Leadership BITES

Guy Bloom | Living Brave Leadership

Welcome to ‘Leadership Bites’, with your host Guy Bloom. I have conversations with amazing people who impact on the world around them . Always about leadership and hopefully in such a way as to reinforce the good you do and to bring challenge to the things you might be able to calibrate. All links for Guy: www.livingbrave.com

  1. Why Legacy Matters with Sharath Jeevan OBE

    -12 h

    Why Legacy Matters with Sharath Jeevan OBE

    In this episode of Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom speaks with Sharath Jeevan OBE, legacy expert, Oxford lecturer, author of Inflection: A Roadmap for Leaders at a Crossroads, and founder of the Generational Success Lab at Saïd Business School. Sharath describes legacy not as something leaders think about at the end of their career, but as the mark they are choosing to leave right now. The conversation explores why legacy matters in a world of uncertainty, AI, pressure, private equity, short term targets and constant organisational change. Guy and Sharath challenge the idea that leadership is just task, output and performance management. They discuss why leaders need to think more deeply about meaning, contribution, significance and the experience they create for others. Sharath shares how his own background, from being an Indian immigrant to becoming a social entrepreneur, adviser, author and OBE, shaped his thinking on preservation, reinvention and impact. He also explains why legacy is not only for CEOs or people nearing retirement, but for anyone who wants their work to matter. This conversation looks at legacy through the lens of individuals, teams and organisations. It asks how leaders can build institutions, develop people, create ideas and shape cultures that continue beyond them. A key theme is that legacy is not a soft idea. It is a strategic lens. It helps leaders stay grounded, make better decisions, hold long term intent alongside short term pressure, and create work that has meaning beyond the immediate task. If you are leading a team, shaping a business, working through an inflection point, or asking what your leadership is really leaving behind, this episode will give you plenty to think about. To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    57 min
  2. Gary Clarke, Qatar Airways: Leading the way in Talent & Leadership

    21 févr.

    Gary Clarke, Qatar Airways: Leading the way in Talent & Leadership

    In this episode of Leadership Bites, I sit down with Gary Clarke, Group Head of Learning and Development at Qatar Airways, based in Doha.  Gary leads group wide learning across a 65,000 person organisation, with a team of around 80, covering everything from operational training that keeps aircraft flying, to leadership and capability, learning tech, digital content, and vendor partnerships. Along the way, we get into what it really takes to run an internal learning function like a business, build credibility fast, and become the supplier of choice inside a complex, high pace, multi subsidiary organisation.  We talk about leading in a multicultural reality, the tension between standards and psychological safety, why bland harmony is a risk, and how to create a community of practice that pulls people together without forcing compliance. We also touch on AI and learning, not as a shiny distraction, but as a tool, while the real edge remains human connection, trust, and leadership craft.  If you care about culture in the real world, not the poster on the wall, this one will land.  Connect with me at livingbrave.com  Subscribe for more episodes and share this with someone who cares about doing leadership properly.  Chapters  00:00 Intro and welcome  00:29 Gary Clarke and Qatar Airways context  02:51 Scale, growth, and operational pace  05:03 What learning covers in an airline  08:57 Supplier of choice mindset for internal L and D  10:43 Quality, credibility, and Brandon Hall Awards  12:14 Centralised vs federated learning models  14:19 Building community through internal conferences  21:17 Multicultural leadership, standards, and integration  33:04 Clear standards, clear intention  34:03 Human centred leadership and psychological safety  49:13 AI, generational gaps, and learning strategy  57:12 The next few years and what matters most  To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    1 h 1 min
  3. Dr. Steven Farmer, CEO, Alconex- Soft Skills, Delivering Hard Results

    8 févr.

    Dr. Steven Farmer, CEO, Alconex- Soft Skills, Delivering Hard Results

    In this episode of Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom sits down with Dr Steven Farmer DBA MPhil MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Alconex Infrastructure and Solutions Ltd, author of Soft Skills, Hard Numbers. Steve leads a multi utilities business delivering gas, water and electric connections to homes, while expanding into energy transition work across data centres, battery energy storage and solar.  Steve shares a straight talking leadership philosophy that blends soft skills with hard numbers. He talks about rising from an apprenticeship and life on the tools, to senior leadership and board level accountability, then pushing himself through an MBA and a doctorate while working full time. The conversation moves into what servant leadership really means when performance dips, why poor behaviour is a fast route to the exit, and how leaders can build psychological safety without lowering standards.  They explore the human reality leaders are dealing with right now, a workforce arriving already anxious, the importance of being excellent at receiving bad news, and the practical power of one simple principle: do not make life worse for people at work. Steve also unpacks his doctorate research into values based recruitment in construction, and why the industry needs a new story if it wants young talent to choose trade and craft over debt and drift.  Expect clear thinking, grounded experience, and leadership that respects people while still hitting the numbers.  Key moments and ideas  • The route to CEO, and why effort beats talent when talent coasts  • Doctorate level work while leading a business, what it really takes  • Values based recruitment and making construction a cause people want to join  • Servant leadership without softness, command without control  • Psychological safety and performance, do not shoot the messenger  • Bad news is like fresh bread, better when it is new  • High performance, low tolerance, high nurture, the leadership balance  • Creating workplaces where people do not get the Sunday scaries  • One leadership book Steve would still recommend: Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People  Guest Dr Steven Farmer DBA MPhil MBA Chief Executive Officer, Alconex Infrastructure and Solutions Ltd Author, Soft Skills Delivering Hard Numbers  Host Guy Bloom Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and Team Effectiveness Living Brave Leadership Leadership Bites podcast  To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    49 min
  4. Danny Nelson - The Winvic Way

