Let’s be honest. One of the biggest problems I see in leadership today isn’t whether you are great at strategy, brilliant at hiring good talent, or struggling to grow. The biggest issue is energy—or rather, the lack of it.

There’s a particular type of leadership energy that’s quietly disappearing. It’s quiet, understated, and it commanded respect automatically. It was kind, and it didn’t need to shout to be heard. It’s being replaced with loud, aggressive, authoritarian ‘leadership’. 

There’s a loneliness in leadership that creeps in quietly. It shows up even when you’re surrounded by people, leading meetings, signing deals, or being praised in the press. It has nothing to do with being alone physically. It’s about not feeling seen for who you are beneath the role, the title, the influence. It’s a lack of connection and we need to connect as humans. We are literally wired for it.  

Success without happiness is a game you cannot win since the goalposts keep moving. You hit one milestone, immediately chase the next, and barely pause long enough to celebrate before the pressure to perform starts again. In the middle of all that striving, you forget to ask whether any of it actually feels good. It is possible to be the most productive, efficient, high-achieving person in the room yet still wake up one day wondering why the life you worked so hard for does not feel like yours.

One of the most common issues my client have is that they feel that underneath they have a continuous hum of self-doubt? It frustrates them immensely and it is the things that when we get rid of it, that changes their lives the most. If you have wealth, influence, a public profile, you’ve got it all right? Well, no, life is still really hard sometimes.

Let’s be honest: a lot of people look successful on paper yet feel empty inside. They have the business, the title, the team, the house. They have the metrics, the growth charts, the goals ticked off. Yet beneath it all, there is a restlessness, a low-level hum of dissatisfaction they cannot quite name.

I used to have nightmares almost every night until my late 30's. I had them so much that I just got used to them. I could remember them in great detail too – much to the annoyance of those I insisted on telling. Now I rarely get nightmares and the worst is intense dreams when I’m hormonal.

You’d think that by the time you’re running a business, sitting on a board, or speaking on global stages, you’d feel successful. However, so many of my clients feel just the opposite! When you aren’t happy with yourself, then success is impossible. Success can only truly be measured by you, your values, and your sense of worth.

We hear it all the time ‘It’s lonely at the top.’ In fact it’s a topic in my new book about being happy alone, but what if it’s not actually about your leadership status, or the fact no one gets you, what if it’s about something within you that’s missing? A disconnection from yourself that followed you all the way to the top? 

Happiness is the only human feeling that we don’t want to move on from. I remember reading that and thinking, absolute right, who thinks, well I’ve had enough happiness for today. Happiness and self-worth are the ultimate keys to a good life. Leadership follows so beautiful from them both. You don’t have to push, or over perform or pretend to be someone you aren’t.

We’ve all been watching the news headlines and we all have our own version of what is correct leadership behaviour. Powerful people are imploding all over the world. We jump from scandals to abuse of power, meltdowns, bullying, etc. It feels more like watching a school playground sometimes. 

I’ve noticed a really interesting trait in some of my clients. They talk to me about how they are empowering their teams, when what they’re really doing is controlling them.

We hear this term bandied around all the time.
“So and so is a great leader because they are so high functioning,”
“They get the job done because they are high functioning.”

So let’s get something straight, just because someone is high functioning doesn’t mean they’re emotionally healthy, in fact, it can be exactly the opposite.

You did it. You built the business, closed the deals, earned the achievements, maybe you found a partner and had some children. Phew, you’re happy! Others look at your properties, your holidays, your kids in private school and all those fattening business lunches (that you hate but feel you need to do), and they are envious.

One of the biggest concerns that I hear from my clients is that their own mind chatter is exhausting. You know that voice that never leaves the room, not when you walk into a meeting, not when you land a seven-figure deal, not even when you walk away from the business for a so-called break.

I was at an event recently when someone told me I was projecting my values onto others, that they probably didn’t want them. The value in question? That all humans should have choice in their lives. Especially those who’ve never been told they have one.

I was having a conversation with one of my clients this week. He was telling me that he had let someone go and that they were now working out their notice. This person had been the topic of a few of our sessions, as he was heavily woven into the company and a friend. (We will look at friend and family businesses in another blog!) Sadly, his behaviour had become quite extreme and my client had no other option but to let him go.

It took me a few years to realise that I constantly tried to fix everyone, both in and out of my work. There’s a difference between fixing and enabling others to fix. Weirdly it didn’t show up much in my work but it really showed up as a parent and a partner. I had a rubbish childhood so I grew up desperately trying to fix and make happy everyone around me until it became an established pattern.

Here’s something we don’t talk about nearly enough in leadership: You might be running your entire company, your team, your strategy, even your calendar, based on something you unconsciously learned as a kid. I know that might sound dramatic. But stay with me. 

Many years ago, I read that once a company gets to £100k, that the strategies you used to get there aren’t suitable to push you up further. There’s a ceiling of skills. It’s a tough pill to swallow. All the great stuff I did, won’t work anymore!  So, you know that part of you that got sh*t done? The version of you that could take anything life threw at them, the pressure, the deadlines, the chaos, and just get on with it? Well, it does have a ceiling, unfortunately