Managing Potential Podcast

Managing Potential Podcast: Houra Amin - Consider the Shadow You Cast As a Manager

• Daniel Taylor

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In this energising and thought‑provoking episode, Houra Amin dives into one of the most overlooked truths of leadership: every manager casts a shadow. Whether you realise it or not, your tone, your clarity, your confidence, and even your hesitations ripple outwards and shape the people around you.

Houra reflects on why getting your impact right isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s the heartbeat of great leadership. She explores how your shadow can either stretch your colleagues into their potential or unintentionally shrink their ambition. And she makes a powerful case for why clarity isn’t just helpful, it’s transformative. 

When people know what you expect, what you believe in, and what you see in them, they rise.

Expect an upbeat, inspiring conversation filled with practical insights on:

• How to become more conscious of the shadow you cast
• Why clarity is the most generous gift you can give your team
• What it really means to stretch someone in a way that empowers, not overwhelms
• How small shifts in your behaviour can create big shifts in others

This is a warm, uplifting reminder that leadership isn’t about perfection — it’s about intention. And when you get intentional about your impact, you unlock the best in yourself and everyone around you.

If you’re ready to lead with more purpose, more positivity, and more stretch, this episode will light the way.

Connect with Houra on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/houraamin/

Here are the links, as discussed in the podcast:

Each week, join Daniel Taylor, L&D expert, coach and management / leadership development professional, as we sit down with seasoned managers to deconstruct their greatest breakthroughs, their toughest challenges, and the life lessons they’ve gathered along the way. If you’re looking to turn talent into performance, you’re in the right place.

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to a podcast so you don't miss the launch episode and to join our community. 

Want more? Visit ManagingPotentialPodcast.com to sign up for our newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox.

Copyright: ManagingPotentialPodcast.com 2026. 

Welcome to Managing Potential, is the podcast where we go behind the scenes with the world’s most impactful leaders. 

Each week, join Daniel Taylor, L&D expert, coach and management / leadership development professional, as we sit down with seasoned managers to deconstruct their greatest breakthroughs, their toughest challenges, and the life lessons they’ve gathered along the way. If you’re looking to turn talent into performance, you’re in the right place.

Want more? Visit ManagingPotentialPodcast.com to sign up for our newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox.

Welcome to Managing Potential, is the podcast where we go behind the scenes with the world’s most impactful leaders. 

Each week, join Daniel Taylor, L&D expert, coach and management / leadership development professional, as we sit down with seasoned managers to deconstruct their greatest breakthroughs, their toughest challenges, and the life lessons they’ve gathered along the way. If you’re looking to turn talent into performance, you’re in the right place.

Want more? Visit ManagingPotentialPodcast.com to sign up for our newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Managing Potential, the podcast where we go behind the scenes with the world's most impactful leaders. Each week we sit down with a season manager to deconstruct their greatest breakthroughs, their toughest challenges, and the life lessons they've gathered along the way. So if you're looking to turn talent into performance, you are in the right place. I'm Daniel Taylor, a coach and management and leadership developer, and this week I'm joined by Hura Amin, who has a background working for major blue chip companies, including HSBC and GSK, and she now runs her own learning and development business called Blue J Learning, where she is a learning and development strategist using behavioural science as the diagnostic approach so she can link behavioural shift with improvements in business metrics. Hura, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Hello Danielle. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00

Absolute pleasure. Pleasure, and it's great to see you today. Can you tell me more about you and what you're up to today?

SPEAKER_01

It's lovely to see you too. So, yeah, as you brilliantly mentioned, and thank you for that lovely introduction. I run Blue J Learning Consultancy. And what I do is basically help people leaders who want their development investment actually shows up in how people work, how they decide and lead. And to do that, I use insights from behavioral science to designer strategies and programs, where the starting point is always the business. I never start with the training per se. It's always about linking people development investments to business performance and growth. So what I do is I look at which metrics matter most and are underperforming. And then I work backwards, what behaviors actually need to change to shift those numbers and what's genuinely getting in the way of those behaviors. And that context shapes everything. What we design, how we deploy it, and crucially how we measure things. And the reason why I work that way is that you can actually see what changed. It's not about how many people attended or if people love the training or learning experience or not. It's all about whether the behavior moved and whether the metrics that mattered most followed. On a personal note, I think you can imagine that the name Blue Jay was not really accidental. I absolutely love nature, I love traveling. And I must confess my knowledge of birds is almost zero. So don't read too much into it. But I get a lot of, yeah, it's it's it's that sort of thing that I just get a lot of energy from being in the in the nature. Um, yeah, and these sort of things.

SPEAKER_00

Love that. And it's yeah, it's it's a great way to to name your company after your passion and your interest. So uh that that's just just perfect. And I think listening to your your business approach, it's the crucial thing of that. I think many learning development people try to focus on that almost that return on investment. And it's such a hard thing to define, and it's almost like the holy grail almost. It's it's what we're all after. So the fact that that is you know the the absolute center of your organization is is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you. It it's actually really important for me. I'm an entrepreneur, it it matters to me everything we do in the business, so I can understand why different uh business stakeholders within even larger, large organizations care about things that really shift the metrics that are important to them.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Out of interest, is there any common threads that you you see um being focused on in terms of the you know the those business metrics or the or the changes that you're looking at?

SPEAKER_01

It really varies depending on the type of problem they're working on. So I think it what is really important is always to start the conversations with the relevant business stakeholders to see what matters to them. But some things that come up could be retention, it could be some form of productivity, and that can mean different things to different um, let's say, business units in terms of the KPIs that matter to them most, that the outcomes that they need to show at the leadership level, they could change. It's always about uh, I would say, at the end of the day, saving money, managing risks, uh, managing reputational risks, and we know that compliance also is a theme. So it's it's all around that.

SPEAKER_00

Fantastic. Um, I think there's a great lesson there for managers who are listening to uh today's podcast and uh and and trying to link what they are achieving or focusing on and linking it right back to the business metrics, not just of the organization, but of your team, your department, and and really trying to align those. So it's yeah, there's a great life lesson there. So thank you for that. Um, talking about managers, what sorts of manager were you?

SPEAKER_01

It's a very interesting question for me. As a solo business owner, my case is a little bit different. I manage projects, I manage clients, I manage suppliers, or let's say partners. So it's different to that classic line of line management situation in the sense that I am in situations where I have to get results through people that I have no formal authority over. There is no annual reviews, there is no traditional hierarchy, you just have to create the conditions for people and for yourself to do good work. And the interesting thing about it is it taught me very quickly that that formal authority that exists in line management can actually sometimes be a shortcut that hides some issues, some problems. To give you an example, I remember I was working with a freelancer on a project with a very tight deadline, and something wasn't moving. My immediate instinct was to push harder because we had a deadline, we had to meet the deadline, and obviously I wanted to be a reliable partner. So it was really important to keep everything on track. But when I had a very honest and proper conversation with the freelancer, it turned out the brief was not clear enough for them. And they didn't want to flag it only because they felt if they did flag it, they wouldn't look competent enough. So they had this kind of psychological safety going on out there, and that honest conversation really changed things and made them feel safer psychologically to ask for clarification earlier. So I would say for me, management is less about control and it is more about understanding, more about clarity, and I'm really emphasizing that clarity. It is key. How well can I do it? I mean, I think that's a question to ask others who are working with me for feedback, but I can say that I definitely try, I do my best to do that. And the things that I keep thinking is what does this person need to need to do their best work? Uh, what is getting in their way? How can they trust me to say when things are not going well or there is a problem there? Yeah and I try to be really deliberate about it. Um, you know, I've really learned it the hard way through many, many mistakes. Uh the thing is, I know that there are so many things that stress people, especially these days. And I try to do my bit, even if it's a very small thing, that the things that I can control to try not to add to that a stress level. And it's the same whether I'm working with clients or partners or suppliers, at least that that's that's a uh thinking that I have.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know what? I I think that that's so important because that I've been in the in a very similar position, uh, and I I personally class indirect line management as being one of the harder uh ways to manage people because you don't have that position to say I'm the line manager, um, or there is a process to back it up. Um, you are absolutely doing this through uh building relationships and connecting with people, and it's it's a challenge, but has so many you know great benefits if you if you're getting it right, and it sounds like you are, and I don't think there's many people who turn up deliberately going, I want to to have a bad day, or you know, uh be difficult. So understanding why uh you said the um almost like the those barriers are there and what why they are struggling is is so so important.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. I love how you put it, Daniel. I think everybody, everybody wants to be great, everyone wants to be the best version of themselves. If they are not, there's something going on. It's that understanding, that empathy that can help us uh lead differently.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Yeah, absolutely, totally agree. Um so, with that then in mind, how do you develop, I guess, though those people that you're working with, which again comes with that that challenge where you don't have that that direct line management. So, how are you developing them and helping them to realize their potential?

