Most non-native speakers struggle to get formality right, but in honesty much of the time the biggest struggle is in our heads. The main concern in the majority of my clients is that they’ll be too direct or come across as rude. Some of this comes down to personality, with perfectionists worrying more than others, but I believe a lot has to do with our own language and culture bias and how the foreign language is structured grammatically. In comparison with languages such as

I’ve had several conversations over past weeks around a similar theme of communication. People who are frustrated at not getting what they want when according to them they’ve either asked for it, or its been offered to them but not actually manifested. When clients come to me with this situation it takes a little digging to try and find out what’s happened. Often what’s happened is not that they’ve been rejected, but that the individual hasn’t been clear enough either about w

One thing I've noticed in the clients who are struggling to step into more senior roles is that the qualities that helped them get there are actually hindering them in this next stage of their career. The Senior Scientist who built their reputation through being meticulous now finds themselves paralysed by perfectionism. The newly promoted Associate Director who was valued for being collaborative now struggles to have difficult conversations and hold people accountable. The R

Five years ago I had a panic attack on a scooter in Thailand. It wasn't the panic attack that was the problem… it was the shame and guilt that followed. Shame, guilt and the feeling of failure that I couldn't do what everyone else, young and old, seemed to be able to do without a second thought. A few days later I decided to do something about it, I decided to do my motorbike test in Germany. I'm sharing this because that wouldn't have been possible without the techniques I n

My iMac is six months old and it's been driving me mad. For the last couple of weeks I've been getting the dreaded spinning colour wheel every time I switch between applications. You know the one, the computer’s way of saying: too much. I can't cope right now. I got in touch with Apple support and in the process of troubleshooting, I’ve spent a lot of time watching my Activity Monitor. If you haven't opened it before, it shows you in real time exactly how much of your compute

The other week I ran a poll on LinkedIn asking a simple question: under pressure at work, which one are you: a Perfectionist, a Pleaser, a Performer, or a Panicker? Out of those who responded, a striking. 61% identified as Performers. 30% as Perfectionists. 7% as Pleasers. And a small handful as Panickers, though I suspect that number is quietly higher than it appears, because the Panicker, by definition, is the least likely to put her hand up. The Performer result didn't sur

We often talk about losing confidence and needing more confidence, making it sound like something we can learn like riding a bike, but confidence isn’t a skill you can learn, it’s a feeling, an emotion; which is actually good news because it means we are all naturally confident. Confidence depends on our belief and trust in our knowledge and ability to do something. Grammatically, the word ‘confidence’ is an adjective and ‘confident’ a noun, so why are so many of us treating

Why aren't there more women senior leaders in Pharma and Biotech? Honestly, I think some of it is our own fault. Yes, there are both gender biases and stereotypes. Yes, there is a seemly bulletproof glass ceiling and there’s the obvious broken rung in the career ladder for women, but I think there’s also something else we as women can do better for ourselves. Some of that has to do with luck and a lot of it has to do with attitude. The luck part of the equation has to do with

When you live and work outside of your home country there's a lot of additional processing that you're required to do on a daily basis. There 's a huge difference between visiting and actually living and working in a foreign land. The photo of me above was taken on my way to a networking event in Munich and looking at it, it doesn't show the whole me... it's the 'German approved' version of me. What I've noticed living more than half my life outside my home country is that as

A client came to me after receiving excellent performance reviews and being at the top of her grade her manager told her that if she wanted to progress further, she needed "more presence." When she asked what that meant specifically, the answer was: "Be more like John”, an executive several levels above her. She felt stuck, she didn't have John's years of experience and "be more like John" didn't give her specific skills to work on. So she did what anyone would do, she resear

This is important because if we don’t know ourselves, how are we meant to instil trust in others that we’re capable and trustworthy? What I’m seeing in conversations with clients is similar to what I’ve faced myself; that they don’t really feel at ease with who they believe (or fear) they are, and consequently they don’t believe they’re enough. They believe they need to be more. More fluent, more confident, more influential, more charismatic, more likeable, more social, just

Who hasn’t used AI to prepare for interview? The temptation to let LLMs draft the perfect response to every imaginable question is great and to be honest, why wouldn’t you use it? Especially when you’re interviewing in English as a multilingual speaker. AI can produce impressive summaries, and slick professional sounding answers in the blink on an eye; all you have to do is memorise it. I say ‘all’ you have to do is memorise it, but that’s a lot easier said than done. In the

Happy National Introvert Day! As introverts, we crave peace and quiet to recharge, but what happens when your own mind won't give you that peace? It's the start of a new year. You've survived the end-of-year rush, the family gatherings, the obligations. You finally have space to breathe, but your mind won't stop churning. Even now, when you're supposed to be resting and resetting, your thoughts are still spinning - jumping from one worry to another, replaying conversations,

It’s not the failure itself that paralyses you. It’s the shame of failing at your age, your level, your title. No one tells you that leadership at senior levels comes with a quiet, private cost. Not the workload or the accountability, but the constant fear that one small moment might expose you as someone who should have it all figured out by now… and hasn’t. That fear tends to visit around 3am. What if someone asks me a question I cannot answer tomorrow? What if I freeze aga

Three weeks away from home. When I returned, everything had shifted. My boyfriend and daughter had found their rhythm without me. The kitchen was reorganised. New routines were in place. They were getting on perfectly well, better actually, because I wasn't there managing their relationship, smoothing over tensions, making sure everyone was happy. I should have been relieved. Instead, I felt completely disconnected. My role, the one I'd built my identity around, had dissolved

It’s so easy to get knocked off centre, especially this digital era. In the past our beliefs of the ‘right’ way to do something were only challenged when we looked to our neighbours and saw a different behaviour. They were further challenged when we travelled to a different counties and experienced different cultures. As we broadened our horizons we broadened our perception of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and how we ‘should’ be. It was a positive thing. We let go of some of our constr

You’re about to give an important presentation. Your heart’s racing, your palms are sweaty, and someone well-meaning leans over and says, “ Calm down, it’ll be fine” If only it were that simple! For most people, trying to calm down doesn’t calm anything. It just adds another layer of frustration: “Why can’t I control myself?” The truth is that telling someone or yourself to relax when adrenaline is already pumping is like trying to perform an emergency stop on a moving freigh

I once worked with a senior scientist who described herself as “reasonably confident” until she stepped into a new leadership role. Suddenly, the calm, capable voice she’d relied on began to hesitate. She found herself second-guessing simple decisions and worrying about how others perceived her. Then one day, something completely unrelated happened a parcel went missing. The delivery note said it had been "Handed to a neighbour" yet it was nowhere to be found. As she searched

We’ve all felt it, in our logical mind we know we have the power… but for whatever reason the belief just isn’t there. We tend to think of confidence as a fixed trait, you either have it or you don’t. But that’s not true, confidence like any other feeling… joy, pain, excitement, anger, grief, courage, fear… none of them are fixed states. States come and they go, several times a day in some cases; the intensity and duration of a state also varies. And, states can also be tra

Carmen is the scientist who knows her stuff… until the meeting begins. She has a PhD in Immunology, a Master’s in Molecular Biology, and over two decades of experience in Pharma and Biotech. She’s built teams, led projects, worked across countries and cultures, and developed a quiet, well earned authority. Her voice should carry weight, but lately, it doesn’t feel that way to her. Since stepping into her new Associate Director role in Germany, Carmen has noticed something beg