This blog post serves as an exploratory and developmental process for my PhD. Its focus is on the academic literature I engage with, presented in a blog format, against the backdrop of professional contexts. A blogging approach enables exploration of the ties between research and practice, supporting reflexivity. Licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0…
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2025: The words I wanted to use
2023 | 2024 In my past end-of-year reflections, I’ve touched on loss. No one close to me has died (or almost died) this year, but the feeling was there again. And it felt like something I’d lost previously. I’ve lost my words before. Because, at times, I choose not to compete. Which feels amusing, because…
What does it mean to be values-based? On process and visibility
A few weeks ago, a colleague and I struck up a conversation about values in the context of leadership. It felt like a full-circle moment. A few years earlier, I’d shared with a colleague that I was worried about losing my sense of being values-based as I progressed in my career. 2 They came back…
What does creating space for lived experience in leadership look like?
One of my favourite leadership roles has been one with a remit that included (but wasn’t limited to) bringing my lived experience of disability and neurodivergence to the table. It wasn’t my only responsibility, and my expertise was recognised as going well beyond my lived experience, but its value and opportunity for impact were made…
What happens when strengths-based leadership becomes strategic neglect?
I’ve always prided myself on taking strengths-based approaches (toward myself and others) and finding creative solutions that allow people to move forward. Strengths-based approaches focus on what a person can do, rather than what they cannot do, emphasising a shift away from deficit models. Yet, something I often hear in conversations with disabled and neurodivergent…



