Async Leadership

The best CEOs are dual-lens operators.

Vision. Timing. Cash. They hold the big picture in their heads but stay anchored in the work. Product. Blockers. People. They see the nuance most miss. That mix is rare. The real limiter is processing power.

As companies scale, updates shift from chat to text. Verbal syncs don't scale. Reading does. Which is why CEOs must build teams who write clearly and asynchronously. Not optional.

Clarity equals speed. If your execs can't communicate in writing, you'll be stuck in meetings forever.

The CEO's leverage comes from how well the team writes.

Toxicity Isn't Leadership

Brilliance doesn't excuse bad behaviour.

Some leaders get away with everything. They shout. Interrupt. Get angry. Dismiss. Their results or tenure buy them silence. People tiptoe around them. Their tantrums get labelled “passion”. But under the surface, the team is hurting. The fear is real. Ideas shrink. Collaboration dies. Turnover spikes. The cost isn't loud. It's quiet...and compounding.

And here's the lie: “We need them”.

No, you don't.

You're just scared of the gap they'll leave. But that gap creates space for healthier leadership, for calmer thinking, for people who can deliver and respect others. High performance doesn't have to come wrapped in chaos. The best leaders know when to push, when to listen and when to shut up.

It's not enough to be brilliant. You have to be someone others want to follow.

Culture gets built by who you promote and protect. Letting toxic behaviour slide, just because someone's talented, tells the whole team one thing: this behaviour is ok. And that message spreads. Fast.

So stop making excuses for bullies. If they can't lead with discipline, they don't get to lead at all.

Quiet Leadership

Change doesn't come from a reorg or a new title on a slide.

It comes from the person who says, “This isn't good enough,” and then does something about it. Quietly. Consistently. Without waiting for permission. That's what standards are - choices made over and over, even when they're inconvenient, invisible, or unpopular.

The real power isn't in setting high standards. It's in holding them when no one's watching. When shortcuts are easier. When mediocrity is the norm. That's where most people cave. They look around, see no one else pushing, and assume it's not worth the fight.

But it is.

Every time someone sticks to their standard, it makes space for someone else to do the same. Not with big declarations, but with small acts of defiance against the average.

The more people who hold the line, the easier it becomes to draw a new one. Holding the line isn't easy - but a product management coach can support you in leading with consistency.

Ditch Annual Reviews

Yearly performance reviews aren't good. You have probably seen neglected and outdated goals in performance reviews in your career. They become irrelevant pretty quickly. Worse, they do more harm than good.

The best teams ditch the annual review cycle. Instead, they focus on:

• Continuous feedback
• Small, actionable coaching
• Growth over grades
• Space for trial, error and mastery

Accountability

Messy teams don't mean broken teams.

They're just growing. Growth kicks off the “storming” phase - overlaps, confusion, delays. Everyone's working hard, but everything feels slow.

That's not a motivation problem. It's an ownership problem.

When no one's clearly accountable, things fall between the cracks. Work stalls. Friction builds. Blame starts to creep in. But assign clear ownership - name, scope, outcome - and everything changes. Now someone's driving. Now someone's finishing.

Ownership creates motion. Shared responsibility sounds nice, but it rarely works. When everyone owns something, no one owns anything.

So make it visible. Write it down. Who owns what. Why it matters. When it's due.

That's how work moves forward. Not with good intentions. With clear accountability.

Make Feedback Obvious

People think they're not getting feedback.

But they are - they just don't recognise it.

A simple way to fix this? Make it obvious. Instead of letting feedback blend into daily conversations, label it: “Here's some feedback for you.”

That small shift makes a big difference.

Results First

Your first responsibility as a manager is to deliver results.
Not culture. Not vibes. Not endless check-ins. Results.
Too many new managers fall in love with the performance of management. They build dashboards, run meetings, create documentation, set up Slack channels. It feels like work. It looks like leadership. But it doesn't move the needle. Teams can be busy all week and still achieve nothing.
Being a manager isn't about activity. It's abou... read more

Let Go to Move Forward

Centralised decision-making will always create bottlenecks. Sooner or later, this will prevent your company from growing.

Traditional and rigid organisations value hierarchy, and leaders often think they need to control every decision.

But this slows innovation, delays time to market, and prevents teams from learning.

Create a culture of ownership at every level. Empower your team to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Trust fuels faster progress.

Starting Strong as a Leader

Joining a new company as a leader is tricky and sometimes it does feel like stepping into chaos.

There's so much for you to process – new people, culture, challenges, expectations, competing and unclear priorities and pressure to deliver results.

I like to slow it down. I don't try to fix everything on day one. I focus on the context, the big picture first, understand the team and what they need my help with. Once I get where we are going and why, I can focus on the culture and processes to get to the destination faster with stronger teams.

Know Your Team

It's crazy how many leaders don't know much about their team. They are not curious about their motivations or aspirations, not only professionally but also on a personal level.

Get to know your team. What are their hobbies? What are they exploring? How are their families? Where are they planning their next trip? What are they watching? What are they reading?

Make it a weekly session. It takes just half an hour but builds a much stronger connection. This is important. Stronger connection = more trust. More trust = better feedback, better communication, higher quality of work and more motivation.

Engagement Isn't a Number

Most engagement surveys don't measure engagement.

They measure vibes.

The problem isn't the intent - it's the output. You run a survey. You get a 67.8% “engagement score.” Someone builds a deck. Charts go up, comments stay anonymous, nothing changes.

That number doesn't tell you who's struggling. It doesn't tell you why trust is low. It doesn't tell you where the rot is starting. It just tells you people clicked a box.

Real engagement isn't a metric. It's a conversation.

Ask them how they're feeling. Ask what's blocking them. Ask what's making their work better - or worse. Then shut up and listen. Not just in surveys. In 1:1s. In retros. In offhand comments. The signal's already there. You don't need a dashboard. You need ears.

Pie charts don't build trust. Conversations do.

The Cost of Indecision

Misaligned leadership doesn't announce itself. It creeps in. Slowly. Quietly. Then it wrecks your team.

Leaders think the damage is minor. Temporary. Invisible. But it's not. It's heavy. It's real. It shows up in whisper networks, in backchannel Slacks, in passive standups where nobody commits because no one knows where things are going.

You see it when smart people play it safe. When the loudest voice wins. When meetings drag on because no one wants to be the first to say what everyone's thinking. You feel it in the hesitation. That's the real killer.

Disagreement isn't the problem. Lack of alignment isn't even the real issue. Teams can live with that. What they can't survive is hesitation. Leaders who won't commit. Who won't decide. Who stay neutral until it's too late and now the team's solving the wrong problem. Again.

Indecision isn't neutral. It's destructive. Especially when disguised as “consensus-building” or “being thoughtful.” Teams need a decision. Even the wrong one. Because wrong moves can be corrected. Hesitation can't.

Leaders, pick a path. Say it out loud. Then stand behind it until you know it needs to change.

Make the fucking decision. Your team's already waiting.

Trust breaks when promises break

Trust breaks when promises break. People notice, even in silence and they remember. Honour commitments - trust depends on it.

Empowering Without Overdirecting

This afternoon I spoke with the team about the challenges for any leader and their team in finding the balance between telling them what/how to do (Directive Leadership) and letting the team figure it out themselves, make some mistakes and learn (Empowering Leadership).

The balance is hard.

You definitely wouldn't want to over-index on either side. So you've got to find a sweet spot.

But it also could be multidimensional, and the balance might shift depending on the area.

For example, you might want to give more direction in terms of the problem the team is solving compared to how the problem is solved. Or you might want to give less direction in the team's communication style but more direction in terms of the standards of produced work.

Regardless, it might be helpful to be open about that balance and have a regular conversation about it.

Because that balance isn't static either. As the team gets better and better, it requires you to adjust the balance.

Tough Love, Strong Teams

Currently refreshing my memory on Radical Candor by Kim Scott. These quotes are amazing:

The best way to keep superstars happy is to challenge them and make sure they are constantly learning.

As you probably know, for every piece of subpar work you accept, for every missed deadline you let slip, you begin to feel resentment and then anger. You no longer just think the work is bad: you think the person is bad. This makes it harder to have an even-keeled conversation. You start to avoid talking to the person at all.

Trust Over Control

Most people think leadership is about control. They assume great leaders are the ones who tell people what to do, make all the calls and keep everyone in line.

That's outdated thinking.

The best leaders don't control. They share context & intent, inspire, empower and trust their teams to make mistakes.

Control stifles. Trust unleashes potential.

Impact Over Firefighting

Bad leaders like convenience over value.

They push those who make their lives easier - small tasks, fire drills and ego bosts. Problem solvers, whose work eliminates chaos, go unnoticed because their success erases the memory of the problem itself.

Leaders fear losing their “firefighters” more than those who ensure a fire never starts. The latter rarely gets rewarded.

You join a team meeting and just listen.

The team is in control - they cover the options, ask thoughtful questions and share feedback.
You watch them gelling, getting in the flow.
They are considering all the right angles: customer, business and tech.
The conversation moves naturally. They are calm and focused.

They don't even need you there and it feels amazing!

Leadership Doesn’t Need an App

You don't need a fancy tool to manage your team.

Complex software won't fix miscommunication or misalignment. Tools often distract, leading to over-documentation, micromanagement and wasted focus on processes over outcomes.

Management is clarity. Set expectations, align on what's important and build trust with open, honest conversations. Keep the focus where it belongs - on the work itself.

Cultivate and Cut

Leadership thrives on creating fertile ground for growth. The right conditions allow potential to flourish, much like farming.

Not every seed yields the harvest you expect. Some turn out to be weeds, others the wrong crop for the soil. Identifying and addressing those misfits is just as critical as nurturing the right ones. Leadership isn't just about cultivating - it's about culling when necessary.

Growth depends on balance. The wrong elements choke the good ones but thoughtful pruning strengthens the whole.