Welcome to my leadership coaching blog on people-pleasing patterns in corporate life. Here I write about what actually gets in the way of Directors advancing to VP and what to do about it. Each post draws on real patterns I see in my coaching work with senior leaders across tech, finance, and consulting. These are not generic leadership tips. They are observations from over 3,000 hours of executive coaching conversations, the kind of honest, specific insights that rarely make it into leadership books but come up in almost every coaching session. If you have ever said yes when you meant no, softened feedback to keep the peace, or wondered why doing everything right still does not feel like enough, you are in the right place.
The patterns I write about here: over-explaining, avoiding conflict, shrinking in rooms where you should be leading are not personal failings. They are learned survival strategies that worked at one stage of your career and now quietly hold you back at the next. Understanding them is the first step to changing them. For more personal reflections on people-pleasing, boundaries, and leadership identity, I also write on Substack and Medium.
Browse the articles below and take what is useful. If any of this resonates more deeply and if you recognise yourself in what you read and are ready to do something about it, you are welcome to explore my coaching approach or book a free pattern mapping call.
Exceptional and Exhausted · Part 3 Most Directors who come to work with me have already done the development. The leadership programmes, the executive coaching, the feedback cycles, the frameworks for...
The Diary of a People-Pleaser, Series 3 On acquaintances, cream samples, and the moment you finally trust what your gut already knew. I want to tell you about a yes I said...
You know that moment when someone shares something and before they have even finished the sentence something else entirely has clicked into place in your mind? A client did that...
Executive Leadership Coaching, Blog On LinkedIn strategy, recruiter relationships, and the step that comes before both. The people-pleasing Directors I work with often tell me they need to work on their LinkedIn...
Exceptional and Exhausted, Newsletter Series 1 On the paradox at the heart of people-pleasing leadership, and what it actually costs. There is a paradox at the heart of exhausted people-pleasing leaders that...
The Diary of a People-Pleaser, Series 2 On people-pleasing, societal conditioning, and the slow cost of a pattern I mistook for a virtue. Nobody told me the people-pleasing pattern was a problem....