Angela Rixon

Somewhere in your organisation right now, a good leader is quietly drowning.

They're delivering a transformation programme, integrating an acquisition, working out what AI means for their team, and managing four generations across three locations, all while being told to do more with less. They won't say they're struggling. They'll just slowly stop leading and start coping.

Over the past three years I have interviewed more than 100 leaders, and extended that research across younger generations, to understand why the old playbook of management has stopped working. The answer is uncomfortable: employees have fundamentally changed their relationship with work, but most organisations are still leading with a model built on control, tell and close.

That model creates dependency. It exhausts your middle leaders. And it makes every change programme, growth plan and acquisition harder than it needs to be.

There is another way: teams that lead themselves. Aligned around the growth story. Engaged because their work genuinely matters to them. Capable of carrying change rather than being crushed by it.

People work, done right, is a growth strategy. Before founding The Centre for Meaningful Work, I spent years inside large organisations delivering transformation programmes that won over £100 million of business, increased client satisfaction by 389% and improved employee satisfaction by 200%.

My book, Meaning Over Purpose, is the CEO's blueprint for building that kind of organisation.