resist change (It’s not just stubbornness)

Before you can fix the resistance, you need to understand it. People don’t usually resist change just to be difficult. They resist because of how it makes them feel.

Common Reasons for Resistance:

• Fear of the unknown - We don’t know what this change means for us.

• Loss of control – They feel like something is being forced on them.

• More work upfront – Even if the change will help in the long run, it feels like extra effort now.

• Lack of trust – They don’t believe leadership is making the right decision.

• Comfort with routine – They know the old way, and change is uncomfortable.

Example:

I worked with a company last year who had just moved from fully email-based and office based communication to Slack, and the longer-standing team members resisted. They saw it as “just another tool” and didn’t want to invest time into something new.

After some digging, we found they actually felt left behind. Some of the older team didn’t quite understand the new tech.

But once they were shown why it was useful (fewer lost emails, quicker responses) and were given proper training, resistance dropped.

Step 2: Make it their idea (even if it was yours)

Fact: People are more likely to embrace change if they feel like they were part of the decision.

Instead of telling your team what’s happening, bring them into the process.

How to do it:

• Ask for input early. Even if the decision is already made, involve them in how it’s implemented.

• Frame it as an opportunity. Instead of “We’re changing this”, say “We have the chance to improve X - what do you think we should do?”

• Let them identify problems. Ask: “What’s frustrating about the current way we do things?” then position the change as the solution to that.

Let’s say this is something they’re really against, like coming back into the office for more days. We can’t change it, but we can ask questions like…

”Look, I know this isn’t ideal, but the change is happening. So what could we do to make it more enjoyable or less frustrating for you? What could we put in place?”

Step 3: Connect it to what they care about

People don’t care about company goals anywhere near as much as they care about how something affects them personally.

If you want them to buy in, you need to know the answer one simple question:

“What’s in it for me?”

How to Do It:

• Show how the change makes their job easier, not harder.

• Connect it to something they’re already frustrated with.

• Make it personal. How does this help them, not just the company? Does it help make them more valuable? Make a process smoother?

Example:

My friend who runs an accountancy business, rolled out a new reporting tool for her team recently that would save hours of manual data entry.

In her email to the team, instead of saying, “We’re implementing a new tool”
She said, “We’re eliminating 90% of the boring admin work - so you’ll have more time for the stuff that actually matters.”

Now, people wanted the change.

Step 4: Over-Communicate (Seriously, way more than you think you need to)

Change feels the most scary when we don’t have enough information. If they’re left in the dark, they’ll assume the worst.

We need to:

• Explain the ‘why’ repeatedly. People need to hear it multiple times before it sticks.

• Answer objections publicly. If one person raises a concern, chances are others have the same question. Address it openly. Most leaders shy away from this.

• Give updates often. Keep people in the loop so they don’t feel blindsided.

Step 5: Reward early adopters

Change spreads when people see it working.

If early adopters start to thrive and we help others to see that, they will soon follow.

Here’s a few ways i’ve done this in the past:

• Recognise and reward the people who embrace the change.

• Share success stories - make it clear that the change is actually helping.

Final thoughts: What stance do we take?

You don’t lie. And you don’t pretend you love it either.

You can acknowledge the change, and even name that it’s not favourable, without turning that discomfort into permission to resist it.

Great leaders don’t need to agree with every decision from above, but they do need to create clarity, steadiness, and direction through it.

You validate the feeling, you don’t validate opting out.

That’s the line.

If your team is resisting change, it’s not always because the change itself is bad or annoying. It’s often because they don’t understand it, trust it, or see how it benefits them.

Over to you

H x

P.S. If you’re looking to raise the standards of leadership inside your business, My Leadership Level-Up Days may be right for you. Enquire here.

It’s my last day in Bangkok today, and I’ve been running multiple leadership workshops whilst out here. Yesterday, I worked with a team inside the Ministry of Defence on ownership and accountability.

Then earlier this month, I was working alongside a growing tech business. They’ve got 65 people on the team now, which is always a tricky stage of growth.

It’s too big for the Founder to keep an eye on everything… But not quite big enough that all the systems and leadership layers are in place.

And it’s exactly when the cracks start to show.

Middle managers, as always, are the make-or-break layer for businesses going through this growth.

When they’re clear, confident, and aligned, the whole company runs smoothly. But when they’re underdeveloped or unsure, you get silos, duplicated work, and senior leaders being dragged back into the weeds.

So i’m working with the management team to step into real, systemised leadership, not just “doing.”

For the middle managers, if senior leadership always sees you as the one who jumps in and fixes, they’ll never see you as the person who can scale a team.

If you want the next title or seat at the table, the shift we must make is simple: stop measuring yourself by what you personally delivered, and start showing how your team delivered without you.

Here’s how…

Most of us are still doers

Most of us became managers because we were reliable, fast, and great at our jobs.

So when things get messy, the default is to jump back in and do it ourselves.

But the cost is high. Our team stops owning results and they wait for us to step in.
To them, you’re not the leader building capability… you’re the safety net picking up the slack.

The tell-tale signs you’re still the “doer”:

• You leave work drained, because you’ve solved everyone else’s problems on top of your own.

• Team members come to you for answers, not with solutions.

• Deadlines get met only if you personally push them over the line.

If this sounds familiar, here are…

Two quick fixes you can try this week:

1. Change your default response
When someone brings you a problem, resist the urge to solve it.

Instead, ask:
“What do you think we should do?”
“What have you tried so far?”
That simple shift pushes ownership back onto them.

2. Redefine success.
Stop measuring yourself by “how much I got done.” Instead ask:
“How much did my team deliver without me?”

These tweaks won’t solve everything, but they’ll give you a taste of what it feels like to step out of the doer role.

The final truth

Those small changes only scratch the surface.

If you want to fully step out of “super contributor mode” and into being the leader who scales a capable, accountable team… You need a system.

And that’s exactly what I built with Fresh Start.

Over 6 weeks, you’ll get the frameworks, scripts, and accountability tools to:

• Delegate without constantly chasing

• Build respect and trust without having to prove yourself daily

• Create a team that hits results without you being the bottleneck

So, if you’re ready to stop being the doer, and finally build a team that delivers without you, you only have 3 days left to join us inside Fresh Start.

And by the way, this (as always) is from my personal inbox, so if you have any questions whatsoever, just respond to this email. I’ll see it and always get back to you.

All the best,

H

I want to start off by thanking you for all the support whilst we’ve been in the sales campaign period for Fresh Start the last 4 weeks. As you know, I’ve always felt a little icky about selling (I think most of us do), and in the past it’s held me back a lot.

But since seeing the very emotional and wildly successful results of almost 500 managers inside Fresh Start, I know that selling this bootcamp to it’s full potential is my duty. Also, it becomes much easier to sell a product that you so deeply believe in and have put heart and soul into building it.

So thank you for the support, the replies and the trust. It never ever goes unnoticed. And I’m very excited to see the 150 of you join us when we open the doors at 10am today.

I’m glad you’re here. Now, to the point…

16 hard decisions every growing manager must make

Over the last few years, I’ve worked closely with leadership teams across global corporates, scale-ups and founder-led businesses, delivering talks and workshops to managers under real pressure to perform.

I’ve also spent the last 10 years managing teams myself. And across thousands of conversations, workshops and leadership rooms, the same patterns show up again and again.

Different industries.
Different titles.
But the exact same 16 tough decisions every growing manager eventually has to face ( and usually avoids for far too long).

That repetition matters to me. Because when the same decisions are being delayed everywhere, they stop looking like personal weaknesses and start looking like predictable pressure points in leadership.

And with every one of these decisions… both paths are hard.

Not making the decisions is hard.
It looks like staying stuck, carrying too much, firefighting, quiet resentment, and burnout creeping in while telling yourself you’ll deal with it later.

