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Do You Have The Courage To Make Decisions and Lead? A colleague and I were discussing a trend many have been witnessing for a long time in organisations - but one that's getting worse: Leaders of all stripes delaying or deferring decisions that should be made promptly and clearly because they are afraid of the consequences. When It Happens One example is in team management and discipline. There are a growing number of leaders who won't manage their teams or maintain standards

Leadership today brings complexity, competing demands, and real pressure. This short video introduces Peter McLean’s Lead With CLARITY™ keynotes and workshops, designed to help leaders and organisations cut through confusion, align their people, and deliver results that matter. These keynotes and workshops are built around practical leadership behaviour, strategic clarity, and real-world application — not abstract theory — and are used with executive teams, senior leaders, an

From the CLARITY Insider series by Peter J. McLean — practical insights for leaders, organisers, and keynote sponsors. One of the most important things you can do as an event sponsor is to decide what outcome you want from a Keynote. Do you want your audience to be challenged , to make sense of everything they’ve heard, to be motivated to act, inspired , encouraged —or even intentionally made uncomfortable so they think differently? What do you actually want them to do when

I was running a strategy/business game plan session with the key leadership responsible for an enterprise that is scaling up dramatically towards significant 9-figure targets while being tied up internally within the broader organisation. I can't go into more detail for my client's sake, but beyond the detailed and frank, yet optimistic discussions about their desired aspirations, organisational effectiveness, capability, P&L structures, governance and management, and so on,

Is this a post about AI? Well, incidentally. It's actually about people. I was recently running strategy development for a significant division of a major international corporation. After our collaborative time was over, I was analysing outcomes, reporting on the day and creating a strategic roadmap out of our facilitated sessions. It was easy to miss as we navigated issues throughout the day: we did a lot! These were highly engaged conversations, without laborious droning, e

I was recently discussing an upcoming Keynote with clients. As we discussed the demographics of their profession's audience, they shared how upcoming legislative changes may create a "make or break" decision for many as to whether they continue in their profession or leave. Those kinds of decisions can be made for what seems like a good reason: it can seem like a mountain that you're not prepared to scale and the results won't be worth it. But I reframed the choice: what if r

Peter works with you to deliver focussed results for your business and has the ability to set a vision and ensure teams have the skills.

Effective leadership in 2026 will require one great element: courage. That's where my CLARITY model starts and where most of us stall. As I say in my Keynotes, we need the ' Courage to Challeng e' our aims, methods, processes, goals, our people, our stakeholders and, most importantly, ourselves. Because leaders who don't have the courage to challenge themselves and invite challenge from others will continue in a downward spiral of their own limiting assumptions and beliefs. Y

Consoling victims of the Mass Shooting at Bondi, December 2025 I'm safely writing this article from a seat 3,865 kms away from Bondi beach where this past weekend's horrific mass shooting occurred. I'm also safely ensconced approximately 12,800 kms away from relatives in Lviv, Ukraine, where they and my extended Ukrainian brethren are being bombed and shot at daily by Russia's agents of war. My family and I here in Australia enjoy a level of peace and safety, and lack of gun

Peter McLean's Regular Newsletter on Leadership and Strategy Issue#16, December 2025 Happy end-of-year, Christmas, New Year and all of that to you all! SEEING THROUGH THE FOG OF WAR When you get in the middle of the action, with all kinds of insanity and chaos starting to happen: people coming at you from every direction, policy changing around you on the fly, tariffs or not-tariffs changing during the night, Head of HR resigning due to pregnancy, supply chains disrupted, cus

Peter McLean's Regular Newsletter on Leadership and Strategy Issue#15, November 2025 From this issue, I'm changing the name of this newsletter to my "Lead With CLARITY" IP, as it more closely reflects my work. Still "Charting The Course" to help Executive Leaders manage mission and life, as the old header stated, but with more clarity ;) CLARITY FOR LEADERS: THE COMING AI BUBBLE A point of clarity leaders need is realising that there is an AI Bubble immanently (not necessaril

I'm in glorious Hobart, Tasmania, where I've been speaking at a conference. Following the event, I've been touring with one of my daughters who came to join me. We visited Truganini lookout, situated on a thin land bridge of Bruny Island. On one side are the crashing waves of the Southern Ocean, creating a long line of white peaks along a crescent beach stretching kilometres long. The white sands push into scrub and brush and stone upthrust against a blue sky blanketed with

It's easy to criticise the leader or senior leader - until you're the one in that position. Then suddenly you realise all of the pressures that were on them in the past. But that doesn't excuse the previous leader from having been rotten or managing poorly. Nor does it excuse you. It's a challenge to you: How will you proceed? Will you adopt the same manner and problems or will you change direction and do things differently? You will make mistakes. That comes with the territo

Next week, I'm delivering one of my "Lead With CLARITY" Keynotes for a Conference in the East. As I finalise preparations, I thought I’d take you inside how I partner with clients and what goes into making a keynote not just powerful, but genuinely useful. Tailoring Every Keynote to the Audience First of all, and of prime importance, is customising the Keynote for my audience's needs. As I lead into the Conference, I have researched the organisations and businesses involved,

The "lonely at the top" feeling great leaders are supposed to have? Entirely self-inflicted. If you're leading people, you actually have no excuse to be lonely, because you should be sharing responsibility, vision, strategy, insight, needs, etc. And one thing you should always be doing is finding that sounding board of one or more trusted advisors with whom you can share and bounce ideas, perspectives, challenges, queries, hopes, dreams, road blocks and frustrations. Unfortun

What do you do with difficult conversations? One of the key factors in handling difficult conversations is to first identify two underlying aspects at play by asking yourself these two questions: 1) What is the principle reason for my need to address the person - Constructive or Destructive ? If it's constructive, then I am discussing something that will benefit others and our shared goals or is for the purpose of maintaining a standard or achieving an outcome that is of ben

I was reminded the other day of The Challenger Shuttle disaster . January 28, 1986, the Challenger shuttle, loaded with the first...

Peter McLean video - Leadership Under Pressure

You've seen the news about how McKinsey is reducing their workforce because AI can do their slide decks. But organisations and leaders don’t need another slide deck. They need clarity. They need traction. They need someone invested in working with them to achieve success.

Strategy rarely fails suddenly with fireworks and explosions. It fades. It drifts. It becomes the oh-so eloquent term, “meh.” But great leaders - the kind that recalibrate systems, teams, and themselves - stop and ask a different question: