Late Night Leadership

Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox
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For forward-thinking senior leaders who want to strengthen their leadership and build teams that thrive. We explore what shapes culture, how teams can think and work better together and the real challenges that show up inside organisations. 

  1. 2d ago

    Confident or Vulnerable? Leading when the plan is a best guess

    This episode explores the tension between confidence and vulnerability in leadership, showing when each serves you and when it can harm outcomes. Confidence vs Vulnerability: How Much Should a Leader Show? You're asking investors to back a plan you know is partly a best guess, or you're a few weeks into a new role and everyone's waiting for you to set direction in a business you've barely got to know. Kate and Maddie look at the pull between projecting confidence and being open about what you don't know yet: what each one does for you, what happens when you lean too far either way, and how to work out which end you tend to default to. In this episode Why the most confident voice in the room tends to win the argument, even when it isn't the right one Overestimation, overplacement and overprecision: three kinds of overconfidence, and the signs you might be leaning on one of them A neurosurgeon who pairs complete certainty about what needs to happen with an open conversation about the options Process, outcome and emotional vulnerability, and why it's usually the emotional kind that makes leaders want the ground to swallow them When sharing how you feel helps your team, and when it hands them something heavy to carry Try this: this week, pair confidence with vulnerability in the way you talk to your team. If you tend to lead with uncertainty, swap "I don't know if this will work" for something like "There are parts of this project I'm still working out, and I'm confident in our ability to figure them out together." If you tend to lead with certainty, try "I'm confident this is the right direction, and please tell me if there's anything else we should be thinking about." Notice which one felt harder to say, as that's probably a clue about which end of the spectrum you spend less time at. Over to you Kate has said "overindex" so many times while planning this series that it's stopped sounding like a word. If you've got a better one, we'd love to hear it. Write to us at hello@latenightleadership.com. Research and resources Jessica A. Kennedy, Cameron Anderson and Don A. Moore (2013), "When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence", Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. The research behind the idea that confidence, even when it isn't justified, raises your status with peers. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4d61t8rg Don A. Moore and Paul J. Healy (2008), "The trouble with overconfidence", Psychological Review. Where the three "overs" come from. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18426301/ Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart (2021). Grounded confidence, humility, armouring, and "I'm here to get it right, not to be right", a line that came out of her Dare to Lead research. [ADD LINK] Brené Brown, "The power of vulnerability", TED talk (2010). Vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability Edgar H. Schein, Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (2013; second edition with Peter Schein, 2021). Asking questions as an act of vulnerability that builds trust, and a very thin book, if you want something to read next.  Kevin Novak on three types of vulnerability in leadership: process, outcome and emotional. https://www.2040digital.com/change-and-transformation-leadership/leading-with-measured-vulnerability/  Past episode: the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership (Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp), and being "above" or "below the line". Season 1, Episode 2: how-culture-is-shaped-leaders-founders Past episode: emotional contagion. Season 1, Episode 2: how-culture-is-shaped-leaders-founders Further reading: the idea that showing vulnerability after you've shown competence makes you more likeable is often traced to Elliot Aronson's "pratfall effect" research from the 1960s, though later studies have found the effect depends a lot on context.  Next episode 23rd October: Our embodied leadership special. The easiest way to find out what that is? Listen next time. Enjoying the show? Follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and a rating or review makes a real difference to a small podcast like ours. About your hosts Kate Nicholroy (Good Ideas Agency, https://www.goodideasagency.com) and Maddie Fox (MadFox Group, https://www.madfoxgroup.com) are coaches who work with senior leaders and their teams, and Late Night Leadership grew out of the conversations we kept having with them. Produced by Tim Fox. Music by Richard Flindell. Late Night Leadership was formerly A Curious Space.

