A few months ago, I wrote about finding a lost phone on a train and returning it to its owner. What happened at that station that evening stayed with our family.

Last night, my husband’s phone was stolen from his car while we were visiting his mum.

Life can be funny sometimes. This time, we were on the other side of the story.

I kept asking the boys — why would anyone do that?

These are the same boys who heard a ringing phone on a train and went looking for its owner. And there I was, asking them a question I didn’t have an answer for myself.

My corporate hat went on almost straight away. Call the service company. Block the phone and the SIM. Check nothing else was taken. Then the practical problem — my husband had no phone for work the next day.

So I asked the boys, can Daddy borrow your tablet tomorrow, so we can at least reach him?

Yes, they said. And then my youngest added — I’ll tell my friends not to call in the afternoon.

They were in work mode too. We were all ready to go.

Losing a phone is hard enough these days — we rely on them for everything. But this has been a hard week for our family due to some family matters, and my husband has been coordinating things with the family. Of all the weeks to be without a phone.

Then this morning, after things had settled, I saw a note from my friend about gratitude. He asked — what are you grateful for this week?

And I couldn’t stop thinking about the person who took the phone.

Maybe they’re in need. Maybe they’re young and don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know. But I found I couldn’t stay angry.

When I returned that phone months ago, the owner told me he was shocked anyone would give it back. Now I understand his shock a little better. And I still believe what I told my boys then — you do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.

What I’m grateful for this week: we have family all around us. We were together when it happened. And we can simply go and get a new phone.

Some weeks teach you what matters. This was one of them.

A small note before I go — Chapter 2 of the Practical Leadership Series will be on hold this week. It will be back next week. Thank you for understanding.

Yeah, I know right.

Nobody teaches you how to lead. You just figure it out.

I remember when I first stepped into a manager role. I got the job because I was a good operator. My results were solid. My technical work delivered. And then suddenly there was a team. People reporting to me. Looking to me for direction from day one.

Something completely new.

And nobody handed me a manual.

Here is what people don’t tell you about that moment. The team doesn’t wait for you to be ready. You are learning the role, learning the organisation, understanding the processes, thinking about how to improve things — all while managing existing deliverables. And at the same time, your team is already watching you. Who is this new leader? How does she work? What does she care about? There were probably outstanding questions and support needed before you even walked in the door.

I knew early on that I had to make extra time for the team. Not because someone told me to. Because I could feel it. Trust doesn’t build itself. And without trust, nothing else works.

That instinct — to put the people first even before you feel ready — that was leadership. I just didn’t call it that at the time.

Being a boss and being a leader are two different things

Not everyone with a leadership title is actually leading.

I worked with someone once — by that point I was already a Director, twenty years of indirect tax experience behind me — and yet this person questioned my every output, wanted three or four pre-meetings before every client conversation, and once pulled me up for leaving five minutes early.

That is not leadership. That is control.

A boss manages output. A leader grows people. A boss protects their own authority. A leader builds the authority of everyone around them.

You probably already know this distinction. Most people do. You have likely worked under someone like that. And you knew — instinctively — something was wrong. That instinct is important. It means you already have a deeper understanding of leadership than you give yourself credit for.

What real leadership looks like up close

Early in my career I found myself in rooms with the most senior executives of a global organisation. I would call myself an introvert — still am. I was watching quietly.

What struck me was not their technical knowledge. It was something specific. They didn’t just speak to their direct reports — the Head of Tax, the Country Tax Lead. They went two levels down. They came directly to people like me. They wanted to know how I saw things. Where the opportunities were. What I felt about the work.

I was shocked the first time it happened. My boss had all the answers. But they wanted to understand how I saw things.

That stayed with me. Because what they were doing wasn’t just good management technique. They were telling me — without saying it directly — that my perspective had value. That I was seen. That is the kind of leadership that people remember long after you have left the building.

So what is leadership, really?

Here is how I think about it.

Leadership is leading with authority, empowering the people around you, and building the next generation to step into their full potential. It is a legacy of influence. Empowering the people you have the privilege to lead to become the best version of themselves.

For me, that legacy piece is everything. I want to be the kind of leader that even after I have left an organisation, someone will say — Liza, yes, she was a great leader. She taught me a lot. That is what I am working toward. Not the title. Not the recognition while I am in the room. The impact that outlasts my presence.

I believe that is what we are called to do — to serve the people in our care, to see them fully, to help them become more than they thought possible. That is not just good leadership. For me, it is a deeply held value.

Three things that actually move the needle

I did not close this gap through a training program. There was no program. I learned through real experience, honest feedback, and paying attention to the right things.

One — you have to want to lead. Really want it.

Not the title. Not the recognition. The actual work of developing people. There is a real difference between wanting to be seen as a leader and wanting to do the generous, sometimes uncomfortable work of genuinely growing the people around you.

Ask yourself honestly — which one am I after?

Two — pay close attention to how your team follows you.

Not whether they comply. Whether they genuinely follow. Do they come to you for guidance? Do they trust you with the things that are not going well? Do they grow in your presence or do they shrink?

I had three offshore managers once who worked well together for years. When one started undermining the others — forming alliances, eroding trust, pulling the quality of the whole team down — I gave him the benefit of the doubt for almost a year. I gave feedback. I gave encouragement. I tried to show him there was no need for that kind of competition. I wanted to be that nice person.

But enough time is enough time.

Eventually I had to make the hard call. Because protecting one person’s comfort was costing the whole team. Great leadership is not always warm and encouraging. Sometimes it requires boldness. Standing up for what is right even when it is uncomfortable. Even when you have been patient for a long time.

Three — find the leaders worth watching and learn from them deliberately.

Not to copy them. To understand what they are actually doing differently.

I had a boss I deeply admired — he is still a close friend and mentor. When I made a mistake, he never questioned me. He turned it into a learning opportunity and made sure we put processes in place so it wouldn’t happen again. That approach stayed with me. When I applied it with my own team, people were more motivated, more supported, more willing to bring me the hard things early.

That is what learning by proximity looks like. You watch, you absorb, you make it your own. And one day someone on your team is doing the same thing — watching you.

You already know more than you think

Before we go any further I want to say something directly.

You have been leading longer than you realise.

Every time someone looked to you for guidance and you helped them through something — that was leadership. Every time you stayed an extra ten minutes because a colleague was struggling — that was leadership. Every time you told a hard truth because it was the right thing to do — that was leadership.

You are not starting from zero. You are starting from somewhere real.

The gap is not proof that you are behind. It is proof that you are paying attention. And the fact that you are here, reading this, asking these questions — that already tells me something about the kind of leader you want to become.

Reflection questions

Sit with these before you move to Chapter 2 next week. There are no right answers. Just bring honesty.

1. What were you actually taught about leadership when you first stepped into a management role?

2. Think of a moment where you felt out of your depth as a leader. What was happening — and looking back, what did you actually do right? What would you have done differently?

3. Who taught you the most about leadership — and was it intentional, or did you learn it by watching?

4. Think of the worst leader you have worked under. You knew instinctively what they were doing wrong. Where did that knowledge come from?

5. What do the people around you come to you for — beyond the technical answers?

Your action prompt

Before you read Chapter 2 next week, take 15 minutes on your own.

Write down three words that describe your leadership style right now. Honest words, not aspirational ones. Then write down three words that describe the leader you want to become.

Sit with the gap between those two lists.

That gap is not a failure. It is your starting point. And it is exactly where this series begins.

Coming up in Chapter 2

We get into difficult conversations — the ones you have been putting off, the ones that keep you up at night. We will walk through what actually makes them hard and how to approach them in a way that feels true to who you are.

If you enjoyed this chapter, Chapter 2 is for paid subscribers. Paid subscribers also get access to the full archive, exclusive live sessions starting from 1st July (yes, new financial year for Australia), and if you’re on an annual plan, free access to my course The Human Side of Tax and Finance, even though this was built for tax and finance professionals, the leadership skills inside translate across industries. You can upgrade anytime at https://elitewithheart.substack.com/subscribe

I came to Australia at 12 to go to boarding school.

I spoke very little English. There were only two Asian students in the whole boarding school. I was one of them.

The first few years were tough. Learning to communicate. Adjusting to a new school system. Missing home more than I expected.

But something unexpected happened.

My closest friends weren’t the people who spoke the same language as me. They were local Australians who simply welcomed me into their world.

I still remember spending weekends at their homes. Fish and chips wrapped in paper. Parents taking us to the park. School camps where we climbed mountains and watched the sunrise together.

None of that existed in Hong Kong when I was growing up. It was completely foreign to me.

But I didn’t just observe it. I absorbed it. I became a little bit of it — while still remaining myself.

Years later on my first day leading an offshore team, I flew straight to Manila.

My new team had a plan for me.

They handed me a balut — a fertilised duck egg, one of the Philippines’ most beloved delicacies, and one that most Westerners find confronting.

They watched. Waiting for my reaction.

I ate it without hesitation. I’d had them before growing up in Hong Kong.

The room burst out laughing. Someone said — “people from Australia don’t eat that.” I said — “I’m clearly Asian, right?”

In that moment something shifted. I wasn’t the foreign boss from head office. I was someone who understood their world. Someone who belonged, at least a little.

That’s what growing up between two cultures gave me.

When you truly understand someone’s background — not from a distance but from inside their world — something shifts in how you lead. You stop managing people and start seeing them.

You become them, in a way.

Three things I’ve learned about leading across cultures:

Be genuinely curious. Not performatively curious — genuinely interested in who your team is, where they come from, and what matters to them. Curiosity opens doors that authority never will.

Do your research. Before you walk into a new cultural environment, learn how people typically communicate and how they respond to leadership. Some cultures are direct. Others communicate through nuance. Knowing the difference before you arrive changes everything.

Observe how they interact among themselves. Not just how they behave with you — but with each other. I still remember walking into the Manila office and finding people singing together in the afternoon. Some had instruments at their desks. That told me more about that team’s culture than any briefing document ever could.

My family in Hong Kong thinks I’m very Australian now. My kids think I’m very Asian. My husband knows I’m somewhere in between.

That’s not confusion. That’s the beautiful journey God has given me — and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Somewhere between Hong Kong, those fish and chips wrapped in paper, and a balut in Manila — I became someone who knows how to step into another person’s world.

That’s the leader I try to be every day.

Something new is coming — and I want you to know about it first.

From Corporate to Clarity is complete. Seven chapters. The full story of how Elite with Heart came to be.

Now we go deeper.

Starting next week I’m launching the Practical Leadership Series — a paid series built around the leadership challenges senior professionals actually face. The situations nobody prepares you for. The moments where technical expertise alone isn’t enough.

Sound familiar?

Each chapter tackles one specific situation. Here’s what’s coming:

Chapter 1 — The leadership gap nobody talks about Nobody teaches you how to lead. You just figure it out. This is where we start.

Chapter 2 — How to have a difficult conversation The conversation you’ve been avoiding. How to have it well.

Chapter 3 — How to build trust with a team Especially across distance, pressure, and competing priorities.

Chapter 4 — How to navigate senior room politics Being heard when everyone else is louder. Influence without authority.

Chapter 5 — Why recognition matters more than you think Celebrating each other costs nothing. The cost of not doing it is higher than most leaders realise.

Every chapter includes three things you can use immediately:

• Reflection questions — structured prompts to work through your own situation

• A language guide or decision tool — actual framing and phrases for the specific challenge

• One action prompt — something specific to do before the next chapter lands

Every week. Straight to your inbox.

This is a paid series — $19 USD/month or $165 USD/year. Annual subscribers also get free access to The Human Side of Tax and Finance — my video course built specifically for tax and finance professionals. Six modules, practical templates, and a structured 30, 60 and 90 day journey. And while it’s tailored for tax and finance professionals, the leadership content is equally applicable to anyone in a high-demand corporate role.

Annual subscribers — I’ll be in touch personally with your course access.

If you’d like to join, you can upgrade here: https://elitewithheart.substack.com/subscribe

Some leadership moments don’t come with a playbook.

A team member makes a serious mistake. Someone’s confidence takes a hit. And you’re expected to lead with certainty when you don’t feel certain yourself.