Making the decisions is hard too.
It means discomfort, difficult conversations, letting go of control, and acting before you feel fully ready.

Leadership doesn’t offer an easy option.
It only offers a choice about which hard you’re willing to live with.

The 16 decisions below sit exactly at that turning point. They aren’t designed to make you feel good.

A few may land uncomfortably, because they ask you to let go of stories that keep you comfortable but stuck. But these are the decisions that sit underneath calm, confident, respected leadership and the ability to shape culture intentionally, rather than by default.

I ask you read this with openness rather than armour.

And if you strongly agree (or disagree) with any of them, hit reply or comment with the number and your reasoning. I love nothing more than getting into these conversations with you in the comments.

Let’s go.

The 16 hard decisions every growing manager MUST make:

1. Making the decision to stop being liked
   Seeking approval from others will keep us stuck, and slowly erode the respect we’re able to build.

2. Making the decision to address a small issue now instead of managing a much bigger one later.
   Delay doesn’t make problems disappear, it just gives them time to grow teeth. Honesty saves everyone’s time.

3. Making the decision to take the fall for your team if they mess up.
   It can feel a little hard in front of seniors at first, but it signals you’re a true leader who can be trusted and depended one.

4. Making the decision to notice when your involvement is creating dependency.
   If everything runs through you, nothing is truly owned.

5. Making the decision to prioritise standards over harmony.
   Pulling someone up for bad behaviour may not keep the peace today, but it increases the performance of your team in the long run.

6. Making the decision to question your management before questioning their ability.
   Under-management is often mistaken for underperformance.

7. Making the decision to truly give credit where credit is due.
   When I was in a meeting with seniors and they say ‘great work from your team here Heather’, I would always say ‘Thank you, Danielle was a true star in XYZ, and John really smashed XYZ too, they’re real standouts at the moment.’
   Shine a spotlight on individuals where they deserve it.

8. Making the decision to act before you feel ready.
   If there was one magic pill I wish I could give all managers, it would be the courage pill. I can’t tell you the number of times I get asked, “How did you find the confidence to do X?”
   But I didn’t find any confidence, I just did the thing, scared, nervous, unsure if I’d get a positive outcome. Then eventually, I earned the confidence.

9. Making the decision to read your calendar honestly.
   It will always tell you what you prioritise, and what you avoid. If you’re in B2B meetings all day, why are you not pushing back more? Be more ruthless with your time.

10. Making the decision to be direct with feedback instead of diluting it.
    Do you leave a conversation thinking ‘did I actually say what I needed to? Or did I sugarcoat it?’

11. Making the decision to set expectations clearly enough.
    A task may come easily to you because you’ve been doing the job for years. But you need to be patient and clear with others, take time to coach and give clarity to people.

12. Making the decision to own confusion as a leadership failure.
    If people are unclear, something wasn’t explained well enough.

13. Making the decision to let go of work that just serves to make you feel competent.
    Growth means giving up the things you’re best at. I’m great at creating content, but it takes me hours and hours every day and I know it’s not scalable for me to keep doing it. So I had to train someone else up to do it and stop being so involved.

14. Making the decision to lead for tomorrow’s organisation, not just today’s team.
    Those 2 things are rarely aligned. For example:
    Today’s team: Needs you to urgently respond to a question in order to fix a quick issue.
    Tomorrow’s org: Needs you to push back and ask “Where is the process doc we should be following to ensure you don’t need me to jump in in the future?”

15. Making the decision to let go of the identity that built your success.
    You can no longer be the star individual contributor, your success is now tied to the collective success of your team. So coach, delegate, nurture and spotlight them. The aim is to create a team of star individual contributors just like you were.

16. Making the decision to stop proving your value through busyness.
    The greatest leaders are often the least busy. They’ve delegated, empowered and systemised so well that stress isn’t their default. Aim to make yourself redundant. You never will be, but getting closer means letting go of control and stopping the need to prove your value through busyness.

