Breaking the Circle for Leaders
Breaking the Circle for Leaders is the podcast for frustrated middle managers who feel stuck in the same patterns, working harder but getting the same results, as stress builds. In each episode, Jon Manning, author of Emotional Intelligence Unleashed, draws on 25 years of operational management experience at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Greggs, among others, to explore why conversations spiral, why teams resist change, and why the pressure never seems to let up. Not theory. Not corporate training. Real stories, practical tools, and small shifts in thinking that make Monday mornings feel different.
Episodes
8 episodes
EP08 Catching Thieves Was Never the Point
I once took over a restaurant for a colleague who was going on maternity leave. Lunchtimes were properly busy. Tables full, buffet orders going out one after another. It looked like a place making decent money.The system didn't agree. I'...
EP07 Why You Rule Yourself Out Before Anyone Else Gets the Chance
A few years ago I was sat with a coaching client in her early twenties. She'd just moved to a new company, and she'd gone in as a supervisor.What made that odd is what she'd been doing before. Her manager had been off sick for about six ...
EP06 - When You've Stopped Trying With Your Manager
I used to do unannounced Sunday visits, four or five times a year, to see what things really looked like when there weren't many managers about. One Sunday I got up, got ready, drove there on autopilot, pulled into the car park and just sat the...
EP05 - Why Your Team Says Everything's Fine When It Isn't
When I was eighteen I raced a Mini on grass tracks. A mate of mine looked after the engine, and every so often he'd ask me the same question. Is it running fine?And I'd say yes. Every time.I wasn't lying to him. I genuinely couldn...
EP04 The Meeting That Changed Everything
I was at Greggs, managing daily fresh product into around five hundred shops across London and the South East. Hundreds of lines, thousands of decisions a week. Then the company restructured and a new operations director arrived.Every we...
EP03 The Label You've Been Carrying Since You Were a Kid
I bought a bag of wonky potatoes because they were cheaper. Got them home, cut one open, and inside it was exactly the same as any other potato. The only thing anyone had ever judged was the outside.That got me thinking about a label of ...
EP02 I Was Doing Three Jobs and Still Didn't Get Promoted
At twenty three I was running the bar at a hotel. Then the food and beverage manager left, so I picked that up. Then reception landed on me as well. I was living in, working six days a week, and holding the whole operation together.And w...