  2. Sep 25

    Welcome to Late Night Leadership: Why some leadership problems aren't meant to be solved

    Why some leadership problems aren't meant to be solved We're back, with a new name and a new season! If you found us before as A Curious Space, it's still the two of us, with all the research, ideas and experience you know, but Late Night Leadership is focused on leadership itself: the joys, challenges and tensions that make it so interesting, talked through the way you would late at night with a trusted friend (the thoughtful kind of late night, not the 3am panic). This launch episode introduces Season 1, The Leader in the Room, which is all about leading yourself. Some leadership problems have a clear answer, so you make the call and move on. Others are polarities, where two things are true at once and pull you in opposite directions, like short-term results and long-term strategy, control and autonomy, or caring for people and driving performance. Treat those as problems to fix and leaders can burn out and teams can stall, and there's some real relief in realising the tension was never meant to resolve. In this episode - What a polarity is, and how it differs from a problem you solve once - What over-indexing looks like, with the classic numbers person and people person example - Why the discomfort of holding a tension makes us want to jump to a resolution, and why tolerating it for a little longer can lead to a better choice - Using what's happening in your body as data, and a return to the above and below the line model from Series 1 - Standing your ground without losing yourself, and why "I didn't have a choice" is worth getting curious about - What's coming this season: confidence vs vulnerability, conviction vs curiosity, standing your ground vs preserving the relationship, a deep dive into embodied leadership, and a few guest conversations along the way Try this Before the next episode, pick a challenge you're facing, ideally one that keeps coming back. Can you see it as a polarity? What's the opposite of the choice you keep making, and does looking at it that way give you a different perspective or a different way forward? Over to you What's the tension you feel most as a leader? Write and tell us at hello@latenightleadership.com, because we'd love to weave listeners' tensions into episodes as the series goes on.. Over to you What's the tension you feel most as a leader? Write and tell us at hello@latenightleadership.com, because we'd love to weave listeners' tensions into episodes as the series goes on. Research and resources - The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp, the source of the above and below the line model: https://conscious.is/15-commitments - From our back catalogue: Series 1, Episode 2, "How culture is shaped: leaders and founders", where we first talked about the line model: https://latenightleadership.com/episode/2-how-culture-is-shaped-leaders-founders - Further reading: Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems by Barry Johnson, the book that much of today's thinking about polarities grows from: https://www.polaritypartnerships.com/products Next episode Friday 9 October: confidence vs vulnerability, where each helps and where it gets in the way. Enjoying the show? Follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and if you enjoyed our earlier seasons, a rating or review makes a real difference to a small podcast like ours. The whole back catalogue is still in this feed and on our new website: https://latenightleadership.com About your hosts Kate Nicholroy (Good Ideas Agency, https://www.goodideasagency.com) and Maddie Fox (MadFox Group, https://www.madfoxgroup.com) are coaches who work with senior leaders and their teams, and Late Night Leadership grew out of the conversations we kept having with them. Produced by Tim Fox. Music by Richard Flindell. Late Night Leadership was formerly A Curious Space.

  3. Jul 10

    14. No Fear, No Filter: Building a Team That Tells You the Truth

    Late Night Leadership: Psychological Safety Season finale In this episode, Kate and Maddie explore psychological safety: what it actually means, why most people get it wrong, and the specific leadership behaviours that create it. Drawing on Amy Edmondson's book The Fearless Organisation, they make the case that psychological safety is not about comfort, being nice, or avoiding conflict. It is the belief that your work environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. And it lives at team level, which means any leader can create it, regardless of what the wider organisation is doing. What you'll hear in this episode: Why psychological safety is not the same as comfort or harmony, and why falsely harmonious teams can have very low safety. The neuroscience behind fear: what actually happens in your brain when you do not feel safe, and why even brilliant, experienced people will stay silent. How Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the single biggest factor in high-performing teams, and why Edmondson describes it as "taking the brakes off." The real cost of not having it, from the Volkswagen emissions scandal to the Pan Am disaster, and what those examples reveal about the weight of hierarchy. Edmondson's three-part framework for building psychological safety as a leader: Set the stage. Frame the work in a way that normalises failure, makes clear that input is needed, and gives people permission to speak honestly. Kate shares how reframing a feedback question from "what could Kate do better?" to "what advice do you have for Kate?" changed everything she got back. Invite participation. Ask questions you genuinely do not know the answer to. Build structures that make contribution normal, from brain trusts (Pixar) to failure-sharing lunches. Respond productively. Appreciate honesty even when the news is bad. Reward effort and learning, not just success. And yes, still hold people accountable when behaviour crosses a clear line: dealing with genuine violations actually increases safety for everyone else. Practical takeaways for leaders: Name your own part in what went wrong before asking others to do the same. Try an aspirational question in your next team meeting. Rather than asking what has gone wrong, ask: "What is stopping this being as good as we want it to be?" or "What am I not seeing here?" Use the "what's your 2%?" prompt to make shared accountability feel manageable. Everyone can admit 2%. Experiment with the pre-mortem: assume the project has failed, then explore why. It surfaces risks early, and it is a gift for natural catastrophisers. Ask directly: "What is one thing I could do to help the team feel safer taking risks?" Referenced in this episode: The Fearless Organisation by Amy Edmondson Google's Project Aristotle Pixar's Brain Trust Patrick Lencioni on vulnerability-based trust Nancy Kline's Time to Think Carol Dweck's growth mindset research Wells Fargo and the Volkswagen emissions scandal as case studies in the cost of low safety A note from Kate and Maddie: This is the last episode before a summer break. Season three launches in September and will focus entirely on leadership. If you have taken something from this series, we would love to hear from you: hello@acuriousspacepodcast.com   About the Hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com). Produced by Tim Fox. Music by Richard Flindell.

