Welcome to my leadership coaching blog on the overdelivering pattern in corporate life. Here I write about what actually gets in the way of senior leaders advancing and what to do about it. Each post draws on real patterns I see in my coaching work with exceptional and exhausted 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, absorbing what others should carry, shrinking in rooms where you should be leading — are not personal failings. They are learned strategies that worked brilliantly at one level and now quietly work against you at the next. Understanding them is the beginning of having a genuine choice about them. For more personal reflections on the overdelivering pattern, leadership identity, and what lies underneath, I also write on Substack and Medium.
Browse the articles below and take what is useful. If any of this resonates more deeply and 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 Turning Point Call.
The Diary of a People-Pleaser, Series 3 On acquaintances, cream samples, and the moment you finally trust what your gut already knew. A people-pleasing diary about saying no has to start with...
Flow state and people-pleasing Directors are connected in a way that most leadership conversations never name. A client sparked this reflection last week when he mentioned Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his...
Executive Leadership Coaching, Blog On LinkedIn strategy, recruiter relationships, and the step that comes before both. People-pleasing directors struggle to sell themselves not because they lack capability or strategy, but because something...
Exceptional and Exhausted, Newsletter Series 1 On the paradox at the heart of people-pleasing leadership, and what it actually costs. Exhausted people-pleasing leaders share a paradox that deserves to be said directly....
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. The people-pleasing pattern cost me something I could not...
The Diary of a People-Pleaser, Series 1 A people-pleasing director diary is not something most executive coaches write. This is not the polished version. This is the Tuesday afternoon version —...