    10 janv.

    Danny Nelson - The Winvic Way

    In this extended studio conversation on Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom sits down with Danny Nelson, MD WINVIC, Industrial & Logistics who has grown with a construction business from its early days into a billion pound organisation. This is not a polished leadership story. It is a real one.  Danny talks openly about starting out as an apprentice, learning the craft from tough early experiences, and what changes when you move from being good at the job to being responsible for people, culture and long term performance. Together they explore what trust actually looks like when you stop micromanaging, why accountability is not about blame, and how letting go becomes one of the hardest disciplines of senior leadership.  The conversation goes deep into lived culture. Not values on the wall, but how standards are set, how people are treated, how suppliers are paid, and how consistency builds credibility over time. They discuss succession, stepping into ownership, recalibrating peer relationships, and why leadership maturity often comes through discomfort, feedback and reflection rather than confidence or charisma.  This episode is for leaders who have grown inside an organisation, who feel the weight of responsibility, and who know that leadership is less about being right and more about learning, trust and sustained behaviour over time.   00:08:56 From apprentice to boardroom learning leadership through craft  00:15:40 Growing inside one organisation what you learn that outsiders do not  00:17:38 Where culture really comes from standards not slogans  00:20:02 Doing it right why credibility is built through behaviour  00:23:56 What culture feels like when it is working  00:26:23 What got you here will not get you there  00:28:50 Leadership maturity learning through reflection  00:30:28 Trust versus control why micromanagement kills leadership  00:32:10 Letting go without letting things fall apart  00:33:37 Accountability without blame owning performance properly  00:35:14 The John Terry effect leadership without needing the spotlight  00:36:53 Succession without ego stepping into ownership  00:39:09 Recalibrating peer relationships at senior level  00:42:05 Getting honest feedback when you are at the top  00:44:21 Why senior leaders hear less truth over time  00:46:03 Trusting each other enough to challenge properly  00:48:11 Why perfection is not the goal in leadership  00:49:21 Advice to younger leaders what really matters  00:51:18 Growth comes from facing into discomfort  00:52:39 Learning from leaders you do not want to become  00:54:10 Leadership is not meant to be easy  To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    56 min
  5. Can culture, ever meet expectations?

    3 janv.

    Can culture, ever meet expectations?

    In this first ever Leadership Bites conversation between Guy Bloom and Jamie MacPherson, two long time colleagues finally press record and get into what sits underneath the glossy talk of culture.  They explore a blunt question: can the promise of a great culture ever meet expectations, or does it always fall short once real people, real pressure, and real leaders show up.  They unpack the gap between the marketing story and the lived experience, the hidden corridor culture that never makes the posters, and the reality that most organisations do not have one culture at all but many, shaped by local leaders and daily interactions.  Jamie frames culture as the aggregation of every interaction and offers three simple tests that cut through the noise: do interactions leave people clearer, more interested, and learning.  Guy adds a hard edge to that with survival versus contribution, where people are either performing to stay safe or showing up with enough trust to offer half formed ideas, challenge, and honesty.  They also tackle the uncomfortable truth of culture programmes: if you raise awareness and set a standard, you create a new lens people will judge the organisation by.  If leadership cannot live it, the disappointment gets louder.  Great culture is not Nirvana. It is averages, peaks and troughs, small behaviours done consistently, and the craft of leadership at senior level, where the work is granular, deliberate, and owned from the top.  A candid, funny, reality based conversation about what culture really is, what it is for, and why the promise only becomes real when leaders have the courage to be specific, accountable, and human.  00:00 Introduction to Leadership Bites 03:22 Exploring Culture and Performance 06:25 The Promise of a Great Culture 09:10 Defining Culture and Its Purpose 12:27 Interactions Shape Culture 15:15 Survival vs. Contribution in Culture 18:26 Navigating Fear and Anxiety in the Workplace 21:05 Setting Realistic Expectations for Culture 24:36 The Pursuit of Realistic Standards 25:54 Understanding Happiness in High-Performance Cultures 29:46 The Difference Between Enjoyment and Satisfaction 31:06 Reevaluating Expectations in Organizational Culture 33:29 The Importance of Listening in Leadership 36:39 Managing Expectations and Reality in Culture Change 40:02 Crafting a Culture of Continuous Improvement 43:03 Defining Specific Behavioral Expectations 48:51 Embedding Change for Sustainable Culture To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    51 min
  6. The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals with Guido Palazzo