  4. Jun 26

    13. Culture Room 101: Four Things We're Banishing From Workplace Culture

    Culture Room 101: Four Things We're Banishing From Workplace Culture Episode Summary In this bridge episode between seasons, Kate and Maddie borrow the format from the BBC show Room 101 (itself borrowed from Orwell's 1984) to make the case for banishing pieces of organisational culture orthodoxy for good. One host argues for getting rid of something, the other plays devil's advocate, and together they decide whether it goes in the room. Up for debate this episode: the feedback sandwich, describing your organisational culture as a family, using an annual away day as a substitute for the deeper work of culture change, and the phrase "let's take this offline."  In This Episode The feedback sandwich, and why cushioning developmental feedback between two positives tends to backfire in one of two directions. Describing organisational culture as a family, and the blurred boundaries and unrealistic expectations this can create. Away days used as a one-off fix, and the difference between an away day that supports ongoing culture work and one that replaces it. The phrase "let's take this offline," and how it can shut down the productive conflict a team actually needs. Key Concepts & Thinkers The feedback sandwich: examined as conflict avoidance dressed up as kindness, and the cost of treating positive feedback as separate from developmental feedback. Hellinger's systemic thinking: referenced on the flow of love in organisations, and why this doesn't require the family metaphor to exist. Away days as a sticking plaster: distinguishing genuine, sustained culture work from a single annual event expected to do all the work. Nancy Kline's Thinking Environment: referenced on writing clear questions for meeting agendas and checking back against what a meeting was actually there to do. Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team: referenced on the avoidance of productive conflict, and how "let's take this offline" can be a symptom of this. Reflection Questions When you give feedback, are you managing the other person's experience, or your own discomfort with the conversation? Does your organisation describe itself as a family? What expectations does that create, and what happens when reality doesn't match them? Think about your last away day. Was it part of an ongoing plan, or a stand-alone event hoping to fix something in a day? How often does "let's take this offline" come up in your meetings, and what is it usually protecting people from? About the Hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com). Get in Touch Got something you think belongs in Room 101? Or want to defend something we've banished? Email us at hello@latenightleadership.com or visit www.latenightleadership.com to join the conversation.   Produced by Tim Fox. Music by Richard Flindell.

