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 your energy when the calendar owns you, and what to do when resistance surfaces and certainty refuses to arrive.

We start with identity after a career shift. Lois shares how to anchor in personal values, gather honest feedback, and turn strengths into a living leadership brand that travels with you from big orgs to builder mode. 

From there, we get tactical about energy management: boundary-setting without guilt, diary audits that reclaim focus, and the mindset shift that treats capacity as a strategic asset. The conversation then moves to resistance to change how to decode the signal, speak uncomfortable truths about trade-offs, and motivate through a vivid, human-centered why. We don’t sugarcoat it: sometimes fair exits are leadership too.

Uncertainty gets a reality check next. We explore resilience and flexibility as core capabilities, making good enough calls with incomplete information, and modeling steadiness so teams can take their cues from you. 

We challenge the people-pleasing trap and replace it with clarity, consistency, and standards that actually lift wellbeing. Finally, we dig into leading across organizational boundaries during continual transformation becoming a connector, building trust across functions, and naming the constants that keep teams grounded while everything else moves.

If this sparked a question or a challenge you want us to explore, reach out at loisburtononline.com. If you found value here, subscribe, share it with a leader who needs it today, and leave a quick review so more forward thinking leaders can find us.

You can check out further details on my websites:

https://www.loisburtononline.com/

https://www.loisburton.co.uk/

email:  lois@loisburtononline.com

Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries 

Transcript

Rebuilding Your Leadership Identity

Values, Feedback, And Strengths As Anchors

Energy Management And Boundaries

Auditing The Calendar With Courage

Handling Resistance To Change

Motivation Through Honest Vision

Leading Through Continual Uncertainty

You Can’t Keep Everyone Happy

Addressing Underperformance With Clarity

Leading Across Organizational Boundaries

Closing Thanks And Podcast Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to Leadership Horizons. I'm Lois Burton and today we've got something really special. This is our anniversary, our Ask Me Anything anniversary episode, and I'm really excited about recording this one. You've sent in some brilliant questions, thank you so much. So let's get going. So, first question: Rebuilding your leadership identity. And the question is: how do you rebuild your leadership identity when you step away from a long career to build something of your own? This question really does touch me deeply because I've lived it, although it was a while ago. But when you step away from an organization where you've had a clear role, a title, a structure, a team, you're suddenly in a very different landscape. And for a lot of leaders, that initial period can feel surprisingly disorienting. I remember it well. Because your identity has been so interwoven with what you did and where you did it that stepping away can feel like losing a part of yourself. So the first thing I want to say is that that feeling is completely normal. It's not weakness, it's transition. And in my experience, the leaders who navigate it best are the ones who get curious about it rather than scared by it. What I've found both personally and through coaching hundreds of leaders in this situation is that rebuilding your identity starts with getting really clear on your values. Not the organization's values, yours. What do you stand for and what do you stand against? Because when the external scaffolding falls away, your values first and foremost become your anchor. They become the foundation of your new brand. Feedback can also really help at this stage. Find a few trusted people and ask them who they see when they think of you. Not your organisational role, but you. What did they see as your leadership brand? And ask them what are the moments when you have impacted them as a leader and why. It's great to get these perspectives about how you've impacted others, as your leadership identity as opposed to your organizational role will not leave you when you leave the organisation because it's you. And this also helps enormously to reconnect with what you're genuinely good at, not just technically, but in terms of how you impact people. Again, your strengths don't disappear when you change your context, they come with you. And when you build something of your own, you get to leave from those strands every single day. So my invitation to you is gather that feedback and then sit with this question. Who am I as a leader and how will I demonstrate this when I start a new chapter? The answer is richer than you think. Again, don't forget, you don't leave you. You take you with you. So our second question is a question that I work with people with almost every time I have a coaching session. This comes up in some way or shape or form. How do you manage your energy when your diary is stacked and there's very little room for manoeuvre? As I said, it comes up constantly in my coaching work, and I mean constantly. Senior leaders are running on empty and yet the diary keeps filling. So what do we do? The first thing that we have to challenge is the idea that there is no room for manoeuvre. In my experience, there almost always is, but it requires boundary setting. And I know that word makes some leaders uncomfortable, especially those who built