Want to hear more about me?

You need excellent leadership to bring out the best in yourself and your teams. I have led, coached, mentored, taught, empowered, and supported leaders and teams to deliver high-quality engineering products and solutions that our customers wanted and needed.

I am passionate about helping people like you unlock your true potential. I love helping you understand what you are truly capable of, and empowering and supporting your growth and confidence as you achieve your goals and dreams.

We are all leaders, and leadership skills are the most powerful drivers of success.

How I began my leadership journey

I was a technically competent engineer and excelled in my role. I was confident and capable. After I was promoted to team lead, I became less confident and less capable. I understood the technical challenges and what we needed to deliver, but I wasn't clear on how to lead and manage people. I needed to learn how to delegate, conduct one-on-ones, help people advance their careers, and manage shifting priorities. I wasn't aware, and I wasn't sure my leaders were good examples of how I should lead. But I was also driven by a passion for learning, growth, and improvement. I, along with many on my team, were capable of doing more and better, and I needed to find a way to unlock that potential.

Most of the leadership I had experienced up to that point had focused on telling and directing—technical experts who would say to you what to do and how to do it. I didn't always agree with the HOW, and at times I wasn't sure we had the right WHAT. The WHAT is typically decided for us, but I had ideas on the HOW that I believe would improve our efficiency and outcomes, and I knew I had a team of people with their own experiences, skills, and ideas. I just didn't know exactly how to bring out the best in these.

When I learned that leadership was more than just a title or role, I realized that experience and skill are essential.

I grew up with my Dad being in the Royal Air Force, and listening to his frustrations with Officers (a higher rank than him, so superiors), that were half his age and had none of his experience, telling him how to do his job, when they were fresh out of officer training with no real knowledge of the work he had been doing for years. It was hard to hear because I could tell it was hurting him. He was proud of the work he had done, and they made him feel unimportant. I vowed never to be one of those people who value and respect others' experience and skills. I never wanted to be the cause of those negative feelings my Dad had suffered.

I declined the offer to follow my Father into the Royal Air Force because they wanted me to go straight into officer training based on my academic abilities. Instead, I chose to pursue an apprenticeship after leaving school to gain real-world work experience while continuing my education.

How I came to understand that leaders should not believe they have to have all the answers, and that helping someone recognize their own potential and capability is truly fulfilling.

And once I completed the apprenticeship and became an engineer, my manager at the time put me in charge of a highly complex wiring loom for an aircraft instrument. My colleagues told me that, as an engineer, I needed to design the wiring loom and then instruct the factory's wiring personnel on how to assemble it. This didn't make sense to me. Some of these wiring folks had been doing this for 20 years. I asked around to identify who everyone regarded as the experts in this area and approached one of them to request their help in designing the wiring loom. They were taken aback and told me they expected me to tell them what to do. I noted that I lacked experience with complex wiring looms, while they had more than 20 years of experience and knew what would work and what wouldn't. It took some convincing, but he agreed, and we got to work. I learned a great deal from him, and I also saw a significant change: he began to see himself through my eyes, as someone with exceptional skill and experience in his craft. His confidence grew; instead of waiting for me to ask, he would suggest aspects of design, and challenge my ideas with well-thought-out reasoning - he was taking ownership and thinking deeply about the problems we were trying to solve. He was no longer 'just doing what he was told, whether he thought it was good or not.' This was a significant turning point for me, as seeing this change in him made me feel elated; he was recognizing his own potential. We delivered the project and ran extensive tests; it passed, and it became part of the final product.

Back to my leadership journey

Now that I was leading a team, I knew what I needed to deliver and how to do it, but I also knew the team needed to work together to achieve it.

I was promoted from within, so I knew these people; I had been working alongside them. I also knew most of the other folks around us, those who delivered to us and those who depended on the outcomes of our team. I knew what they were good at, and to a certain extent, I understood what motivated them and what they enjoyed doing. Which also meant I knew what they were not as experienced in or had not tried yet.

I set about trying to match motivations and skills to the problems to be solved, having folks work to their strengths and in ways or areas they were motivated to - in some cases this was a stretch - for example, convincing someone with good test automation skills at one level (end to end UI focused test automation), to apply them at a different level, integration, at the API level. I also work with those who deliver to us to motivate them to work more closely with us and earlier in the development lifecycle, thereby providing a much better solution through partnership and the combination of our skills and experience. The result was a new strategy and process for how several teams worked to deliver software and hardware solutions. It was hard work, but it was very successful.

I learned many things along the way, including the need to be very curious about both people and processes to understand the underlying reasons why we or things work the way they do. Additionally, some people are more easily convinced to change than others, and they are more likely to try different approaches in various circumstances. In some cases, you may need one or two volunteers to try something new and create examples that show the value of a new strategy or approach. A significant learning was to identify the thought leaders, as convincing one of these has a multiplier effect - if they agree to change or try something new, their colleagues will follow their lead.

Over the years, I have continually tested and refined my approach to leading teams, delivering high-quality products and solutions with exceptional efficiency. I now frequently receive feedback that I have been the best leader a person has ever had.

My Transformations

During this same time, I have also transformed myself, from a smoker to an ultramarathoner. Learning about my body and what it is capable of (much more than I had ever expected - I have run a 200km trail race with elevation gain equivalent to summiting Mt Everest), and developing new habits and routines that keep me running at high performance.

And as I have progressed through my career, I have become a leader of leaders, and have learned and refined my approaches, strategies, tools, templates, processes and practices to help other leaders coach, mentor, teach, and manage their teams to higher performance in the constantly changing and challenging domain of engineering and technology.

I can help you build systems, processes, and practices that give you confidence to lead, so your teams keep growing and improving, and you consistently achieve and exceed your goals.

All of this is my passion and motivation. I am deeply fulfilled by seeing people recognize their own true potential and helping them achieve it, celebrating with them as they reach every goal along the way.

When I am not coaching or teaching folks to reach their true potential, you'll find me running in the forest and mountains, working out, or watching crime dramas (I love puzzling through whodunnits).