Leadership Insights
In "Leadership Insights" we'll be using our blog space to regularly share our experience and reflections on the multiple challenges leaders face in today's complex and ambiguous business landscape.
System blindness and what to do about it
Monday 30th June 2025
Mike Mullins
Systems blindness gets in the way of waking up to patterns of behaviour. It prevents you from noticing what causes you to fall out of partnership with others in the system. Think about some of the language you might hear about colleagues, patients or service users in the health and care system. In my experience, it’s not uncommon to hear about ‘difficult patients’, ‘uncooperative providers’, ‘uncaring senior leaders’, ‘ineffective middle managers’, or ‘unhelpful staff’. These stereotypes are used so frequently that we have to ask ourselves whether it’s the people or something about the system within which we’re operating that drives certain types of attitudes and behaviour. Context Let me paint a picture of what I mean. Imagine for a moment that you’re standing outside…
What makes an exemplary systems leader?
Monday 30th June 2025
Mike Mullins
As a psychologist and leadership development coach, I’ve been fascinated by the experiences and mindset that make great leaders. In 2020, I collaborated with Practive Ltd, which NHS England had commissioned to interview 40 leaders across the health and care system, all of whom had been identified as exemplars of systems leadership. The aim of the research was to uncover the mindset, skillset and experiences that develop great system leaders. Following the interviews, I wrote a paper, "The Undefended System Leader". This drew on the themes that emerged, as well as systems and complexity theory, to distil what makes an effective system leader. In this series of five articles, I’ll share our main findings and explore what it looks like in practice…
Escaping the prison of achievement - Learning how to reinvent yourself to become a successful “ex-partner”
Monday 26th October 2020
Mike Mullins
For people at the top of their game in professional services firms the road to retirement can be a profoundly unsettling one. The frightening void that replaces the structured, stimulating days of client delivery can lead to confusion, frustration and plunging self – esteem. Followed by a challenging journey of self- reinvention, and ultimately renewed purpose and identity. Professional services firms necessarily attract lawyers, accountants, management consultants and engineers that are highly intelligent but also slightly insecure, over-achievers. This need to achieve can see them prioritise the immediate demands of clients and the firm at the expense of their own well-being. Spending time reflecting on deeper questions about their own identity, purpose, fulfilment and life beyond…
“Reset not Just Recovery” NHS Team Coaching
Sunday 20th September 2020
Mike Mullins
“The pandemic has unleashed amazing innovation across the service, with new ways of working, new ways of supporting patients, and new collaboration between services. We don’t want to go back to the NHS as it was, we want to emerge in a new place. This is about reset not just recovery.” Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation The challenge of resetting not just recovering The restoration of NHS services after COVID-19 needs to be about reset, as well as recovery. Starting this work again needs to be done carefully with local health leaders deciding what is best for their local communities and what can be managed. We know staff will need downtime to recover and process the emotional impact of what…
The Art of Being a Resilient Leader
Wednesday 2nd January 2019
Mike Mullins
When asked about the root of her success Victoria Pendleton, Gold Medal winner at London's 2012 Olympics, put it down to "marginal gains". Thinking of everything that goes into riding a bike competitively and then improving each element by 1%, to get a significant shift in overall performance. This included better hand washing techniques and athletes taking their own pillows and bedding to hotels, when competing, to ensure improved sleep. Like Victoria Pendleton we can think of ourselves as "leadership athletes", focusing on the "marginal gains" we can make to how we sustain and renew our well - being and performance as leaders when under pressure. In this article I’d like to explore: >The nature of "power stress" that can affect leaders…