EDITION 1122
25 MAY 2026

On this day in 2020, George Floyd was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis, an event that triggered global protests and accelerated support for the Black Lives Matter movement. An estimated 15–26 million Americans participated in demonstrations that summer, making it the largest protest movement in US history.

Whatever people’s political views, the wider leadership lesson remains profound: trust, once lost, can unravel institutions with astonishing speed. Leadership is never exercised in isolation. Actions, culture and accountability shape whether people continue to believe in the systems designed to serve them.

This week’s edition of 10 THINGS explores trust, authenticity, confidence and the uncomfortable reality that leadership failures rarely appear overnight. They emerge slowly through complacency, poor communication and the gradual erosion of belief.

William Montgomery
Editor

1. How to Stay Authentic Under Pressure. Whether in leadership or personal relationships, pressure has a habit of revealing who we really are. Uncertainty, criticism and emotional strain can easily push people into defensiveness, silence or reactions they later regret. Authenticity, however, is not about saying everything we think or refusing to adapt. It is about remaining grounded in our values while responding thoughtfully to changing circumstances. READ MORE

2. Moonshots and Money Pits. Britain’s HS2 project is now expected to cost as much as £102.7 billion, more than triple its original 2011 estimate of £32.7 billion, with trains between London and Birmingham unlikely to run before the late 2030s. By comparison, NASA’s Artemis programme, which aims to return humans to the Moon, is projected to cost around $93 billion (£69 billion). In simple terms: America is preparing to send astronauts 238,000 miles into space while Britain is still struggling to transport passengers from London to Birmingham. The leadership lesson is not that ambition is wrong. Ambition matters. But without discipline, accountability and delivery, grand projects risk becoming monuments to poor governance rather than national progress. For the same money, Britain could have modernised infrastructure nationwide, strengthened public services or built an entire fleet of modern warships during an increasingly unstable era.

3. Stop Blaming the Workforce. Employee engagement has reportedly fallen to just 20%, its lowest level since 2020, with lost productivity now estimated at a staggering $10 trillion globally. Yet perhaps the most important insight is not the statistic itself, but the reason behind it. Too many organisations still ask: “What’s wrong with our people?” Better leaders ask: “What’s wrong with the environment we’ve created?” Clarity, recognition, trust, consistency and leadership behaviour shape performance far more than motivational slogans ever will. Burnout rarely appears overnight. It grows quietly inside broken systems, poor communication and cultures where people stop believing their contribution matters. People generally rise, or fall, to the standard of the environment around them. Leadership is not just about managing performance. It is about creating conditions in which people can perform at their best.

4. The Leadership Challenge of Rights and Respect. New guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission states that single sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms should be based on biological sex, while also recommending provision of gender-neutral facilities where possible. Unsurprisingly, the debate has reignited strong reactions on all sides. The leadership lesson is that difficult issues rarely become easier by avoiding them. Modern leaders increasingly operate in environments where legal rights, personal identity, safety, dignity and freedom of expression can all collide at the same time. Good leadership is not about inflaming division or retreating into slogans. It is about navigating complexity with clarity, empathy and respect for the law, while recognising the humanity of those affected by it. The challenge is not simply policy. It is trust.

5. Generation Why? Generation Z, or Gen Z, generally refers to people born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, roughly those aged between 13 and 28 today. Interestingly, a new Deloitte survey suggests only 6% see leadership titles as their primary career goal. Many are prioritising flexibility, wellbeing, development and work life balance over climbing the traditional corporate ladder. The leadership lesson? Younger generations are not necessarily rejecting hard work. They are rejecting the idea that success must automatically mean stress, hierarchy and loss of freedom. For organisations, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The best future leaders may not respond to status and titles alone. They will need purpose, autonomy, development and cultures worth committing to. What matters most to you in your career today? VOTE HERE

6. The Leadership Benefits of the Arts. A new study suggests people who regularly engage in the arts may age more slowly, biologically, than those who do not. Painting, singing, music and attending cultural events were all linked to slower cognitive decline, with researchers suggesting the impact may be comparable to physical exercise. Perhaps this should not surprise us. Human beings were never designed to live entirely transactional lives dominated by deadlines, inboxes and performance metrics. The leadership lesson is that creativity matters. The arts encourage reflection, imagination, emotional connection and mental recovery, all increasingly important in a fast moving and often exhausting world. Good leaders understand that wellbeing is not simply about productivity and exercise. It is also about curiosity, culture, creativity and giving the mind space to breathe.

7. The 50 Minute Leader. For years, one of the simplest ideas within the 10/10 Leadership Development and Mentoring Programme has been this: stop scheduling meetings for an hour. Most organisations unintentionally create exhaustion through relentless back-to-back calendars that leave people no time to think, prepare, reset or even move between conversations properly. The result is reduced concentration, poorer decisions and meetings that become increasingly transactional rather than productive. Strong leadership is not about filling every available minute. It is about creating space for clarity, reflection and better thinking. That is why 10/10 has long encouraged leaders to adopt the “50 minute hour” and the “25 minute half hour”. Small changes create breathing space, improve punctuality and reduce stress almost immediately. Sometimes leadership improvement is not complicated. It is simply about respecting people’s time and energy more intelligently. READ MORE

8. The cost of uncertainty. UK unemployment has risen to 5%, while youth unemployment has climbed to its highest level in almost a decade. Job vacancies are falling, employers are slowing recruitment and many businesses appear to be waiting rather than investing. The leadership lesson is that uncertainty has a cost. When organisations lack confidence in the economic, political or strategic environment, caution naturally replaces momentum. Hiring pauses. Investment slows. Growth plans are deferred. Over time, hesitation itself becomes a drag on performance. For leaders, this is a reminder that confidence and clarity are not soft concepts. They are economic drivers. People move forward when they can see direction, stability and purpose. In uncertain times, leadership matters even more because people take their cues from those steering the ship.

9. The Economy is a Confidence Game. UK business activity has fallen for the first time in more than a year, with the latest S&P Global PMI index dropping below the critical 50 growth threshold. Behind the statistics lies a deeper leadership issue: confidence. Businesses can usually navigate high costs, competition and uncertainty when they believe the future is broadly stable and predictable. What damages momentum is prolonged uncertainty combined with weak confidence in political, economic or strategic direction. The lesson for leaders is clear. Whether running a country, company or team, confidence matters. People invest, innovate and commit when they sense clarity, stability and purpose. When uncertainty dominates, organisations naturally become cautious, defensive and slower moving. Momentum, once lost, is far harder to rebuild than maintain.

10. The bottom line. Adults may need as much as 610 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week for maximum heart health benefits, according to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Even people with higher fitness levels still required around 560 minutes to achieve similar results, almost four times the current NHS recommendation. Perhaps the leadership lesson is this: the fundamentals still matter. Whether health, fitness or leadership itself, meaningful results rarely come from occasional effort. They come from consistency, discipline and showing up repeatedly long after enthusiasm fades.