their reputation on being available and responsive. But here's the truth: if you don't set boundaries, someone else will determine those boundaries for you. And boundaries are not barriers, they're a declaration of what matters most. They're how you protect your capacity to lead well. And you can't pour from an empty vessel. I know that sounds like a cliche, but I've been with exhausted leaders who've forgotten why they love their job and why they love learning and why they loved leading. And I promise you it's not a cliche. Practically speaking, audit your diary with fresh eyes and maybe get someone else to do this with you. I've sat with my coaches and we've audited their diary together. Ask yourself, what in here is genuinely mine to do? What could be delegated? What could be declined? What meetings am I attending out of habit rather than necessity? Even carving out 30 minutes a day that's non-negotiably yours for thinking, for walking, for breathing, can fundamentally shift your energy. And remember, energy management isn't self-indulgent. We talk about this on the Leading with Resilience course. Energy management is a strategic leadership capability. Protect it. Third question: handling resistance to change. Again, this is one that comes up a lot. How do you handle resistance to change and keep your team motivated? Resistance to change is one of the most misunderstood phenomena in leadership. Leaders often experience it as a problem to be overcome or even as disloyalty. But resistance almost always has a message in it. People resist when they feel unheard, uncertain, or when the change threatens something they value. The most effective thing you can do initially is to get curious before you get directive. Ask questions: what is it about this change that concerns you? What are you worried about losing? When you do that and when you genuinely listen, you do often unlock the resistance itself because people feel seen. Now, there will be times when you actually can't solve the problem that is creating the resistance. Because although resistance often is about feeling unheard, the change may threaten, genuinely threaten something that somebody values. And you won't be able to tell them that it doesn't. Because it's important that you tell the truth at this stage as well. So this comes on to the next part, and it helps with the motivation as well. People need to understand why, not just the what, the vision needs to be vivid, compelling, and personal. What does this change make possible for them, for their team, or for the people they serve? Connect the change to the purpose and connect it to why you need that change. And again, you might you might find that people are still resisting because although there are possibilities, they still feel that they're losing something they value. And this is where you actually have to accept that if they choose to stay in resistance, that is their choice. And then you have to think about different situations and different strategies. And that might be maybe helping them to exit. Not always, but there are times when it may be helping them to exit. Because if somebody is saying, This change is just too hard for me, even though I can see the why, even though I understand that it's important to make the change, I don't want to change. And that is a really difficult problem. Because when people genuinely don't want to change, that's when the resistance, the only message is in there is actually you don't fit here anymore, then if you're not prepared to go with the change. Now, this obviously still has to be handled with fairness, it has to be handled professionally. Um, and you do everything you can to get them on board before it comes to that. But there are times when the best thing that can happen is that somebody leaves. And I know that's a hard message. Change is hard, but leaders who walk alongside their people through it, rather than pushing them from behind, build the kind of teams that can handle whatever comes next. And our fourth question is connected. How do you lead through continual uncertainty? Okay, so I want to say something that might feel uncomfortable or counterintuitive. Stop waiting for certainty. It isn't coming. We must be honest about this, both with ourselves and our teams. In my experience, the leaders who thrive are not the ones who have all the answers or who give the comfortable answer that all things will settle down in a little while. They're the ones who are honest and the ones who build resilience and flexibility in themselves and in their teams as core capabilities. Resilience isn't about being unaffected by uncertainty. It's about being able to move through it, recover quickly, and keep functioning. And flexibility is the partner of resilience. The ability to adapt your thinking, your approach, your plans when the landscape shifts. Practically, this means building your capacity to tolerate ambiguity, to make good enough decisions with imperfect information, to communicate honestly with your team even when you don't have all the answers, and to model the equanimity you want to see in others. Your team takes their emotional cues from you. If you can hold the uncertainty with steadiness and purpose, they can too. One of the things I truly stand against is the comfortable myth that if we just get through this bit, things will settle. And the idea that we can somehow duck or avoid the change and make it make make it make it not real, kick the can down the road far enough so it doesn't impact us or our teams. Continual uncertainty is the new normal. Build for it rather than waiting for it to pass. Question