The Thoughtful Leader Podcast
Hi, I’m Ben Brearley and I’m the host of the Thoughtful Leader Podcast. The Thoughtful Leader Podcast provides short, sharp leadership advice for leaders like you, who care about their teams and want to improve performance and job satisfaction.
Leadership can be challenging, frustrating and daunting, so hopefully listening to these episodes helps you lead your team with confidence.
Join me as I cover a diverse range of leadership topics. You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or your other favourite podcast app of choice!
Of course, you can also listen to them right here by playing them in the web player or by clicking on the individual episodes below.
Or, Listen to the Episodes Right Here
Podcast Episode List

Why Autonomy Matters For Your People and How to Provide It
Autonomy is a key factor when it comes to team member motivation at work. But unfortunately, it can feel daunting to let go and provide your people with the autonomy [...]
How to Start Being More Trustworthy For Your Team
Trust is important in leadership. After all, it's tiring and stressful when people are questioning our motives all the time. But we can't just ask people to trust us. We [...]

Don’t Send People On Training Until You’ve Answered 3 Questions
I've noticed that leaders in many organisations like to send people on training without too much thought. Unfortunately, usually this results in a lot of wasted time and money, even [...]
Managing by Exception: Is It a Good Approach?
Managing by exception is a style of management that emphasises escalation of only significant issues to leaders in an organisation. It is often seen as a way to free up [...]
What to Do if You Work for an Insecure Manager
Working for an insecure manager is no picnic. Many people react to this situation by fighting. Trying to prove to their insecure boss that they are superior and capable and [...]
Empowering Leadership Actions to Try In Your Team
Empowering leadership is all about getting out of your team's way, so they can do their thing. However, this deceptively simple idea can be daunting for leaders who aren't used [...]
How to Build Empathy Using the Iceberg Model
Being able to show empathy is a great skill for leaders to better understand and engage with their people. One tool I've found really useful in helping to keep an [...]
How to Feel Like a More Useful Leader
One of the common complaints levelled at leaders (especially in the middle-management layer) is that they are "useless" and "don't do anything". And sometimes, when you've gone from being a [...]
Is “Sweeping the Sheds” Good Leadership?
In the book "Legacy" about the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team, the concept of "sweeping the sheds" is raised. That is - even leaders should pitch in and do [...]
Lead Better By Understanding Your Core Values
One way that we can help to set a good foundation for our leadership is to understand our core values. Our core values help us to understand what drives us, [...]