On parental leave, and what happens to the part of you that used to go to work. When I went on parental leave with my first child, I did not particularly miss my workplace. I felt no pull to know what was happening in meetings I was no longer attending. Quite the opposite, I was happy for work to continue without me for a while. But something was missing. A part of me felt unmet, and it took me some time to understand what it was. For some women, parental leave creates an unu

Why lasting development begins beneath the visible behaviour. In the winter of 2016, I proudly ticked an item off my bucket list that had been there for the better part of a decade. With the sponsorship of my employer, Bendelta, I flew to Boston and spent a week studying under Professor Robert Kegan, who held the chair in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Kegan’s work had been shaping the way I thought about adult development

On matrescence, identity, and the developmental change women are rarely given language for. There is a particular kind of silence that can settle around a woman after she becomes a mother. Not a literal silence, in fact, usually quite the opposite. There is noise everywhere. The baby, the washing machine, the appointments, the messages, the endless small logistics of keeping a life moving. What I mean is the silence around what is happening inside her. People asked me whether

Why confidence, agency and authority need more than advice. They need a room to be practised. I have spent much of my working life inside organisations that genuinely wanted to see more women in leadership. I have sat in the rooms where the intentions were set, the programs designed, the talent conversations held and the investment decisions made. I have seen the care that goes into that work and I have also seen its limits. Mentoring programs, leadership cohorts, promotion r

How books become more powerful when they are read, reflected on and worked through together. I read a lot. I always have and for most of my reading life, I have done it alone, which is, for most people, how it goes. A book, a comfy chair, a quiet hour if you’re lucky. I have also spent most of my professional life offering books to people. Reading lists have turned up in almost every leadership program I have facilitated, in most coaching relationships I have held, and in the

On the women who built Salons, held the standard of conversation, and helped shape the idea behind Kith Salon. Catherine de Vivonne was twelve years old when she was married into the French nobility. She was Roman-born, educated well beyond what most women of her era were permitted and by all accounts thoroughly unimpressed by what she found in Paris. The French royal court in the early 1600s had its own machinery of gossip, political manoeuvring and social performance. Cathe