What does it really mean to “be more strategic”?

And why are so many talented leaders told they need this skill - without being shown how to develop it?

In this episode I’m joined by Charlie Curson, strategy consultant, leadership coach, and author of Be More Strategic. Together, we unpack why strategy so often feels intimidating, how it’s different from planning, and how leaders can build the confidence to think and act more strategically - even in uncertainty.

In this episode, we explore:

1. Why “be more strategic” is such common (and unhelpful) feedback for leaders
2. The difference between strategy and planning — and why confusing the two causes problems
3. How creativity plays a vital role in strategic thinking (even if you don’t see yourself as “creative”)
4. Practical ways to manage uncertainty — without needing all the answers
5. Why future-focused thinking doesn’t come naturally to everyone (and how to develop it)
6. Decision-making styles, procrastination, and how to make better calls with imperfect information
7. Charlie’s four-level framework for becoming more strategic — from self-awareness to scaling impact

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with Carla:

1. 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work, lead with confidence and develop your career. Book a discovery call

About Charlie Curson

Founder of Mandarin. Strategic advisor, investor, facilitator and accredited leadership coach with 25+ years across 250+ organisations (including VISA, McDonald’s, Unilever, Experian, Volkswagen Group, L’Oréal, Barclays). Lifelong “tinkerer” obsessed with making things faster, better, smarter, who challenges assumptions and turns clarity into action. He helps leaders and teams build strategic capability and momentum.

Author of Be More Strategic: 12 Essential Practices to Build the

Life and Career You Want. Find out more, and get your copy

Take the Be More Strategic Quiz

In this episode I’m joined by leadership expert, speaker and author Helen Beedham to explore what really keeps people in organisations.

Helen returns to the podcast to talk about her new book, People Glue, and the research behind it. We dig into how to create a working environment where people feel able to do their best work, stay engaged, and choose to stay — even when other options are available.

In this episode, we explore:

1. What People Glue really means
2. The paradox at the heart of retention: why giving people more freedom often makes them more likely to stay
3. The four freedoms people want at work
4. How to tell if your team or organisation is truly “sticky”
5. Practical, low-risk ways leaders can offer more freedom while maintaining clarity and accountability
6. What leaders can do to protect morale and people glue during restructures and periods of change
7. How individuals can reflect on their own experience of freedom at work and take more control of their careers

Helen also shares practical examples from organisations that are getting this right, including simple leadership practices that build trust, psychological safety, and connection - without losing focus on results.

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with Carla:

1. 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

About Helen Beedham

Helen Beedham, MA Cantab, is an organisational expert, business book author, speaker and host of The Business of Being Brilliant podcast. Her first book 'The Future of Time: How ‘re-working’ time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing' was named People, Culture & Management Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards, and her second book 'People Glue: Hold on to your best people by setting them free' was published in January 2026.

Helen advises business and HR leaders on creating a positive culture that fuels growth; helps teams to deliver more and have more fun; and coaches executives to become their sharpest, brightest best. She speaks publicly about the future of work and is regularly featured in national, business and HR press including the FT, Financial News, Forbes, FastCompany and HR Review.

Helen's website

Helen on LinkedIn

The Business of Being Brilliant podcast

In this episode, I’m joined by Joe Lalley, author of Question to Learn, to explore why questions are one of the most underrated — and misused — leadership tools.

We talk about curiosity, influence, and what really happens when leaders feel they’re supposed to have all the answers.

In this conversation, we explore:

1. Why most of us stop asking good questions as our careers progress
2. The subtle ways workplace culture rewards answers and punishes curiosity
3. The different motives behind questions — and why some shut people down
4. How questions can build influence without needing certainty
5. What leaders can learn from children, improv, and discomfort
6. Why “I don’t know” might be one of the most powerful things a leader can say
7. The role curiosity plays in a world increasingly shaped by AI
8. Joe’s favourite question — and why it opens doors most people miss

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with Carla:

1. 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

About Joe Lalley

Joe Lalley is a writer, speaker, and workshop facilitator who has spent much of his career leading innovation workshops for companies of all industries, shapes, and sizes.

Joe has published multiple articles ranging from how to use curiosity to navigate remote work in the pandemic to how to fix the endless cycles of bad, inefficient meetings.

In 2011, Joe completed the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Bootcamp, an intensive program that draws executives from Fortune 500 companies worldwide. As part of a team with peers from Google and Cisco, he worked directly with JetBlue to redesign the passenger ground experience at San Francisco International Airport. Through field research, interviews, and rapid prototyping, Joe and his team presented innovative solutions to JetBlue executives—a transformational experience that helped shape the next chapter of his career.

