Mostyn Wilson

A dog catching a frisbee is doing things most of us couldn't begin to calculate.

Wind speed, spin, trajectory, the lot.

Except the dog isn't calculating any of it. It just runs so the frisbee stays at the same angle in its eye, it jumps, and ends up in exactly the right place.

I needed the first half of my career at KPMG to learn what the dog does on instinct.

My reflex with a hard problem was always to add. More analysis, another model, ten more slides. It felt rigorous.

The work that actually moved people was always the version I'd stripped back to a single clear idea.

That's why Steve Jobs said simple is harder than complex.

Anyone can make a problem more complicated.

Cutting it back to what actually matters is the real work, and it's the part almost everyone skips.

The dog never learned the physics.

It found the one rule that mattered, and trusted it.

Most of us know the simple version. We just need to trust it enough to use it.

♻️ Send this to someone who's trying to fix a complex problem
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This week's edition is all about whether you're having the right kind of mid-life crisis...
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The dog and the frisbee comes from a 2012 paper of the same name by Andy Haldane at the Bank of England, who showed that simple rules often beat complex ones, even in something as complicated as banking.

The most reliable people in senior roles are often the hardest to promote.

They say yes to everything, answer emails at weekends, and become the person colleagues turn to when something breaks.

The longer they stay in that pattern, the more critical they become to the role they're already in.

Reliability keeps you employed.
Respect gets you promoted.

The people above you are looking for who's built something the business can't easily unbuild.

That's a different kind of work. It looks like:

– Owning a system that outlasts your tasks

– Rare expertise your peers can't replicate

– Influence that makes things happen across teams without meetings

– Results that are visible to the people who make promotion decisions

None of it happens in an inbox at 10pm on a Sunday.

A useful filter for the next request that lands on your desk.

Does it move revenue?
Reduce real risk?
Save meaningful time?
Raise your visibility with the people who decide?

If the answer is no, the senior move is to redirect, delegate, or decline.

Being needed keeps you in the job.

Having leverage gets you the next one.

Full framework on the whiteboard.

📌 Save it for the next time you're about to say yes

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Today's edition was number 90 (!): Why your brain never clocks off after work

Most bad decisions start with a simple story that was easy to agree with.

✅ It sounds clean
✅ It fits on one slide
✅ Everyone nods

And because it's so easy to repeat, it spreads through the business long before anyone checks whether it's actually right.

Einstein had a warning for exactly this:

– Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Most people remember the first part and forget the second.

I used to think my job was to make things simple.

By the time I made Partner at KPMG, I'd take a complicated problem and keep cutting until it fit on one slide for the client.

But I learned the hard way that simple and right aren't always the same thing.

The neat version usually wins the room.
But it's not always the true one.

The best leaders I know simplify right up to the truth, and then they stop.

They'll happily say "it comes down to three things," but only if all three are real, and they're complete.

A clean story that's slightly wrong is the most expensive thing in any boardroom, because everyone believes it, and everyone builds on it.

Make it simple. Just don't make it wrong.

♻️ Send this to a leader who is brilliant on making things clear without making them wrong

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Tomorrow's edition is all about when you shouldn't do your job.

Most leaders eventually get a question they can't answer.

What you do in the next ten seconds decides whether the room trusts you more, or less.

You know the moment:

A pointed question in a board meeting, from an analyst, or from a direct report waiting for a decisive answer, and you don't actually have one.

The instinct is to fill the silence.

You kind of have an answer, but you're not sure.

But people remember how you handle the next ten seconds far more than whether you had the answer.

I've seen this in multiple boardrooms: People trust the leader who's straight about what they don't know.

First, take a pause before you speak. A few seconds of silence is seen as good consideration.

Then either:

✅ Ask a sharper question back.

"What's actually driving this?" or "What have we tried before?" turns you from someone expected to know everything into someone steering the conversation.

Or:

✅ Say what you don't know, and what you'll do about it.

"I don't have that number today, but I'll have it to you by Friday" builds more trust than a guess that turns out wrong.

