In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Katie Best, a leadership coach, consultant, and author whose career has been shaped by asking one central question: what are the problems leaders struggle with most — and how can we solve them?

Katie is the founder of Katie Best Associates, she teaches on the MBA Essentials Programme at the London School of Economics, and is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London. Most recently, she became an author with her new book The 10 Toughest Leadership Problems.

Her journey into writing the book began, not in a quiet academic office, but in the middle of the pandemic. Katie began mapping out the recurring challenges she’d seen across decades of coaching and executive education. What she noticed was powerful: no matter the industry or seniority, leaders kept coming with the same tough problems. Out of that work, the SOLVE framework was born.

In This Conversation we trace Katie’s journey from consultant and educator to author, and explore the big themes in her book:

• Personal Effectiveness  -  Why leaders today are carrying jobs that are simply “too big,” and how to tell the difference between organizational overload and self-imposed pressure.
• Influence  - How the art of influence has shifted in flatter, matrixed organizations, and why relationships and trust are more persuasive than data alone.
• Managing Performance  - Reframing those dreaded “difficult conversations” as an act of service and growth, rather than conflict.
• Culture and Values  - What it means to “just be a good human” in pressured workplaces, and how to recover when leaders get derailed.

Leadership is hard -  and yet it can also be deeply fulfilling. Katie reminds us that fulfillment comes when leaders find roles and organizations where they can bring their authentic selves to work, and be valued for what they uniquely contribute.

Her book is both a handbook for solving problems and a guide to building resilience. By working through the challenges, leaders don’t just fix what’s broken — they grow skills that carry into every part of their work and life.

Resources

• Dr. Katie Best’s book: The 10 Toughest Leadership Problems 
• Learn more about Dr Katie Best

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Influencing others at work can often feel like one of the most challenging parts of leadership. Whether it’s navigating difficult relationships, persuading colleagues to collaborate, or aligning a team around a new direction, influence is at the heart of how leaders get things done. In this episode, Jean explores what it really means to influence others with respect and integrity.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why influencing is a core leadership skill that extends beyond formal authority.
• The shift from command-and-control leadership to today’s matrixed, collaborative workplaces.
• A three-step framework for influencing effectively:
  1. Clarify your goal – create a vision that inspires, not just a process-focused objective.
  2. Understand the current state – stand in the shoes of the person or group you’re seeking to influence.
  3. Choose the right action – select an influencing strategy that fits the context and respects others.
• Seven practical strategies for influence, from using logic and data to building relationships, creating impact, bargaining, and even knowing when to (carefully) lean on authority.
• How to approach influencing as a human skill rooted in empathy, respect, and adaptability.

Why This Matters
Too often, leaders approach influence by pushing their own agenda. This episode reframes influence as a relational process, one that can reduce sleepless nights, improve collaboration, and help you achieve outcomes while strengthening trust.

Takeaway
Influence is not about forcing or persuading, it’s about listening, connecting, and shaping outcomes in ways that benefit everyone involved. With practice, you can become a more confident and effective influencer, no matter your role.

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In this episode of The Fulfilled Leader, Jean Balfour explores one of the most common challenges leaders face, negative thinking, rumination, and self-doubt. Whether it shows up as imposter syndrome, constant worry, or replaying conversations in your head, these thought patterns can drain your energy and undermine your confidence.

Jean explains why our brains are wired to focus on the negative, how this evolutionary mechanism once kept us safe, and why it so often works against us in the modern workplace. She shares insights from neuroscience, personal stories from her own journey with anxiety and rumination, and practical strategies you can use to shift your relationship with negative thinking.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why small triggers at work can send us spiraling into self-doubt.
• The three evolutionary drivers behind our brain’s negativity bias.
• How constant rumination impacts our energy, confidence, and leadership.
• The role of the amygdala in amplifying worry and fear.
• Why awareness is the first step to change—and how to practice it.
• Practical tools for “unhooking” from negative thoughts, including writing them down, reframing them, and even playful strategies like singing them out loud.
• How to hold onto the positive and let go of what doesn’t serve you.

