Blog

If you’ve ever facilitated a Senior Management Team with low self-awareness, you’ll know the pattern: everyone is communicating (loudly, confidently, and often at speed), yet somehow the message lands like a paper aeroplane in a hurricane. The tricky bit isn’t intelligence. It’s style. Senior teams don’t usually fall out because they don’t care. They fall out because they’re interpreting each other through their own default lens, then acting as if that interpretation is a fact. The result is predictable: Directs think everyone’s dithering, Systematics think nobody’s thinking, Spiriteds think the room has no energy, and Considerates quietly wonder why we’re all being so sharp with each other.

It started with a Slack message at 6:47pm on a Tuesday. Our Product Manager had sent a two-line decision to the team: “We’re pivoting the roadmap. New priorities attached.” No context. No reasoning. No space for questions. Within minutes, our Head of Design had replied with a terse “Thanks for the heads-up” (which, if you know Design, means I’m furious). Our Operations person had gone quiet. And our most junior engineer had asked me directly, “Is everything okay?” That was the moment I realised something was broken.

I know what you’re thinking! “Please, not another motivational speech, harping back to Covid 19!”. Maybe that’s not what you thought at all. It could be that you were one of those fortunate people who were ahead of the curve and constantly reviewing your offering against the backdrop of where the world of work was heading.

A growing SME business should feel fast...Close enough to the customer to move quickly, small enough to stay aligned and agile, big enough to have real management depth. But in plenty of growing UK firms, the opposite happens: the senior team becomes the system. Everything routes upward. Decisions queue. The Director becomes the default answer. This is the experience of one Senior Manager (let’s call her Sarah, obviously not her real name) in a fast-growing business where she and most of the Directors had become the bottleneck, and what changed when the leadership team used the Jonico Window–Self assessment to make their habits visible.

Most senior managers don’t wake up thinking, Today I’ll accidentally reduce my team’s confidence. They wake up thinking, We’ve got targets, customers, and a small fire in Operations. Then they do what high performers do under pressure: they step in, fix it, and keep the wheels on. The problem is that, over time, that “stepping in” becomes a leadership style. And leadership styles are like accents - you don’t notice yours until you hear it played back.

You know the moment.... You’re in with a Senior Management Team, the coffee is strong, the titles are stronger, and the self-awareness is… let’s call it in beta. People are bright, experienced, and well-intentioned - yet the room is full of invisible tripwires: over-control, under-trust, heroic rescuing, and the occasional “I’m empowering you by telling you exactly what to do.”

Being nice to your team is not the same as being kind to them and the difference is quietly damaging their growth. True kindness means being kind to someone's potential, not their comfort.

Discover powerful, real-world strategies for handling Multi-Taskers and Saboteurs in your training sessions. This blog shares proven techniques - drawn from top facilitation experts - to turn distraction into engagement and resistance into constructive contribution. Whether you’re facing device-obsessed delegates or open disruptors, you’ll find practical tools and fresh insights to boost participation and group cohesion. Read on to transform challenges into learning opportunities and elevate your effectiveness as a facilitator!

Curious how to handle tough personalities in training sessions? This blog reveals practical, evidence-based tactics for engaging Silent Observers and transforming Know-It-Alls into collaborative allies. Drawing on insights from top trainers and essential reads, you’ll discover new group techniques, smart questioning, and ways to turn challenges into breakthroughs. If you want every voice heard and your sessions energised, don’t miss these proven strategies - read the full post for actionable inspiration!

Every trainer faces disruptive delegates, but real progress comes from blending relationship skills, practical tools, and the wisdom of books like “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “Crucial Conversations.” This blog shares candid stories of trial, error, and growth - from handling Dominators and Chronic Complainers to harnessing group dynamics and peer support. Discover actionable strategies and frameworks that turn disruption into development. What’s your go-to technique for handling tricky delegates? Dive in and share your story!