The HOW of High Performance

Sally Henderson
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For years, leadership books have been fixated on WHY? This is no longer enough. Whether you succeed or fail, thrive or burn out all comes down to HOW you lead when the pressure is on, HOW you manage your energy, and HOW you show up when the stakes are high. When you reach senior level, you’re expected to have leadership nailed: clarity on your role, emotional regulation, sustainable drive and a leadership style you've actively future-proofed. In reality, you’re a work in progress. And you’re busier than ever: how do you even start to fill the gaps? Sally Henderson, High-Stakes Leadership Mentor, guides you through The REAL Method, a toolkit created from 25 years of real-world research and used by C-suite executives to master how they lead. Accelerate your growth, gain true clarity, greater inner confidence and set work-life boundaries that work. You’re a high performer, but even the best can get better. Master your HOW.

  1. Aug 13

    Sally Henderson with Nishma Patel Robb on pressing the big red button on her life and why reinvention is the highest stakes act of all

    Nishma Patel Robb spent 30 years in marketing and media, the last ten as Senior Director of Brand and Reputation Marketing at Google, before walking away to build Glittersphere and co-found Hera, the UK's first female led podcast network. In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the YouTube brand safety crisis that put her on the front pages and the choice she made in that room that defined her leadership, and why she traded financial security, prestige and a path well trodden for a feeling and an instinct that she chose over everything life had taught her to hold on to. Nishma shares what she's learned about the difference between being polished and being prepared, and her advice to fellow senior leaders is rooted in something most people in positions of power get wrong every day. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  2. Aug 6

    Sally Henderson with Cath Bishop on coming ninth at the Olympics when she expected to peak and the complete rethink of success that changed how she leads

    Cath Bishop is a world champion and Olympic silver medallist rower, former diplomat who specialised in conflict negotiations, and author of The Long Win. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she talks about what happened when she came ninth at her second Olympics, a result she experienced as the most public failure imaginable, and how the 18 months of questioning that followed completely reshaped her understanding of success, identity and what it really means to perform under pressure. Cath draws on all three chapters of her career to explore why trust in high stakes negotiations only moves forward through relationship not logic, and what she's learned about helping leaders see the real culture in their organisations rather than the one written on the wall. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  3. Jul 30

    Sally Henderson with Marg Jobling on why "the worst they can do is sack me" is the mindset that has shaped how she leads through every high stakes moment

    Marg Jobling is Group CMO at NatWest, having held senior roles across Unilever, Sara Lee, Cadbury, Birdseye and Centrica, spanning blue chip, private equity and regulated business. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she shares why she gets her energy from figuring people out and how that skill has been the difference in every high stakes boardroom moment of her career. Marg talks about the philosophy that has kept her grounded through decades of leading at the top, what she's learned about managing your own energy when you're the person everyone else is reading, and why she believes that if you back yourself and get on with it, people will follow you. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  4. Jul 23

    Sally Henderson with Mark Evans on why the smartest leaders figure out how to achieve success and significance at the same time

    Mark Evans spent a decade at Mars, nearly eleven years on the executive at Direct Line Group and has been made redundant four times, which is why he says high stakes is about going hard or going home because you only get one shot. In this episode of The How of High Performance he talks about the walk around the block with his CEO three weeks before the biggest campaign of his career went on air, what he chose to say in that moment to keep everything alive, and how the trust he had built over years was the only thing he had to pull on when it mattered most. Mark shares the speech a friend's father gave on graduation night that changed his entire worldview on success and significance, and his advice to fellow senior leaders is deceptively simple but something most people talk themselves out of every single day. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  5. Jul 16

    Sally Henderson with Jenny Quigley Jones on starting a global agency with 500 pounds and learning that the highest stakes decisions are never the ones you think they are

    Jenny Quigley Jones went from working in Syrian refugee camps to YouTube to launching Digital Voices, the influencer marketing agency she built from 500 pounds into a 70 person team across three countries and which, since this episode was recorded, has been acquired by global marketing and technology company PMG. In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the restructure she led during one of the toughest years for UK businesses on record and why the most important thing she did was slow it right down when every instinct was screaming at her to react. Jenny shares why she believes high stakes leadership moments aren't made in one big decision but in the micro moments that build trust long before the pressure arrives, and her advice to fellow senior leaders reframes what the role actually demands of you in a way that is bracingly honest and hard to forget. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  6. Jul 2

    Sally Henderson with Andrew Powell on why high stakes always comes down to people and the leadership lesson the Special Forces taught him that still holds

    Andrew Powell joined the British Army at 16, spent six years with the Special Forces and walked away at 27 to start again in business. Now Group Chief Commercial Officer at Robert Walters, he has led across private equity, corporate, start up and scale up environments. In this episode of The How of High Performance he shares what happened when he was handed a global restructure affecting several hundred people's livelihoods and why the way he approached it with total transparency still defines how he leads today. Andrew talks about being always on stage as a leader, surrounding yourself with people who are better than you, and why his advice to fellow senior leaders comes down to something deceptively simple that not everyone has the courage to do. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  7. Jun 25

    Sally Henderson with Rebecca Hirst on what leading through intensity at Coca Cola, Samsung and EY taught her about the one thing most senior leaders sacrifice first when the stakes are highest

    Rebecca Hirst is the Global Brand, Marketing & Communications leader for EY Global Consulting, with a career spanning Kimberly Clark, seven years at Coca Cola, marketing director at Samsung and five years across EY's UK and now global operation. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she shares what it was like to step onto one of Samsung's biggest global stages to present a product launch to the world and how she prepared herself when the pressure was at its most visible. Rebecca talks about the high stakes of choosing to uproot everything and move countries when there's never a good time to do it, why she believes you only ever need to take one step forward to know if you're heading in the right direction, and the one thing she's learned about leading through intensity that most senior leaders overlook until it's too late. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

  8. Jun 18

    Sally Henderson with James Williams on leading Coca Cola through the Olympics during a pandemic and the photo that changed how his team trusted him

    James Williams spent 16 years at Coca Cola, the last ten leading their Olympic and Paralympic sponsorship from London to Rio to Tokyo. In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what happened when spectators were pulled just 11 days before the postponed Tokyo games and the photo he put in front of his team the next morning that said more than any strategy deck could. James talks about why he walked away from one of the most enviable roles in global marketing to come home and start again on his own terms, and the two things he learned across three very different cultures that he says every senior leader needs to get right. About the Show The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been tested in leadership and in life, with guests spanning C-suite business, Olympic sport, academia and the military, and asks them to share what they learned about their HOW under pressure. Please follow or subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts - it helps other senior leaders find the show. Sally's book The How of High Performance is available at amazon.co.uk and from all good bookshops. Visit sallyhenderson.co.uk or connect with Sally on LinkedIn.

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About

For years, leadership books have been fixated on WHY? This is no longer enough. Whether you succeed or fail, thrive or burn out all comes down to HOW you lead when the pressure is on, HOW you manage your energy, and HOW you show up when the stakes are high. When you reach senior level, you’re expected to have leadership nailed: clarity on your role, emotional regulation, sustainable drive and a leadership style you've actively future-proofed. In reality, you’re a work in progress. And you’re busier than ever: how do you even start to fill the gaps? Sally Henderson, High-Stakes Leadership Mentor, guides you through The REAL Method, a toolkit created from 25 years of real-world research and used by C-suite executives to master how they lead. Accelerate your growth, gain true clarity, greater inner confidence and set work-life boundaries that work. You’re a high performer, but even the best can get better. Master your HOW.

Information

  • Creator
    Sally Henderson
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Sally Henderson
  • Show Website
    The HOW of High Performance