Tag: Organisation
Financial fluency
When I first stepped into senior leadership, I realised that my responsibilities had expanded well beyond technology. I was accountable not only for the performance of teams and platforms but also for the way those decisions showed up in the company’s financials. At first, the P&L…
Leadership styles
Leadership is never one-dimensional. Early in my career I wrongly assumed that consistency in a specific leadership style was a strength. Over time, I learned that the reality is very different. Effective leadership at the Director+ level requires adaptability…
Complex characters
Dealing with difficult individuals is one of the most challenging and draining aspects of leadership. It is not the occasional disagreement or personality clash that concerns me, but the persistent behaviours that, if left unaddressed, begin to shape the culture in ways…
Retaining talent
Retaining top talent is a constant challenge. It is tempting to think that compensation is the lever that matters the most, and while it plays a role, it is rarely the reason someone chooses to stay over the long term. The people you most want to retain are driven by…
Difficult discussions
One of the hardest parts of leading any organisation isn’t the strategy, the OKRs, or the architecture decisions. It’s the conversations. The tough ones. The ones where you’re delivering bad news, addressing underperformance, or making a call that impacts…
Skip-levels
Skip-levels are one of the most effective ways to truly understand the health of an organisation, yet they are often treated as an afterthought or run as a one-off exercise. At scale, when you are several layers removed from the delivery teams, these conversations become a vital mechanism…
Predictability vs estimations
In many engineering organisations, especially those undergoing agile or delivery transformations, teams still default to traditional metrics like story points, time estimates, or velocity. These methods, often rooted in well-intentioned planning…