Leadership Horizons

• Self Awareness Can Be Your Superpower

  What if the smartest move a leader can make is to stop solving first? We share a candid story from a senior executive who could out-think any business problem, yet couldn’t keep great people. His blind spot wasn’t strategy—it was impact. By noticing the reflex to jump in with answers and learning to pause, ask questions, and make space for his team’s thinking, everything changed. Attrition slowed. Engagement soared. Most importantly, the team felt trusted enough to bring real challenges, not just polished updates.We dig into why self-awareness is the rarest—and most underrated—leadership superpower. Rather than a destination, it’s a daily practice of noticing patterns, naming triggers, and aligning intent with effect. You’ll hear practical ways to switch from answer-giving to sense-making: the three-question pause, the power of silence, and simple micro-habits that help you read the room without losing momentum. We also unpack how awareness amplifies empathy, why your mood sets the weather, and how tiny signals—like glancing at your phone—send messages you may not intend.To make it actionable, we offer a clear experiment: ask one trusted person two questions—what helps, and what gets in your way—and then just listen. Treat the response as information, not indictment. That’s where real growth starts. Whether you lead a team, a division, or yourself, this conversation will help you move from being a good leader to the leader you aspire to be—one whose presence creates clarity, courage, and ownership. If the message lands, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help others find the show.Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

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• The Importance of Pausing to Reflect

  Speed feels productive—until it doesn’t. We open up a counterintuitive path to better leadership by making space for short, structured reflection that turns noise into insight and motion into meaningful progress. With a candid story about Fiona, a newly minted director drowning in 70-hour weeks, we trace how a 15-minute weekly ritual and three simple questions exposed learned helplessness on her team and sparked a shift from doing to leading.Across the conversation, we break down why reflection is where experience becomes wisdom and how the brain’s pattern recognition needs space to work. We tackle the busy trap and the myth that there’s “no time” to pause, then show how reflection actually creates time by cutting rework, clarifying priorities, and improving decisions. You’ll get three practical approaches you can adopt today: build a small, reliable ritual; use high‑quality questions to focus your attention; and capture insights so they become action. We also share coaching prompts that move teams from dependency to ownership, so you can step out of the weeds and into true strategic leadership.By the end, you’ll have a clear playbook: fifteen minutes, three questions, one concrete change each week. Expect calmer execution, fewer fires, and a team that thinks for itself. If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a quick review so more people can find these tools. Then block your calendar—what will your first reflection window be?Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

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• The Power of Making Mistakes

  Perfection is a convincing mask—and a costly one. We explore how the fear of getting it wrong quietly caps performance, stalls innovation, and isolates leaders from the very insight they need most. Starting with a raw early‑career misstep during a high‑stakes change program, we trace the moment a blunt admission—“I got it wrong”—transformed a tense, silent room into a creative surge that rebuilt the plan and delivered a stronger outcome.From there, we break down why psychological safety is not a “nice to have” but the operating system for modern teams. You’ll hear how vulnerability unlocks contribution, why failure reveals the mechanism behind success, and how your response to error—forgiveness, ownership, or deflection—becomes your leadership brand. We share field-tested coaching insights from two decades with senior leaders across sectors, connecting the dots between candor, speed of learning, and resilient execution when stakes are high and timelines are tight.To make it practical, we offer three simple tools you can use this week: reframe your language from “I failed” to “I learned” and extract specific lessons; run a one‑minute‑each mistakes-and-learning round in your team meeting, and go first to model the tone; and build mistake recovery into planning with assumptions, early warning signals, and rollback paths. These moves reduce fear, accelerate feedback, and turn uncertainty into momentum.If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a leader who needs the nudge, and leave a quick review—what’s one mistake you’ll turn into a lesson this week? Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

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• Turning Fear into Fuel

  Fear lurks in the shadows of every leadership journey, yet it's rarely discussed in corner offices or leadership programs. What if the very fears holding you back actually contain the intelligence needed for your next breakthrough?Drawing from 25 years of executive coaching experience, this episode tackles the universal yet often unacknowledged challenge that even the most accomplished leaders face: transforming fear from a paralyzing force into a catalyst for exceptional leadership. We explore the profound choice leaders face when confronted with fear—to "Forget Everything And Run" or "Face Everything And Rise"—and how this decision shapes careers, teams, and entire organizations.Through real-world examples, including the story of a director navigating a high-stakes restructure, we demonstrate how facing fears systematically can turn potential disasters into unprecedented opportunities. The episode reveals how fear manifests in teams—from silence in meetings to resistance to change—and provides concrete strategies for creating environments where concerns become valuable intelligence rather than roadblocks.The practical RISE framework (Recognize, Investigate, Strategize, Execute) offers a step-by-step approach to metabolizing fear differently. You'll learn how to conduct a fear audit, implement team fear check-ins, and hold contingency conversations that remove fear's power to paralyze decision-making. These aren't just theoretical concepts but battle-tested approaches used with executives and leadership teams across industries.Ready to transform your relationship with fear? The future of your leadership impact depends on it. What current fear might be pointing you toward your next level of leadership growth? Listen now, and discover how to turn that fear into your competitive advantage. Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

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• Managing Stress-Pressure Dynamic

  Finding the sweet spot between challenge and burnout is perhaps the most critical skill for today's leaders. In this deeply insightful exploration of what I call the "stress-pressure performance dynamic," I unpack a transformative leadership concept that emerged from my 25 years coaching executives through their most challenging periods.Pressure and stress are fundamentally different—a distinction that can revolutionize your leadership approach. Like a perfectly tuned violin string, the right amount of pressure creates beautiful music, while too much causes breakage. The most effective leaders understand this delicate balance, helping each team member discover their unique optimal pressure zone rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. Through real-world examples, I share how one leadership team transformed their performance once they recognized their CFO thrived under tight deadlines, their Operations Director needed recovery time between challenges, and their HR Director required regular check-ins during intense periods.Learning to spot when healthy pressure tips into harmful stress represents another crucial leadership skill. I provide specific indicators across physical, behavioral, and performance domains that signal when someone is approaching their breaking point. Most importantly, I offer practical strategies for maintaining team performance during unavoidable high-pressure periods, including my "pressure mapping" technique that helps distribute workload strategically across teams. The ultimate goal? Creating a culture where team members develop "pressure awareness," naturally supporting each other before anyone drowns. Join me in discovering how mastering this dynamic doesn't just improve results—it creates more resilient, engaged, and ultimately successful teams. Download your free Leading with Resilience Team Audit at loisburtononline.com and subscribe for next week's episode on "how not to lose the dressing room."Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

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