York Garrison, Strensall Station Portal

1. How to make meetings work. Meetings should be engines for progress, yet for many organisations they’ve become the place where energy, momentum and good intentions go to die. Most people don’t complain about having too much to do - they complain about having too many meetings that don’t achieve anything. As leaders, we set the tone. If we allow meetings to sprawl, people assume our thinking does too. If we run them tightly, people rise to our level. READ MORE

2. When work pays less. Last week’s Budget triggered a striking headline: workers squeezed, while some large families on benefits gain significantly. The truth is more nuanced. Freezing income-tax thresholds will reduce take-home pay for many employees over the next few years, particularly those on mid-incomes. Meanwhile, abolishing the two-child limit on Universal Credit from April 2026 will boost support for larger families. Some broadcasters illustrated this with dramatic examples - a worker on £35,000 losing around £1,400, while a benefits family with five or more children gains £10,000–£14,000. These figures are scenarios, not standard outcomes, but the direction of travel is clear: work is being quietly penalised while welfare expands. Leadership lesson: incentives matter. What you reward, you ultimately grow.

3. A refit for leadership. I spent 30 years in the Royal Navy, rising from junior rating to Chief Petty Officer to commissioned navigator on the fleet flagship. So when the First Sea Lord said our leadership-selection system is too subjective, he’s right. Promotion still depends too much on who writes your report and too little on who actually serves under you. Online officer selection hasn’t helped, and the pyramid structure rewards rank over vocation. Most naval leaders are good, some exceptional, but the wrong person in command can be devastating. The solution isn’t radical: introduce honest upward feedback, apply psychological assessment earlier, and fix the flawed Officer Joint Appraisal Report [OJAR]. Good leadership keeps ships afloat; bad leadership sinks them long before the enemy appears.

4. The migration mirage. Net migration fell to 204,000 this year - the lowest since 2021 - and politicians on all sides rushed to claim victory. But look past the headlines and the picture is far less triumphant. The biggest driver wasn’t fewer arrivals; it was a record 693,000 people leaving the UK, the highest proportion since 1923. Crucially, most of those leaving were young, working-age Britons, heading abroad for better prospects. Meanwhile asylum claims hit a record 110,051, meaning irregular migration now makes up over half of net migration. Hardly a solved problem. Leadership lesson: Headlines aren’t strategy. Before setting “targets”, we need to fix the fundamentals - housing, skills, productivity and competitiveness - otherwise we’re just measuring symptoms, not solutions.

5. Labour’s leadership lottery. Speculation is swirling about who might replace Keir Starmer, a man who’s somehow both prime minister and permanently in trouble. Labour hasn’t ousted a sitting leader in office before, but there’s a first time for everything, especially when polling numbers look like a cliff face. Andy Burnham would run if he weren’t busy being King of Manchester. Wes Streeting is touted as “Starmer, but with charisma”, though apparently too right-wing for half the party. Angela Rayner is the Left’s choice and would sell herself as the “clean break” candidate (stamp-duty hiccup notwithstanding). Shabana Mahmood has shown actual leadership, which in Labour can be a mixed blessing. And Ed Miliband is apparently “on manoeuvres” again, proving nostalgia truly is irrational. Leadership lesson: Be careful, your successor is always watching. Who would make the strongest replacement for Keir Starmer? Please share your views in our latest poll.  VOTE HERE

6. Adolescence lasts until 32. New research from the University of Cambridge suggests adolescence doesn’t end at 18 or even 25, but at 32. Using MRI scans from more than 3,800 people, scientists found that the human brain moves through five distinct “epochs,” with a major turning point at 32 - the moment when communication between brain regions stabilises and peak cognitive performance kicks in. So if your twenty-somethings occasionally behave like overgrown teenagers, science says they technically are. And if you finally felt like you “grew up” in your early thirties, congratulations, you’re normal. Leadership lesson: People mature at different speeds, and it’s rarely linear. Good leaders allow room for development, patience and second chances - because the brain is still wiring itself well into the decade most of us pretend we’ve already sorted out.

7. A digital detox works. A new study shows that young adults can significantly improve their mental health by cutting social media for just one week. The results were striking: a 24% drop in depression symptoms and a 16% fall in anxiety among 18–24-year-olds. Those already struggling with anxiety, insomnia or low mood saw the biggest lift. It didn’t fix loneliness - apparently swapping TikTok for silence doesn’t automatically produce new friends - but the mental-health gains were real and measurable. EU lawmakers now even want under-16s kept off social media without parental consent. Leadership lesson: When life feels crowded, the simplest reset is often subtraction, not addition. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is put the phone down and give your mind room to breathe.

8. You’ve been fired. Remember Labour’s flagship pledge to give every worker day-one protection from unfair dismissal? It has now been politely escorted off the premises. After months of business groups warning that it would unleash a tsunami of grievances (“I’ve been here four hours and demand justice”), the government has quietly replaced it with six-month qualifying period. Ministers insist this isn’t a U-turn, merely “getting it right”. Unite called it a “shell of its former self”, while left-wing MPs are wondering what other bits of the manifesto might mysteriously evaporate when someone important frowns at them. Leadership lesson: Bold promises are easy. Delivering them without breaking the system - or the economy - is where the real work begins. And sometimes, reality wins.

9. A seasonal public service. I can’t claim to have sampled every mince pie on the market - though Saturday’s Mr Kipling at Doubles & Bubbles, our monthly tennis-and-champagne social, tasted exceedingly good - but the annual mince-pie rankings are in, and they make fascinating reading. Waitrose No.1’s brown-butter cognac version is the critics’ darling for the second year running. Iceland’s “yuzu-spiked” offering apparently delivers unexpected brilliance, while M&S wins plaudits for fruity richness and admirable sustainability. Sainsbury’s all-butter classics round out the front-runners with consistently high praise. What this really shows is that there’s no such thing as the best mince pie, only the one that makes you smile when you bite it. Leadership lesson: Excellence comes in many flavours; your backhand improves when you stop slicing everything in sight.

10. The bottom line. Eighty-three per cent of Black Friday “deals” weren’t deals at all, just products sold cheaper (or the same price) at other times of the year. Which? checked 175 items and confirmed what we all suspected: Black Friday is mostly marketing, not magic.