Breaking the Circle for Leaders
Breaking the Circle for Leaders is the podcast for frustrated middle managers who feel stuck in the same patterns, working harder but getting the same results, as stress builds. In each episode, Jon Manning, author of Emotional Intelligence Unleashed, draws on 25 years of operational management experience at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Greggs, among others, to explore why conversations spiral, why teams resist change, and why the pressure never seems to let up. Not theory. Not corporate training. Real stories, practical tools, and small shifts in thinking that make Monday mornings feel different.
Breaking the Circle for Leaders
Latest Episodes
EP10 I Should Have Known
I was new in the role, mid shop visit, when someone came and found me to say there was a manager on the phone. A customer had come in saying they'd eaten one of our products and it had broken their tooth. I told them to take the details, fill a...
Ep9 Why You Only Blame the Thing You Controlled
I'd trained for the Great North Run for six months. Three runs a week since March, never missed one. My sixth in a row, and this year I wanted it to be my fastest. Two days before the race, four ton bags of logs were tipped in...
EP08 Catching Thieves Was Never the Point
I once took over a restaurant for a colleague who was going on maternity leave. Lunchtimes were properly busy. Tables full, buffet orders going out one after another. It looked like a place making decent money.The system didn't agree. I'...
EP07 Why You Rule Yourself Out Before Anyone Else Gets the Chance
A few years ago I was sat with a coaching client in her early twenties. She'd just moved to a new company, and she'd gone in as a supervisor.What made that odd is what she'd been doing before. Her manager had been off sick for about six ...
EP06 - When You've Stopped Trying With Your Manager
I used to do unannounced Sunday visits, four or five times a year, to see what things really looked like when there weren't many managers about. One Sunday I got up, got ready, drove there on autopilot, pulled into the car park and just sat the...