Joe has held leadership roles at Columbia University, MTV/Viacom, WWE, PwC, and his own consultancy, Joe Lalley Experience Design. His client portfolio spans global brands and organizations such as Meta, Pfizer, Cisco, Chegg, General Assembly, Match Group/Tinder,

Latham & Watkins, and Lam Research, as well as mission-driven groups like the American Physical Society, Optica, Banyan Global, and CAQH.

In October 2025, Lalley released ‘Question to Learn: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Career, Team, and Organization.’

Website...

Self-awareness is often listed as a core leadership skill — but how many leaders truly understand what it involves, and how many are unintentionally overestimating it?

In this episode of Influence & Impact, I am joined by Dr Julia Carden, former Royal Navy officer, leadership coach, and author of You Are Not As Self-Aware As You Think You Are. Drawing on her PhD research and years of coaching senior leaders, Julia shares why self-awareness is harder — and more confronting — than most people expect.

Together, we explore how self-awareness goes far beyond surface-level feedback, why it’s essential for healthy team dynamics, and how leaders can start uncovering their blind spots without becoming defensive.

In this episode, we cover:

1. Why self-awareness is often a blind spot for leaders
2. The moment you say “I’m very self-aware” — and why that’s a warning sign
3. How a lack of self-awareness shows up as team tension, conflict, and disengagement
4. Julia’s practical definition of self-awareness using interpersonal and intrapersonal “ingredients”
5. Why feedback can feel threatening — and how to work with it constructively
6. How leaders can build self-awareness without a coach or 360-degree feedback
7. The role of beliefs, values, emotions, and even physiological responses in leadership behaviour
8. Why the people who irritate us most can be powerful mirrors
9. Simple reflective practices that highly self-aware leaders use consistently
10. The one question leaders can ask themselves daily to deepen self-awareness
11. How greater self-awareness can lead to more compassion, acceptance, and connection at work

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with Carla:

1. 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

About Dr Julia Carden PhD MSc PCC FCIPD

Julia was born and raised in Cornwall and “made in the Royal Navy” and now lives in Hampshire. She has been and continues to be on a lifelong journey in developing her own self-awareness. She works as a relational coach and coach supervisor practitioner, with an academic underpinning. Her work focuses on working with the whole person (both individuals and teams) to expand and deepen self-awareness, so that individuals can connect deeply with others and develop the capacity to sit with uncertainty. Julia has a deep interest in...

Many people find themselves in roles that look great on paper but feel misaligned or unfulfilling in reality. In this week’s episode I’m joined by Angela Rixon, founder of The Centre for Meaningful Work and author of Meaning Over Purpose to explore what meaningful work really is, why so many of us lack it, and how both individuals and leaders can create more meaning at work day-to-day.

Angela shares the five pillars of meaningful work—from autonomy to impact—and we dive into simple, practical steps you can take if you’ve fallen out of love with your role. We also look at the powerful role managers play in helping others find meaning, and how meaning can protect us from burnout when it’s balanced in a healthy way.

We talk about:

• What meaning is and how it differs from purpose

• The five pillars of meaningful work

• Practical ways to create more meaning in your current role

• How leaders can build meaning within their teams

• Why meaning boosts engagement—and how it can sometimes lead to burnout

• A powerful real-life example of how autonomy transformed performance

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with Carla:

1. 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

About Angela Rixon

Angela Rixon is an award-winning leadership strategist, executive coach, and culture-transformation specialist with over 25 years’ experience spanning technology, professional services, and financial sectors. A former Partner at EY and Director at CGI and Mercer, she is recognised internationally for pioneering research and frameworks that close the Purpose-to-Meaning Gap™ enabling organisations to embed meaning into leadership, culture, and performance.

As Founder and CEO of The Centre for Meaningful Work Ltd, Angela helps CEOs and executive teams design human-centred cultures that perform. Her Amazon-bestselling book Meaning Over Purpose: The CEO’s Strategic Blueprint for Growth and Lasting Engagement (2025) combines behavioural science and applied positive psychology to redefine how leaders drive growth through meaning.

Angela’s work blends corporate rigour with psychological depth. An accredited executive coach (MSc, Distinction) and Fellow of the CIPD, she integrates Transactional Analysis, Adaptive Leadership, and Systems Thinking to help leaders achieve measurable business results while fostering inclusion, wellbeing, and authenticity. Clients describe her approach as “supportive, challenging, and transformative.”