  5. Jun 12

    12. Culture Clinic: The One Person You Can't Afford to Lose

    In this episode of Late Night Leadership, Kate and Maddy open up the Culture Clinic for the first time, responding to a letter from a listener we are calling Rowan. Rowan runs a business where two years of deliberate culture-building is being undermined by one person: a commercial director who brings in more revenue than anyone else and makes working life harder for almost everyone around them.   The question Rowan is sitting with is one that will be familiar to many leaders: can I afford to lose this person? Kate and Maddy turn that question around. Have you properly costed what it is to keep them?   What we cover in this episode The tension between visible and invisible costs in organisations, and why the financial impact of difficult behaviour rarely makes it onto a balance sheet.   Research by Pearson and Porath (2005) on workplace incivility, including findings that 50% of people lose significant work time managing around a difficult colleague, 70% vent outside the organisation, and one in eight eventually leave.   Why tolerating behaviour sends a louder signal than any values statement.   How to approach a genuinely different kind of conversation with a high performer whose behaviour is causing damage, one that is curious about what is driving it rather than just addressing the symptom.   The role of reward structures and performance expectations in either reinforcing or shifting the problem.   What support for this kind of conversation can look like, including for the leader having it.   Research referenced Pearson, C. and Porath, C. (2005). On the nature, consequences and remedies of workplace incivility: No time for "nice"? Think again. Academy of Management Perspectives, 19(1), 7-18.   About the hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations, who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com).   Listen and connect Find all episodes of A Curious Space at www.latenightleadership.com.   Get in touch with a cultural conundrum, a question, or to find out how Kate and Maddy can support your organisation: hello@latenightleadership.com   Credits Late Night Leadership is produced by Tim Fox with music by Richard Flindell.

  6. May 29

    11. Time to Think: How to help your team do deeper, better thinking

    Throughout season one of Late Night Leadership (formerly A Curious Space), one name kept coming up: Nancy Kline. Whether we were talking about culture, trust, conflict or storytelling, her framework, the Thinking Environment, kept appearing in the background. So in this post-season deep dive, we decided to give it the conversation it has always deserved. This episode is a proper exploration of Kline's work: where it comes from, what the ten principles actually are, and how both of us use them in our day-to-day work with teams and individuals. What is the Thinking Environment? The Thinking Environment is built on a simple but powerful premise: the quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first. And the quality of our thinking depends on the way we treat each other while we are thinking. Kline identified ten principles that, when present, create the conditions for people to think at their best. We walk through all ten in this episode: Attention: genuinely focused, uninterrupted listening Equality: every person's thinking is welcome and valued Ease: creating the internal spaciousness to think rather than react Encouragement: keeping thinking moving, even when it is uncomfortable Appreciation: acknowledging the thinking, not just the outcome Feelings: making space for emotion as part of the thinking process Information: ensuring people have what they need to think clearly Diversity: actively seeking different perspectives as a source of richness Place: recognising that physical environment shapes thinking Incisive questions: questions that remove the assumptions blocking deeper thought What we talk about We discuss why interruption is so costly (people are interrupted on average every eleven seconds, and the anticipation of it alone changes how we think), how equality in a meeting is not just about who speaks but about the conditions given to each person to think, and why ease is a performance consideration, not a wellbeing one. We also get into the two techniques we both reach for most: thinking rounds and thinking pairs. Rounds give every voice in the room the same quality of space, with no interruption and no right of reply, surfacing perspectives that rarely make it into open discussion. Thinking pairs offer uninterrupted time to think out loud with someone whose entire job is to hold attention. The only follow-up question available is: what more do you think, feel or want to say? Maddy shares her experience of working with a regular thinking partner over the past year, and what that quality of listening has made possible. We also talk practically: how to use rounds to open and close team sessions, why starting with a question about what is going well changes the quality of what follows, and the single simplest change you can make to your next team meeting today: rewrite your agenda headings as questions. Recommended reading Nancy Kline, Time to Think (1999) Nancy Kline, More Time to Think (2009) Kline narrates the audiobook of More Time to Think herself, and having trained with her, Maddy particularly recommends this as a way into the work.   About the hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations, who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com). Get in touch Questions, reflections, or things you would like us to explore further? We would love to hear from you. Write to us at hello@latenightleadership.com or visit www.latenightleadership.com  Thank you as always to our producer Tim Fox and to Richard Flindell for the music.

