I can’t count how many people have cried in my presence. It’s not just women. It’s men too .. in fact it’s more often men. It’s young people, old people, experienced and inexperienced leaders … everyone. Their shame is all but immediate ‘I’m so sorry for crying”. But I’m not sorry.

Every time I post on LinkedIn about how management is only required in the absence of true leadership, someone will pipe up with the same seemingly-smart yet unknowingly-ignorant comment, something like: “You can’t just have one, you always need a combination of both, appropriate for the situation”

When I first started teaching Unmanaged leadership, I saw leaders deny something repeatedly. Even the most experienced CEOs, the most ‘emotionally intelligent’ and the most well-qualified people leaders were in confident denial of this one thing.

I was chatting to my friend Kate (a primary school teacher) recently about parent-teacher interviews - and I was shocked when she told me the conversations with the challenging children’s parents are consistently not about the child. They’re about the parents, and their inability to say no to their children.

Sometimes, a smart-sounding concept goes way too far. 'Psychological safety' is one of those. A convenient label for the most inconvenient aspect of business - emotions.

Leading people has a bad rap. Most people think it's hard. In fact it's become widely accepted that leadership is hard. The reality is, leading people isn't hard - but managing people is, and most CEOs don't even know the difference. Leading people is surprisingly easy.

CEOs repeatedly say they value emotional intelligence.

But the moment emotion might actually show up, they shut it down.

I don’t think I'd ever tell any of my old bosses this. But my lack of confidence affected the results I generated, more than anyone would know. My surprising superpower was hiding my deeply seated lack of self-belief.

At the tender yet still very-much-an-adult age of 37 I was broken. Severely burnt out, newly separated, two young kids, wondering how I would ever work again.

I'm a dedicated reader of LinkedIn but like most social media, I've forgotten most of what I read as soon as I leave. Except this one post last week. It went something like this: