Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level

What made you successful so far still matters. But as your responsibilities grow, the demands of leadership change — and the capabilities you need have to change with them.In this episode of Scaling New Heights, Nick Sellers explores why leadership progression is not simply about becoming better at what you already do well. It often means broadening your competence, becoming comfortable with being inexperienced again, and letting go of parts of your leadership identity that previously brought you success.Nick reflects on Marshall Goldsmith’s well-known phrase, “What got you here won’t get you there,” and considers what that means in practice for leaders whose roles are becoming broader, less certain and more complex.He explores why senior leaders can retreat towards familiar work when under pressure, why discomfort does not necessarily mean you are incapable, and how leadership increasingly involves working without a ready-made playbook.The episode closes with three questions to help you consider what the next stage of your own leadership might require.In this episode:00:00 Welcome to Scaling New Heights00:22 What Got You Here01:50 When the Job Changes03:10 Discomfort Means Growth04:41 The Familiarity Trap05:42 Letting Go of Identity06:22 Leading Without a Playbook07:45 Three Reflection Questions08:38 Next Level Invitation08:57 Subscribe and Release ScheduleThree questions to reflect on:What does the next version of my role require from me that I have not yet had to develop?Where am I retreating to familiar work because it makes me feel competent?What discomfort am I currently treating as a problem that might actually be a valuable part of my development?If you are at a transition point where what worked before no longer feels quite enough, having somewhere to think it through properly can help. You can find details of how to have that conversation with Nick in the links below.Follow or subscribe to Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level for new episodes each week.Important links🌐 Website: https://nicksellers.com📅 Book a discovery conversation: https://tidycal.com/nicksellers/discoverycall🎙 The Applied Leader (Premium Podcast): https://feeds.captivate.fm/the-applied-leader/📰 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.nicksellers.com/newsletter💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksellerscoach

What looks like a strategy, operational or performance problem in a business is often something rather different underneath.It may be a communication problem. An assumption. A conversation that hasn't happened. A founder struggling to let go. Or a boundary that has gradually disappeared.In this episode of Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level, Nick Sellers talks with Susan Maitland, founder of SupportAct and a business mentor specialising in stretched founders and family business leaders.Susan brings an unusual perspective. She spent 15 years working within her own family business before spending another 15 years leading within two other family businesses.Together, Nick and Susan explore the human behaviour behind many familiar business challenges.They discuss how easily assumptions replace genuine communication, particularly when people have worked or lived together for many years. A founder may know the business intimately and unconsciously expect everyone else to share the same knowledge, priorities and perspective.They also explore what happens as a family business moves from one generation to another. Values that were instinctively lived by the founder can gradually become diluted if they have never been properly identified, discussed and communicated.The conversation moves into succession and one of the hardest challenges for many founders: genuinely letting go. Developing a successor is one thing. Allowing them to lead differently is another.Nick and Susan also discuss boundaries between work and home, the gradual normalisation of excessive working hours, and why consciously protecting time away from work matters for relationships, health and long-term performance.Susan closes with two particularly powerful challenges.First: have the conversation you're avoiding.Second: ask whether your business can genuinely function without you.Because if everything stops when the founder disappears, Susan suggests you may not have built an independent business at all. You may have built a hostage situation.In this episode00:00 Welcome and Intro00:17 Meet Susan Maitland02:51 Why People Behave04:44 Communication and Assumptions08:26 Generations and Values12:12 Succession and Letting Go15:44 Susan's Family Story17:50 Boundaries and Trade-offs23:23 Workload and Reflection28:43 Rest for Performance32:45 Key Takeaways36:09 Contact and Wrap UpConnect with Susan MaitlandSusan is the founder of SupportAct and works with stretched founders and family business leaders.Website: www.thesupportact.co.ukYou can also find Susan Maitland and SupportAct on LinkedIn.Important links🌐 Website: https://nicksellers.com📅 Book a discovery conversation: https://tidycal.com/nicksellers/discoverycall📰 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.nicksellers.com/newsletter💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksellerscoachAbout Scaling New HeightsScaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level explores the realities of leadership, personal development, professional change and business growth.New episodes are released every Monday.Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so each new episode arrives automatically in your podcast feed.#Leadership #FamilyBusiness #BusinessLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #BusinessMentoring #SuccessionPlanning #LeadershipDevelopment

Senior leaders and business owners tend to be very intentional about work.There are targets, budgets, objectives, performance measures and career ambitions. We know what success looks like, and we regularly check whether we are making progress towards it.But are we equally deliberate about the rest of our lives?In this episode of Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level, Nick Sellers explores the hidden trade-offs that can sit behind professional success.There is nothing wrong with ambition, working hard or choosing to make sacrifices for something that matters. The problem comes when temporary trade-offs quietly become permanent, or when we stop noticing the choices we are making.Nick looks at why conventional ideas of “work-life balance” can be unhelpful and suggests a better alternative: intentionality.He also introduces a simple life-audit exercise designed to help you consider what outcomes you actually want across areas such as work, money, health, relationships, personal growth and enjoyment.And he poses one particularly uncomfortable question:Which part of my life is currently paying the price for success somewhere else?The objective isn’t to tell you what your priorities should be. It is to create better-quality thinking and better-informed choices.In this episode00:00 Welcome and Setup00:50 Winning at Work03:12 The Hidden Tradeoffs04:43 Goals Versus Outcomes06:33 Beyond Work Life Balance07:43 Life Audit Exercise09:02 The Uncomfortable Question10:14 Choose Consciously10:43 Weekly Reflection Questions11:47 Coaching and Wrap UpQuestions to considerWhat does a successful life actually look like for me?Am I genuinely progressing towards it, or am I simply very busy?Are the goals I’m pursuing creating the outcomes I actually want?Which part of my life is currently paying the price for success somewhere else?What am I neglecting simply because it isn’t on my scorecard?If you would value some space to think these questions through properly, you can book a conversation with Nick to explore whether coaching might help.Important links🌐 Website: https://nicksellers.com📅 Book a discovery conversation: https://tidycal.com/nicksellers/discoverycall🎙 The Applied Leader (Premium Podcast): https://feeds.captivate.fm/the-applied-leader/📰 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.nicksellers.com/newsletter💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksellerscoachThis episode builds on several recent conversations about comparison, progress and goals versus outcomes. If you haven’t heard Episodes 91–93, they provide useful additional context:Episode 91: Comparison Is Not a Leadership StrategyEpisode 92: Busy Isn’t ProgressEpisode 93: Goals vs Outcomes#Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessLeadership #WorkLifeBalance #IntentionalLeadership #PersonalLeadership #Success #ExecutiveLeadership #ScalingNewHeights

