I've started to wonder what skills will actually matter in twenty years. By the time the next generation of leaders are running organisations, AI will write faster, more accurately, and more consistently than any human alive. I spend every working day helping senior professionals find a more powerful version of their own voice. And I'm more convinced than ever that the leaders who will stand out in an AI-saturated world won't be the ones who use it best. They'll be the ones w

The biggest communication mistake I see in senior leaders isn't saying the wrong thing. It's saying too much in the hope of landing on the 'perfect' thing. People take in very little of what we actually say to them. A slightly uncomfortable fact if you spend your working life, as I do, helping people communicate better. But rather than finding that depressing, I've come to find it genuinely liberating. Because it means your job as a communicator isn't to be perfect. It's to c

I've spent time in audition rooms and boardrooms. And I can tell you - the fear in both is exactly the same. When I trained as an actor (many cold rehearsal rooms above pubs in North London were involved), I thought stage fright was a performance problem. Something to manage, push through, hide. Then I started coaching senior leaders. And I heard it again. That same specific fear. Not of failure exactly. Of being seen. Because here's what nobody tells you about reaching a sen

There's a version of communication training that teaches you stock phrases for difficult conversations. Tips for handling a tricky board member. A framework for structuring your next presentation. And some of that is useful, but it doesn't address the actual problem. The senior leaders I work with, people who've earned their place at the table through years of genuine expertise, aren't struggling because they don't know enough. They're struggling because something happens bet