Constantly surprised by where life has taken me over the last four decades, I find myself in my ‘middle-life’ running a crazy household with five amazing kids, three flourishing businesses and as a trustee of two charities, supported by an incredible marriage.

Rarely short of opinions, I guess I have found myself wanting somewhere that they can find expression that is less emphemeral than Twitter (refusing to call it X!) and more readily ignorable than LinkedIn. So this is my ‘Safe Space’. You are welcome to peer over the fence or dive in and have a good poke around. You’ll find reflections here that focus on leadership in its broadest sense. My concern is that leaders should ‘enlarge the lives of others’ but all too often we see those with positions of leadership leverage the platform for their own ends. Consequently, sometimes the content will be ‘politicised’, though not deliberately party political, because leadership of the ‘polis’ affects us all and provides too many object lessons to be ignored. My ambition is not to stir contention, there are too many platforms that are already performing perfectly well in that function, but to force myself into regular reflection, taking snippets from books, podcasts and my own leadership in a range of spheres, deconstruct them and rebuild them to give voice to issues and arrive at fresh insights that serve to make me a better leader. If they add value to others, then I will have exceeded my expectations.

So why ‘Grumpy Optimist’? It arises from the fact that I am, by nature, an optimist. I think in visionary and strategic terms about how we can transform organisations and wider society, but boy its hard work! Digging in and creating healthy cultures, establishing strong foundations for growth, building teams that are aligned and unlocking the potential of all players, investing in systems that develop resilience and scalability …and all whilst keeping the goal in view. So, there are plenty of times when I am pretty tires, occasionally overwhelmed and, let’s face it… grumpy! So here we are, The Gumpy Optimist. Expect there to be moments of inspiration, chuck in some challenge, laced with hope and that will probably the cocktail of grumpy optimism you can expect.