A regular keynote speaker on meaningful work, inclusion, and the future of leadership, Angela is the creator of the Lead with Meaning™, Own Your Meaning™, and Meaning Metrics™ frameworks.

She lives in London with her partner Tony and believes that when work works for people, people work better, and organisations thrive.

Email: angela@angelarixon.com

Website: thecentreformeaningfulwork.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/angelarixon

📢 If This...

Psychological safety is the foundation of every high-performing team—yet many leaders unintentionally undermine it without realising. This week my Impactful Teams Co-Founder Lara Cullen and I explore psychological safety, why comfort isn’t the goal, and the small (but powerful) leadership behaviours that create a culture where people feel safe to contribute, challenge and innovate.

💡 We talk about:

• What psychological safety really means
• The difference between psychological safety and trust
• Why mistakes aren’t a bad thing
• What destroys psychological safety
• Why comfort isn’t the goal

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

Work with us:

• Impactful Teams Scorecard – It takes just 2 minutes to discover where your team is strong and where you might want to focus next. You’ll get personalised results—and for a limited time, you can also book a free 30-minute call to talk through them.
• Visit our new Impactful Teams website

Work with Carla:

• 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

📢 If This Resonated…

Please share this episode with a fellow leader who needs to hear it.

Leave a review to support the show or reach out to me directly — I’d love to hear what landed most for you.

In this episode, I talk with Julia Middleton, founder of Women Emerging, about how women everywhere are redefining what it means to lead. Julia shares how her global “expeditions” help women discover their own authentic way of leading and introduces her Four E’s framework — Essence, Elements, Expression, and Energy.

We explore why traditional models of leadership don’t always fit women, how to lead in alignment with who you are, and the courage it takes to lead your way in systems not designed for you.

💡 We talk about:

• Why many women don’t relate to traditional leadership
• The Four E’s of authentic leadership
• How to find and lead from your true essence
• The power of energy in leadership
• How to trust yourself and lead your way

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

About Julia Middleton:

Founder Women Emerging

Julia Middleton is a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in”, "Leading beyond Authority" and "Cultural Intelligence" and the host of the Women Emerging podcast.

She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to lead and speaks regularly about leadership to audiences around the world.

In 2022, Julia launched an expedition of 24 women to find 'an approach to leading that resonated with women'. In 2024 she then founded Women Emerging. She now leads expeditions with women across the world using the 4Es methodology, discovered on the first expedition.

Prior to this Julia was Founder and Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which she grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.

Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the advisory councils of AUB in Lebanon, Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan. She is also a board member of Equality Now globally.

Born in London and brought up in New York and Geneva, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and seven grandchildren.

LISTEN TO JULIA’S TED TALK ON CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

Julia’s books can be found here:

1. If that’s leading, I’m in

2. Beyond Authority: Leadership in a changing world

3. Cultural Intelligence: The competitive edge for leaders crossing boundaries:

CONNECT WITH JULIA ON LINKEDIN

Work with Carla:

• Impactful Teams Scorecard – Discover how your team measures up and how you can grow your team’s impact.
• 1:1 Leadership...

There are a lot of misunderstandings about Gen Z in the workplace and in this episode we aim to clear some of those up and equip you to lead intergenerational teams successfully.

My guest Alex Atherton—former head teacher turned leadership coach and author of The Snowflake Myth—is here to challenge the “snowflake” stereotype and get practical about leading Gen Z.

We explore what’s really driving Gen Z at work and how to recruit, onboard, and set expectations without lowering the bar. We also talk about how to get intergenerational teams communicating successfully and the skills we need to develop as leaders to get the most out of this younger generation entering the workplace.

This is Influence & Impact for Leaders, the podcast that helps leaders like you increase your impact and build a happy and high performing team. Each episode delivers focused, actionable insights you can implement immediately, to be better at your job without working harder.

About Alex Atherton:

Alex Atherton is an experienced educator, keynote speaker and leadership coach. Previously Alex spent 25 years working in inner-city comprehensive secondary schools, of which over half was spent as a headteacher in London.

Links for Alex:

Website

Book: The Snowflake Myth

LinkedIn

Work with Carla:

• Impactful Teams Scorecard – Discover how your team measures up and how you can grow your team’s impact.
• 1:1 Leadership Coaching with Carla – get support to help you get your voice heard at work and develop your career. Book a discovery call

📢 If This Resonated…

Please share this episode with a fellow leader who needs to hear it.

Leave a review to support the show or reach out to me directly — I’d love to hear what landed most for you.