In the final part of our series, Ash Wright and I tackle the conversations most leaders find hardest — the ones that happen after things go wrong. How you show up in these moments doesn’t just resolve the immediate situation. It shapes the people around you long after the pressure lifts.

These are the moments that define a leader.

A team member makes a serious mistake. What do you do in the first conversation with them?

Ash: That first conversation is not the time for blame or the time to identify and execute any lessons to be learned. I make it clear in that meeting that our immediate priority is working together to solve the issue at hand.

My priority is to ensure the person feels supported and safe enough to continue communicating openly and honestly. I start by letting them know we’re in this together and focus entirely on what needs to be done right now to resolve the issue.

For me, it’s about stabilising the situation first and a fundamental part of this is ensuring the staff member feels safe and supported. The deep dive into what went wrong can be saved for a secondary stage, once the pressure is off.

Liza: The first conversation isn’t about blame. It’s about assessment and support. I start by understanding the impact. What has happened, what needs to be fixed, and who needs to be informed.

That clarity comes first — because until you know the full picture, you can’t determine the right next steps.

But equally important is checking in on the person sitting in front of you. How are they feeling? Are they okay? A serious mistake can shake someone’s confidence and create fear about what comes next.

That first conversation needs to make it clear — we’re solving this together. Once the immediate issue is stabilised and the pressure is off, then you go back to the root cause. What went wrong, why, and what do we put in place so it doesn’t happen again.

The goal of that first conversation is simple. Fix the problem. Support the person.

How do you rebuild someone's confidence after a serious mistake?

Ash: Rebuilding confidence in the first instance relies on separating the mistake from the team member’s identity. A single mistake does not define a person and this is the moment they need to hear that from their leader. Even if you do nothing else, making this clear is critical.

After a serious mistake, most people already know where they went wrong and often they will be their own toughest critic. If your aim is to rebuild their confidence, one of the worst things you can do as a leader is revisit and post-mortem the mistake they’ve made. What they need is clarity, accountability and the ability to play an active role in the solution.

In my experience, confidence is rebuilt when you demonstrate trust in the team member by allowing them to take an active role in fixing the issue at hand. If you remove them from the recovery actions, you risk making them feel even more powerless, sapping any remaining confidence. Alternatively, when you involve them in the solution, you demonstrate that you still believe in their judgement and ability to contribute. Your show of faith will go a long way to rebuilding their confidence.

Confidence doesn’t return because someone says, “Don’t worry about it” while excluding you from the go-forward plans. It returns when people see that they are still trusted regardless.

Good leaders understand that how they respond after someone fails can shape that person’s growth far more than the failure itself.

Liza: Rebuilding confidence starts before the mistake ever happens — with the environment you’ve built as a leader.

First I work with the individual to understand how the mistake came about. Not to assign blame but to encourage them to identify what processes or checks could be put in place so it doesn’t happen again. That reframe matters. It shifts the conversation from “you did something wrong” to “here is an opportunity to make things better.” That only works when the mistake was unintentional — and most mistakes are.

But the individual conversation is only part of it. Confidence is rebuilt in the room with their peers. When you’ve created a team culture where mistakes are accepted as part of growth — where people support each other through errors rather than judge them — the individual doesn’t carry the weight alone. The team rallies around them. And that collective response is what genuinely restores confidence.

As a leader your job is to create that environment before the crisis, not just manage the aftermath.

How do you lead with confidence when you don't feel confident?

Ash: Firstly, can I say all of us have faced this at one time or another. Our level of confidence is far from constant. Leading with confidence when you don’t feel it starts with understanding that confidence is not the same as certainty. People don’t always need you to have every answer, but what they need from a leader is calm, clarity and direction.

While it may seem counterintuitive the key is not to fake confidence when it’s just not there. False confidence can feel hollow, and people usually sense it fast. It’s better to be honest while still providing leadership with honest statements like, “ I’m not sure, but let’s find out.”

Confidence often comes after action, not before it and waiting until you feel completely ready can lead to hesitation. Alternatively, taking the next thoughtful step, staying calm, and being willing to adjust as new information emerges is what builds confidence over time.

Leadership is not the absence of doubt for you will always have hesitations regardless of your experience. Rather, leadership is about being calm and decisive, even when your confidence is low.

Liza: The first thing I do is look inward. Am I not feeling confident because of fear — or because of uncertainty? They are different things and they need different responses.

If it’s fear — I remind myself that most problems are fixable. Fear is a distraction. Acknowledge it and move on.

If it’s uncertainty — not knowing how something will unfold — I focus on the work at hand. No leader has all the answers. That’s not a weakness, it’s just the reality of leading through something difficult.

What I won’t do is let either of those feelings show to the team. Not because I’m pretending everything is fine — but because a leader’s composure is itself a form of leadership. When the team sees you calm and steady, they can stay focused. When they see you uncertain or shaken, that travels through the room fast.

You can acknowledge you don’t have all the answers. That’s honest and your team will respect it. But showing them you’ve lost confidence — before the facts are even clear — is the last thing they need from you.

Your job in those moments is to create the calm. Even when you don’t feel it yourself.

This is the final part of our series. But the conversation doesn’t stop here.

Ash and I are taking this live — a Substack live session where we go deeper, answer your questions directly, and talk about the leadership moments that don’t fit neatly into a Q&A format.

Details coming soon. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.

Here is what nobody tells you before you launch something.

You don’t need to have it all figured out first.

When I launched, I didn’t have the positioning perfectly locked. I didn’t have a sales pipeline. I didn’t have a clear answer to every question someone might ask me. What I had was something built — tangible, real, ready. Elite with Heart Leadership. A leadership coaching business built around a simple belief — that the knowledge and experience I had accumulated over twenty years could be drawn out of my head and turned into something tangible. Something someone could follow, learn from, and put it into practice.

The course was one way of doing that. But it was never the whole thing.

That was enough to start.

What I’ve learned in the weeks since is something I couldn’t have learned any other way. The direction reveals itself through doing, not through planning. I started this journey writing about career transition — that’s one of the problems Elite with Heart solves, but it turned out not to be the core of it. The core is leadership. I found that out through the conversations that came after launching. Not before.

