Developing as a business leaders is rarely one linear journey.  We learn in fragments. A difficult customer conversation here. A poor hire there. A cashflow wobble. A negotiation that went badly. A project that drifted. A team member who needed something different...

When people hear “self-leadership,” it can sound far too broad. In a recent workshop session run by Philippa Richardson, it landed in a very grounded way: Accountability to your own standards (not just the standards you set for others) Self-awareness, how you show up,...

Twelve months ago, we started with a single, driving question to business leaders: "What are you doing to develop your future business leaders and successors?"   The answers we received were polarising.    Business leaders with clear strategies became contributors to...

Navigating the Founder's Shadow Taking over the reins as CEO or MD in a family-owned SME, especially from a founder, is a defining moment in any business leader's journey. It's exciting, yes. But it's also personal, emotionally charged, and filled with invisible...

Tracking performance is easy; tracking the right performance is what drives real business success. Too often, businesses get lost in a sea of data without focusing on the few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that truly matter. When used effectively, KPIs aren’t just...

Stepping into an SME business leadership role isn’t just about gaining a new title; it’s about developing the right mindset, skills, and approach to drive a business forward. It’s about taking on that responsibility for your employees’ incomes and ensuring the...

According to Gartner’s 2023 Board of Directors Talent Survey, 79% of board members rank executive succession as a top priority. Deloitte reports that 86% of leaders say succession planning is an urgent priority. Yet the reality is that most business leaders fail to...

One of the main reasons I love the subscription-based service model is that it puts the emphasis on the service provider to keep giving great value. Fail to do that and the unsubscribes start to follow! The world has shifted quickly. It wasn’t that long ago that we...

We don’t want to be a rocket ship! But we do want more people benefit from mySMEleader and be able to utilise our low risk, high impact mini-MBA style programme to develop successors and future SME business leaders. And so we are very excited to have Alistair Johnston...