Resources and References

• The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
• Rick Hanson’s work on the “Velcro for negatives, Teflon for positives” brain metaphor
• Practices for mindfulness, distraction, and self-compassion

Takeaway
Negative thinking never fully disappears—it’s part of being human. But you can change your relationship with it. By learning to observe, unhook, and reframe your thoughts, you free up energy and confidence to lead with greater calm and fulfillment.

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Have you ever thought about how your school experiences continue to shape you as a leader today? From the sound of the classroom bell to the sting of a teacher’s red ink, our memories from school and college often run deeper than we realise.

In this reflective episode of The Fulfilled Leader, Jean invites you to pause and explore the surprising connections between your early educational experiences and how you now show up at work, in leadership, and in life.

Drawing on her own journey of revisiting childhood schools in New Zealand, Jean shares stories that reveal how formative those years still are. She then guides you through questions and practical reflections to help uncover your own patterns, strengths, and stories that may still be influencing your leadership today.

In this episode, you’ll explore:

• How early experiences of belonging or exclusion affect the way you connect with colleagues.
• The power of a teacher’s words, both encouraging and discouraging, and how they echo into adulthood.
• Why hidden stories from school can hold you back or quietly propel you forward.
• Ways to reframe old narratives so they serve your leadership now.
• Journaling prompts and practices to loosen the hold of unhelpful memories.

This episode is an invitation to reflect gently on your past. By bringing awareness to how your school years shaped you, you gain the freedom to choose what stories to keep, what to reshape, and what to finally release.

Because while our early experiences matter, they don’t have to define us forever. With awareness, compassion, and curiosity, you always have the power to choose anew.

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Overwhelm seems to be everywhere right now. In fact, LinkedIn’s Chief Economist Karin Kimborough recently shared that posts mentioning overwhelm have increased by 82% this year. With so many leaders and professionals struggling, Jean revisits this topic with fresh eyes and shares practical ways forward.

In this episode, Jean Balfour explores:

• Why overwhelm is so widespread right now, including the impact of AI, workload, and hidden fears at work.
• The less obvious causes of overwhelm that I often see in coaching, like perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional overload, unfinished projects, and constant task-switching.
• Her own journey with overwhelm, what drained her energy, and what restored it.
• A range of practical strategies to help you move from stuck and stressed into energy and enjoyment.

You’ll hear about:

• The hidden stories we tell ourselves that fuel overwhelm.
• The role of unfinished tasks and “cognitive shifting” in draining our focus.
• How to identify what feeds you and what depletes you at work.
• The power of completion, time blocking, and building in breaks.
• Why connecting with “glimmers” those small moments of joy, matters.
• The surprising link between creativity and reducing anxiety.
• How to scale your sense of overwhelm and track progress over time.
• Simple team practices that can make overwhelm an acceptable and solvable conversation at work.

This episode is both compassionate and practical. It’s about understanding that overwhelm has many causes,not just workload, and about finding hope, small shifts, and strategies that really make a difference.

May you find rays of sunshine in these overwhelming times.

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In this episode of The Fulfilled Leader, Jean is joined by senior HR leaders Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo, co-hosts of the Career Transitions podcast. Together, they share insights from five seasons of conversations with leaders and experts on navigating the uncertainty of change.

We explore the habits that help leaders thrive in transitions, from listening and observing first, to building trust one step at a time. Vanessa and Vanessa also reflect on the challenges of cross-cultural moves, the importance of empathy in the future of work, and strategies for reinventing yourself without losing confidence.

Whether you’re stepping into a new role, changing industries, or simply rethinking your career, this conversation will help you approach transitions with curiosity, courage, and humanity.

Career Transitions on Spotify

Career Transitions Podcast on Apple

Career Transitions Podcast on LinkedIn

Vanessa Teo on LinkedIn

Vanessa Iloste on LinkedIn

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Discover how to bridge the gap between who you are today and the leader you aspire to be - with practical tools, inspiring research, and the courage to follow your bliss.

We often think about our future selves as strangers rather than as an extension of who we are today, which makes it harder to achieve our goals and create the lives we want. By learning to see our future selves in the first person and taking consistent action in the present, we can more effectively bridge the gap between who we are and who we want to become.