Action creates clarity. Sitting still doesn’t.

The conversations that felt hard to start — about what I was building, what it was for, who it was for — got easier once I was actually doing it. Not because I had better answers. Because I had something real to point to.

Launch day

March 30. The course went live on Gumroad.

I posted on LinkedIn. 491 views. 12 reactions. 7 comments.

I messaged 7 people directly — friends, people I thought would benefit. Warm conversations. Nothing that moved fast.

I’ll be honest. I was excited going in. I thought people would sign up on day 1. They didn’t.

That part is worth saying plainly, because most people don’t say it. You build something for weeks. You put it out. And then you wait. The waiting is its own thing — quieter than the building, harder in a different way.

But here’s what I kept coming back to.

The course existed. Something that had been entirely inside my head — twenty years of observations, patterns, moments — was now a product someone could open, watch, and learn from. That meant everything.

What actually came

The weeks after launch didn’t look like what I expected. They looked like something else entirely.

New connections. People reaching out. Conversations with people I hadn’t spoken to in years — reconnections that came out of nowhere, started by something they’d seen on LinkedIn or Substack.

And then the webinar.

Fifty-six people. Strangers. Tax and finance professionals who showed up through a tax academy — not my network, not people who knew me. People who came because the topic was relevant to them.

One of them reached out afterwards. What he said stayed with me — that there aren’t many leadership training programs built specifically for tax and finance people, and that the gap is real and significant. He’d felt it himself.

That was a powerful validation. And it came from someone I had never met.

The webinar, the coaching conversation, the reconnections — none of these were in the plan. What came was different from what I expected. And more valuable than what I planned for.

Looking back

If I trace the line from redundancy to here — the peace I felt when it happened, the certification, the website in five days, the Instagram experiment, two months of LinkedIn silence, the AI rabbit hole, six or seven regenerations of Module 1, the webinar, the course I’ve built — the most valuable thing wasn’t any single milestone.

It was the decision to keep going.

The conversations. The people. The clarity that only comes from moving.

I didn’t have it figured out when I started. I still don’t, not entirely. But I know more now than I did six months ago, and I know it because I started — not because I planned.

That’s the whole thing, really.

Something to sit with

If you are sitting on something — an idea, a course, a conversation you haven’t started yet — I want you to hear this directly.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to start. Even something small. Even something imperfect.

Because the most valuable things that came from this journey weren’t the ones I planned for. They were the ones that showed up after I started moving.

The direction finds you. But only if you go first.

One thing to take away

What is one thing you have been waiting to start until you feel ready? Take one small step this week. Before you have the full answer. Before it feels perfect.

That step is enough.

That’s the end of From Corporate to Clarity. Seven chapters. The real story of going from redundancy to building something from scratch — the identity questions, the messy middle, the tools, the decisions, and what actually happened when I launched. If you’d like to read Chapters 1 to 6 — the full journey — they are waiting for you on Substack.

I’ve spent twenty years inside indirect tax and finance. Not studying it. Living it.

In that time, one thing became clear to me. Technical excellence gets you to a certain level. But there is a ceiling. And what breaks through it is not just tax knowledge.

It’s leadership. And in our industry, nobody talks about it enough. There are not enough programs. Not enough training. Not enough honest conversations about what it actually takes to lead well in tax and finance.

I knew what that gap looked like from the inside. I’d lived it. I’d watched people hit it. And I had twenty years of observations sitting in my head that I wanted to do something with.

A lot of people carry that kind of knowledge. Years of it.

I wanted something tangible I could share.

That became a course. Three weeks to build. Almost entirely from what was already in my head.

Not perfectly. Not without problems. Not without regenerating the same module six or seven times while watching my credits disappear.

But I launched it. And that’s the part that matters.

I know people who have been getting ready to launch something for years. Still refining. Still preparing. Still not out there.

This is what it actually looks like when you stop waiting for perfect and build it anyway.

Behind the paywall: how I made the decision to keep it simple, what building with HeyGen actually looked like, and what happened when I finally put it in front of a room full of strangers.

The decision to keep it simple

The first decision I made was also the most important one.

I was not going to add more platforms. More tools. More complexity. I’d already been through the rabbit hole — the AI tools, the subscriptions, the experiments that felt like progress but weren’t. I knew where that led.

So I chose deliberately. HeyGen for the videos. Gumroad to sell it. That was it. Two platforms. One job each.

That simplicity kept me moving. And it’s the reason the course exists today rather than still being planned.

If you’re thinking about building something — a course, a program, a resource — the number of tools available will overwhelm you if you let it. Don’t let it. Pick the minimum. Start there.

Writing the content

Six modules. Five human skills — self-awareness, courage, curiosity, presence, emotional intelligence. Each one learnable. Each one drawn directly from what I’ve learnt and lived inside the industry.

Writing it wasn’t the hard part. I knew what needed to be said. The harder part was trusting that what was already in my head was enough.

It was.

Most people who have spent ten, fifteen, twenty years in an industry are sitting on more than they realise. The question isn’t whether you know enough. It’s whether you trust what you know.

Learning HeyGen

I knew I didn’t want my face on camera. So I used an AI avatar through HeyGen. Built it. Recorded the scripts. Started generating.

Module 1 alone — I regenerated it six or seven times.

The hands were in the wrong position on the table. The length was off. The pacing needed adjusting. Each regeneration used credits. Credits cost money. I watched the balance go down in real time.

Nobody tells you this part. The unglamorous, repetitive reality of building something from scratch with a tool you’ve never used before. It’s not hard exactly. It’s just slow. And you have to be willing to do it again until it’s right.

Eventually it was right, not perfect. And then I launched it.

The point isn’t HeyGen. The point is that imperfect execution still gets you to done. Waiting for the perfect tool, the perfect setup, the perfect moment — that keeps you exactly where you are.

The webinar

After the course launched, I was invited to present a webinar through a tax academy.

Fifty-six people showed up. Strangers. Tax and finance professionals who signed up because the topic was relevant to them.

I presented the same material the course is built on. The rating came back at 4.4 out of 5.