SPEAKER_01

I think one of the most important things is to understand what inspire what inspires people. If we can find what inspires them and then help them find situations to stretch their muscles a little bit more every day, to practice what whatever it is they want to achieve, give them those opportunities. This is this is the thread that uh this is the value that I see, even for for my own development. I try to do that. Is what is it something that is inspiring and a little bit difficult, not too hard that will burn you out or stop you, but not too easy that changes nothing. It's finding that balance and finding that inspiration that can help others as well.

SPEAKER_00

So, a difficult question then. What is inspiring you at the moment?

SPEAKER_01

Ooh, so many things. I'd say understanding the business, understanding what really matters to business and being more financially literate is something that inspires me at the moment. This is something that I'm really focusing on to because this is one of those things that we get a lot of criticism, maybe in LD that we're not very commercially um, let's say, sound. So this is something that really inspires me because, like I said, it is relevant to me as a business owner, and I can see the relevance in clients' work as well.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Um I think sometimes it depending on on the organization you're working in, and I guess the exposure, and you picked it up on there in terms of learning and development, you might not always have the exposure to the bottom line, that sort of business um metric. So sometimes it's it's rethinking how you can get that knowledge and and awareness. Uh, and for somebody who's maybe developing, being a trustee is a great way to get that experience. So you're you're getting the experience from an alternative method, which you can then bring back into your day job because you now suddenly have awareness of staffing costs or whatever else it might be.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And earlier we we talked about building relationships. Uh, it was about kind of managing people, but I think building relationships within the business in this case can help a lot as well to understand what is it that keep business owners or let's say business stakeholders um awake at night. What is it that they are really worried about? They want to shift to to make them feel better about the work they do as well, because they want to look better in the leadership conversations that they have. So I think it all comes down to helping others look better at their job.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's a really good way to put it. And that question, I think, is a really useful one. Uh, again, I'm thinking of maybe you know, the listeners now are thinking about what they could take away and having that question you can go to senior leaders, your leader. What keeps you up at night? What's that thing that's that's nagging worry? And if you know that and you're you're then positioning your work towards that, and help that really allows you to align one with your team, the business, and the hopefully the wider organization.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

