I can’t remember exactly when I first heard the statement: “If it’s too obvious, it can’t be trusted.”

This thought comes to mind when I am speaking with Gabrielle Dolan, a leader I have come to know over the past decade and feel so fortunate to have done so.

The fact that we immediately connected is no surprise. Her leadership builds on the power of story, its nuance, and relatability. Our capacity to draw on personal lessons and learnings to understand self and what’s important to us, whilst developing the confidence to draw on these insights and tell our story to build a deeper connection with others and a commitment to a shared purpose and plan.

Mostly, however, a story’s capacity to express what truly matters, your values and principles, that once told holds you accountable, as your credibility will now be judged by your capacity to live them, especially when it gets hard, as it will.

I doubt, therefore, whether there is a more important skill for leaders than storytelling, including our capacity to tell our own.

I understand this statement would be very challenging, if not confronting, for many leaders.

For more than two decades, Gabrielle has worked with leaders across business, sport, and government, helping them move beyond jargon that can’t be trusted and into meaning that can.

Notebook ready.

Play on.

There comes a time when every leader must pause and take stock.

For Dr Taylor, it’s the passage between age 40 and 55, a stretch of life that exposes both the weight and the cost of relentless striving. It’s a season that asks harder questions, such as:

Is this still who I want to be?

What truly matters now?

It’s a crossroad that humbles even the most accomplished. The first mountain’s confidence gives way to doubt, yet it’s here, in the quiet and discomfort, that purpose begins to form.

In turning inward, leaders learn to lead from a place that is a true reflection of who they are, and from the lessons learned, what we describe as their ‘leader’s limp’.

“I don’t teach anything I haven’t fucked up”, I explain to Dr Taylor in support of his hypothesis.

Success becomes less about climbing higher and more about deepening connection, to self, to others, and to purpose. It’s leadership as practice, not performance. In this space, “good enough” is not resignation but wisdom, the recognition that steadiness, kindness, and self-awareness are the new measures of mastery.

When leaders learn to value calm over control, and meaning over momentum, they discover that the summit was never the goal; it was about growth, even though you never realised it at the time.

Notebook ready…

Play on!

Jenny George runs Melbourne Business School - #1 in Australia. "A CEO is a symbol of what matters," she says. "Every choice you make — what you wear, where you sit, how you spend your time — tells the organisation who it's becoming."

A mathematician turned CEO who learned leadership at thirteen, voting on where the family's charity money went. Her parents chose impact over income - dad building electricity systems for nations, mum counselling prisoners. Both asking: where can I make the difference only I can make?

"Cut off my information flow and we're done," she tells me. We both know people who wake up thinking about power over rather than power with. Now she asks every leader the same question: "What are you doing that only you can do?" Everything else is noise.

We explore how small choices become systematic change, why she sings eight-part Renaissance music (if you don't show up, your note doesn't exist), and what breaks trust between leaders.

For CEOs who understand that leadership isn't about control - it's about creating conditions for others to thrive.