100 EPISODES: WHAT I'VE LEARNT ABOUT LEADERSHIP, GROWTH AND YOU

Hitting 100 episodes of The Lonely Leader Podcast is a milestone I’m genuinely proud of.

Not because 100 is a “nice round number”. But because of what it represents:

Two years of consistent weekly episodes.

Listeners in 65+ countries.

Thousands of downloads.

A community built around the podcast with countless messages from leaders who’ve chosen to keep growing, even when it’s hard.

Before anything else, I want to say a heartfelt thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your feedback and content suggestions. This blog is a reflection on what I’ve learned from reaching 100 episodes about leadership, about growth, and about the themes you are wrestling with most.

I’ll finish this blog with a practical Leadership Challenge you can act on this week.

1. Procrastination only loses to action

I procrastinated for around two years before launching the podcast. I had a series of questions in my head:

Will anybody listen? Is it worth the investment of time? Can I really fit this into an already busy schedule?

Looking back now, knowing the impact the podcast has had and the fulfilment it gives me I find myself asking a different question: What did procrastination really cost me? The honest answer, two years of potential impact, learning and connection.

If you’re sitting on something important, a project, a change, a conversation here’s the key lesson: Clarity rarely comes before action. It comes from action.

Set a deadline. Take one concrete step. Buy the “microphone and boom”, whatever that looks like for you. The antidote to procrastination isn’t more thinking. It’s movement.

2. Consistency is a leadership superpower

Launching was one thing. Keeping it going was another. I knew that if I treated the podcast as “optional”, it would quickly slip down the list behind everything else. So I made a non negotiable commitment: One episode per week, no excuses!

That decision did three big things:

It removed the internal debate “Should I record this week?”

It forced me to protect time to record, even on busy weeks.

It built a habit and once the habit was there, it actually became easier.

Interestingly, one of the top three most downloaded episodes is Leadership Essentials: Consistency. That tells me many leaders feel the same tension. We want to be consistent. We just struggle to protect the time, energy, and focus to do it.

My suggestion is to pick one meaningful behaviour in your leadership, maybe it’s 1:1s, reflection time, focused work blocks, or developing your people. Make it non negotiable.

3. You can’t be a high performer without a high performing team

Another big driver of my early procrastination was the belief that I had to do it all myself: Plan the episodes. Record. Edit. Publish. Repurpose. The reality? If I’d tried to do everything, the quality would have suffered and the show would probably never have made it to 100 episodes. Enter my colleague Jo.

She’s been with me since the very beginning, editing, producing, shaping content, creating the YouTube long form and shorts and turning raw audio into something you actually want to listen to.

The leadership lesson is simple: If you want to be a high performer, you must build a high performing support system.

That’s true for a podcast, a business, or a senior leadership role. You can’t do everything and do it well.

Many of you clearly relate to this. Our episode on Leadership Essentials: Delegation sits in the top five most downloaded episodes.

Ask yourself:

Where am I still trying to do everything myself?

Who could I bring in, even for a few hours a week, to raise the quality and free up my time for other strategic priorities?

When I delegate, do I truly give people ownership, or do I hover and micromanage?

High performance is built with others, not alone.

4. What the top episodes reveal about today’s leaders

When we pulled the download data for the first 100 episodes, a clear pattern emerged. Your most-listened episodes were:

Leadership Essentials: Approachability.

Maximising First Impressions.

Leadership Essentials: Consistency.

Leadership Essentials: Authenticity.

Leadership Essentials: Delegation.

Burnout – Warning Signs and Tips to Prevent It.

Feedback Culture: The Secret Weapon of High Performing Teams (Part 1 – Giving Feedback).

Feedback Culture: The Secret Weapon of High Performing Teams (Part 2 – Receiving Feedback).

Lessons from my Leadership Journey.

Look at this list for a moment. Approachability. First impressions. Consistency. Authenticity. Delegation. Burnout. Feedback. Real leadership lessons. These are not “nice to have” topics. They’re the realities leaders are grappling with daily.

For me, it’s a powerful reminder: The fundamentals of leadership will always be key. How you show up, how you treat people, how you sustain yourself, and how you keep learning.

5. Authenticity and the Power of Lived Experience

One of my core values is authenticity.

I’m not interested in delivering leadership from an ivory tower. I’ve experienced the full spectrum of leadership: The highs of meaningful impact. The pressure of C-suite roles.The cost of chronic stress and burnout. The darker moments, that tested my resilience to the limit.

Those experiences shape how I coach, how I teach, and how I show up on the podcast. It’s no coincidence that Leadership Essentials: Authenticity is in the top four. I believe that people don’t just want theory and frameworks. They want real lived life experience to support the insights shared.

They want to know that the person speaking to them has walked some of the same roads professionally and personally and is willing to share both the wins and the scars. As a leader, your authenticity isn’t a vulnerability to hide. It’s often your greatest strength.

6. Burnout and the cost of ignoring the warning signs

Another high ranking episode is Burnout – Warning signs and tips to prevent It.

That doesn’t surprise me. Wherever I work, irrespective of sector, geography, or role burnout is a recurring theme. I’ve shared before that I collapsed with pneumonia during my CEO career. At the time, I was resentful and frustrated: “Why is my body letting me down now?”

In hindsight, it was a brutal but necessary wake up call. I wasn’t indestructible. None of us are. We cannot sustain high performance on 15 hour days, seven days a week, without paying a price somewhere, physically or mentally. If you remember nothing else from this section, remember this: Your leadership performance is built on your health, not in spite of it.

Sleep, recovery, boundaries, support, these aren’t optional extras. They are performance tools.

7. Feedback culture: Still the secret weapon

Two episodes that consistently perform strongly are:

Feedback Culture: The Secret Weapon of High Performing Teams – Part 1 (Giving Feedback)

Part 2 (Receiving Feedback)

Why? In my experience because we’re still getting this wrong in so many organisations. We avoid feedback in case we cause offence. We take it personally when it’s given. We confuse clear, candid feedback with bullying or we tolerate actual bullying under the guise of “honesty”.

In high performing environments such as elite sport, the military and many businesses feedback is: Candid. Frequent. Behaviour focused, not personal. Seen as a tool for growth, not an attack on identity.

Getting better at both giving and receiving feedback remains one of the fastest ways to improve performance, trust and alignment. If there’s one area you choose to deliberately work on with your team in 2026, feedback culture should be a strong contender.

8. Don’t forget to celebrate the milestones

We all know the voice that says: “I’ll be happy when I get the promotion, the title, the house the next role…”

Then we get there, feel a brief hit of satisfaction, and quickly move the bar again. There’s nothing wrong with ambition. But if we never pause to acknowledge progress, we starve our confidence and drain our energy.

Reaching 100 episodes reminded me of something simple but important: You don’t have to be at the summit to be proud.

Be proud that you started. Be proud that you’ve kept going. Be proud that you’re still willing to learn. I’d encourage you to take a moment this week to ask:

What milestone have I quietly passed, personally or professionally? Have I given myself any credit for it?

Confidence and fulfilment grow when we recognise how far we’ve come, not just how far we have left to go.

Thank you again for being part of The Lonely Leader community. Here’s to the next 100 episodes and to your next chapter of growth and development.