Leadership lessons I wish I knew earlier

Over the last 25 years in finance - more recently as CFO - one thing has become clear to me:

Leadership is not theory. It’s lived experience, tough decisions, and the patterns you only notice when you sit at the intersection of people, numbers and strategy.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on sharing a 10-part weekly series on some lessons I’ve learnt over the years — the kind you rarely read in management books but see every day inside real companies.

Here’s what the series will try to cover:

1️⃣ Trade-offs and decision making

2️⃣ The hidden cost of indecision

3️⃣ Why culture is really about incentives

4️⃣ Cross-functional trust and organisational speed

5️⃣ The danger of KPI-driven thinking

6️⃣ How great leaders communicate constraints

7️⃣ Crisis as the most honest performance review

8️⃣ The biases that sit in every boardroom

9️⃣ Resilience as optionality, not toughness

🔟 Why scaling requires stopping, not adding

My goal with this series is straightforward: To share the patterns, truths, and practical insights that I wish I knew earlier in my own journey.

I hope it adds value — whether you’re leading a team, growing a company, or working on your own leadership style.

First article published on Monday, 1st December.

Comments and discussion are always welcome.