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MAKING HEADWAY

BY RICH FARRELLY

Welcome to issue #7 of Making Headway, a monthly letter to you, with a focus on doing your best leadership work and hopefully, making some tweaks to your life. I love that you are here. If this was forwarded to you, subscribe here.

Sunday, May 4th, 2025

Hello, my kind-hearted friend,

Given today's date, can I resist a Star Wars reference in this letter to you? Perhaps. A very good friend of mine (the same one who asked how she can arrange a pause) has her birthday today and she gets a Star Wars reference every year from pretty much everyone. If it's a slow news day near you, you will see some Star Wars reference about the date on your local news.

Totally unrelated, the young guy that works Sundays at my local petrol station has decided he is bringing the word 'swell' (as in, "I'm doing swell. How are you?") back to common usage. Golly gee whiz, respect!

This month has been very much a 'Shoot the arrow and paint the target around it' type scenario. I initially thought this was going against my little 'What's in-What's out' list for 2025, but it turns out it plays beautifully. The list is turning into my rules for the 2025 and I am playing by them....and it is working!!

That got me thinking… Some leadership ideas are like “swell.” Brilliant in their own way, but unfairly left behind. Others are like my April - chaotic, productive, and a little misunderstood.

So in this letter, I’m giving some love to the leadership and life concepts with a bad PR department. The ones we avoid, eye suspiciously, or whisper about like they’ve microwaved fish in the office kitchen. But when you look closely, they’re not the problem - they’re some of the quiet heroes.

Let's get to it......(Thanks to my friend, Ian Newmarch, for letting me talk these through)

👇

* * *

🧨 Conflict
Conflict is often thought as being like the dirty dishes in the office sink. Everyone sees it. No one touches it. We just keep adding to the pile and hoping it magically disappears.

But conflict isn’t the problem. Avoiding it is.
Healthy conflict - the kind where ideas, rather than egos, bump into each other and create a spark - is where progress happens.

Think of it as emotional CrossFit. Yes, it’s sweaty. Yes, you might pull a muscle. But you’ll come out stronger, clearer, but you’ll come out stronger, clearer, and way less likely to simmer through another meeting thinking, “Why didn’t anyone say something?”

🦸‍♂️ Rescuing (Karpman Drama Triangle-style)
Being the ‘rescuer’ in a work drama feels noble. You swoop in! You fix things! You may even wear metaphorical and literal spandex! The PR Department of the Rescuer has done a good job here of creating a hero, but the rescuer is actually not.

The Rescuer often turns into an enabler. Instead of empowering someone, you quietly tell them they can’t handle it without you. And that, my friend, is how you become a crutch with a calendar full of other people’s emergencies.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is not jump in. Ask a question. Hold the space. Offer a ladder instead of hauling them out on your back.

🫣 Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome walks into the room and immediately worries it shouldn’t be there. It’s convinced someone’s going to walk up behind it, tap it on the shoulder and whisper, “We’ve reviewed your credentials and… yikes.”

But here’s the secret: the people who feel like impostors? They’re usually the ones actually trying. Reflective. Self-aware. Slightly overachieving.

Feeling like a fraud doesn’t mean you are one. It means you care. It means you’re learning. And it means you’re probably doing better than you think—even if your mind hasn’t quite caught up to that yet.

🔥 Ambition
Ambition gets mistaken for greed with better shoes. Like it’s something shameful, especially if you dare to be... open about it. (How dare she want to lead a team?!)

But ambition is just forward motion with purpose. It’s your inner GPS whispering, "There’s more you can do.”

Unchecked, it’s a steamroller. But harnessed? It’s a jetpack. Strap in.

⚡ Power
Power gets a bad rap. People treat it like radioactive waste: dangerous, corrupting, and best left to someone else.

But power’s just energy with influence attached. It’s like Wi-Fi: you can’t always see it, but when the signal is strong, it connects people, ideas, and action.

Good leaders don’t pretend they don’t have power. They use it deliberately, generously - even quietly. And they use it to lift, not lean.

🎤 Self-Promotion
Self-promotion gets a bad rap, so we try to be subtle. Quiet achievers. Background operators. The office equivalent of a magician who makes results appear without ever taking a bow.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t share what you’re good at, people will fill in the blanks - and they might not fill them in your favour.

