Relationships are not an optional extra in our effectiveness, they are its delivery mechanism. I closed my September Personal Effectiveness class with that insight. 

One of the class texts, Connect by David Bradford and Carole Robin, and its cover image, capture that spirit beautifully: trust, openness, feedback, conflict, and repair are not just interpersonal skills, but leadership skills. The core lesson: leadership is not about position or power, but about the quality of the relationships we create and sustain with colleagues, teams, and ourselves. 

Holding 'Connect' brought me back 10 years to the time I was fortunate enough to experience a taster session of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business 'Interpersonal Dynamics' course here in Singapore, thanks to INSEAD. That session sparked a journey. I began following David Bradford’s work, and through it discovered a community dedicated to helping leaders build deeper, more authentic connections, which inspired my wider thinking about life and leadership as a coach and educator, for which I am immensely grateful.

I left this reflection with the class:
If our personal effectiveness is only as strong as the relationships that carry it, which relationship in your professional life most needs renewal and what is the smallest step you could take this week to strengthen that connection?

 

After I sent out the August newsletter, I was surprised by what caught your attention. Of all the themes, it was the “red signals”—the signs of endings—that drew the most engagement and feedback. It seems many of you resonated with the challenge of recognising when something has run its course: a role, a project, even a relationship at work. 

 

That insight sets the stage for this month's piece. If noticing red signals helps us avoid overstaying in situations that no longer serve us, what about the opposite? How do we learn to sense the "green signals"—the faint signs of new opportunities just before they become obvious? This liminal space, where endings and beginnings overlap, is often the richest terrain for career growth.

 

From signs of endings to beginnings…

 

Meaningful new chapters do not begin with a plan, but in a space, where endings and beginnings overlap. It is often the richest terrain for career growth. A between-time where what we know no longer fits, and what’s next has not yet taken shape. This space isn’t empty. It’s teeming with ideas, hunches, questions, and stray encounters that don’t make sense yet. 

 

Herminia Ibarra's Working Identity is the best guide for this journey. The skill is not to make sense too soon. The skill is to stay curious, attuned, and brave enough to be unfinished. Those who thrive in this space tend to do a few things well.

 

What you avoid in a job interview can matter just as much as what you do.

How will you behave when your future employer's most valuable client surprises you? In the job interview, your hiring manager could ask you how you would behave. But they will get a better answer, if they surprise you in the interview!

What you don’t do under stress (interrupting, over-justifying, appearing defensive) often reveals more than what you say. Prepare: run through worst-case or curveball scenarios in rehearsal, so your emotional default in the room is calm, deliberate, and composed.

Prepare your behaviours, as well as your answers!

 

For more Interview Preparation Advice

When talking about the sense of loss that follows restructuring, I was asked: “How do you recommend leaders address this grief?”

It’s a powerful question. Because restructuring is not just an exercise in drawing new boxes and lines. It tears at the fabric of people’s working identities: their trust, belonging, and sense of meaning. When that fabric is torn, grief naturally follows: grief for familiar roles, for long-standing loyalties, for ways of working that once felt safe.

 

We often underestimate how deeply work is tied to identity. An acquisition or reorganisation doesn’t only shift strategy; it unsettles unconscious contracts. People may lose a reporting line that once gave them security, a colleague who was a confidant, or the status that shaped their self-worth. Beneath the surface, there are loyalties, anxieties, and even unspoken mourning.

 

Leaders who ignore this grief risk a “hollow” adaptation; compliance on the org chart, but disengagement and fragmentation in the lived culture.

 

Tomorrow, I will be facilitating an innovative, experiential take on workplace conflict in Singapore. In October, I will be in Vietnam and Thailand. I still have free slots in Bangkok. Email me if you'd like to meet up.

 

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