Which number do you agree with most? Or disagree?

Let’s chat…

Leave a comment

Peace,

H x

Let’s talk about evvvveryone’s favourite topic. Meetings.

Meetings used to fill my week, back to back, one bleeeeding into the next and having to run to the loo and make a coffee frantically in between.

I’d dread those days where I was sat for hours, half-listening, half doing emails. But strangely enough, there was also something about it that made me feel… productive. Like being constantly in meetings meant I was important? That I was adding value just by being there.

But by the end of the day, like clockwork, I’d look at my never ending todo list and realise, I hadn’t actually done anything. No deep work. No real thinking. Just a blur of conversations and decisions parked for later.

There was also this weird sense of performance.

Like I needed to have all the answers, keep the energy high, make everyone feel heard, all in 60 minutes, with three Slack pings going off in the background.

Meetings are harder than we give them credit for. They might seem like a routine part of the job, but they test everything… Your clarity, focus, boundaries, confidence, and time management.

And yet, done right, they can also one of the most powerful tools you have. Because every meeting you run is a live reflection of your leadership.

The good news is, with a few shifts, you can turn them from energy-draining chaos into calm, focused, high-performing moments that actually move work forward.

After coaching thousands of managers across industries now, I’ve noticed that the best ones follow 4 simple meeting rules.

Let’s dissect each one:

And by the way, this isn’t something I leave managers to figure out alone. Inside Fresh Start, we spend a full session breaking down the exact meeting rhythms I use to keep engagement high, decisions clear, and targets moving.

It’s practical, tested in real teams, and designed to give you back time, not take more of it. Doors open next week. 150 places only. Join the waitlist.

Rule 1: Time management

Meetings expand to fill the time you give them… So stop giving them so much.

A great leader manages the clock like a pro. They cut noise, keep flow, and respect people’s time.

Try this:

• Default to 20-minute meetings instead of 60.

• Add an agenda to every invite, even if it’s just 2 bullet points.

• Appoint a timekeeper if discussions tend to spiral. Do this yourself too.

When meetings are sharp and structured, they build respect inside the team fast, beacuse we all start respecting each others time more.

Rule 2: Energy & presence

Ever been in a meeting where half the room is on a laptop or replying to messages?
It kills momentum.

Your energy sets the tone. If you look distracted, your team will too. Strong leaders are fully present. Whether its virtual or around a boardroom table, their phone is down and their eyes up.

Try this:

• Close all tabs that aren’t relevant before the meeting starts.

• Physically face your camera or your team (no half-turned shoulders).

• Make written notes to add colour to your thoughts during the session.

Presence means showing people that they have your full attention when you’re with them. When someone feels they have your full attention… No phone, no glancing at other tabs, it sends a clear signal: “You matter. What you’re saying matters.”

People respect leaders who make them feel seen. And you can use your meetings to do that.

Rule 3: Accountability

When something goes wrong in a meeting, pay attention to what happens next.
Weak leaders point fingers: “That’s on Marketing.” “Ops dropped the ball.”

Strong leaders ask, “What could we have done differently to prevent this?”

Accountability is contagious. When you model it, others follow.

Try this:

• When a problem is raised, be the first to take ownership, even partially.

• Ask your team, “What’s one thing we can control here?”

• End every problem discussion with an action, not a complaint.

Strong leaders use meetings to build solutions, not spread blame.

Rule 3: Communication

Contrary to popular belief, the greatest leaders never dominate the room. They aren’t overpowering with their words.

Instead, they’re comfortable with silence, they listen more than they speak, and they make sure everyone’s voice is heard before decisions are made.

Try this:

• Before jumping in with an answer open questions like, “What’s your view on this?” or “Who sees it differently?”

• Don’t fill every silence. Give people time to think.

Final thoughts

When it comes to meetings, you’ve got a choice: let them run your day, or take control of how you spend those hours that matter most.

Meetings don’t have to be just meetings. They can be a great stage where leadership plays out in real time, and where you create a space for your team to shine too.

Your tone, focus, and follow-through send a message louder than any strategy deck.
If you show up calm, present, and accountable… Your team will mirror that.

What’s the best meeting tip you’ve ever been given? I’d love to hear it in the comments

Leave a comment

Peace,

H

P.S. Next week, the doors to my new manager bootcamp open. Fresh Start is the proven 6-week bootcamp, getting managers taking control, earning respect and driving results. Join the waitlist here for all the info.

P.P.S If Fresh Start has been on your mind but you need sign-off, you still have time to ask your boss. You can use my template to do so.

PwC’s latest ‘Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey’ landed recently and it confirms something I’ve seen play out for over a decade sooo we really need to chat about it.

I have seen that, for years, middle managers (anyone who sits in between SLT and non-people managers) have been quietly carrying organisations on their backs.

And now the data has finally caught up:

Yep, you read it correctly. Employees trust their direct manager far more than they trust senior leadership.

They feel safer speaking openly with them.
They believe them more.
They go to them first when things feel uncertain, confusing or unfair.

Which tells us something most businesses still don’t want to fully face:

Culture does not live in the C-suite.
It cannot be dictated from the top.
It lives in the day-to-day relationship between a middle manager and their team.

Middle managers are the translators.
They turn direction from the top into clear outcomes and priorities.
They keep teams focused when pressure spikes.
They translate strategy into day-to-day decisions.

And yet…

They are still the most undertrained and overstretched layer of the organisation.

We are asking them to carry the emotional weight of the business without giving them the skills, systems, or support to do it well.

This is exactly why Fresh Start exists.

Fresh Start is my six-week new manager boot camp, built specifically for people operating in this middle space, where pressure comes from every direction.

It’s not text-book theory.

It’s practical, grounded content that helps managers to:

– Lead without people-pleasing
– Handle difficult conversations properly
– Run 1on1s that actually build trust
– Delegate properly
– Build cultures with engaged teams that drive results and love their job

Almost 500 managers have already been through Fresh Start and the results have been incredible. Read the reviews here.

Our next cohort opens for enrolment next Tuesday, 17th Feb, with only 150 spaces available.

The waitlist is filling up verrry quickly and everyone on there gets priority access and launch day discounts.

👉 Join the Fresh Start waitlist

Investing in our middle managers is officially absolutely crucial.

Speak soon,
H

P.S. If you have 5+ managers who you want to level up together, Fresh Start is even more powerful when you enrol a group of managers.

You get faster behaviour change, shared language across the team, and far less time lost to misalignment and rework.

Book a no-pressure consultation call here to find out more and get bulk discounts.

If you’re spending more time fixing problems than actually leading, this story will resonate…

Like the majority of managers I speak to, Esteban thought being a good manager meant stepping in to help his team. He told me:

• When something wasn’t quite right, he fixed it.

• When someone struggled, he stayed close and avoideded telling them the hard truths.

Esteban is all of us. Hey, Esteban 👋

At first, it worked. Things moved quickly and tasks were ticked off.

But over time, his team started relying on him for EVERYTHING, then naturally, work kept landing back on his desk and he was drowning (been there).

He believed that pushing back would damage relationships, so he avoided difficult conversations and just did everything himself.

Then, Fresh Start challenged that belief and taught Esteban something very important that stuck with him…

The art of powerful delegation, and what we avoid today shows up bigger tomorrow.

Over the six weeks, things began to change, he told me:

• He stepped in less.

• Trusted his team more.

• Moved from fixing problems to setting direction.

Fresh Start gave Esteban the structure and confidence to lead in a way that actually worked, for him and his team.
(You can watch our full conversation here - 1min37secs)

The leadership lesson for us all

If you’re:

• doing too much yourself

• avoiding conversations that keep resurfacing

• feeling lost and deflated in your leadership role

Stop avoiding the hard stuff today. Lean into those conversations, delegate with purpose (even if you’re fearful it won’t get done as well as you).

