A rain-soaked 200km ride to Brighton with three much faster riders taught me something senior leadership teams often miss: the best teams, on the bike and in the boardroom, succeed by naming the awkward stuff up front rather than letting it fester into low candour and signal distortion.

Even the best teams fall apart when unexpected hits.

Drawing from a personal redundancy experience and the cycling concept of echelons, this post explores how leaders can navigate organisational crosswinds by building the right formation rather than trying to muscle through change alone.

The best thing I ever did for my team was accept it wasn't about me. I had to stop performing leadership and start actually leading. Here's what professional cycling teaches us about building teams with clear purpose, complementary skills, and genuine clarity about what matters.

Yesterday, I returned to facilitate a team session at a company I'd left 2.5 years ago. They'd changed, I'd changed, but what struck me was how this team had created something rare - a space where people could be themselves completely and deliver brilliantly through their unique strengths. It got me reflecting on my own journey back from some of the lowest points in my career, and what I've learned about taking ownership when you're feeling stuck.