    13/12/2025

    The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals with Guido Palazzo

    In this episode of Leadership Bites, I interview Guido Palazzo, Professor of Business Ethics,  University of Lausanne, who explores the dark side of corporate behaviour and the systemic issues that lead to ethical failures. We discuss Guido's background, the concept of his brilliant book 'The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals' in corporate scandals, and the importance of understanding the systems and cultures that allow unethical behaviour to thrive.  The conversation delves into the psychological aspects of corporate culture, the slippery slope of ethical compromise, and the need for organisations to create environments that promote ethical decision-making. Ultimately, we highlight the importance of awareness and proactive measures to prevent ethical failures in business. Takeaways Guido focuses on the absence of ethics in business.Corporate scandals often involve good people making bad decisions.Systems, not just individuals, drive unethical behaviour.Leadership plays a crucial role in shaping organisational culture.Group dynamics can lead to conformity and ethical blindness.The slippery slope of compromise can lead to significant ethical failures.Survival instincts can overshadow ethical considerations in the workplace.Creating a 'bright pattern' can help organisations avoid ethical pitfalls.Awareness and proactive measures are essential for ethical business practices.The importance of having a court jester to provide honest feedback in organisations.Key Moments & Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Ethics and Corporate Responsibility 03:03 Guido's Background and Academic Journey 05:37 Understanding Ethics in Business 08:49 The Role of Systems in Ethical Failures 11:45 Exploring Corporate Scandals and Dark Patterns 14:35 The Impact of Leadership on Organizational Culture 17:41 Group Dynamics and Ethical Decision Making 20:30 The Combination of Dark Patterns in Corporations 23:28 Survival and Ethical Compromise in Business 26:12 Conclusion: The Human Element in Corporate Ethics 26:42 The Dark Patterns of Corporate Culture 29:39 The Slippery Slope of Compromise 33:16 The Illusion of the Messiah in Leadership 40:13 The Disconnect Between Leadership and Reality 44:11 Finding the Bright Pattern in Dark Times To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    51 min
  7. In PRAISE of the OFFICE! with Dr. Peter Cappilla & Ranya Nehmeh

    30/11/2025

    In PRAISE of the OFFICE! with Dr. Peter Cappilla & Ranya Nehmeh

    In this episode of Leadership Bites, host Guy Bloom engages with Peter Cappilla & Ranya Nehmeh, authors of 'In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work.'  They discuss the evolving dynamics of work in the post-pandemic world, exploring the challenges and benefits of remote and hybrid work models.  The conversation delves into the importance of social interactions, the generational divide in workplace culture, and the critical role of leadership in navigating these changes. The episode emphasises the need for organisations to adapt and find a balance between remote flexibility and the inherent value of in-person collaboration. Takeaways The pandemic forced a massive experiment in remote work.Social interactions are crucial for innovation and collaboration.There is a generational divide in workplace culture.Employees value flexibility but also miss in-person connections.Leadership must model the behaviors they want to see.The media often exaggerates the tension between employees and employers.Organizations need to create intentional connections in the office.Remote work can lead to social isolation and stress.Measuring productivity in remote work is complex and nuanced.The future of work requires a balance between remote and office environments.Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Leadership Bytes 02:55 Meet the Guests: Peter and Ranya 05:54 The Concept of Office Work 08:54 The Impact of the Pandemic on Work Dynamics 11:41 Challenges of Remote Work 14:29 The Generational Divide in Workplace Culture 17:48 The Tug of War: Employees vs Employers 20:40 The Role of Leadership in Hybrid Work 23:34 The Importance of Social Interactions 26:39 Measuring Innovation and Collaboration 29:41 The Future of Work: Balancing Remote and Office 32:28 Conclusion and Key Takeaways To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below. The link to everything CLICK HERE UK: 07827 953814 Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com Web: www.livingbrave.com

    55 min

À propos

Welcome to ‘Leadership Bites’, with your host Guy Bloom. I have conversations with amazing people who impact on the world around them . Always about leadership and hopefully in such a way as to reinforce the good you do and to bring challenge to the things you might be able to calibrate. All links for Guy: www.livingbrave.com

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