• Research shows we think about our present selves in first person but our future selves in third person
• This psychological distance makes it difficult to empathize with our future selves and take action today
• Following your bliss requires discipline and consistent effort, not just passive waiting
• Visualization helps you feel into your future self today rather than seeing it as distant
• Using first-person language about your future identity creates stronger connection
• Create a detailed picture of your future self and embody those qualities now
• Take small daily actions that align with your future identity, no matter how minor
• Observe leaders you admire and incorporate their behaviors into your own practice
• Write a retirement letter or use FutureMe.org to connect with your future self
• Focus on becoming the person you want to be rather than just achieving goals

https://www.halhershfield.com/yourfutureself

https://jamesclear.com/

https://www.futureme.org/

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In this episode of The Fulfilled Leader, Jean revisits a powerful and often misunderstood topic - ambition. Prompted by recent coaching conversations and personal reflections, she challenges conventional notions of ambition and invites you to rethink what it really means for you.

Jean explores how ambition isn't just about promotions, titles, or relentless striving. It's about discovering what you truly desire to achieve - whether that’s launching a passion project, being fully present with your family, or becoming exceptional at what you do now. With rich storytelling from her own journey - from a young teacher in New Zealand to founder and coach, Jean shows how ambition evolves with us.

This episode is an invitation to reclaim your ambition and align it with your values, season of life, and deeper sense of purpose.

💡 What You’ll Learn

• Why ambition is often misunderstood - and why it’s time to redefine it.
• How early experiences and societal messages shape your beliefs about ambition.
• The difference between internal ambition and external expectations.
• Why ambition has seasons - and how to navigate those transitions with self-trust.
• What to do when your ambition hits a roadblock or feels unachievable.
• How to explore your own ambition with honesty, curiosity, and compassion.

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How does our early life shape the leaders we become?
What role does fear play in our ambition?
And how can we lead with more wholeness and warmth -  especially when work feels hard?

In this episode of The Fulfilled Leader, I’m joined by psychologist and executive coach Dr. Jonathan Marshall for a deeply thoughtful and expansive conversation about the inner world of leaders.

Jonathan supports high performers who look like they're thriving on the outside but feel stretched and burnt out underneath. His work brings together leadership development, psychological depth, and meaningful change - and in this conversation, he shares some of the powerful patterns he sees in the leaders he works with.

We talk about:

• How childhood experiences and attachment styles influence our leadership
• The role of fear in driving performance - and what happens when we heal it
• Why likability matters more than we think in leadership
• The importance of self-awareness and working with our narcissism
• And how we can create warmth and emotional inclusion in our teams

Jonathan also shares stories from his rich and varied background - including the time he helped change how we think about email “attachments” in the early days of Yahoo Mail, and what it was like moving from clinical psychology into leadership coaching at Harvard Business School.

This episode is full of both insight and heart. Jonathan invites us to reflect more deeply on who we are as leaders - and reminds us that the more whole we become, the more powerfully we can lead.

Follow Jonathan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/1marshall/

Jonathan's website: https://www.marshall.com.sg/

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How many times today have you been triggered? A sharp email, an offhand comment, a meeting that left you spiralling. Sometimes it’s a small internal shift, sometimes it leads to a reaction we regret.

In this episode, I explore what it really means to be triggered at work - why it happens, how it affects us, and most importantly, what we can do about it. I share personal stories, emotional regulation models, and a toolkit of strategies to help you return to calm, grounded leadership in the heat of the moment.

Whether you’re navigating team dynamics, difficult feedback, or simply the daily tension of leadership, this episode offers compassion, perspective, and practical ways to strengthen your emotional resilience.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What it really means to be triggered at work  - and how to spot it
• Common workplace triggers (some might surprise you)
• How your nervous system and ego states influence your reactions
• The role of values, unconscious memory, and emotional patterns
• Practical, in-the-moment strategies to pause and reset
• Reflective practices to learn from difficult moments without shame
• Why self-compassion is the most powerful tool of all

Takeaway:
Being triggered is part of being human  -  and part of being a leader. With the right tools, awareness, and kindness to yourself, you can turn these moments into powerful growth opportunities.

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