BlueSky Lisa

One idea has stayed with me since hearing Keith Keating speak recently.

It wasn't a new technology.

It wasn't AI.

It was a question:

How quickly can we adapt?

Many of us built our careers in environments where expertise mattered.

You learned.
You gained experience.
You became the person with the answers.

Today, leadership often feels different.

The environment shifts.
Priorities change.
New information emerges.

The leaders who seem to thrive are not necessarily those with the most expertise.

They are often the people who can absorb new information, adjust their thinking and move forward without waiting for complete certainty.

Not reckless action.

Thoughtful action.

Combined with a willingness to learn and adapt along the way.

Perhaps one of the most important leadership capabilities isn't knowing the answer.

It's being able to adapt when the answer changes.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀?
𝘗𝘪𝘤. 𝘍𝘶𝘳𝘬𝘢/𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭 𝘗𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘚𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘻𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥

How often do you leave a meeting wondering whether you spoke up enough?

This week I coached someone who had done most of the research behind a strategic recommendation. He knew the topic deeply. He had already discussed the findings beforehand with senior stakeholders.

Then the meeting happened.

The CTO asked the question.
A senior director responded.
And my client stayed quiet.

Afterwards, he was frustrated with himself.

But honestly, I didn’t think the issue was whether he had the answer.

The more interesting leadership question was:
Did he help move the thinking forward?

Because often in complex organisations, especially technical or strategic environments, leadership is not about proving you are the smartest person in the room.

It is about helping the room think better.

Sometimes that means:
“Yes, and…”

Then adding the detail nobody else has.
Adding the operational reality.
Surfacing the risks.
Highlighting the implications.
Shaping the discussion.
Or asking the question that helps others connect the dots themselves.

Good technical experts answer questions.

But embracing your authority and helping the room, the stakeholders, or the organisation reach clarity is really strong leadership.

That is influence.

And ironically, it often creates far more executive presence than trying to dominate the conversation.

This is exactly the kind of leadership dynamic we explore in my upcoming BlueSky Leadership Roundtable on visibility and influence in complex organisatio

What happens when a senior leader becomes too adaptable?

This week, I coached a VP who was being considered for a major new role. On the surface, the conversation was about organisational politics, reporting lines and whether the role had enough influence to succeed.

But underneath it was a very different tension.

This leader had become exceptionally good at reading the room, adapting to stakeholders and positioning themselves around everyone else’s expectations. So good, in fact, that they had almost stopped asking a much more important question:

“What do I actually need in order to do my best work?”

Stop trying to design yourself around everyone else’s agenda long enough to define the conditions under which you can genuinely create impact.

The interesting thing is that once the conversation shifted there, the clarity came quite quickly. Not around ego or status.

Around impact.

Where can I actually contribute?
Where will my strengths create value?
What conditions allow me to thrive rather than simply adapt?

Senior leadership requires adaptability. But at some point it also requires self-definition.

Otherwise highly capable leaders slowly become professionally successful and strategically invisible at the same time.

This is exactly the kind of conversation we explore in the upcoming BlueSky Leadership Roundtables over the coming weeks, particularly for leaders operating in complex matrix organisations. Link in first comment below.

Can you have a strong reputation and still be overlooked?

This question came up during yesterday's 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗦𝗸𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.

The leaders in the room were all experienced professionals. They were leading teams, influencing stakeholders, running businesses and navigating complex organisations. Nobody was struggling with performance.

Yet several people described feeling surprisingly invisible.

Not invisible in the sense that nobody knew who they were. Quite the opposite. They were well known, trusted and often the person others relied on when things became difficult.

But they were not always being recognised for their leadership.

It made me wonder whether many of us spend years building a reputation for delivery and very little time building visibility around our judgement, perspective and leadership.

If you become known as the person who always gets things done, people will keep giving you things to do.

If you want to be recognised as a leader, people also need to see how you think.

One of the participants described feeling as though she was 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 while becoming 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺.

I suspect many experienced professionals will recognise that feeling.

Have you ever felt that your contribution was valued but your leadership was overlooked?

One of the themes we'll be exploring in Authentic Leader: Personal Authority, starting in June.

One of the most interesting parts of leadership coaching is how often the real issue is not the one people initially describe.

They arrive talking about visibility, influence, confidence, difficult stakeholders, or exhaustion.

But underneath those conversations are often deeper questions around identity, pressure, boundaries, adaptation, and how to remain connected to yourself while leading inside increasingly complex environments.

Especially in matrix organisations.

That’s why I’m looking forward to this morning’s conversation.

A small group of experienced professionals exploring leadership, visibility, and influence inside complex systems.

08:30 CET
Online

A few places are still available this morning. Link below

A senior leader said something to me recently that I suspect many experienced professionals will recognise immediately:

“I spend so much time managing reactions that I barely have space to think.”

Not because she was weak politically.

Because she was highly attuned.

To dynamics.
To personalities.
To pressure.
To what was happening underneath the conversation.

But over time, that constant awareness had become mentally exhausting.

I think this is one of the hidden realities of leadership inside complex organisations.

The work is not only operational.

It’s emotional.
Relational.
Psychological.

And many highly capable people are carrying far more than is visible externally.

That’s part of what we’ll be discussing tomorrow morning in a small leadership roundtable on visibility and influence in matrix organisations.

Thursday May 28
08:30 CET
Online

“I realised I had become the emotional shock absorber for the entire organisation.”

A client said this recently and it captured something I think many senior leaders experience but rarely say out loud.

Everyone was bringing pressure to her.

The board.
The team.
Peers.
Stakeholders.
Clients.

And she had quietly become the person absorbing all of it.

Staying calm.
Staying measured.
Holding stability for everyone else.

From the outside, she looked incredibly capable.

Internally, she was exhausted.

What struck me was that she didn’t need more resilience strategies.

She needed permission to stop carrying responsibility that was never fully hers in the first place.

I think many experienced professionals slowly become over-responsible without noticing it.

Especially the conscientious ones.
Especially the dependable ones.

At some point, leadership maturity also means recognising what is yours to hold and what is not.

That’s one of the themes we’ll be exploring this week in my leadership roundtable on visibility and influence in matrix organisations.

Thursday May 28
08:30 CET
Online

𝘏𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮.

That was the sentence we eventually arrived at in coaching.

Until then, he had been describing the situation as a visibility problem.

But it wasn’t really that.

He was deeply trusted inside the organisation. Everyone went to him. He knew the business inside out, solved problems quickly, and carried an enormous amount of responsibility without complaining.

The issue was that he had become so valuable operationally that nobody really saw him strategically anymore.

He was constantly in the detail. Fixing. Supporting. Responding. Holding things together.

And because he was good at it, people kept giving him more.

I see this a lot with highly capable leaders.

Especially the reliable ones.

The ones who don’t drop balls.
The ones who stay calm under pressure.
The ones everybody depends on.

At some point, many of them realise they have become essential to the machine but strangely disconnected from their own longer-term leadership direction.

That can be quite confronting.

Because the behaviours that helped build credibility earlier in a career are not always the same ones that create strategic influence later on.

I’ll be exploring some of these themes in my upcoming leadership roundtable on visibility and influence in matrix organisations.

Thursday May 28 (complimentary, link below)
08:30 CET
Online