People will remember your calm composure and your honesty, long after what you actually said.

And that is what builds your reputation.

📌 Save this for the next time a question catches you without an answer.
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This is taken from my 'Board Presentation Skills' leadership development programme.

"Direct, relevant and to the point." - Senior MD, Top 5 Global Bank

Message me to see if it's a fit for your team.

Someone on my team once told me I was too nice at work.

My first move was to defend myself:

– Being nice is a strength, not a weakness.

– The team feels safe around me.

– People do their best work when they're not scared of their boss.

All reasonable.

It took me until 2am, lying awake, to admit they were right.

And that's when I learned the bigger lesson.

Not about what they had told me. But how long it took me to accept it.

That delay is ego.

The longer the delay, the slower you grow.

And the more senior you get, the longer it tends to be (fewer people tell you the truth, and you get better at plausible rebuttals).

Three things I watch for in myself now:

1/ How fast I start arguing back

If I've formed my reply before they've finished speaking, I wasn't listening. I was preparing my defence.

2/ What I'm actually defending

If I care more about winning the conversation than fixing the problem, it's my ego.

3/ What I do the next day

Most of us admit the feedback was at least partly right once we're alone. Very few of us go back the next day and tell the person.

The most confident leaders I know don't defend themselves when challenged.

They hear the hard truth and ask if it's useful.

The best version of all of us is the one willing to admit we're wrong.

📌 Save this for the next time you catch yourself defending
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Toxic workplaces kill your confidence one “thank you” at a time.

They don’t always yell or threaten.

Sometimes they smile… while they undermine you.

Here are the 7 ways it shows up 👇

1️⃣ You second-guess decisions you once made with certainty.

2️⃣ Wins are brushed aside until you stop celebrating them yourself.

3️⃣ “Constructive feedback” feels like personal attacks.

4️⃣ Overtime stops being appreciated – it’s expected.

5️⃣ Boundaries get labelled as “attitude problems.”

6️⃣ The goalposts keep moving so success feels impossible.

7️⃣ Gratitude is used to silence your concerns.

🚩 Truth bomb: This is not normal.

Your worth isn’t measured by:

– How many extra hours you work
– How much criticism you can take
– How little praise you need
– How many “urgent” weekend calls you answer

A toxic workplace will:

↳ Convince you you’re the problem
↳ Make you believe you don’t deserve better
↳ Benefit from your self-doubt

But here’s the reality...
You deserve a workplace that:

✅ Respects your boundaries
✅ Supports your growth
✅ Celebrates your wins
✅ Values your input

💬 Which of these 7 signs have you seen at work?

Drop the number in the comments – you might help someone realise they're not the problem.

Follow me (Mostyn Wilson) for more on being happier and fulfilled at work.

📌P.S. I'm hosting a free webinar on Thursday (15th January). It's for experienced leaders and professionals who want to make a career move in 2026 but don't want to risk getting it wrong.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/ebnXvrj9

Roger Federer lost nearly half the points he played, but he's still one of the greatest the game has ever seen.

He won almost 80% of his matches on the back of just 54% of the points.

I used to think the best performers were the ones who made the fewest mistakes.

That if you got far enough, you'd somehow stop losing.

But the longer I spent around senior leaders, first as a partner at KPMG – and now coaching them – the more I noticed it wasn't true.

The strongest ones lose a lot. They back the wrong call, misread a room, fumble the big pitch.

But what sets them apart is how quickly they let it go.

Federer's lesson was that you can't carry the last mistake forward, because the next point needs your full attention.

✅ The double fault is only a point
✅ The bad call on Tuesday is only a point
✅ Last quarter's miss is only a point

You may lose nearly half your points too.

What matters is how quickly the last one stops mattering, so you can still go on to win.

♻️ Send this to someone who always plays the next point better than anyone.

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Federer shared these numbers in his 2024 commencement speech at Dartmouth. Worth watching the whole thing if you haven't.

Every team is a mirror.

But is the leader willing to look in it?

