Leadership Horizons
This podcast aims to help leaders understand current and future leadership trends and encourage leaders to explore their horizons and understand the skills that will help them become even more successful moving forward.
Welcome to Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership at its most transformative through two unique perspectives. I am Lois Burton, an executive coach and leadership development specialist and I've witnessed first hand how great leadership can transform organizations across sectors - from global corporations to public services, from manufacturing to the arts.
"Each week, I'll bring you either an in-depth conversation with a visionary leader who's redefining what's possible..."
"...or be inviting you to join me for focused explorations of critical leadership themes, where I'll share proven strategies and insights from my years of leadership development experience and research."
"Leadership Horizons, helping you to lead beyond boundaries -- Because the future of leadership knows no bounds. I'm looking forward to you joining me there"
Episodes
63 episodes
Farewell Leadership Horizons Hello Leadership Trailblazers
Leadership Trailblazers Trailerhttps://youtu.be/y0Rrk-vyKX4Something is ending and something bigger is beginning. Leadership Horizons reaches its final chapter, and I w...
Telling The Truth
Silence can feel “kind” in leadership, but it often lands as threat. When information is missing, people’s brains fill the gaps with worst-case stories, anxiety rises, and rumor mills do the talking. I’m unpacking why truth telling is no longer...
The Communication Edge
Communication is the leadership skill that quietly decides whether your strategy lands or dies on contact. After two decades coaching senior leaders and executive teams, I keep seeing the same pattern: the people who inspire action ...
Developing Leadership Credibility
Credibility can be rock solid with your team and strangely fragile with clients, partners, or industry stakeholders and it’s not because you’re “doing it wrong.” It’s because internal credibility and external credibility are built through diffe...
When Leaders Get Blamed - Navigating The Heat
Being the leader doesn’t always mean being the decision maker. Sometimes it means walking into a room, delivering news you didn’t choose, and watching disappointment turn into anger in real time. If you’ve ever felt like “the villai...
When Fear is in The Driving Seat
Fear is doing its job, but it can wreck your leadership if it takes the steering wheel. I’m Lois Burton, an executive coach, and I’m getting honest about what it looks like when leaders operate from threat mode. It’s rarely obvious....
Setting the Direction - Why Leadership Vision Changes
Your team can be full of smart, motivated people and still feel like they’re pushing hard in the dark. When direction is unclear, a kind of fog sets in: everyone stays busy, but alignment slips, energy drains into friction, and progress slows b...
AI and The Human Leader, Finding Your Irreplaceable Value
AI tools can now do in minutes what many leaders once took a week to deliver and that speed is making a lot of smart, experienced people quietly wonder what their job is for anymore. I start with a real coaching moment from a direct...
The Distinction Between Flexible Thinking and Indecision
What if the trait you’re proudest of staying open and thoughtful has been slowing your team to a crawl? We dig into the subtle yet costly confusion between flexible thinking and indecision, revealing why both can look similar from the outside b...
The Power of Calm
Pressure has a way of shrinking our thinking and speeding up our worst instincts. We unpack a practical way to lead through chaos without losing your head or your team’s trust. Drawing on coaching work with senior leaders across sec...
Leadership - Ask Me Anything Q&A Episode
The questions leaders are asking right now aren’t hypothetical they’re urgent, personal, and messy. We mark our anniversary with a candid Ask Me Anything that gets to the heart of modern leadership: who you are without the title, how to guard y...
Who Is In Your Corner?
What if the biggest driver of your leadership isn’t your strategy, but your circle? This week, Lois unpacks the quiet decision that shapes your confidence, creativity, and speed: who you keep closest when the stakes are high. ...
The Power of Self Regulation
Pressure doesn’t make diamonds if your nervous system is already in overdrive; it makes short fuses, foggy calls, and sleepless nights. We dig into the biology of leadership and show how stress quietly hijacks the prefrontal cortex, nudging sma...
The Power of Standing For and Against - Why Values Need Boundaries
Most leaders can list their values. Fewer can point to a tough moment where those values shaped a decision that cost something. We dig into the difference between website words and lived behavior, and why your team only trusts a value when they...
The Power of Letting Go
Feeling stretched thin but still trying to carry it all? Lois Burton makes the case for strategic letting go as the most underrated leadership skill and shows exactly how to do it without dropping the ball. We begin with a story of a high-perfo...
The Art of Adaptive Leadership - Strategic Commitment Meets Flexible Thinking
Strategy isn’t a tattoo; it’s a destination. The route you take should evolve as the map changes. We unpack the leadership paradox that trips up even seasoned executives: how to stay committed to a bold vision while adapting fast enough to win ...
Resilience Recap
Pressure can sharpen us or break us what separates the two is a leader’s system of resilience. We bring together the most useful lessons from a month of conversations and coaching to show how four pillars work in concert: regulating your nervou...
Authentic Leadership In 2026
The pressure to perform can quietly turn leadership into an exhausting act—polished slides, careful phrasing, and a persona crafted to satisfy what we think others expect. We pull back that curtain and talk honestly about the cost of the mask: ...
Setting Leadership Intentions That Stick
Resolutions fade because they lean on willpower; real change sticks when it starts with who we choose to be. We open the year by replacing frantic goal lists with identity-based leadership intentions, narrowing focus to what truly moves the nee...
Reviewing Your Leadership Year
The rush to close the year can drown out the one habit that multiplies growth: reflection. We press pause to turn a demanding 2025 into hard-won wisdom for 2026, sharing a practical framework you can complete in 30–45 minutes that transforms ex...
From Burnout to Breakthrough
Leadership shouldn’t feel like driving with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. When uncertainty stacks up and decisions never stop, your nervous system stays on high alert and your best thinking goes offline. We unpack what burnout...
The Power of Vulnerability with Guest Speaker Daniel Taylor
In this weeks episode we explore why selective vulnerability strengthens leadership and how trust turns honesty into performance. My guest this week is Daniel Taylor and he shares stories and tools leaders use to reduce isolation, b...
Your Leadership Questions Answered
Real leadership lives in the grey areas—where you don’t have perfect information, emotions run high, and the playbook doesn’t fit. We take audience questions head-on, from how to own mistakes without losing authority to navigating toxic culture...
Hybrid Working - The Leadership Challenge
Building Connection Across DistanceFeeling like you’re “leading ghosts” on Zoom while trying to keep culture alive across office days, home desks, and time zones? We dig into the real reason hybrid feels hard: it’s not a scheduling probl...