That was the moment it became real. Fifty-six people I’d never met, responding to something I’d spent twenty years accumulating.

If I were doing it again, I’d find that room before the launch. Put the ideas in front of real people first. Not because the course wasn’t ready — but because there is nothing like a live audience to tell you whether what you know is what people need to hear.

The knowledge was always there. It just needed a format.

Something to sit with

Some people spend years getting ready. More qualifications. More refinement. More preparation. And the thing they want to build stays exactly where it is — in their head, not in the world.

I packaged what I know. I launched before it was perfect. I fixed the hands on the table and kept going.

What knowledge do you already have that you’re not yet treating as enough?

The practical bit

Choose your platforms deliberately and keep them minimal. Pick one to build, one to sell. That’s enough to start.

Trust what you already know. You don’t need new qualifications. Package what you know and make it useful for someone else.

Expect the unglamorous part. Budget time for the sixth and seventh attempts. That’s not failure — that’s how it works.

If you can, test your content before you launch. Find a room, a webinar, a conversation. Real people will tell you what no amount of planning can.

Next chapter — launch day. What actually happened, what the numbers looked like, and what keeping going actually means.

Crisis doesn’t announce itself. It arrives without warning, and the way a leader responds in those first moments tells you everything about who they really are.

Between us, Ash and I have sat in a lot of difficult rooms. Rooms where things had gone wrong, where the pressure was high and people were watching to see what came next.

This series is about those moments. What great leaders actually do when things fall apart — not in theory, but in practice. Three posts, nine questions, two honest perspectives.

Q1. What’s the first thing a great leader does when something goes wrong?

Ash Wright:

My leadership philosophy and approach centres on emotional control and emotional intelligence, which is the perfect lens to apply to this sort of situation.

I feel that pausing, composing yourself, and portraying a sense of calm is so important before taking action when something doesn’t go to plan. When things go wrong, the team is looking for stability rather than immediate, rushed answers.

Plus, the facts usually aren’t clear at that early stage anyway, so it is difficult to determine the right move until you have taken that moment to assess.

When done with confidence and intent, pausing for a moment before reacting can have a powerful and stabilising effect on an otherwise stressed and panicked team.

Liza Lau:

The first and most important thing a great leader does when something goes wrong is pause.

Not to react — but their mind has already moved forward while everyone else is still taking in the news.

There’s a difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is instant. Responding is a choice — a beat later, once you’ve decided what comes next.

The best leaders aren’t the ones with all the answers in that moment. They’re already thinking about the next step. Who needs to know, and in what order? How do we resource this? What does the team need from me right now?

That’s not suppression. That’s emotional intelligence doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Q2. What’s the biggest mistake leaders make in a crisis?

Ash Wright:

The biggest mistake I see leaders make in a crisis is joining the choir of panicked voices rather than being the calm and safe voice their people need.

All too often in a crisis I’ve seen leaders absorbing and magnifying the panic around them, in lieu of being the calm influence their team needs at that time.

Instead of acting as a grounding force, they feed into the anxiety by focusing on fault, blame and deflection, while failing to insulate the team from all the noise surrounding the issue.

The primary concern here is the erosion of psychosocial safety and the distraction this poses from actually solving the issue at hand.

Liza Lau:

Failing to take accountability and stand with your team.

I’ve watched things go wrong at senior level. The biggest mistake leaders can make in a crisis is this: when things get uncomfortable, fingers point down.

A lower-ranking team member becomes the story. The leader steps back from accountability instead of toward it. And the team sees it immediately.

That single move — distancing yourself from the problem — destroys trust faster than the crisis itself ever could. It creates friction, resentment, and a team that will never fully back you again.

A leader’s job in a crisis isn’t to find someone to blame. It’s to own the situation, protect the team, and focus everyone on what comes next.

Q3. What’s the difference between a leader who loses trust in a crisis and one who builds it?

Ash Wright:

In my experience, building versus losing trust in a crisis depends on how and where the leader directs focus.

A leader who defaults to self-preservation and becomes defensive or deflective will quickly lose their people’s trust. Such behaviour leaves their people wondering if they are safe from blame, while being left to deal with the issue without their leader’s support.

For me, building trust in a crisis means doing the exact opposite. Building trust is about letting the team know you are present and being transparent about what is unknown.

These behaviours bring about a level of genuine authenticity that a skilled leader uses to strengthen the bond with their people in a crisis.

Liza Lau:

The leader who loses trust is the one barking orders from a distance. Go and fix it. Figure it out. And when things don’t resolve quickly — they look for someone to blame.

The team feels that immediately. And trust disappears just as fast.

The leader who builds trust does the opposite. They stand with the team. They’re transparent about what’s known, honest about what isn’t, and they’re working the problem alongside the people in it — not above it.

But here’s what makes the difference at senior level. While they’re standing with the team, their mind is already working on the plan. The next step. The way through.

So that when the team looks up — they know their leader has got them. That’s what trust in a crisis actually looks like.

This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Part 2 covers owning mistakes, transparency, and what your team needs in the first 24 hours of a crisis.

If this resonated, subscribe to follow the series. Part 2 drops next week.

I was attending a business summit yesterday. I went to learn from the speakers. What I wasn’t expecting was to be inspired by a 19 year old I met on the way in.

We were both walking into the convention centre early in the morning. Not many people around. She introduced herself to me first and asked if I was going to the summit.

I liked that immediately.

We started talking. She asked what I did, whether I had a business. I asked her the same. She told me she was studying early childhood education — already thinking about building her own business one day.

She is already studying to shape future leaders.

We exchanged numbers early on so I could send her my LinkedIn profile. A few hours later she mentioned her age. Nineteen. I had assumed mid-twenties — not because of how she looked, but because of how she carried herself.

We went to lunch together. On the way back to the summit she told me she was studying in Australia alone. No family here. Different country, different culture. Figuring it out by herself.

That’s when something clicked for me.

I came to Australia at 12. Boarding school. No family around, a different culture, learning very quickly that your direction is completely in your own hands. It is entirely up to you how you drive it. I wouldn’t change a single thing about that journey. It made me who I am today.