A team won't always say how they feel about leadership.

But they'll show you.

The bad news stops reaching you.

Not because there isn't any.

Because people have decided it's not worth the reaction.

The diary is packed but nothing moves.

Lots of meetings.
Lots of updates.
Very little actual progress.

The best people go quiet.

They still do the work.
They just stop volunteering ideas.
And they stop saying what they really think.

The leader does most of the talking.
And when they stop, nobody fills the gap.

The signs can be easy to miss.

They don't show up as a crisis.
They show up as a slow decline.

The leaders I've seen handle this best aren't the ones who had all the answers.

They're the ones who got comfortable asking one question:

What am I not seeing here?

Because the team is always reflecting something back.

It's just a question of whether you're willing to look at what it's showing you.

♻️ Save and share to help others lead better

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Now open to everyone – my weekly essays are here:

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Designed for leaders who want to make a bigger impact, with less effort.

Tomorrow’s subject: “Somebody is waiting for you to admit it”

Middle management is the most undervalued job in business.

(And that’s a massive problem.)

Because it’s also one of the most important.

I’ve worked with dozens of middle managers.

Almost every one of them sits in the pressure zone:

🎯 Pressure from above to deliver results.
🎯 Pressure from below to fix breakdowns.
🎯 Pressure from all sides to keep people engaged, productive, and sane.

They’re expected to be coaches, translators, therapists, operators – sometimes all before lunch.

And yet...

While execs get credit and front-line teams get support…

Middle managers?
They quietly carry the weight of the system.

Still overlooked.
Still under-coached.
Still expected to “just figure it out.”

If we don't look after middle managers, then what happens when they break?

→ Teams stall.
→ Morale crumbles.
→ Strategy collapses into noise.

But if we empower them?
We unlock exponential performance across the whole team.

Because the best middle managers:
✅ Keep teams grounded during change.
✅ Translate strategy into human action.
✅ Spot small issues before they explode.

They are the link.
They are the leverage.
They are the difference between organisations that spin… and ones that scale.

If you’re building a high-performance culture:

✨ Start in the middle.
🧩 Stay close to the tension.
🛠️ Support the people holding it all together.

♻️ Repost this to give middle management the credit (and backing) they deserve.

👉 What’s one way your company could better support middle managers right now?
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📌 P.S. Follow me (Mostyn Wilson) for more workplace truths.

The more senior you get, the fewer people are willing to tell you the truth about yourself.

It isn't a conspiracy. You're their boss, or their client.

So the honest view on how you came across in that meeting goes unsaid, and you're left to assess yourself, which is the one thing none of us do well.

I've started closing the gap in an odd way.

Five minutes at the end of the day with Claude, talking through one interaction that could have gone better.

The thing that makes it work is the first instruction I give it: stop being nice to me.

Left alone it wants to reassure, and reassurance is useless here.

Once I asked it to be direct and to question me before drawing conclusions, it started naming the things I'd been overlooking:

❌ Where I forced a decision

❌ Where I went quiet to avoid a hard conversation

❌ Where my read on someone said more about me than about them

It's a debrief with something that has no stake in protecting my feelings, and no fear of my reaction. For a senior leader, that combination is rarer than it should be.

I've put the whole routine in the whiteboard below: the prompt that sets the rules, the five questions I work through, and the one-line habit that makes it stick.

📌 Save this and try it at the end of one day this week

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This week's edition: Doing your job, or hiding behind it?

"It's just how he is."

Five words that destroy your culture.

You've heard them:

About the partner with the temper.

About the head of sales who "delivers anyway".

About the COO everyone gives a wide berth on Mondays.

A mentor at KPMG told me early on:

"You'll be judged not by who you hire, but by who you should have let go and didn't."

I didn't fully understand it until I was the one having to act on it.

The first time a senior person gets away with something and nobody calls it out, everyone else takes note.

By the fifth time, it's just how things are.

But here's what many leaders miss:

This is the exact moment the people who were going the extra mile quietly stop.

Because it’s about fairness.

And it shouldn’t be one rule for them and another for us.

The conversation you overhear on a Tuesday morning and tell yourself you'll deal with later?

That’s the conversation writing your culture.

Your culture is the worst behaviour you're willing to ignore.

♻️ Share with a leader who gets this right.

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Almost every big problem I've dealt with was a small one first.

You know the ones:

A direct report whose work has slipped, and the conversation can wait until after the deadline.

Or two of your directors who don't get on, so everyone plans meetings around them.

At the time it feels like good judgement.

You're deciding what deserves your attention this week, and none of these things are on fire.

In my five years as Head of People for an 1,800 person division at KPMG, most of the situations that reached me formally had been obvious to someone for months.

Usually to several people.

Three things that helped me stop adding to that pile:

✅ Once a month, write down what you're working around

Not your task list, but the things you keep avoiding.

It usually takes 15 minutes and most people are surprised by how quickly the list fills up.

✅ Then ask one question of each item

Does this get easier if I leave it?

If it doesn't, put the meeting in the diary for next week.

✅ Open the conversation with what you've noticed

Not with what you've concluded.

Something like "I've noticed a few things over the last month and I should have said something sooner. Can we talk about it?"

Calling out the delay is important.

It's honest, it lowers the temperature, and it leaves room for you to be wrong.

The conversation you're avoiding this week is usually one you'll end up having anyway.

Just later, and with more difficulty.

📌 Save this for the next time you catch yourself avoiding a problem.
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For years, I thought the hardest part of my career would be the external stuff.

Promotions. Difficult clients. Big presentations. Long hours.

None of it came close.

The hardest battles I've ever fought happened quietly, inside my own head.

Self-doubt right before the biggest moments.

Comparison stealing the joy from real wins.

The voice telling me I wasn't ready, wasn't enough, wasn't the right person for the room.

Nobody saw those fights.
Nobody applauded when I won them.

Here's what helped me start winning:

1/ I stopped waiting to feel ready, because confidence shows up after, not before.

2/ I started questioning the voice in my head, because most of the time, it was lying.

3/ I stopped comparing my inside to everyone else's outside.

4/ I found a few people I could be fully honest with.

5/ I treated my mental health as part of my performance, not separate from it.

The battles got quieter.
And I got better at fighting them.

If you're in one right now, you're not behind.

You're not broken.

You're just doing the work most people never talk about.

Keep going.

♻️ Repost if this might help someone today

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The best leadership decision you can make today is to put your phone in another room.

It sounds small.

It's one of the highest-leverage decisions in your day.

The more senior you get, the more your day fills with things allowed to interrupt you, and the more valuable an unbroken stretch of attention becomes.

The work that genuinely needs you, the strategy, the hard call, the thing only you can do, is exactly the work that needs deep focus.

And it's the first thing your phone destroys.

You already know how this feels. A 30-second Teams reply that quietly costs you half an hour.

You read it, reply, close the tab, and it takes you a short while to get back into the real work.

That gap is the true cost of distraction, because your brain doesn't snap back to where it was.

It has to climb back into the thinking, and every interruption restarts that climb from near the bottom.

The good news is that this isn't a willpower problem, so you don't have to win it with willpower.

You win it by removing the friction before you sit down, so your focus no longer depends on how strong you feel that day.

The sharpest people you know aren't more disciplined than you. They've just designed the distractions out in advance.

I've put the full checklist in the whiteboard below, across the five areas that will make a real impact for you.

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It's all about easier, more intelligent leadership.
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Hard work gets you results.

But that's not the best part.

It changes who you are.

You might move up, and you might earn more.

But the better impact is this:

You can show up even when you don't feel like it.

You can take a setback without falling apart.

You stop settling for "good enough".

That version of you is the real payoff.

Once you become that person, you don't need to rely on luck or timing.

You can trust yourself to figure it out, and keep going.

So ask yourself:

Am I chasing results?

Or am I building someone who can't be stopped?

One depends on circumstances.

