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A large python turned up in the rafters outside our bedroom. It was close to winter, when snakes are supposed to be slowing down and out of sight. This one had other plans. It lay draped along the rafter by the sliding door, digesting. You could see the lump partway down its body, about the...
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I have been working with a senior leader with deep technical expertise. The kind of person you want when the detail has to hold up. They wanted to move beyond operational expertise and influence how a major transition would unfold inside a complex system. Then an assessment named initiative as a weakness. On paper, that...
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An expired leadership script does not feel broken. That is what makes it dangerous. When a board, funder, regulator or executive team stops responding the way they used to, many leaders are still relying on the moves that once made them effective. The moves are fluent. They are familiar. They used to work. And yet...
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After a long day of meetings and an evening still at the desk, I switched on a streaming platform on the tier with ads. What I didn’t expect was for the 45-minute show to take 65 minutes to watch, because the same ad repeatedly played three times in a row, then once more after a...
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Most leaders don’t get into trouble because of the first decision. They get into trouble because of the second one. My daughter and her partner are both football mad. They have played since they were kids. She caught the AFL bug in her early teens and plays in a women’s team here in Brisbane. He...
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There are lines I keep hearing in conversations with government, health and community service leaders. Each one sounds reasonable on its own. Together, they point to something more serious I call the Convergence Trap. My brain has been compared to a pinball machine. Since the beginning of 2026 it has been bouncing between statements like...
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Most leaders don’t wake up planning to betray their values. I finally finished watching The Man in the High Castle. It’s a dystopian alternate-history series: part espionage drama, part resistance story, part moral horror story. One where small compromises become the reference point for the next one, until lines people said they would never cross...
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We keep blaming AI for weakening critical thinking at work. I think that’s too convenient. AI is accelerating a problem leaders have been building for years: organisations full of people trained to deliver simplified answers instead of sound judgement. I’ve had a phrase stuck in my head. “You reap what you sow.” I was reading...
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My husband is one of five boys. The whole family doesn’t gather the way it used to. Across the remaining brothers in Australia there are six cousins, ranging in age from 3 to 27. And up until late last year, all six had never been in the same room at the same time. We managed...
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The boards that govern well don’t solve strategic questions on the fly — they notice when the conversation has shifted, and name it.
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Disruption doesn’t just interrupt, it reshapes attention. In high-pressure moments, effective leaders know how to stay centred, protect focus, and keep the work moving forward.
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When pressure rises, leaders are often rewarded for speed—but moving too quickly can narrow the frame and create unintended consequences. In complex systems, solving the first visible problem without considering the wider impact often leads to a second, bigger issue.
Read itIf the complexity in your organisation isn't going anywhere, and you have less certainty than you'd like, that's ground Susanne has worked for thirty years.
Start with a conversation to find your team's way through.
