Leading People

Send us Fan Mail

What if the thing holding you and your organisation back isn't a market problem, a resource problem, or even a people problem — but a thinking problem you can't yet see?

This week's guest, Angela Montgomery, has spent three decades helping leaders discover exactly that. As author of The Human Constraint and co-founder of Intelligent Management, she brings together the work of W. Edwards Deming and Eliyahu Goldratt into a practical framework for leading in complexity.

In this conversation, Angela and Gerry explore what it means to run an organisation as a living system, why the assumptions we don't question become the constraints we can't escape — and what it actually takes to think differently as a leader.

And, you could be one of 10 lucky listeners who will receive a special offer from Angela. Details in the conversation.

Curious?

Connect with Angela on LinkedIn

Visit Angela's website

Buy The Human Constraint

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever walked into a room and felt something you couldn't quite name? A tension, an energy, a sense that something invisible was shaping everything happening around you — and inside you?

What if that feeling wasn't imagination? What if there were hidden forces actively at play in every meeting, every team, every relationship — and most leaders have no idea they're there?

In this episode, Alan Briskin and Mary Gelinas — authors of Space is Not Empty — reveal what those forces are, why they matter more than ever right now, and how developing awareness of them could change the way you lead, collaborate, and make decisions forever.

This one will shift how you see the room you're sitting in right now.

Check out The Space is not Empty

Connect with Mary on LinkedIn

Connect with Alan on LinkedIn

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

You may already be expecting this conversation.

In fact, you may be dreading it.

Someone on your team wants to talk about pay, fairness, and why they feel something doesn’t add up.

And once that conversation starts, you need to handle it in a way that feels clear, constructive, and consistent — not just for one person, but across the team.

In this short One Simple Thing episode, Gerry Murray explores a practical way to handle these conversations without getting pulled into unhelpful comparisons.

Curious?

Listen now

Book a discovery call about Team Leader Essentials or other leadership development services https://www.widecircle.eu/lets-chat-page

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

What if the real issue isn’t the problem someone brings you — but the way they are thinking about it?

Or, perhaps it's how they're behaving...

In this episode of Leading People, Gerry Murray is joined by coaching pioneer Dr Marcia Reynolds to explore a more powerful approach to coaching, leadership, and human development.

Their conversation goes well beyond formal coaching. It looks at how leaders, HR professionals, and people managers can create better conversations by listening more deeply, reflecting more skillfully, and helping others find their own insight rather than rushing to fix, advise, or solve.  

If you’ve ever wondered how to support real change in behaviour, confidence, and self-awareness — whether as a coach, a leader, or an HR partner — this episode will give you plenty to think about.

Curious?

Connect with Marcia on LinkedIn

Visit Marcia's website

Check out Team Leader Essentials and the Performance Accelerator here

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

Few things drain a team faster than two people who just can’t seem to work well together.

And for a team leader, it can be surprisingly easy to get pulled into the wrong conversation.

In this short episode of One Simple Thing, Gerry Murray looks at a familiar workplace challenge and shares one practical shift that can help you respond with more clarity, confidence, and impact.

If you’ve ever had to deal with friction between team members, this episode is for you.  

Curious to learn more?

Check out Team Leader Essentials and The Performance Accelerator https://www.widecircle.eu/our-services 

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

Most leaders believe they’re self-aware.

Research suggests otherwise.

Studies indicate that while the majority of us think we understand how we show up, only a small percentage are accurately perceived that way by others. And under pressure — in uncertainty — those blind spots don’t stay hidden.

• They shape our decisions.
• Our relationships.
• Our leadership.

In this episode of Leading People, Gerry Murray speaks with researcher and author Dr Julia Carden about why self-awareness is far rarer than we assume — and why it matters most in uncertain environments.

We explore:

• Why other people’s perceptions of us don’t update as quickly as we think
• What makes feedback useful rather than threatening
• The role of identity and ego in leadership blind spots
• Why self-acceptance is a quiet but powerful leadership strength
• And how self-awareness builds adaptive capacity in unstable times

If you’ve ever wondered why capable, intelligent leaders can still get in their own way — this conversation will give you language, research, and practical insight to reflect on your own leadership.

Curious?

Listen in — and notice what you'll discover about yourself

Check out the Leading People programmes

Connect with Julia on LinkedIn

Visit Julia's Website

Buy the book

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

What do you say when your team pushes back on a policy you didn’t create?
This episode explores a common moment where many team leaders lose credibility — and how you can handle it differently.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between your team and “head office,” this one’s for you.

Want to go further?
Our Team Leader Essentials and Performance Accelerator programmes are designed to help you navigate tough leadership moments like this — and bring out the best in yourself and your team. 

Here's the Link

https://www.widecircle.eu/better-leadership

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

What if engagement wasn’t the finish line — but the starting point?

In this episode of Leading People, Gerry Murray is joined by Alli Gibbons, author of The Power of Ownership Culture, to explore how employee ownership can fundamentally reset leadership and culture — when it’s treated as more than just a new structure.

Rather than focusing on legal models or financial mechanisms, the conversation centres on what really shifts when people are invited to take genuine responsibility — and why leadership matters even more, not less, in ownership environments.

Alli shares insights from her journey across engineering, large-scale projects, and organisational culture, and explains why ownership doesn’t automatically change behaviour. Structure alone isn’t enough. 

What makes the difference is how leaders 

• build ownership literacy 
• tell a clear strategic story 
• create decision rights that invite voice without losing momentum 
• and shape environments where accountability feels meaningful rather than imposed

Together, we explore the practical leadership tensions this creates — psychological safety versus pace, participation versus clarity, and the pivotal role middle managers play as translators between strategy and day-to-day work.

At its heart, this is a conversation about shifting from company-as-machine to company-as-community — where performance still matters, profit remains essential, but purpose becomes the anchor that sustains commitment over time.

This episode is for leaders who are curious about ownership — or who simply want people to think and act like owners — and are willing to reflect on what that requires of leadership itself.

Curious? 

Have a listen...

Connect with Alli on LinkedIn for the special offer

Buy the book here

Visit her company website

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

If you had to explain leadership in one simple sentence, what would you say?

After 100 episodes of talking to extraordinary people about what it means to lead, one answer keeps rising to the top. And it’s not what you might expect.

This short episode marks the beginning of a new chapter — and a return to something essential.

Tune in to discover the one thing that most great leaders have in common.

(And if you’re serious about growing as a leader, check out our Team Leader Essentials and Accelerating Performance programmes — link below)

Check out the Leadership Programmes

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn

Send us Fan Mail

Episode 100 felt like a moment worth marking.

Not with a summary.
Not with highlights.
And not with a look back.

Just a conversation — allowed to unfold.

This episode exists thanks to the generosity, creativity, and support of Kate Walker Miles and Valeriia Diakiv, whose contributions helped bring it into being.

As always, thank you for listening — and for being part of the Leading People journey since January 2021.

Here's to the next 100 episodes...

Enjoyed this episode? The Leading People Community is where these conversations continue to flourish. 

Free to join — Book reviews, Leading People Café recordings, Podcast episode previews, and a growing group of active HR and L&D professionals, leaders, and coaches who take their work seriously. 

Join the Leading People Community

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn