Leading From The Edge Podcast

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | The Inner Leader Reading time, 4 minutes   Leadership blind spots: when your strength becomes the gap Seeing the big picture is one of my biggest strengths as a leader, and it's also been one of my biggest blind spots. In this episode I share the story of a client who rated himself strongest on holding steady under pressure while his team saw the exact opp...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | The Inner Leader Reading time, 4 minutes Using ChatGPT for leadership advice: what it misses I asked ChatGPT how to handle a tricky conversation with someone in my team, and the advice was helpful. But it never asked me a single question about me, and if I didn't know better, I would have walked in quietly confident and completely blind. In this episode I share...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leading the Team Reading time, 4 minutes Why the same conversation keeps coming back "I've already told them." I hear that from leaders all the time, and what I'd love to know is what they asked. In this episode I share two stories about the conversation that keeps coming back: my own three months of dropping hints to a team member, and my client Graham, who wa...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leading the Team Reading time, 4 minutes Why you keep repeating the same leadership habit "I know I'm doing it, it's just what I always do." I hear that from experienced leaders all the time, smart people who've read all the books and can name their habit perfectly, and yet it still runs. In this episode I share two stories, my own early career spiral and my cl...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Drivers and Defaults Reading time, 2 minutes Rescuing instead of empowering I used to think being available for every problem was the job. Turns out I wasn't lightening anyone's load, I was just carrying it for them instead of teaching them to carry it themselves. This episode is about the shift that changed that, and why it gives you your own energy back too....

Over the last three weeks we've named three traps, rescuing, correcting and reacting, and they all come from the same root, a default taking over instead of you actually choosing how to lead. This week I'm answering the obvious question: if those are the traps, what's actually on the other side of them? What does leading from adult actually look like, in the exact same moments those traps show up?...

The leadership trap that looks like passion Someone once told me I was one of the most passionate people they'd worked with. I took it as a compliment for years, until I noticed what they were actually describing was how fast I reacted the moment I was challenged. This week I'm looking at the third trap in the September series, the one that doesn't look like a flaw at all, it looks like commitment...

I used to think I was holding a high standard. I was actually just correcting everything before anyone else got the chance to. This week I'm looking at the flip side of last week's rescuing trap: the critical, controlling default that feels like leadership but is really about control, and what it costs your team when you rewrite instead of ask. Key takeaways: Correcting everyone's work feels good...

The leadership trap that looks like kindness Your team's great, the culture's warm, so why are you the one running on empty? This week Liz breaks down a pattern she sees constantly in coaching, and admits she's fallen into it herself: rescuing your team instead of leading them, and not realising it, because rescuing looks so much like care. Take the Leadership Mirror to see exactly where this migh...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Exceptional Leadership Reading time, 2 minutes The pillar that makes every other leadership skill work This is the reveal we've been building to all month. Pillar 5 of the Exceptional Leader Framework: head and heart integration, the pillar that decides whether every other leadership skill you build actually lands. IQ and EQ aren't competing, and this episode c...

You already know the theory, listen more, react less. It's easy to nod along to that in a workshop, and completely different when someone's frustrated in front of you, maybe even accusing you of something that isn't fair. This week Liz breaks down the one habit that actually holds up in that moment, three steps, and the meeting that taught her why the pause is harder than it sounds. Key takeaways:...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Emotional intelligence in action Reading time, 2 minutes The truth about emotional intelligence at work Last week named the skill nobody put on your job description. This episode is the close-up, four ordinary moments that reveal low emotional intelligence on a completely normal Tuesday. Listen to these as a mirror, not a scorecard, you might notice yourself in...

You got promoted on competence. That's not always what keeps you leading well. This episode names the one skill that quietly costs leaders their authority, and walks through two real leaders who hit the exact same wall, only one of whom actually shifted it. Key takeaways: - Competence gets you promoted, it rarely explains what happens after - Emotional intelligence is measurable and learnable, not...

Most burnout doesn't look like burnout from the outside. And if you're the kind of leader I work with, it probably doesn't feel like it either. You're still turning up, still getting things done, but somewhere underneath you're running very fast and no one can see it. In this episode I'm busting the workload myth, naming the two patterns I see draining leaders at every level, and giving you a clea...

All month we've been circling one idea, authority isn't about how you look, it's about who you're being. In this final episode of the series, Liz ties it all together, the one distinction underneath everything talked about this month, the performing, the drifting, the exhaustion. If you recognised yourself in the loud one, the gone one, or the gripping one, this is exactly where it leads. Key take...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Presence Reading time, 2 minutes The Cost Of Performing When we lead from performance instead of presence, we don't just get tired, we drift, and we usually can't see it happening. In this episode, Liz breaks down the three ways that drift shows up, getting louder, going quiet, or gripping every detail, and explains why none of them are character fla...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development Think about the most powerful person you've ever been in a room with. Not the loudest, the most powerful. Chances are, they were calm. In this episode, Liz breaks down why calm isn't passivity or being switched off, it's the clearest signal that someone's authority is real. She explains the difference between performing presence and actua...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development Reading time, 3 minutes Most of what we've been taught about executive presence is wrong. We're told it's about how we show up. Stand tall, speak with conviction, hold the room, look the part. So we do all of it. And we feel like a fraud the entire time we're doing it. In this episode I unpack the difference between performing presence an...

Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development Reading time, 5 minutes   June 30 is almost here. And if you're like most leaders, you're probably heads down right now, finalising budgets, closing out performance reviews, getting through the list. But before you cross the line into a new financial year, I want to ask you something most leaders never stop long enough to answer. Not...

Early in my leadership career I was obsessed with getting better. Every workshop, every book, every minute in the car spent listening to the biggest names in leadership. I was ticking every box. And I still couldn't understand why the people side of leadership wasn't getting any easier. In this episode I'm sharing why that was, and introducing something I built to solve exactly that problem. In th...

Most leaders don't find out their authority is drifting until the damage is already done. Not because they aren't showing up. Not because they don't care. Because authority drift is silent and by the time you feel it, your team has already felt it for a while. In this episode I share my own story of drifting so far into doing mode that I stopped leading, and a client story about a leader who kept...

Are you busy — or are you actually leading? Most high-performing leaders mistake a full task list and a packed calendar for effective leadership. In this episode I am sharing the truth I learned the hard way: busyness is often a disguise for avoiding the harder, slower, more uncomfortable work of actually leading. I open with a confession that might land a little close to home — and walk you throu...

This is the one I don't share lightly. In this final episode of May I am bringing everything together. Standards, boundaries, and the conversations leaders avoid. And connecting it all to the culture you are building whether you realise it or not. But first I am starting somewhere personal. Because the most useful thing I can give you today is not a framework. It is the truth about what it actuall...

Most leaders avoid setting boundaries because of what they think it looks like. The boss who called someone out in front of the team. The leader who let frustration build until it boiled over publicly. The manager who made an example of someone to send a message. That is not boundary setting. That is what happens when boundaries are never set early enough.   In this episode I challenge how yo...

Most leaders are not deliberately lowering the bar. But every time they let something slide, they set a new standard. Whether they meant to or not. In this episode I share a real client story of a leader who invested deeply in their team's Mission, Vision and Values, watched the culture thrive, and then slowly lost their best people because one standard went unaddressed for too long. If you have e...