Blog Corner

Executive coaching is a $20 billion global industry. It is also an industry with a significant gap between its promises and its evidence base. While individual coaches produce meaningful results, the industry as a whole struggles with a fundamental problem: most coaching creates insights that fade, behaviour changes that do not stick, and development that plateaus well short of its potential. This is not because coaching is inherently ineffective. It is because the dominant

It happens to the most experienced leaders. A direct report says something that triggers a disproportionate response. A board question touches a nerve, and the leader’s tone shifts before they can catch it. A negotiation reaches a point where the leader knows they should stay composed — and they do, externally — but internally, the reaction is already running. The frustrating part is that these leaders know better. They have the self-awareness to recognise the pattern after

Every leadership development programme teaches presence. Stand tall. Make eye contact. Speak with conviction. Pause before you respond. These are the standard instructions. They are also almost entirely wrong about what presence actually is and how it works. Presence is not a performance. It is a physiological state that other people’s nervous systems detect, evaluate, and respond to — largely outside conscious awareness. When a leader has genuine presence, the room shifts.