Complex work succeeds when people with different priorities can move in the same direction. The recently approved Crawford nickel project near Timmins is enormous in scale. But projects like this are never only engineering projects. They involve governments, Indigenous partners, communities, investors, technical teams, environmental considerations, operators, contractors and countless people whose priorities won’t always be identical. That’s where leadership gets interesting.

Technical expertise may earn the role. People skills determine what happens next. Engineers are trained to solve problems. Analyze the data. Understand the system. Find the failure point. Develop the solution. It’s one of the reasons technically strong people so often move into leadership. Then something changes. The problems aren’t all technical anymore. Now you’re leading the engineer who strongly disagrees with you. Giving feedback to someone who isn’t meeting expectations

Good leaders make it safe to speak up early. World Humanitarian Day was this week, and one idea connected to humanitarian work has a lesson for every leader: early warnings matter only if someone is willing to hear them. In organizations, warning signs rarely arrive with flashing red lights. They show up as the employee who says, “Something doesn’t feel right.” The supervisor who notices fatigue creeping into the crew. The project manager who admits a deadline may be slipping

Good leaders face reality — then help people move forward. A few days ago, Jay and I hopped on a plane to fly to Haida Gwaii. We got all the way there, started our approach — and then the pilot had to pull out. The fog was simply too dense to land safely. Not the outcome we’d wanted. So, we spent the night in downtown Vancouver instead, and the next morning found ourselves walking along the oceanfront, enjoying a beautiful day we hadn’t planned for. It got me thinking about l

Emotional regulation is a leadership skill. I’ve been following Dr. Marc Brackett’s work on emotional intelligence and his book Dealing with Feeling, and one idea keeps coming back to me: We all have emotions. The skill is learning what to do with them. That sounds simple. In practice, I see leaders struggle with it all the time. A meeting gets tense, and frustration turns into impatience. Someone challenges an idea and defensiveness takes over. Pressure builds, and suddenly

Self-awareness requires a wider scorecard. I’ve been reading Martin Short’s autobiography, and one habit of his really stuck with me. Every Monday morning, he grades himself across nine areas of his life: Self, Immediate Family, Original Family, Friends, Money, Career, Creativity, Discipline and Lifestyle. Not just career. That’s what caught my attention. As leaders, we’re surrounded by scorecards. Revenue. Deadlines. KPIs. Performance reviews. Quarterly targets. We get very