Self-promotion isn’t about ego. It’s about clarity. Confidence. And helping others see how you make things better.

Think less megaphone, more lighthouse. Show up, shine, guide others. The right people will notice - and know how to support you.

🛑 Saying No
Saying no feels like career sabotage wrapped in a one-word email. It’s risky. It's scary. It might make you look... difficult.

But every ‘yes’ has a cost. If you say yes to everything, you’re also saying yes to burnout, resentment, and reheated leftovers for dinner. Again.

‘No’ is how you protect the good yeses. It’s not rejection. It’s strategy with a spine.

🫠 Vulnerability
Cue the groans. Vulnerability sounds like crying in meetings and oversharing on Slack. But real vulnerability isn’t emotional karaoke.

It’s saying “I don’t know” when you don’t. It’s owning the hard stuff before someone else uses it against you.

It’s human. It’s brave. And it’s the one thing that quietly turns titles into trust.

These concepts don’t need to be cancelled - they need a comeback tour. 

Maybe with a better stylist.
Maybe just someone to remind us that the best leaders aren’t flawless. 

They’re just fluent in the stuff most of us avoid.

* * *

The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize medal doesn't have a loop or any way of wearing it. This is Prof. David Macmillan (Nobel Prize for Science, 2021) explaining where he keeps his:

My wife told me she would hide it in a place that no one would ever think to look. Literally, the next day, I open the drawer on my bedside table, looking for the tv remote and find the medal box that has ‘The Nobel Prize’ written on the outside in big gold letters. It was such a bizarre moment – to be looking for the tv remote, and to find the Nobel Prize – I couldn’t stop laughing for about 15 minutes. It was hands down one of the most surreal and funniest moments of my life.

Sometimes we’re searching for something mundane - a remote, a sense of control, an answer to a small problem - and we stumble on something astonishing instead. This story is a reminder that joy, absurdity, and meaning often show up where we least expect them. Maybe we’d find more “Nobel Prizes” in life if we stayed open to the possibility that the extraordinary can live right next to the ordinary.

Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash

The Canary Has Stopped Singing

Some of the most valuable voices in your organisation are the ones most likely to be ignored.

They don’t come with a megaphone. They don’t always have formal authority. But they spot the cracks before they become chasms - flawed strategies, cultural warning signs, or assumptions built on shaky ground.

Their concerns are often raised gently at first: a comment in a meeting, a quiet one-on-one, a follow-up email. Too often, those signals are acknowledged... and then shelved.

By the time the damage is visible to everyone else, the canary is either exhausted or gone.

The “canaries” in your workplace - the people attuned to weak signals, emerging risks, and human costs - aren’t trying to slow things down or play devil’s advocate. They’re trying to protect something. Their job isn’t to be right every time. It’s to speak up early enough that you still have time to act.

And when they stop speaking, or worse, leave altogether, the cost isn’t just the loss of a single voice. It’s the loss of trust. Of foresight. Of safety. 

Silence in organisations isn’t always fear-based - it can be fatigue, self-preservation, or misplaced politeness. But whatever its cause, it corrodes the conditions for honesty, growth, and innovation.

Your culture isn't defined by how loudly people speak - it's defined by how carefully you listen.

A small nudge for this month

Think about your own team.

Who’s been raising gentle warnings lately?

Who’s asking uncomfortable but important questions?

Who’s quietly holding the mirror up?

Now ask: are we listening to them... or wearing noise-cancelling headphones?

The voices that challenge us the most are often the ones we need to hear the most. Before they stop singing.

Guest Post

I am trying this idea of a 'Guest Post'

(To be honest, no one has taken me up on this yet. I'll keep trying)

We all have something we have crafted or created, or an idea we are toying with, so if you are keen to take it for a test drive or push whatever it is you have to say a little further, let me know and I can include the whole thing or a link to it. It does not have to be polished. Even a photo on a napkin will be enough. Who knows who you will touch. 

For the avoidance of doubt, all the creative juices remain with you. I am just giving you a platform to tease them out and maybe get feedback.

I like to think we are all little cheer squads for each other in this world and our default position is that we all want each other to succeed in business and in life, so feedback and ideas are always welcome. I know it is coming from a good place. I am even open to a ‘letter to the editor’, if you are inspired to write.

Thanks for reading this far. 

Write to you next month.

Rich

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