We are watching a president get things done that no conventional president could — and the unsettling part is that this is not obviously good news, nor obviously bad. The Codex says it is both, and shows you why. Let me concede the thing his critics will not and his admirers oversimplify: the norm-breaking works. […]
“Power does not change a person; it merely unmasks them.” Britain may be about to acquire a Prime Minister it was never asked to choose. Every step that put him there stayed inside the rules. That is exactly what should worry you. Is this democracy? Technically, yes. A sitting mayor decides the top job is […]
Is it possible to be a ‘Winner’ and a ‘Failure’ at the same time? Keir Starmer, a serial winner, just walked out of Downing Street beaten by his own side. After a series of wins he resigned this morning (22/6/26). Let me concede the obvious before anyone reaches for the comments: a landslide is not […]
Starmer is simply unfollowable Let me concede the obvious before anyone reaches for the comments: changing your mind is not a sin. A leader who alters course when the evidence turns is doing the job — that is seamanship, not weakness. So the trouble with Sir Keir Starmer‘s remarkable collection of U-turns was never the […]
The BBC Always Protects the BBC An institution can have a scandal. When it has the same scandal for thirty years, through every leader, the scandal is no longer something that happens to the institution. It is the institution. There is a law in how institutions fail: the failure itself is rarely what destroys […]
This government reminds me very much of a gyroscope — always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere. When a cabinet minister resigns, the commentary class reads the drama and skips the detail. They did it again this week. The Defence Secretary walked out, and the story became the Prime Minister’s […]
Quote from Tom Peters In 1991, during the first Gulf War, HMS Ark Royal was working the Mediterranean — air cover, deterrence, and reminding various interested parties that presence still matters. When the conflict ended we were granted port time, and our first stop was Athens. I was a newly commissioned Sub-Lieutenant, still under training, […]
“Fake it ’til you make it” is the only career advice with a built-in expiry date nobody mentions. “Charisma is the smiling face of confidence and ego — mistaken for Leadership until Humility runs out.” There is a legitimate version. Projecting confidence while you build competence is how every junior officer survives their first watch. […]
“There’s a process for that.” It is one of the most expensive sentences in the language, and it almost never sounds like it. It sounds like diligence. It gets said at the exact moment the right thing is obvious — obvious and urgent, plain to everyone in the room — and someone reaches for a […]
We do not appoint leaders. We anoint them — for the one who fills the room, holds the gaze, and speaks last and loudest. We call the feeling they produce “leadership”. It is the oldest mistake in the discipline, and it persists because the feeling has a name and a formula of its own. The […]
13 Equations for Selecting and Sustaining High-Performance Leaders
© Copyright Hugh Gunn 2026