If nothing changes, this pattern usually doesn’t resolve itself. It just quietly turns into burnout, resentment, or another year of “I’ll deal with it later.”

And the’s exactly what Fresh Start is built for.

You’re not broken, you just need the right support, frameworks and space to rethink how you lead.

Cohort 5 opens for enrollment on Tuesday 17th Feb, with just 150 places.

If Esteban’s story felt uncomfortably familiar, this is where that pattern stops:

👉 Join the Fresh Start waitlist here

Imagine feeling a wholllle load more confident about your leadership role in just 6-weeks time.

H x

P.S. Your company should pay for this bootcamp. Asking your boss shows initiative, and leadership training delivers a £4 return for every £1 spent. Use this template to ask them.

I did a training session at the end of last year with a wonderful creative design agency team based out of Shoreditch.

They’re growing fast. New clients, new hires etc. But with that kind of growth often comes a familiar set of challenges: communication gaps and the struggle to keep everyone rowing in the same direction.

It reminded me of those moments when I stare blankly at a spreadsheet full of KPIs that looked impressive… but in reality, were achieving absolutely nothing.

They were clear in my head…
They tied to our company goals?
It made perfect sense on paper?

But we had no momentum, no questionsm and absolutely noo growth.

So I’m there, week on week, thinking, are the KPIs wrong? Am I doing this badly? Why does it feel like I’m dragging everyone uphill?

For a while, I blamed the usual suspects, motivation, priorities, workload. But deep down, I knew something else was off.

So I took to finding out what. I started researching, asking them for feedback and making small changes. And very quickly, I discovered that the problem wasn’t my team. It was how I’d set the KPIs in the first place.

So let me walk you through the 4 shifts that changed everything for me, and turned our deadweight KPIs into real team-owned momentum.

And by the way, Inside Fresh Start we spend an entire week focused on KPIs (and actually getting your team to hit them). We look at the art and science of KPIs so you can become a results-driven machine too.

Step 1 - Don’t mix up goals and KPIs

Goals are the destination.
KPIs are the dashboard that tells you if you’re on track.

Dashboards don’t inspire or engage people.
Destinations do.

❌ KPI as a goal: “We need to send the newsletter every Friday.”

✅ Goal first, KPIs second: “We want a healthier sales pipeline so revenue is more predictable. Increasing qualified leads by 20% this quarter helps us get there. The newsletter is one way we’ll achieve that.”

When you lead with the bigger outcome and goal, you give your team clarity, and the freedom to decide how to get there.

Step 2 - 3 beats 10

You’ve probably seen a KPI doc like this:

• 9 KPIs

• All urgent

• All unconnected

• Chaos

But when everything is a priority, nothing is.

Instead, have 3-5 core KPIs for each individual, and 3-5 for the team. This gives people mental clarity and lets them zoom out to the bigger picture.

Step 3 - Stop dropping goals on people, co-create them

Disengagement toward a goal often comes from lack of involvement from the start.

If a KPI shows up out of nowhere, fully formed and unchangeable, people feel like it’s just another thing being done to them.

You want to flip that.

Before locking anything in, ask:

• “What do you think would make the biggest difference this quarter?”

• “What feels like a stretch, but possible?”

• “What support would you need to hit this?”

Action step:
Before finalising a goal or KPI, run a quick session (yes, even 15 mins in a team meeting) asking:
“Here’s the goal, what’s your take? What would be your top three ways to hit it?”

Step 4 - Check-ins should be a rhythm, never a rescue plan

Too many managers only ask about KPIs when something’s gone wrong.

So when they do check in, it creates panic, defensiveness, or the dreaded,
“Oh no… I forgot about that one.”

Instead, normalise having a checkin rhythm. Have one regular meeting where KPIs are reviewed, questions are asked, and progress is discussed.

I’m currently testing out doing it with my team weekly. Every Monday, 10am for 45 mins. They report on the data, I ask the questions.

In the past I’ve done it monthly and it’s worked well too, don’t put too much pressure on getting the perfect rhythm, just start with something.

Outside of that meeting, you don’t keep checking in. The checking up is where it becomes micromanagement. We must start to trust people to run their numbers.

Ask:

• “How are we tracking?”

• “What has gone well, that we should do more of?”

• “What hasn’t gone well, that we need to change”?”

Your 4-Step Playbook

1. Start with the outcome
    → “What do we want to be true if this goes well?”

2. Co-create, don’t dictate
    → “What do you think will move the needle?”

3. Three beats ten
    → “What are our top 3-5 focus areas this quarter?”

4. Review early and often
    → “What’s working, what’s stuck, what’s next?”

And this is just the surface

Inside Fresh Start, we go much deeper on KPIs. You’ll get:

• Clear frameworks to design KPIs people actually care about

• Simple meeting rhythms that keep performance on track without micromanaging

• Practical tools to turn “numbers on a spreadsheet” into real ownership and momentum within your team

So KPIs stop feeling like admin, and start driving clarity, confidence, and results.

If you want to lead a team that knows exactly what success looks like, and how to get there, join the Fresh Start waitlist for all the info.

Peace,

H

P.S. Fresh Start is even more powerful when you enrol a group of managers. You get faster behaviour change, shared language across the team, and far less time lost to misalignment and rework. I also run private Q&As to tackle real, live challenges.

If you have 5+ managers who need to level up together, you can book a no-pressure consultation call here.

I got this message in my DMs…

“What do great managers actually do all day?”

It's a valid question. One I had no idea of the answer to when I first started my leadership journey.

But over the years, I have worked alongside some of the greatest managers in the game, from multi-mil £ business builders, the guy who built Microsoft excel (yes, really), and the grads who are being noticed and moved through the ranks right out of uni.

I started learning, writing things down that I’d noticed as patterns, then putting them into practice in my own work.

So here are the 6 pillars the best managers consistently work on, every single day:

1) Spending time with your team 1-on-1

Exactly how much time depends on the size of your team, but you should have scheduled time with each of them at least every other week.

2) Personal Development (for you and your team)

Investing time and £$ in the development of you and your team is crucial for your and the business’ long-term success.

But over the past 10 years in management roles, growing a SaaS company, and teaching 450+ managers in my new-manager bootcamp, I’ve noticed the same pattern again and again…

Most managers avoid personal development because because the urgent always feels louder than the important. And over time, that’s exactly what keeps people busy… but stuck.

3) Delegating (properly)

The majority of us managers will spend a lot of our day being handed projects and given direction from above. Then we often don’t delegate because we think “It’ll just be quicker if I did it myself”

4) Working on systems

Being a system-focused manager is what sets you head and shoulders above the rest.

It’ll be what ensures you and your team aren’t overwhelmed, and that you’re all working as smart (not hard) as possible. It means taking time away from the day-to-day technical tasks, to improve the back-end running of the show.

But in simple terms, your systems are the cogs that keep the machine running in the background. Your meeting rhythms, accountability systems, roles and responsibilities docs.

5) Providing direction

54% of employees believe their managers don't have a clear direction for the team (Harvard Biz Review) This lack of direction leads to confusion, decreased productivity, and disengagement.

Spend your time ensuring the direction of your team is clear.

6) Reactive work

We need space for being reactive, being given another project from a senior, a team member being ill, deadlines being moved, clients unhappy, whatever happens, you need to have the space to deal with it effectively (as opposed to being super stressed)

You’re either going to love or hate what I’m about to say…

But the greatest managers don’t actually ‘do’ all that much. They aren’t in the day to day. They’ve working on.

But most managers are never actually taught how to do this.

You’re promoted, handed a team, and expected to figure it out as you go.
No systems. No support. No safe place to get it wrong.

