You’ve heard the term. Maybe a colleague mentioned it after a particularly rough quarter, or a board member brought it up during a conversation about your development. Someone you respect told you it changed how they lead, and you filed it away under things to look into when you have a moment. The moment hasn’t come. What executive coaching actually is tends to get lost…
You pressure-test your strategy before you commit to it. You stress-test your financials before you present them. You vet your hires before you make the offer. The thinking behind all of those decisions, the reasoning that shapes what you commit to, present, and offer, almost never gets the same scrutiny. Every major call you make starts as a thought that either gets properly examined before…
At some point in the last few years, your title started answering questions it was never meant to answer. Someone asks what you do and the title comes out before your name does. Someone asks how you’re doing and the answer maps to how the business is doing, as though the company’s health and yours are the same thing. The role has become the lens…
A decision has been on the table for weeks. The reports are in. The team has weighed in. Two board members have shared their perspective. A consultant ran the numbers from a different angle. A leadership workshop promised frameworks for exactly this situation. The decision still hasn’t been made. So the instinct kicks in: ask for more. Another analysis. Another opinion. Another data point that…
At some point, most senior leaders arrive at a version of the same private conclusion: I should be handling this better. The role is demanding, the weight is real, nobody around them seems to be carrying the same thing, and the simplest explanation is that they’re falling short somewhere. Maybe they need to be more strategic. Maybe they need to delegate better. Maybe they just…
You have 12 direct reports. A board that meets quarterly. A spouse who tries to understand. You still carry the hardest decisions alone. The gap is structural. Leadership teams are built for execution. Boards are built for governance. Neither is built for the moment where a CEO needs to think out loud about something that has no clear answer yet. The ambiguous, high-stakes, “I need…
Why Confidential Advisory Is a Governance Necessity Senior leadership is often described in terms of authority, influence, and decision making. The public picture shows confidence and control. The internal reality is more complex. Executives in Nairobi and across Kenya carry decisions that affect organisations, employees, investors, and sometimes entire markets. Those decisions require more than intelligence and experience. They require clear thinking under pressure, and…
An exit changes more than a balance sheet, it changes how a leader relates to themselves. For years your identity is tied to the role you hold whether you operate as the founder, the CEO, or the managing director; people look to you when the decision becomes difficult. Your calendar reflects that responsibility, your phone reflects it and the organisation reflects it. Then the title…
Earlier in your career, decisions had company. Your team weighed in. Your manager signed off. If something went sideways, the weight of it was distributed across people who had all been part of the process. You could point to a shared rationale. You could say “we decided” and mean it. Senior leadership doesn’t work like that. At a certain level, the structure narrows and accountability…
The Visibility Paradox I work with leaders whose days are saturated with people and conversations. (Hear me out.) As a leadership coach in Kenya, I see a pattern that repeats across industries and seniority levels. These leaders move from board meetings to investor briefings to internal reviews without meaningful pause. Their calendars are full weeks in advance, and their phones do not stay silent for…