five. This is a really interesting one. So thank you so much for whoever sent it in. How can you keep everyone in your team happy? And I'm going to be really direct again with this with you on this one. You can't. And if you're trying to, I gently invite you to examine why. Because the desire to keep everyone happy is one of the most common traps I see leaders fall into, and it costs them enormously. Your job as a leader is not to keep everyone happy. Your job is to be clear about your expectations, your values, to lead with fairness, transparency and respect, and to create the conditions in which people can do their best work. When you're crystal clear about what you stand for, what standards you hold, people know where they stand. That clarity is a gift, even when it's uncomfortable. You can, and of course you should, respect the values of others, but you're not responsible for whether they choose to align with yours. Some people will thrive in your team, some won't, and that's okay. The leaders who try to be all things to all people end up being little value to anyone. Lead with integrity, be consistent, be human. That will create more genuine well-being in your team than any attempt to keep everyone happy ever could. Question six. Addressing underperforming team members. This is where leadership courage really comes in. Because the most common thing I see when a leader has an underperforming team member is avoidance, hoping things will improve, reassigning work quietly, working around the problem. And I understand why. These conversations are uncomfortable and nobody enjoys them. And some of you will work in contexts where it's actually really difficult to performance manage people. However, leaving someone to drift without addressing the problem is one of the most unfair things you can do, both to them and to your wider team. It sends a message to everyone that standards are negotiable. And it denies the person the opportunity to understand what's expected, to change, and to succeed. So the approach that I always took, and the approach I work with my coaches on is clarity and fairness. Be very clear about what the performance issue is. Specific, observable, and factual. And be very clear about what good looks like. And again, specific, observable, and factual. Create a genuine opportunity for the person to understand, to engage and to improve, and then hold the standard. Don't move the goalposts and don't let it slide. Done with compassion and clarity. These conversations are often turning points, not just for performance but for relationships and trusts. So we're coming to our final question today. Now, thank you again. These questions have been brilliant. So our final question is about leading across boundaries in continual transformation. So this question was how do you lead across organisational boundaries when there's continual transformation? We're always waiting for things to settle down. And as soon as one change is complete, there are several more bubbling up. This comes back to what I said earlier. This is so real, and so many leaders are living exactly this experience right now. And the first thing I want to say again is things are not going to settle down. I think you know this, you know this in your heart, but there's a bit you that still hopes they will. But the rate of change in organizations and in the world is accelerating, not decelerating. So if your strategy is to wait it out, and I say this with compassion, it may be time for a different strategy. Leading across boundaries in transformation requires you to be a connector, someone who can hold the bigger picture while those around you are focused on their own piece of the puzzle. It requires you to build relationships and trust across functions and hierarchies so that when things shift, you have a network that moves with you. It also requires you to be very clear about what stays constant even when everything else is changing. Your values, your team's purpose, the behaviors you expect of one another. These become the anchors that allow people to navigate the turbulence without losing their footing. Again, build for change, not for stability. The leaders who will thrive in the next decade are the ones who can help their teams become genuinely, genuinely change capable. Okay, so thank you so much again for those wonderful questions. And and thank you again for this year. Um I'm I'm so thrilled that you stayed with me. And for those of you on new, I'm so glad that you are with us. Um, this anniversary is a special moment. I'm genuinely moved by the quality of the thinking and the honesty of everything you sent in. As I said, the podcast will be changing in April, and I'm going to give you some specifics in the next couple of weeks. I'll be writing out to you and I'll be talking about it on the podcast as well. But we wouldn't be able to build on the success if we hadn't had the success, and that success is down to you. So, again, if today's spark something for you, if you're sitting with a question, an idea, a challenge you want to explore further, I'd love to hear from you because we can be picking this up in the new podcast. You can find me at loisburtononline.com and all the details are in the show notes. And if you're enjoying Leadership Horizon, please take a moment to subscribe, leave a leader review, or share this episode with a leader you know who might need to hear it. That's how we grow this community of forward thinking leaders together. Until next time, keep leading with courage, with clarity, and with your eyes firmly on the horizon. Thank you, and I'll see you next week.