That’s exactly why I built Fresh Start.

Fresh Start is a 6-week online bootcamp where we don’t just talk about good management, we build it. I take you through every single one of the steps above, including:

• How to run proper 1-on-1s
• Clear accountability to get your team smashing their KPIs
• Delegation that actually works
• Confidence in difficult conversations
• Knowing when to work on the team, not in the chaos

👉 Join the Fresh Start waitlist to get all the juicy info

But don’t just take my word for it…

Already trusted by 450+ managers across high-growth startups and global companies. Rated 4.9/5* (read reviews)

The bootcamp isn’t for everyone. It’s for new managers (0-3years) who are ready to take control of their leadership career, and the results for them and the business.

Join the waitlist to get all the info in your inbox.

Peace,
H

P.S. Fresh Start is even more powerful when you enrol a group of managers. You get faster behaviour change, shared language across the team, and far less time lost to misalignment and rework. I also run private Q&As to tackle real, live challenges. If you have 5+ managers who need to level up together, you can book a no-pressure consultation call here.

I want to tell you about a new manager I think a lot of you will recognise yourself in.

Lynne got promoted into a leadership role last year, from an admin-based role into people management and suddenly found herself thinking:

“What on earth am I doing here?”

She told me she felt all these new expectations, a whole new kind of pressure and and a lot of quiet self-doubt (been there).

Her boss knew she had such great potential, she just needed some support and to stop doubting herself.

Before Lynne could overthink it, hesitate, or talk herself out of it, her boss enrolled her Fresh Start last September.

And she told me her honest first thoughts: “This is probably going to be six weeks of management jargon, mumbo jumbo, textbook stuff.”

(love the honesty Lynne haha)

Halfway through the bootcamp, something shifted.

For the first time, she started to believe she could actually do this.

Most managers don’t struggle because they’re incapable. They struggle because they’re trying to lead while doubting themselves at the same time.

And that’s the part of management we don’t talk about enough.

Through the 6-week journey, Lynne learned how to:

• stop spoon-feeding without feeling cruel

• encourage accountability without micromanaging

• have difficult conversations without avoiding them

• delegate without feeling like a pushover

Her words honestly stuck with me: “It doesn’t feel like leadership training. It feels like learning new life skills.”

So if you’re reading this thinking:
I don’t know if I’m doing this right
or I’m not sure I’m cut out for management

You’re not broken. You’re just under-supported.

Fresh Start opens to a new cohort on 17th February, capped at 150 managers who are fed up of struggling in silence and want to take action.

👉 Join the Fresh Start waitlist.

You’ll get all the info first, priority access and launch day discounts.

Speak soon,
H x

P.S. Most companies will fund this for you. Asking shows initiative, and leadership training has a proven ROI (£4 return for every £1 spent).

Make sure you’re on the waitlist, then use this template to ask your boss.

I get it. Being a manager is tough. You’re not just leading a team, you’re:

• Juggling expectations from seniors

• Getting the team to hit KPIs

• Delegating without overwhelming people

• Having difficult conversations

• And trying to prove you’re “enough” to do it all.

It’s exhausting. And yet, deep down, you know you could be a confident, respected leader… If you just had the right tools.

That’s exactly why I built Fresh Start.

👉 A 6-week bootcamp designed to give managers like you the frameworks, confidence, and systems to lead without second-guessing yourself.

450+ managers have already been through it and the results have been huge:

Read more success stories here.

The next cohort opens on 17th February and spots are limited to 150 managers only.

Join the waitlist now to get:

• Priority access

• Launch-day discounts (£100 off for 48hrs)

• Launch-day bonuses

👉 [Join the waitlist here]

This is your chance to stop feeling like “just another teammate” and step into being the leader your team actually respects.

See you inside,
Heather

P.S. Most companies will pay for your spot. Asking shows initiative, and leadership training delivers a £4 return for every £1 spent. Use this template to ask them.