Lead The Room

Lead The Room

Tired of the leadership statues quo? Ready to rip up the leadership handbook in search of approaches that will ACTUALLY build the team you know you need? It’s time for a leadership revolution that speaks your language and gets you fired up to lead like never before. We know EXACTLY how to lead differently and we're here to guide you every step off the way. Join Briony and Lyndsey every week as they share tips and advice you can put into practice TODAY and start transforming your team and coaching you from being a great mind to an AMAZING leader.

  1. 2D AGO

    Ep 64: From Chaos to Clarity: How to Prioritise When Everything Feels Urgent

    Feeling overwhelmed by competing priorities? Working after bedtime because your strategic work keeps getting pushed to the margins? You’re not alone. In this episode of Lead the Room, hosts Briony and Lyndsey tackle one of the biggest challenges facing purpose-driven leaders: how to prioritise effectively when everything on your plate feels urgent. If you’re leading a team turnaround while trying to maintain your human-centered approach in a KPI-focused environment, this episode is for you. Briony and Lyndsey share three practical, research-backed strategies you can implement in 15 minutes or less to shift from reactive firefighting to responsive, strategic leadership. You’ll learn: How to use the Impact vs Effort Matrix to identify your high-impact work and eliminate time drains The crucial difference between being reactive and responsive — and why urgency is a feeling, not a fact How to implement the Expectations Email: a weekly 10-minute practice that sets boundaries, manages stakeholder expectations, and protects your time for transformational work Why responding immediately doesn’t demonstrate professionalism — it demonstrates a lack of boundaries How to make your human-centered, strategic approach visible in environments that prioritise quick wins over sustainable change This episode is perfect for managers, team leaders, and emerging leaders who are passionate about people-first leadership but struggling with overwhelm, burnout, or the constant pressure to do more with less.

    26 min
  2. 12/16/2025

    Ep 59: Stop Pretending to Switch Off: How Leaders Can Actually Take a Break Over Christmas

    What You'll Learn: Why leaders struggle to genuinely switch off during holidays How to set up before your break so you can actually disconnect The digital detox strategy that removes temptation How to return from your break in a sustainable way Why role modeling healthy breaks matters for your team culture Three Key Takeaways: The Pre-Break Handover – About a week before you finish, document: What might come up and how to handle it, what decisions your team can make without you, who's the point person and what authority they have. Share this with your whole team and explicitly tell them you will NOT be checking emails or messages. The Digital Detox Setup – Delete work email and messaging apps from your phone completely. Set a proper out of office that clearly states you're not checking anything and directs people to your point person. Tell your family you've done this so they can hold you accountable. Optionally, set up auto-delete for incoming emails. The Return Ritual – Don't check email the night before you return. Block out your first morning back with no meetings for catch-up time. Scan emails for only urgent/important items. Have a 30-minute check-in with your team. Don't apologize for having been away—thank your team instead. This models healthy boundaries for your whole team. Resources: Download our free "Transform Your Team In 15 Minutes" guide at here. Follow us on Instagram: @leadtheroomcoaching Email us: hello@leadtheroom.co.uk

    34 min
  3. 12/02/2025

    Ep 57 - Meeting Overload to High-Impact Leadership: Reclaim 10 Hours a Week

    Monday morning. You open your calendar and your stomach drops. Back-to-back meetings from 9am to 5pm. Seven meetings. When are you actually supposed to DO the work? The average leader now spends 23 hours a week in meetings—more than half your working week. And most of those meetings? Completely unnecessary, involve too many people, or could be done in 15 minutes instead of an hour. This episode shares how Lyndsey and Briony each reclaimed up to 10 hours a week by fundamentally changing their relationship with meetings. Get our FREE planner here to help you take back control of your week. Three Practical Strategies You Can Implement This Week: Strategy #1: The Meeting Audit – Track every meeting for one week and ask four questions: What was the purpose? Did it achieve that purpose? Did it need to be a meeting? Did it need ME specifically? Most leaders are shocked to discover 15-20 hours of unnecessary meetings. Use this data to change your relationship with meetings going forward. Strategy #2: The Default No Policy – Reverse the burden of proof. Instead of accepting unless there's a reason to decline, your default is no unless there's a compelling reason to say yes. Before accepting any meeting invite, ask: Is the purpose clear? Do I specifically need to be there? Could this be achieved differently? Push back politely when answers aren't clear. Reclaim hours every single week. Strategy #3: Timeboxing for High-Impact Work – Block 2-3 hour chunks in your calendar for your highest impact work: strategic planning, transformation projects, difficult conversations, proposals. Protect these blocks like they're meetings with your CEO. Label them specifically so you know what you're working on. Train yourself and others to treat these as non-negotiable. Why This Matters: What happens between meetings? You stay late to do actual work. You work weekends. You burn out. Meanwhile, the transformation work you're supposed to be leading—the strategy, the coaching, the thinking—never happens because you're too busy being in meetings ABOUT the work instead of DOING the work. Since going remote/hybrid, meetings became the default way to communicate about everything. Leaders feel like if you're not in meetings, you're not working. But the most important work requires uninterrupted deep work time, not being pinged from one meeting to the next. Pro Tips: Do the meeting audit once a year or when you start a new role (at 3-month mark)Buddy up with leadership peers to take turns at corporate meetingsMake timeboxed slots private appointments so people don't know you're declining for "meeting with yourself"Offer alternatives when protecting your time: "So-and-so on my team would be well-placed" or "I can't do that time but here are alternatives"The Bottom Line: You have more agency than you think. Start small. Experiment. Most leaders get zero pushback when they start being intentional about their time because when you DO show up to meetings, you're prepared, purposeful, and impactful. No permission needed. No six-month change program. Just take control of your calendar.

    34 min

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Tired of the leadership statues quo? Ready to rip up the leadership handbook in search of approaches that will ACTUALLY build the team you know you need? It’s time for a leadership revolution that speaks your language and gets you fired up to lead like never before. We know EXACTLY how to lead differently and we're here to guide you every step off the way. Join Briony and Lyndsey every week as they share tips and advice you can put into practice TODAY and start transforming your team and coaching you from being a great mind to an AMAZING leader.