Mr. Joe Leech

When your name is no longer yours... I never liked my surname, I mean, a leech is a blood sucker after all. At my wedding my aunt asked my now wife if she was taking my name. My wife being a successful entrepreneur said no, she was keeping her name. My aunt's reply quite shocked my wife... Read on: what happens when another Joe Leech comes along. From Founder to CEO: Strategic Insights for a Smooth Transition What got you here won’t get you there – key insights from my recent webinar with the...

Here's the weird thing. I meet leaders, CEOs who insist on being a bottleneck, feeling that it's their superpower to make decisions, that the team don't do it as well or as quickly. It's debatable if that is true or not but the reality is they want to be involved After all, it's nice to be needed. This is FOMO, you need to Name it to Tame it. If that muscle is strong in the leader and atrophied in the team then growth, well it just can't happen. If you’re a founder, here’s a tough but...

It rains here on the edge of England, it rains a lot. Everyday I check the weather to see if my little girl needs to take an umbrella to school. Parenting 101, this of course leads to her relying on me to check the weather and packing a brolly. So we go through the process of her doing just that, and of course she forgets and get's wet... [read on] What if I told you that the biggest obstacle to your company’s growth might be you? In my recent conversation with Desi Velikova, I shared a hard...

I know what I want to achieve, I have the vision, I know what it'll look like when it's done, so much so that I can almost taste it. What takes work and focus for me is the messy middle, for many years I beat myself up that I couldn't do that stuff as well. Many of my CEO clients are the same. Staring at their huge todo lists and disparing. Complaining of not enough time. By the way it's never a time problem, that's the clue it's a different kind of problem... Overcoming the messy middle...

So how did you do it? How did you get to be a coach to CEOs? That's the question I get asked the most often. How did I go from research and design to working with CEOs? [Read on: Reinvention] From Visionary to Leader (and back again) Hi Reader One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen founders face is navigating the leap from a scrappy, hands-on visionary to the strategic leader a growing company needs. It’s a pivotal moment, and it comes with its own set of hurdles, especially when it comes to...

Many of the CEOs I work with complain that the big things don't get done. The teams and orgs are great at the small stuff but when it comes to big strategic initiatives, progress is slow. This is what I say... A Throwback to my Most Watched Video: Rocks, Pebbles & Sand As January comes to a close and we settle into the rhythm of 2025, it’s the perfect time to reflect on what truly matters. Last year, my most-watched video on YouTube was Rocks, Pebbles & Sand, and it resonated with so many of...

I felt trapped. I’d hit a plateau, and I just wasn’t engaged with my work. From the outside, it looked like I was at the top of my game. I had published a book, and I was on stage speaking at conferences, but in reality, I was trapped in my Zone of Excellence. I had led the redesign of some huge websites like Marriott.com and the Trainline, yet there were better designers than me. I described myself as a designer, but in reality, I was a problem solver. My unique genius—as a modest Brit, the...

Meet Imp, my Imposter Syndrome. Imp is rarely far away, whispering in my ear, telling me I don't belong. For years I ignored Imp, and that was the problem [read more] Imp, my Imposter Syndrome Imposter Syndrome, feature or bug? One of the buzzwords dominating today’s conversations about work and success is "imposter syndrome," along with "hustle culture" and "burnout"—but what do these terms truly mean for high-performing leaders who seem to have it all? Read more: Imposter Syndrome: Feature...

I'll never forget it, it was 2010, on the walk to the train station. There was a homeless man sat on steps. Old guy, huge beard. We made eye contact, he took a swig from his bottle, he looked me up and down and in and in a moment of clarity said… [read on] Let's talk about rules... A thought experiment. There’s a baby goose and a glass bottle. Over time, the goose is carefully placed inside the bottle, head sticking out through the neck. Weeks pass, and the goose grows larger, eventually...