I told her — you have my number, use it anytime. I have been there and done that. You are not alone.

She was so grateful.

Over lunch she turned to me at one point and said there were things the speakers were saying she didn’t fully understand.

I smiled to myself.

Of course. These are speakers in their 40s and 50s. Decades of experience, decades of hard lessons. She is 19. She is not supposed to understand all of it yet. She has a long road ahead of her — and that road is full of the exact experiences that will one day make those lessons land.

But what struck me was that she said it. She didn’t nod along. She didn’t pretend. She just said — I don’t get that part yet.

That kind of self awareness is rare. At any age. But at 19 it is something else entirely.

When I was 19 I was probably at home studying. Definitely not walking into a business summit and introducing myself to strangers.

She already knows where she wants to go. She is curious about other people’s journeys. She is comfortable not knowing everything yet. And she is doing all of this alone, in a country that is not her home, on a Friday.

She is a leader being built in motion.

As leaders, we get busy. But when you stop and really listen to someone else’s story — especially someone younger, just starting out — you start to notice who is building. Who has the direction. Who just needs someone in their corner.

And when you share your own journey honestly — not just the highlights but the uncertain parts too — you give the next generation something real to build from.

That is how future leaders are made. Not just in classrooms or boardrooms. In conversations. Over lunch. On a Friday.

I told her — if she is already thinking like this at 19, imagine what she is going to build.

Last week, no new ones — but I kept writing.

Yesterday my six year old said: “Mum, my brother and I can subscribe to you. You’ll have two new ones.”

I’ve been smiling about it ever since.

My parents divorced when I was three. I know what it means to a child when a parent is truly present. I knew that before I became a mother. And I made a choice when I did.

Then I built a career.

Senior roles. Big teams. Global remit. The kind of work that fills a calendar before 8am.

The expectations of corporate life at that level are real. And they creep in slowly — the long hours, the evening calls, the always-on — until one day you look up and realise it has just become normal.

This is what a normal day looked like not long ago.

Drop the boys at school. Desk by 8.30. Pick them up at 3.30 — straight back into meetings the moment we walked in. Dinner together, quick, because Europe came online at 6.30. Calls until 9. Sometimes later.

The boys would wander in and ask me something. Anything. The completely unimportant things kids ask.

I’m working, boys.

I didn’t stop to question it. Because everyone around me was doing the same. It was just what the job looked like at that level.

But here’s what I know now that I didn’t then.

If a team member had walked up to me in that same moment — mid-call, mid-deadline — I would have stopped. I would have listened. Because that’s what I believed good leadership looked like.

My boys deserved that same leader.

The people closest to you are also building themselves around what they see in you. Your kids are watching how you move through the world. What you prioritise. Whether you stop.

They are your longest project. Your most important room.

Easter has always meant something more to me than a long weekend. It’s a reminder that we are made for more than we sometimes allow ourselves to believe.

More presence. More intention. More of the things that actually matter.

Last Easter I was probably working. I genuinely can’t remember if I wasn’t.

This Easter I’m not doing much at all — except being with my family

.

For someone who used to work through every break, that’s everything.

Your biggest supporters are always the ones closest to you. Sometimes the greatest people you’ll ever build are right there at home — watching, learning, waiting for you to look up.

Happy Easter. 🐣

I was approached for a role that looked, on paper, like a step forward. Better salary. Bonus potential. The kind of offer that’s easy to justify when you write it down.

My gut was telling me not to go.

I went anyway.

I knew within days. Not weeks. Days.

What I could see — that others couldn’t yet — was the pattern. The constant “are you sure?” The “you’re not ready yet.” The quiet, repeated questioning that makes people start to doubt what they actually know. I’d seen enough to recognise it. They were still inside it, wondering if it was them.

By month two I was already thinking about how to leave.

Through a former boss I trusted, I found my way back. It took six months. But I got there.

Here’s what I’ve sat with since: I didn’t go because I was excited. I went because the numbers looked better. And my instinct was there before I said yes. I ignored it anyway.

The grass is not always greener. But the real version is simpler than that: no salary bump is worth six months of your life rebuilding what you had. No bonus potential is worth overriding the thing that was trying to protect you before you even walked in the door.

I made the choice. I own it. And I learned more from it than from most decisions I got right.

But I’d be lying if I said I don’t still think about what those six months cost — not just the time, but the energy spent somewhere it didn’t belong.

Your gut is not being dramatic. It’s doing its job.

In September last year, I started posting on Facebook.

Not LinkedIn. Facebook. Where my friends are. Where it felt safe. Where I could say what I was building without worrying what the professional world would think.

I’d just come out of a redundancy. The pause that followed gave me something I hadn’t had in years — space to be honest with myself. I’d spent nearly twenty years in indirect tax - Big 4, corporate, global roles. I loved the work. But somewhere along the way I’d started trading things quietly.

Time. Presence. The sense that what I was doing was genuinely mine.

I just wasn’t ready to say it out loud.

So I posted on Facebook for two months. Testing the water. Keeping it contained. And then one day I called an old friend.

Not for small talk. I called because I trusted him, and because I needed someone to be straight with me. I asked him directly — should I post on LinkedIn? He didn’t give me a long answer. He just said: what’s holding you back?

That was the moment.

Not a strategy. Not a perfect plan. One question from someone who knew me well enough to cut through the noise.

I posted that week. And what came back surprised me. People reached out — former colleagues, people I hadn’t spoken to in years — to say it was a brave move. That they were watching. That they’d been thinking about something similar and hadn’t said it yet.

That last part stayed with me.

Because I think a lot of people in this world — smart, capable, quietly stretched — are sitting on their own version of that LinkedIn post. The idea they’re not ready to make public. The thing they’re turning over privately. The version of themselves that exists in their head but hasn’t quite been given permission to be real yet.

That's exactly who I'm writing for.

Elite with Heart exists because technical excellence alone doesn’t make you a great leader — and your career should feel like a reflection of who you are, not a compartment you switch off at the end of the day. If you don’t love what you’re doing, that’s worth paying attention to. That’s the gap I want to help people close.

And if you’re reading this wondering whether your own version of that moment will ever come — sometimes all it takes is one person asking the right question.