The other changes your trajectory for life.
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The kindest leader I ever worked with was also the most ruthless.

He ran a huge part of KPMG.

Asked about your weekend.
Remembered your wife's name.
Made coffee for the team.

And he'd close a deal, exit a partner, or kill a strategy faster than anyone I've ever worked for.

Nobody on his team feared him.
But everyone respected him.

I used to think kindness and ruthlessness couldn't sit together.

Now I think they're the same thing.

Here's what I see in the senior leaders I work with now:

The ones losing authority aren't the kind ones. They're the unclear ones.

The unclear ones confuse kindness with avoidance.

They soften the message until nobody knows what they're being asked to do.

Then they punish their team for guessing wrong.

Real kindness looks different:

✅ Saying no without apologising for it
✅ Disagreeing without making it personal
✅ Holding the bar without lowering the tone
✅ Making tough calls without making villains

The fastest way to lose a team isn't being too direct.

It's being unclear about what you actually expect.

The leaders who shape cultures all have the same old-fashioned quality:

They say what they mean. And mean what they say.

But they say it without aggression.

That blend – of kindness with conviction – is what the best leaders have.

Their kindness doesn't weaken their authority.

It's the only authority that lasts.

♻️ Repost if this resonates.

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A leadership team can name their best people in seconds.

But look at where their attention actually goes.

It usually goes to the person everyone agrees is a problem.

But nothing happens.

The meetings about them, and the conversations rehearsed but not had.

Bad behaviour gets tolerated for reasons that sound sensible at the time.

They're technically excellent, they bill well, and clients ask for them by name.

So it gets managed around rather than addressed, and everyone learns what the standard really is.

What surprises people is where the damage spreads to, to people who aren't even involved.

Because the cost of tolerating bad behaviour rarely shows up anywhere obvious.

The deadlines still get met, and the clients still get what they paid for, so it looks like things are ok.

But only because other people absorb it privately.

It's probably worst at the point where the team stops mentioning it.

People complain while they still think complaining might achieve something, so them going quiet is usually a more serious signal.

Your best people are watching what you're prepared to put up with.

And working out what they're prepared to put up with too.

💬 How long has the longest-running problem in your organisation been under discussion?
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The most valuable people in a business are often the ones who make meetings a little uncomfortable.

They're rarely the loud or political ones. Quite the opposite.

✅ They ask the questions everyone else avoids.

✅ They push for clarity when a vague answer would be easier.

✅ They won't nod along just to keep things pleasant.

And that can get misread.

Instead of being seen as useful, they get labelled intense, or difficult, or "a lot".

But most workplaces don't struggle because too many people challenge things.

They struggle because too few do.

Comfort protects weak thinking.

It lets bad ideas pass untested, risks stay hidden, and decisions move ahead without real scrutiny.

The people who create a bit of unease are the ones who break that.

They change the rules of the room and surface what others would rather leave alone, because they care how things hold up six months later.

Being pleasant helps you fit in.
Being constructively uncomfortable is what earns respect.

I've pulled together 8 of these types in the carousel.

Which one are you?

♻️ Send this to someone who keeps raising the standard

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I spent years believing ambition required sacrifice.

Late nights became the norm.
Dinner plans became apologies.
Life existed in whatever time was left over.

"Once I finish this project, I'll slow down."

I must have said that a hundred times.

But every win just moved the finish line.
Every success became the new baseline.
The space for everything else kept shrinking.

That's when I saw it clearly:

Ambition wasn't the problem.
How I'd been taught to pursue it was.

We've been sold a story that working harder means caring more.
That exhaustion proves dedication.
That sacrifice validates ambition.

It's all backwards.

When your ambition and your personal life are not aligned, you burn out.
But when they are aligned, you build up.

Ambition was never meant to cost us our personal life.
It was meant to make our personal life better.

The best measure of success isn’t how far you go.
It’s what still fits in your life when you get there.

🔔 Follow me for more on achieving your ambitions AND being happy and fulfilled while doing so.

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