"What do you want?"

No one had asked my client that before. He was stuck playing peacekeeper when he should have been leading.

Here's why that question unlocked everything – and what it means for senior leaders trying to navigate competing demands.

Every leadership expert tells you something different about who you're supposed to be. Be vulnerable but confident. Listen but direct. The contradiction is exhausting. What if the real work isn't performing leadership - it's practising it?

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.

A mid-week ride, an unexpected challenge, and a lesson about what happens when you stop choosing the comfortable group. Part of the Lessons from the Peloton series.

There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being the person everyone turns to for answers. You've built a career on competence. And yet something has shifted. The confidence that once felt like a given now feels fragile.

If this resonates, I want you to know something: losing confidence is not weakness. It's a signal.

"Thank you. I just needed to be listened to."

A reminder that sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is put the toolkit down.

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.

"Stop the noise. I need space to think."

This came up in a client session last week. He arrived overwhelmed with ideas, concerns, problems, opportunities. When that happens, it's my job to create a Think Tank - the space where leaders can untangle what's really going on beneath the urgent.

"Yes this is me. Yes I can do all that." How a senior leader navigating career transition moved from self-doubt to authentic confidence by addressing the hidden commitments keeping her stuck

That's my Zwift avatar. Every session uploads to Strava where AI analyses my performance. I'm getting fitter. More efficient. But am I developing better judgment as a cyclist? Or just following better instructions? This question matters more than we think.

How much time are you spending on your own energy and wellbeing? You can't guide, support, or challenge effectively when you're bringing stress and mental noise into every interaction. Here's why filling your own tank first isn't selfish - it's foundational.

Why did Bowie and Prince resonate so much at age 12?

Because they showed me that reinvention isn't about abandoning who you are - it's about allowing yourself to evolve into who you're becoming.

The same principle applies to leadership transitions.

Over Christmas, I got a model bicycle as a table gift. I was genuinely excited until I opened it and found dozens of pieces with no instructions. What I needed wasn't coaching - it was clear instruction. But that's not always what's needed. Here's how to know the difference.

Eddie Merckx versus Tadej Pogačar. The numbers say 18% improvement. The reality? Only 2% once you account for technology. For leaders obsessing over AI, the lesson is clear: connection beats tools every time.

I'll be honest. I had a wobble over Christmas. You know the kind - the one that creeps in when you're supposed to be relaxing, when you've got time to look at the spreadsheet and notice next quarter looks thin. All the old demons started kicking in. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's all the work I'm going to get. Wobble after wobble after wobble. So I did what I'd tell any client to do: I changed my perspective. Literally. I grabbed my gravel bike and headed out into the forests around Kielder Water. That ride reminded me what I needed to know: perspective shifts don't come from sitting with the spreadsheet. They come from stepping away and remembering what you know to be true.

Saturday morning. Six miles into our long run with the club, one of the runners shared her frustration: "I can't get under 4:00 hours, whatever I do. I've tried everything. I'm stuck."

Two days earlier, I'd heard almost the exact same words from a Director navigating a career transition: "I keep being passed over for promotion. It's just not fair. I've tried everything. I'm stuck."

Whether I'm coaching runners or senior leaders, I hear these three lines again and again: I keep missing my goals. I've tried everything. I'm stuck.

Here's what I've learned: when someone says "I've tried everything," they usually mean "I've tried everything I can see from where I'm standing." Being stuck isn't about lack of effort - it's about lack of perspective. The answer isn't working harder. It's seeing differently.

It's a cold January morning, and I'm reflecting on my first full year focused on Taggart People.

Three simple questions from the world of cycling have me thinking about what 2025 taught me, what I'm after in 2026, and how I'll get there. What are you carrying forward into the new year?

Last week I got a tattoo of a cyclist climbing Mont Ventoux. The irony? The tattoo celebrating my favourite pastime is the thing currently stopping me doing it.

As we head into the last weekend before Christmas, it got me thinking about the gap between what we want to be doing and what we find ourselves doing instead - and how we might find happiness in the constraints.

There's something unusual about going back to an organisation you've left. Yesterday I facilitated a workshop with a team I used to lead - helping them move from a group of talented individuals to something more powerful together. Here's what shifted when we created space to talk about what they felt, not just what they thought.

Dave Brailsford's "marginal gains" transformed British Cycling. But in leadership, we've borrowed the language without always taking the practice. The real marginal gains aren't the big strategic pivots or inspiring speeches. They're the small, unglamorous, every-single-day moments: the morning check-in with yourself, actually listening to people, asking questions that give them space to think. What are your leadership rhythms that compound into real change?