So You Got the Big Job. Now, Please, For the Love of God, Don’t Blow It Up in Week Three.
Congratulations. Genuinely. You got the title. The bigger patch. The seat at the table you’ve been circling for years. Someone shook your hand and said “we’re thrilled to have you,” and you went home and poured a wine and let yourself feel it for about eleven minutes before the panic arrived. Because here’s what nobody […]
Stop Promoting Half-Humans Into Whole-Human Jobs
We keep doing it. Someone is brilliant at the technical work. The best engineer. The sharpest accountant. The lawyer who never loses. The salesperson who smashes every target. So we promote them. Into a job that isn’t technical at all. Leading people is a whole-human job. And we keep filling whole-human jobs with half a […]
The 100 Best Leaders in Australia Right Now
A LinkedIn newsletter by Sonia McDonald ❤️ and LeadershipHQ I’ve spent 35+ years studying leadership. Teaching it. Coaching it. Watching it up close in boardrooms, site sheds, cockpits and kitchens. Here are The 100 Best Leaders in Australia Right Now… So here’s my list. 100 leaders. Not ranked — leadership isn’t a leaderboard. Not all […]
Nobody Toxic Ever Got Promoted, Sounding Unsure
Let me ask you something, and be honest. Have you ever watched someone toxic get promoted? I already know the answer. Every time I ask this question — in keynotes, in boardrooms, on LinkedIn — it’s a wall of yes. So this week, I want to give you the why. Because it’s not bad luck, and […]
Best Leadership Training Companies in Australia (2026)
Best Leadership Training Companies in Australia (2026) Updated July 2026 · By the LeadershipHQ team Choosing a leadership development partner is one of the highest-leverage decisions an organisation makes — and one of the hardest, because the Australian market spans global franchise programs, boutique consultancies and everything between. This guide profiles eight of the strongest […]
Leading Through AI Without Losing Our Humanity
JULY 2026 · Leading Through AI Without Losing Our Humanity THE EXECUTIVE BRIEF BY SONIA McDONALD Hello, Welcome to the very first edition of Leadership Intelligence™. Every month, I’ll bring together the best thinking from around the world — Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, MIT Sloan, Deloitte, Gartner and leading researchers — then share what it […]
FOBO: Leading When Your Team Fears Becoming Obsolete
The story of 8,500 phone calls, a robot named Billie, and what neuroscience says about the fear quietly killing your AI strategy. How do we get here? FOBO: Leading When Your Team Fears Becoming Obsolete. In 2021, IKEA’s parent company faced a decision that thousands of businesses are now staring down. They had built an […]
The Uncomfortable Truth About HR Leadership
The Uncomfortable Truth About HR Leadership (And Why Courage Is the Only Way Through) HR leadership doesn’t fail in strategy. It fails in moments. The moment a leader needs to be held accountable and nobody does it. The moment toxic behaviour gets named in an exit interview and then quietly filed away. The moment everyone […]
Working for Someone Who Makes You Miserable
Working for Someone Who Makes You Miserable…A warm, practical, research-backed guide to the six most damaging boss archetypes — and how to survive, and even thrive, under each of them. Most career advice assumes you have a reasonable boss. But according to Gallup, roughly half of people who quit their jobs are actually quitting their […]
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE KPMG CRISIS
When the partners are running for the exits, leadership has already failed. Let me set the scene for you. It’s 2026. One of the most prestigious professional services firms on the planet is in freefall. The CEO is gone. The COO is gone. The head of audit is gone. Partners — people who spent decades […]