Stay ConnectedPaul Scanlon explores leadership, communication, and human behaviour in the context of modern work and life. Drawing on over 40 years of leadership experience — leading teams and supporting other leaders — he shares lessons shaped by lived experience.
His work brings clarity to complex situations and invites reflection on how leadership is practiced across different roles, organisations, and stages of growth.
Get in touch: pa@paulscanlon.com
Copyright: © Paul Scanlon
In this episode of Leadership Insider, Paul explores emotional autonomy — an often unseen leadership skill that shapes clarity, confidence, trust, and momentum inside organisations.
At its core, emotional autonomy is the ability to know what you think, feel, and believe without needing external validation — and to hold that position even when others disagree.
Paul unpacks how a lack of emotional autonomy quietly shows up in leadership through hesitation, over-collaboration, reassurance-seeking, and decision paralysis — creating instability for teams who are looking for clarity and direction.
In this episode, Paul explores:
Why confidence that collapses under disagreement creates confusion
How over-collaboration often hides a lack of inner authority
The difference between healthy alignment and self-erasure
Why reassurance-seeking slows decisions and drains momentum
How leaders can listen well without outsourcing their leadership
Stay connected, share your thoughts, and subscribe @paulscanlonuk
In this episode of Leadership Insider, Paul reflects on one of the most overlooked realities of leadership today: leadership is emotional, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Drawing on more than four decades of experience working with leaders, teams, and global organisations, he explores how many leadership problems remain hidden in plain sight because they are misdiagnosed, avoided, or oversimplified.
Key themes explored in this episode:
Why leadership is shaped more by emotional climate than strategy or structure
How leaders often mistake control, compliance, or engagement metrics for real leadership
The difference between managing obedience and cultivating ownership
Why people disengage when they feel unseen, unheard, or unsafe
How emotional blind spots quietly erode trust, culture, and performance
Why the most damaging leadership issues are often the most obvious ones
How misdiagnosing problems leads to repeated fixes that never work
Paul also shares real-world observations from working inside organisations — including luxury brands — showing how leaders can become disconnected from the lived experience of their people, and how this disconnect affects morale, loyalty, and results.
Key takeaway:
Leadership improves when leaders stop managing symptoms and start paying attention to the emotional reality of the people they lead.
To continue the conversation, you can stay connected with Paul through the Leadership Insider podcast, where he shares further reflections on leadership, culture, and the human side of work.
In this opening episode, Paul explores what he believes is the greatest hidden problem in leadership today.
Drawing on over four decades of experience, he looks at how leadership is often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and reduced to surface-level fixes — while the real issues remain unseen.
In this episode, Paul reflects on:
why many leadership problems are hidden in plain sight
how obedience is often mistaken for leadership effectiveness
the difference between managing behaviour and cultivating ownership
why outcomes are easy to copy, but processes are harder to see
how misdiagnosis leads to repeated organisational frustration
Keep in touch with Paul’s work, follow @paulscanlonuk, subscribe to the podcast, and find more at paulscanlon.com.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