  7. May 15

    10. Culture Under Pressure

    Season one comes to a close with perhaps the most timely question we have explored this series: what actually happens to organisations when the pressure is on? In this episode, Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox look at the research behind threat rigidity, a well-documented pattern where individuals and systems under stress narrow their thinking, restrict communication, and default to familiar behaviour at precisely the moment when more expansive responses are needed. It is predictable, it is biological, and it is entirely possible to prepare for. Drawing on real examples from the COVID era and beyond, including the better.com mass layoffs, the Marriott response, the Wells Fargo accounts scandal, and the LEGO turnaround, Kate and Maddy explore the difference between organisations that come through sustained and acute pressure with their culture intact and those that don't. The answer is rarely strategy alone. It is almost always the quality of the humanity that leaders choose to maintain under pressure, and the degree to which open, curious, above-the-line practices have been built into organisational life before the crisis arrives. In this episode: Threat rigidity: what it is, where it comes from, and how it shows up in individuals and organisations Why pressure narrows thinking at the neurological level, and what that means for leadership teams The contrast between the better.com Zoom layoffs and Arne Sorenson's Marriott response Wells Fargo, rule beating, and why removing people from a broken system does not fix the system Lego's early 2000s turnaround and the practice of leading at eye level Practical tools: naming what is happening in the room, somatic awareness, above-the-line practice, and the seventh generation question Resources mentioned: Staw, Sandelands and Dutton on threat rigidity Arne Sorenson's March 2020 video to Marriott staff (available publicly online) better.com CEO Zoom call, December 2021 (available publicly online) Donella Meadows on rule beating and systems traps "If You Aspire to Be a Great Leader, Be Present," Harvard Business Review Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Embodied Leadership (available on Audible via Sounds True) About the hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations, who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com). Connect with us: We would love to know what has landed for you across season one, and what you would like us to explore in season two. Email us at hello@latenightleadership.com  or find us at www.latenightleadership.com  Many thanks to Tim Fox for producing the show, and to Richard Flindell for the music throughout.

  8. May 1

    9. Why You Can't Install Culture

    Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox dig into one of the most persistent frustrations in organisational life: why culture change programmes so often fail to deliver, and what leaders can do differently.   They explore the gap between change as an event and transition as an internal process, why the leadership team is always further ahead than the people hearing the news, and why culture does not live in the big moments. It lives in what happens every day in between.   Why 70% of organisational transformations fail, and why the announcement is rarely the problem The Bridges Transition Model: change versus transition, and the three stages of endings, neutral zone, and new beginnings Why the change team is always ahead of everyone else in the room, and how to account for that gap The elephant and the rider: why logical business cases are not enough to shift behaviour What leaders signal through what they measure, and how those signals shape culture more than any values statement Why acknowledging what came before is not sentiment. It is a structural requirement for change that sticks Culture change as a daily leadership practice rather than a project with a launch date     Models and thinkers mentioned The Bridges Transition Model, William Bridges (1991) The Elephant and the Rider, Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis (2006) Family Constellations and systemic principles, Bert Hellinger Appreciative Inquiry (mentioned briefly; worth exploring further)     Reflection questions from this episode Take these into your week:   What am I measuring as a leader, and what does that signal to my people about what I actually value? When did I last ask someone what they would be sad to lose in any change we are making? What is one thing I can do differently in the ordinary spaces between the big moments?   For the next seven days, try noticing one moment each day where culture happens in the margins rather than in a staged event or formal communication. What do you notice, and what does it tell you about where your team really is?   About the hosts Kate Nicholroy is a systemic team coach and facilitator working with senior leadership teams across the UK to help them think and work better together. She is founder of the Good Ideas Agency (www.goodideasagency.com) and holds executive coaching accreditations with the EMCC and ICF. Maddie Fox is a senior HR leader and executive coach working with individuals, teams and organisations, who want to develop authentic, conscious leadership skills, navigate challenging change and build foundations to become more resilient. She is the founder of MadFox Group (www.madfoxgroup.com). Get in touch We would love to hear from you. If you have been part of a culture change programme that genuinely worked, we want to know about it. Reach us at hello@latenightleadership.com.   Find all episodes and resources at www.latenightleadership.com      Coming up next Episode 10: Purpose and Values Under Pressure. How do you hold yourself to the culture you want when things get hard? That is when it gets crunchy, and we cannot wait to get into it.     With thanks to Tim Fox for producing Late Night Leadership and to Richard Flindell for the music.

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For forward-thinking senior leaders who want to strengthen their leadership and build teams that thrive. We explore what shapes culture, how teams can think and work better together and the real challenges that show up inside organisations. 

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  • Creator
    Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Late Night Leadership