So you mentioned that you you've had some learnings throughout your time. So, what was your biggest learning experience as a manager?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's a difficult one, and it just stays with me forever. I was working with a team of junior designers, and I knew from the start that they didn't have all the skills needed for that specific project we were working on. But I made a deliberate choice to work with them, and I had my reasons because I wanted to give them an opportunity to grow and have better career prospects. And at the time, I thought I was really prepared to support them to deliver the best work. We did deliver the best work, it was a very good, high-quality work, but that almost killed me. The intention was there. We had I really had a good intention, but the reality of the project and the time pressures didn't match that intention at all. And what I did, I defaulted to efficiency. So it was me giving very direct feedback, focused entirely on what needed to move, what needed to improve. And I ended up redoing a lot, a lot of work myself because I knew that they'd um hit their limit, they hit their capacity and couldn't do more. And at the time, I really, really thought I was being helpful. But what I was actually uh doing was I was it was kind of demoralizing them. I was not realizing it, but it was very demoralizing. And yeah, the painful thing is two out of five people decided to leave. And that was really, I said, it was very painful. What I hadn't hadn't done was to audit the gap very carefully at the beginning, not just in terms of the skill gaps, but how much pressure they could realistically absorb while they were learning and they they were expected to do the job as well. And I've been focused on improvement so much that I'd forgotten to acknowledge that what they were doing was heroic. They were doing really their best, and they needed some acknowledgement to say that look, you're doing really well. So I think I was not very generous with that, let's say, side of feedback. And that was a lesson I learned that good intentions without that understanding can really create a stress for everyone, including including myself in that situation. I still believe in giving people opportunities who are not the obvious winners. I believe that we really need to always help and support each other to grow. Otherwise, if you only invest in the already thriving ones, we just widen inequality. But what I learned is that belief really has to be paired with honesty about what is realistic. Yeah, otherwise, you end up letting people down.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's it's really insightful how that life lesson, and you know, you said it's it stayed with you, it was very painful, and I I can see um the passion as you you're talking then. I think sometimes things happen for a reason, and there was an immense learning opportunity. So, Gary Butterfield, who was our previous guest on the podcast, gifted a question to yourself. So his question was, What do you know now but you wished you knew when you started your career? Which is a great question.

SPEAKER_01

It is a great question. So thank you, Gary, if you hear me. We talked about building relationships earlier, yes, and I would say um I wish I knew how important it was to build relationships before you need them very early on. The thing is, when you are running your own business, it's really easy to get completely absorbed in the work, especially as a one-person operation. You get busy, you go heads down, and relationship building quietly fades away. Not that you want to do it, but it just happens. And it is ironic because it's probably the thing that opens the most doors. And I've had really some very good opportunities come from people I spoke to years before there was any obvious reason to stay in touch. And I've also felt the absence of it when I needed support or a new perspective, and I realized that I'd been really operating in a kind of a bubble. And I think it it applies as much even in in-house. The more varied our relationships across different functions, levels, industries, the more lenses we can have on any problem. You just think better when you're not only surrounded by the people who already see things the way you do.

SPEAKER_00

Couldn't agree more, and I think there's also that that uh diversity lens as well. So if we we add in alternative voices, which in you never whichever way you want to take that, is is those those alternative voices, um is is so important to sort of broaden your your knowledge and your your awareness. Um one in terms, like saying in terms of an organization, if you're um speaking to people across the business, that sort of diversity of of range of opinions and and um uh uh knowledge and insights is so valuable and important, and you can help it will help you later on. I really like that that phrasing, you know, build relationships before you need them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely agree. And the diversity you mentioned is is amazing, and I think it it helps us be less divided as well.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for that. Great uh great answer, and you get to give the gift now to the next podcaster. So, what's your question?

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you for that. My question is uh is a bit more reflective, okay, probably, and it is about assumptions. My question is what is the most expensive assumption you've ever made about people? And it could be about a specific individual, a team, or people in general. What is some some assumption you made that really costs you?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that is a great question. And if the if you're listening to this now, I'd I'd challenge people to just reflect on that and go, oh, that particular one was that was tough. And especially if you then start to build the costs around it, and I guess then what the learning is. Oh wow, yeah. Brilliant question. Thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_01

Um thank you.

SPEAKER_00

We now move into our quick five questions. Um, we'll rattle through these and be good to get you your gut feels um and good responses to the questions. So we'll start off with book recommendation.