What’s holding you back?

Over the next few weeks I’m going to write about the journey so far — what I’ve built, what I’ve learned, and honestly, what’s still unfolding. Some of it will be here for everyone. The deeper reflections will be for paid subscribers.

I’d love for you to grow through it with me.

Elite with Heart Leadership — the human side of tax

Lately I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people I know well. Former colleagues. Friends still inside corporate. People who have stepped out. People quietly thinking about what’s next.

Not the abstract version of these conversations — not the LinkedIn hot takes about AI replacing jobs or the breathless predictions about what’s coming. Real conversations, about what they’re actually noticing in their careers right now. What feels different. What feels uncertain. What they’re quietly thinking about at 6am before the day starts.

And across all of those conversations, I keep seeing the same three groups.

The first group can’t see it yet. Not because they’re not smart — they’re often the sharpest people in the room. But the view from inside a high-performing corporate function doesn’t easily show you what’s coming from outside it. You’re close to the work, close to the team, close to the targets. The ground is shifting, but you can’t feel it through the noise of everything that needs to get done today.

The second group is scared. Not a vague unease — genuinely scared. They can see AI taking over the technical work they’ve spent years mastering. The compliance. The data processing. The analysis. The things they were hired to do brilliantly. And it feels like the ground is being pulled from underneath everything they’ve built.

I understand that fear. I’ve felt it too.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe: AI is not coming for the most important part of what you do. It’s coming for the tasks. Not the relationships. Not the judgment. Not the ability to walk into a room and read what’s really happening. Not the conversation that changes someone’s thinking. Not the trust that takes years to build and makes you the person they actually call when something matters.

Those things — the human things — are becoming more valuable, not less. Because as AI handles more of the technical load, what’s left is the work that only a human can do. And the professionals who have invested in that side of themselves — the leadership, the presence, the relationships — are going to be the ones who define what this profession looks like next.

The third group has already seen this. They’ve decided to move — not recklessly, not by abandoning their expertise — but by building alongside it. Quietly repositioning. Learning new skills. Investing in the human side of their work while the window is open.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: I have been in all three groups. Not in a linear way — sometimes in the same month.

The difference between them isn’t intelligence or courage. It’s vantage point. Where you’re standing determines what you can see. And what you can see determines what feels possible.

If you’re in the first group — look up. Something is shifting and it’s worth understanding.

If you’re in the second group — you don’t need to be scared. Your technical expertise still matters. But the human skills alongside it? That’s your edge. And it’s learnable.

If you’re already moving — keep going. The view from here is worth it.

Which group are you in right now? And is that still where you want to be?

Elite with Heart Leadership — the human side of tax

Four conversations this week. Different people, different contexts. None of them about tax.

But underneath each one, the same question. Not always said directly — more felt than spoken. Is this it? Or is there something more I’m supposed to be doing with this career?

These aren’t people who are lost. They’re people who have built something real. Good careers, serious roles, the kind of progress that looks exactly right from the outside. And still, the question is there.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe about that feeling. It usually means you’ve outgrown your current role. Most people push it aside and get busy again. But the people who stop and listen to it — they’re the ones who find what comes next.

I know because I’ve been there. There was a point where I acknowledged — really acknowledged — that there had to be something bigger than the corporate career I’d built. That wasn’t an easy thing to sit with. And when I started moving toward it, I had no guarantee it would work. There were moments where I genuinely wasn’t sure it would.

But I started stepping out anyway. I started writing on LinkedIn and Substack regularly, which I’d never done before. I started putting together training videos with no idea how production actually worked — and figured it out as I went. Each step felt uncertain. And each step got a little easier than the last.

What I didn’t expect is what happened next. The right conversations started finding me. Not because I had it all figured out — but because I was consistently showing up and being honest about what I was building. Old colleagues. New connections. People I hadn’t spoken to in years. All arriving with the same quiet question underneath.

That’s not a coincidence. When you step out consistently and authentically, the right people find their way in. The conversations you didn’t know you needed start happening. And those conversations are where the next chapter begins to take shape — not in a single moment of clarity, but gradually, through the people and opportunities that show up when you’re visible and honest about where you are.

The question isn’t the problem. It’s the beginning if you pay attention to it.

Elite with Heart Leadership — the human side of tax.

The waitress offered us a QR code. My CFO friend and I both reached for the real menu.

We laughed. But that small instinct — to choose the more human option without even discussing it — set the tone for the conversation that followed.

We weren’t really talking about tax. We were talking about the future. About the roadmap we were both handed — work hard at school, go to university, land a good corporate job, build a career. The roadmap that shaped so many of our decisions and ambitions.

And whether that roadmap still makes sense for the generation coming up behind us.

We both agreed — when our kids are grown, the world they’ll step into will reward different things. Not less. Just different.

A few days later, a friend called me. We spoke about AI again. About what it means for our future.

I found myself saying something I genuinely believe.

You don’t need to be scared. AI is actually bringing back the things that matter most.

Think about what it can’t do. It can’t make someone feel genuinely heard. It can’t bring creativity born from real human experience. It can’t build trust the way a person in the room can. It can’t replace the warmth of someone who is truly present with you.

Those qualities — empathy, connection, curiosity, care — have always mattered. But as AI takes on more of the technical load, they become the differentiator. The thing that makes people choose you, trust you, come back to you.

My friend is a hairdresser. She has built a loyal clientele not just because of her skill, but because of how she makes people feel. That relationship, that presence, that human touch — that’s not going anywhere. If anything, it becomes more precious.

My CFO friend and I reached for the real menu because something in us knew — efficiency isn’t always the point. Connection is.

I think AI is actually giving us permission to come back to that. To invest in the things that make us distinctly human. To lead with empathy, to listen more deeply, to build relationships that last.

The future isn’t something to brace for. It’s an invitation to show up more fully as yourself.

That’s the real menu. And it’s always worth choosing.

Today we go deeper — into why the pattern happens, what it’s costing organisations, and what actually breaks the cycle.

A high performer. Always delivers. Until one day, something shifts.

This is the first in a series of conversations about what’s really happening inside high performing teams — and what we can do about it.

