The most confident decision I ever watched a leader make was a coin flip. Not literally, but from the outside, it looked exactly like one. He had two options on the table. No data clearly favouring either one and a room full of people who needed someone to just pick a direction and mean it. He picked one and when he did, he said it like he had known all along.  The team heard it, believed it, and got to work. What nobody in that room knew was that he had spent the previous th

A founder once told me their CX team was slow and unresponsive. Customers were complaining. Support tickets were piling up. The team looked unmotivated. I asked how long it took the team to resolve a refund request. She said three days. I asked why. She said the ops lead had to approve it, then finance had to sign off, then she had to review anything above a certain amount. The support team had been hired to help customers. But they could not actually help anyone. They could

Dependency looks like value in the short term. Over time, it is just a very polite career ceiling.

2002 Nobel prize laureate Daniel Kahneman said "For some of our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs. Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous - and it is also essential." And then I thought about NPS. And I laughed. Then felt sad. It was hilarious and all too real at the same time. Nobody woke up one day and decided CSAT and NPS were the twin pillars of customer

Being known for great customer experience is fantastic. But, if it isn't adding revenue, then what’s the point? You can make the same argument for great branding, great marketing, also, great leadership. If it doesn't connect to a commercial outcome at some point, it's just an expensive hobby with a (maybe) good-looking dashboard. In one of my discovery calls for a consulting assignment, I was asked to come in and track a metric that would look good on paper and make the earl

Martin Brundle has a phrase he deploys with surgical precision during Formula 1 broadcasts: "a day late and a dollar short." He uses it when a driver attempts a defensive move too late, or commits to an overtake half-heartedly. The gap has closed. The opportunity has passed. And worse, the hesitation has telegraphed weakness to every other driver on the grid. Business is no different. The difference is that instead of losing a position on lap 34, we lose teams, opportunities,

The teacher was screaming from backstage, ”Linish, don't be an idiot. Do not invite the dignitaries back on stage. They're already on stage." I was in seventh grade, president of the Interact Club, a division of the Rotary Club. It was tradition for the president to deliver what was essentially a state of the club address. The entire high school would be in attendance, along with dignitaries from the local Rotary Club. The protocol was: the dignitaries would be seated in the

Leadership problems often disguise themselves in different ways. Too often, it’s a question of focal length. But, hardly anyone sees it that way. Get too close and you start solving problems your team should be solving. You add control, meetings, check-ins. You become to bottleneck for everything. Get too far and you rely on vision decks and town halls. You don’t find the right focal length by reading about it. You find it by testing the edges. Step in closer than feels comfo

A useful rule of thumb. Not every question deserves an answer. Not every invitation to explain is made in good faith. Some are simply traps disguised as curiosity. Some people aren’t confused. They’re invested. Invested in missing the point.Invested in circling the same argument until you’re tired enough to surrender.Invested in turning explanation into a tax you keep paying. They don’t want clarity.They want leverage.They want you busy proving what they’ve already decided to

There’s nothing glamorous about showing up the same way every day. The discipline of doing the basics well. Again. And again. And again. Most people don’t fail because they lack talent. They fail because they chase intensity instead of consistency. Sprint for a week. Take on more responsibility for a couple of weeks at work. Overdeliver once. And then drift. Consistency looks dull from the outside. From the inside, it’s demanding. Because it asks for the same standard on good

If you’ve ever made popcorn, you know the smell of freshly made popcorn is just magnifique. There are a few early pops. Then a noisy rush. And then a few stubborn kernels that refuse to play along, no matter how long you wait. Then, the most important question: When do you stop? Same question when you lead teams: How long do you wait for someone to “get there”? Do you keep the heat on because potential exists? Or do you step back before the rest burn to a crisp? Leaders tend

First time managers run into two traps. The first one is over control. You grip everything. You micromanage. You hover. You want everything run by you. You want to prove you earned the role. Eventually, the team stops taking initiative. They wait. They let you make every call. Because you conditioned them to. The second trap is the opposite. You freeze. You are scared to make a move. Your peers now report to you, and you still see yourself as “one of them”. So you avoid tough

Every company loves to say they are customer obsessed. But obsession ends at being a line. And it usually ends there. True customer obsession is culture. And culture does not start at the front-lines. It starts at the top. And no, this does not apply only to customer experience teams. Here is some translation for you: Leadership says "Push harder" Team hears "Say yes even if you don’t know how" Customer hears "We will get back to you" for the fifth time. Leadership says “Let’

You walk onto the pitch. Test match, day one. You’ve got your strategy: play for swing, get behind the line, play with a straight bat. Ten minutes in, the bowler realises the pitch is jagging off the cracks with uneven bounce. The bowler changes his length. And your neat plan is history. Now it’s all about reacting better, and playing the situation at hand. You walk onto court. Ready to dominate with your forehand. But your opponent clearly got the memo. Decided to pin you on

Leadership is about moving on quick. From agony or ecstasy. You don't have time to dwell. The next challenge always awaits.

Leadership debt doesn’t come from bad intent. It comes from urgency. From wanting progress. From wanting it too much that they do so much.

We judge potential the same way we judge milestones: by timing, not by depth. A late start often hides quiet preparation, while an early lead can fade just as quickly. Growth rarely follows a schedule, in children or in leaders.

Why so many leaders unconsciously lean toward being fixers instead of preventers? The system rewards those who arrive at the scene of a crisis, not those who made sure one never occurred. The heroes work in daylight. The wise ones, in shadows.

Perfect ideas don’t exist. What succeeds are the logical ones that get shipped and shaped. Great leaders build teams where imperfect ideas see the light, get executed, and evolve.

Some of my most “perfect” hires flamed out. Some long shots became superstars. The difference wasn’t luck, it was alignment. These are the lessons 2,500 interviews left me with about hiring for the long game.