SPEAKER_01

There are loads of books I would love to recommend. It was a bit difficult for me to pick. One. But the one I picked is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It's a great read if you work with people. It completely changes how you see decision making, your decision making and everybody else's. The short version is we rely a lot on mental shortcuts. We are influenced by framing, by what we've just seen, by how tired we are. And knowing that is really, really helpful to understand why people do what they do and how we can influence them to do things differently.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's going on my um my book list. So thank you very much for that. Um, would you suggest one to follow on LinkedIn, other than yourself, obviously?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you. That was so kind, Daniel. Thank you. Well, again, like the book, there are loads of people I would love to recommend. You get to choose one, so I stick to that. So, one of these amazing people is Liz Wiseman. She talks about leaders who amplify the intelligence around them versus those who accidentally shut it down. And she posts regularly. A lot of her posts are very thought-provoking, very applicable, and I find them quite honest. I love I love the posts, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, definitely going to check out Liz as well. And I'll make sure all these links are in the show notes. So thank you for this. Um, what's your favorite quote? Do you have one?

SPEAKER_01

I do have a favorite quote, and I say that to everyone. It's actually by Robert Persiggs, and it's from the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. If a factory is torn down, but the rationality that produced it is left intact, that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a government, but the systemic patterns that created that government remain unchanged, those patterns will repeat themselves. And this is something that I think about uh all the time, both in my work and um also in my life. But the it it's pretty much that. If you don't change the system, the same problems just recreate themselves.

SPEAKER_00

Great quote, and it it links to all the ones that I've I've heard in in different ways, but I think that one's so deep and meaningful, and it's it's true, but you have to fix the system, yeah. Absolutely, thank you for that. Okay, so can you tell us about your best interview question?

SPEAKER_01

I can do, but I would like to start with those kind of unhelpful questions, if that's okay with you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's yeah, it's a funny thing because there are some type of questions that I consider limiting questions. You know, those sort of things when they ask you if you've done exactly this role before or have you managed this specific type of project before. These type of questions are quite limiting because they screen out a lot of transferable thinking and skills, and they actually unwantedly they reward people who have simply done the same thing repeatedly over and over again somewhere else. They don't really reward curiosity or people who want to experiment with new things. Now, for me, a better question is something along the lines of tell me about something that wasn't working, and then you have to figure out why before you could fix it. And I like that because the answer to that question tells you whether someone jumps to solutions straight away or feels comfortable and can stay curious with the problem. And we know that in our world, this is one of the most important instincts or skills, let's say, that we can have.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely agree. And I think that that transferable nature is so valuable, so important, and I think leads people away from you know, certain you need certain skills, or try and put people in a box, and and just look at the transferable nature of people's experience, knowledge, lived experiences, all of that, and and really try and uh pick up on that. So, yeah, totally agree with you uh on that point. So, the last question, and sometimes it is the hardest question as well for many, which is what song describes you best?

SPEAKER_01

I absolutely love this question. It was hard and it was easy at the same time because my mind just went to so many different songs, but then I think I established with one that I resonate with a lot, and that's um Iron the Sky by Paolo Nicene. Um, it has this really great extraordinary line um kind of underneath it. This is from the um Charlie Chaplin's final speech from The Great Dictator, and it's all about hope, it's all about freedom in a dystopian world of fear and greed. I'm from Iran, so it resonates on a very, very personal and deep level, especially these days, as you can imagine. So I absolutely love this song, and I really recommend you to have a listen.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know what? I'm gonna do that immediately after this uh podcast record. Um I I think that is a great way to finish uh the recording about focusing on hope and freedom, and that that's a great way to end. So a huge thank you uh for being uh my guest today, and I hope you've enjoyed the recording.

SPEAKER_01

I love this. Yeah, thank you so much, and and really appreciate you having me for this recording. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Absolute pleasure. And if you've enjoyed today's conversation, hit the subscribe button to join our community. And if you want more, visit managingpotential podcast.com to sign up for our newsletter and get regular leadership insights delivered straight to your inbox. And until next time, have a great day.