EDUCATOR | AUTHOR | SPEAKER
Where clarity meets leadership.
The Challenge
High-performing leaders can struggle to adapt as the rules change at senior levels. Delivery excellence is no guarantee of success when the role shifts to enterprise leadership.
Senior leadership is interpretive. It is less about what we personally deliver and more about what our decisions, actions and omissions signal to others about what matters.
An unclear or inconsistent leadership “signal” creates confusion. When a leader’s signal is unclear, teams lose clarity, decision-making slows down, and implementation faulters.
This in turn drives disengagement and attrition. When staff cannot discern what matters, what is safe, or how decisions are made, motivation erodes and key talent begins to exit.
Leaders drive culture. Organisations depend on their leaders for a clear, coherent, and consistent leadership signal. But clarity does not happen by itself — it takes intentional work. Leadership is therefore personal.
We work with senior leaders to build clear, consistent leadership brands that elevate their strategic impact, and develop highly engaged, committed organisations.
Dr. James Donald
Engage an Expert
James’ helps senior leaders build powerful, compelling leadership brands that have clarity of intent at their core.
James is an authority on intent-based leadership, and has spent the last fifteen years working and researching in leadership, motivation science, and positive psychology.
His keynotes and programs draw on the latest leadership and psychological science, including James’ own academic research, published in world-leading peer-reviewed journals.
Thank you for considering working together.
Our clients include:
Read our clients’ testimonials to see how our work together has benefited them.
How We Can Work Together
Masterclass
Your Leadership Brand: The Hidden Architecture of Executive Impact
At senior levels, leadership impact is shaped less by what we do and more by what our presence signals to others. This 2-hour in-person masterclass explores the idea of leadership as “signal”, and the ways in which our singal either strengthens or undermines our impact. Clear and consistent leadership brands reduce ambiguity, build trust, and enable aligned, high-performing cultures. This masterclass offers a focused opportunity to step back and ensure you’re delivering the leadership brand you want.
Immersive
From Intent to Impact: Bringing your Leadership Brand to Life
This 1-day immersive explores the idea of leadership as “signal”, and walks leaders through a system for building a clear, coherent, and consistent leadership brand. Based in the latest research and case studies, this immersive is highly practical, dialogic, and pitched for senior and emerging executives to gain perspective on their current brand and ways of making it more intentional, and habits and hacks that ensure it is consistently contributes to the legacy we wish to create.
Keynote
Leadership as Signal: Positioning Meets Purpose in the AI Age
James delivers keynotes on the topic of “leadership as signal”, where leadership brands faulter, the costs of this for organisations, and what to do about it. Drawing on insights from social psychology, neuroscience, and leadership research, as well as engaging stories and business examples, James makes a case for clear, coherent, and consistent leaderhsip brands that are grounded in clarity of intent. In the AI era, these human capabilities are perhaps more stretched — but more important — than ever.
Testimonials
“Just amazing! I now catch myself in auto-pilot and have learned to bring my leadership intent much more consistently to the challenges I face. Makes it much easier to refocus on the present task or person in front of me. Instead of leaking all this energy worrying or ruminating, I now feel like I can consistently engage fully with what I want to be doing. It’s a skill that takes practice, but I can already see the benefits. James was very engaging.”
“Extremely useful in and out of the workplace. I’ve spoken a lot about this session since.”
“James was great. Got lots out of this session. The idea of “core habits” and “leadership intent” gave me a clear lens to look at my impact over time, and what I want it to be. Very thought provoking.”
“Thank you again for running the course, it has made an immeasurable difference to my life…. When managing a complex issue or crisis, the work we did together really helped me show up differently and with much more clarity …. I really don’t think I could do this work without what I learnt with you!”
“This program provided a fantastic opportunity to reflect on how I approach my leadership roles and what I could do differently. James struck a great balance between providing us with new tools and letting ideas emerge from the sharing of own experiences. The one-on-one coaching sessions were useful for helping me reflect on my goals and opportunities to improve my leadership skills, while the group sessions exposed me to new tools for showing up with intent, managing conflict, and empowering those who I work within a leadership capacity.”
“Thank you very much for a very insightful and practical course. There should be more of it in the workplace!”
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“Fantastic session. There should be more of this across the business.
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“I really appreciated the chance to press “pause” on my leadership and reflect on some of my ongoing challenges. The self-reflections we did were really valuable, and helped me to see the blind spots and triggers I bring to what I do, and how I can shift these. The work on leadership intent was great and will help me to navigate some more difficult conversations with clarity. Thanks James for a great session”
“This was a really powerful session. Loved the idea that leadership intent is the “engine” of our brand, and all the exploration, and honest conversations, about how I can bring this into my everyday. Huge thanks for this opportunity.”
“These sessions gave me a practical range of evidence-based things to try. Thank you!”
