Written by Bonnie Clarke, Taylor Clarke CEO Over the years, Jamie Livingston and I have shared many conversations about purpose, leadership, and the kind of organisations we want to build. Our paths have crossed often, through work, shared values, and a common belief that business can and should be a force for good. For some time, we’d spoken about doing something together that reflected that belief, something that went beyond transactional networking and created the kind of

When organisations talk about leadership development, the conversation often jumps straight to programme design—content, workshops, facilitators, delivery. But before any of that matters, one question determines whether the investment will actually shift performance: are we selecting the right people at the right time?  

We recently worked in partnership with a public sector agency to support their staff to build an understanding of the importance of emotional intelligence and develop their skills to enable them to build and maintain healthy and effective working relationships within their teams and externally with stakeholders and clients. 

Leadership has never been just about making decisions and, here at Taylor Clarke, listening to the challenges our clients tell us about we know that it’s no longer enough to rely on past experience, technical knowledge or expertise.

Organisational change and development are no longer optional. In today’s rapidly shifting environment, businesses that cannot adapt risk being left behind. Yet as Dougie and Bonnie highlighted, success is rarely determined by the brilliance of a new strategy, structure, or system. More often, it comes down to how well leaders manage the people side of change.

The speed, scale, and sustained nature of organisational change is an ever-present challenge. It is unlikely to slow down anytime soon, which means that building our personal resilience as we navigate continuous change is more important than ever.

At our recent Leadership Development Network, hosted by David Mason and Clive Martlew, we explored the idea of alignment in leadership development.