I have.

I asked for feedback once and I was told I needed to be louder — not physically, but that I needed to sell myself more.

I rejected it instantly. Not out of ego. But because I knew it wasn’t true.

I had been in my clients' shoes once. I knew what they actually needed. And it was never someone louder in the room.

The best leaders I have observed don’t walk into a room to be heard. They walk in to listen. I always let my clients and stakeholders speak first. And what I noticed every single time — people don’t arrive with one problem. They arrive with 10,000 priorities, all feeling equally urgent, all tangled together. My job was never to talk over that. It was to sit with it, help them unpack it, and find a clear path forward together.

My focus was never on being visible. It was on understanding what the client truly needed.
Every single time, it worked.

Because here’s what I’ve learned. Most people just want to be heard first. When you create that space, empathy naturally follows. And sometimes people don’t just need a technical answer — they need an emotional one. Something that gives them breathing space to think clearly again.

That’s what real leadership looks like from the inside.

I could have forced myself to play that game. Many people do. But the cost would have been subtle: a slow erosion of the way I naturally lead — with genuine intention, not self‑promotion.

So if you’ve been told to be louder, to sell yourself more, to take up more space — I want you to pause on that.

What if that feedback was never really about a gap in you?
What if the thing they told you to change was the thing that made you effective?

Sometimes the best thing you can do is stay exactly as you are.

My 8 year old son came home yesterday with a clay model of a neuron. Bright colours, little branches, a long tail. He just said, “It’s part of the brain,” and ran off to get a snack.

And I stood there thinking: since when do primary schools teach this?

When I was his age, we were learning about the water cycle and labelling flowers. No one mentioned neurons, pathways, or how the brain actually works. I didn’t hear the word “myelination” until my coaching certification — and even then, I had to double-check the spelling.

So seeing this tiny clay neuron on my kitchen bench felt like a small, funny reminder of how much the world has changed.

Kids today are learning things we only discover as adults

They’re being introduced to ideas like: your brain changes with practice, repetition strengthens pathways, emotions affect thinking, attention shapes learning. Not in a heavy, scientific way — just enough for them to understand that their brain isn’t fixed. That they can shape it.

We didn’t get that. We got: “Try harder.”

And it made me think about work

Most professionals I speak to aren’t stuck because they lack skill. They’re stuck because their brain has been trained — over years — to default to urgency, over-responsibility, always being “on,” reacting fast, carrying everything. To live in permanent firefighting mode, where the next problem is always more pressing than the last, and thinking ahead feels like a luxury they can’t afford.

Not because they chose it. Because repetition wires things in.

And no one ever told us we could rewire it.

We were taught to perform. Not to think about how we think.

We were raised on a pretty clear script: get good grades, go to university, get a good job. Work hard, be reliable, and the path would take care of itself.

That script is being rewritten faster than most of us expected. AI is automating work that used to take years of training to do. And a lot of people are quietly wondering — what’s left that’s actually mine?

I think what’s left is the human stuff. The ability to regulate yourself under pressure. To think clearly when everything feels urgent. To respond rather than react. To create rather than just execute — to bring the unexpected connection, the original idea, the solution that only comes from lived human experience. That’s what AI can’t touch. And interestingly, that’s exactly what schools seem to be making room for again — more curiosity, more making, more why alongside the what.

Which is exactly what that little clay neuron represents. Schools aren’t just teaching kids science — they’re teaching them self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and how to think about their own thinking. The foundations of being a whole, capable human being.

We weren’t taught that. We were taught to perform. And now, as adults, we’re having to unlearn some of that wiring at the same time as we navigate a world changing underneath our feet.

That kids are getting a head start on this feels like genuinely good news.

A tiny Friday practice

If repetition builds pathways, then one small moment counts.

Try this today: the next time something lands in your inbox that would normally send you straight into fix-it mode — pause before you open it. Just a few seconds. Notice the pull. Name what you’re feeling. Then decide how you want to respond, rather than just reacting.

It sounds small. It is small. But that gap between stimulus and response? That’s where new wiring begins.

That little clay neuron is still on my bench. I keep meaning to move it. Maybe I’ll leave it there a while longer.

A reminder that we’re all still learning how our brain works — just at different ages, in different ways.

And it’s never too late to build a new pathway.

The next era belongs to people who are skilled and self-aware. Capable and human. Elite — but with heart.

If this resonated, feel free to share it with someone who needs it. And if you'd like more, subscribe below — I write about work, the brain, and finding a better way to do both.

I’ve been noticing how easily long days have become the norm — not the occasional late night, but 13 or 14 hours as a regular rhythm. Morning calls, full days, late wrap‑ups… and somehow it’s all absorbed as “just work.”

When I pause, it doesn’t feel normal.
And it reminds me how quietly the boundaries can shift.

Most of us can carry a lot.
But the space around the work — family time, personal time, the parts of life that matter — can disappear without us realising.

So here’s a simple exercise I’ve been using to bring myself back into awareness.
It takes less than five minutes.

A 5‑Minute Exercise to Notice the Shape of Your Days

1. Look at yesterday. Just yesterday.

Not the whole week. Not the month.
Yesterday is enough.

Write down three things:

• When you started work

• When you actually stopped

• One moment you wish you had more time for

No judgment. Just data.

2. Ask yourself one quiet question:

“Is this the shape of a day I want to repeat?”

Not whether it was good or bad.
Just whether you’d choose that shape again tomorrow.

3. Choose one small adjustment for today.

Not a big boundary.
Not a dramatic change.
Just one small shift that gives you back 10–15 minutes of your life.

Examples:

• End one meeting on time

• Step outside for five minutes between calls

• Eat lunch away from your screen

• Close the laptop at the time you originally intended

Small adjustments compound.
They’re how drift becomes recalibration.

4. Notice how it feels.

Not whether it “worked.”
Just how it felt to reclaim a little space.

Awareness is the first step.
Choice is the second.

Why this matters

We don’t need to overhaul our lives overnight.
But we do need to notice when the shape of our days no longer reflects the life we want to live.

This exercise is simply a way to pause long enough to see the truth — and to gently shift back toward yourself.