What happens when you achieve the goal — and discover it hasn’t achieved what you thought it would?We’re naturally drawn to measurable goals: revenue targets, promotions, growth percentages, salary levels, weight, retirement dates. Numbers give us certainty. We know whether we’ve succeeded.But the things we really want are often much less tidy.More freedom. Greater security. Better health. More enjoyment. Stronger relationships. A business that doesn’t depend on us.In this episode of Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level, Nick Sellers explores the important distinction between the goal we pursue and the outcome we actually want.Using the example of a business owner aiming to double turnover, Nick asks a deceptively simple question:What is this goal a proxy for?Because doubling revenue might create greater security and freedom — but it might also create more complexity, more pressure and greater dependence on the owner.The goal can be achieved while the point is completely missed.Nick also explores why we find vague outcomes uncomfortable, why measurable things can become disproportionately important simply because they are easier to count, and why effort itself can make us reluctant to question a goal once we’ve started pursuing it.The episode finishes with three questions to apply to a goal you’re pursuing now:What is the goal?What do I expect achieving this goal to give me?Is pursuing this goal actually increasing the likelihood of achieving that outcome?Goals matter. Ambition matters. Achievement matters.But the goal should serve the outcome — not the other way around.In this episode00:00 Welcome to the Show00:16 Goals vs Outcomes01:05 When Numbers Mislead02:42 The Proxy Question02:56 Turnover Growth Example04:22 Why Outcomes Feel Vague05:14 Define Outcomes Clearly06:19 Effort Creates Commitment07:18 Coaching for Alignment08:14 Three Questions Exercise09:17 Rethink the Goal10:25 Closing and SubscribeImportant Links🌐 Website: https://nicksellers.com📅 Book a confidential coaching conversation: https://tidycal.com/nicksellers/discoverycall📰 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.nicksellers.com/newsletter💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksellerscoach#Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #GoalSetting #BusinessLeadership #PersonalDevelopment #ScalingNewHeights

Being busy can feel a lot like making progress.A full diary. Decisions made. Problems solved. Projects completed. Targets achieved.But activity isn't evidence of progress.In this episode of Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level, Nick explores a deceptively simple question:What's actually different because of everything you've been doing?Progress requires direction. And that means knowing not only what you're working towards professionally, but what actually matters across your life.It's possible to grow a business, advance your career and increase your income while quietly losing ground in your health, relationships, freedom or enjoyment of life.There's another problem, too.Sometimes we are progressing — but because we're constantly focused on the next challenge, we never stop long enough to notice how far we've come.Nick explores why reflection and journalling provide something memory often doesn't: evidence. Evidence of where you were, what mattered, what was difficult and what has genuinely changed.The episode concludes with a simple 20-minute review designed to help you distinguish between activity and progress — and decide whether where you're heading still deserves your energy.In this episode00:00 – Busy vs Progress - why activity, exhaustion and a full diary aren't evidence that anything important is changing.02:01 – Direction Defines Progress - movement only becomes progress when it takes you towards somewhere you've deliberately chosen to go.03:32 – The Success Metrics Trap - why what's easiest to measure — revenue, salary, targets and achievement — isn't necessarily what matters most.04:27 – Reflection Reveals Progress - why constantly looking ahead can prevent us recognising how far we've already travelled.06:10 – Journalling as Evidence - how written reflection creates a record of problems solved, confidence gained and progress that might otherwise become invisible.08:11 – The Two Jobs of Reflection - reflection exposes false progress while also revealing the genuine progress we've failed to acknowledge.08:43 – The 20-Minute Review Exercise - four questions to help you look backwards before deciding what comes next.11:03 – Define Your Scorecard - there is no universal scorecard for a good life — or for successful leadership.12:20 – Closing and Subscribe - why sometimes the most useful thing you can do isn't move faster, but stop long enough to check your direction.Questions to considerWhat's genuinely better than it was six or twelve months ago?What's worse?What have you been very busy doing that hasn't moved anything important forward?What progress have you made that you've barely stopped to acknowledge?Are you making progress in the things that actually matter — or only the things that are easiest to measure?If this episode prompts you to question where all your effort is actually taking you, and you'd value a space to think that through properly, you can book a conversation with Nick.Follow or subscribe to Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level for more practical thinking about leadership, decisions and creating better outcomes.Important Links🌐 Website: https://nicksellers.com📅 Book a confidential coaching conversation: https://tidycal.com/nicksellers/discoverycall🎙 The Applied Leader (Premium Podcast): https://feeds.captivate.fm/the-applied-leader/📰 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.nicksellers.com/newsletter💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksellerscoach#Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfLeadership #Reflection #PersonalDevelopment #BusinessLeadership #ExecutiveLeadership #ScalingNewHeights