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Insights
Sparking Leadership, my weekly series on leading people, plus articles on burnout and the realities of work.


How to gracefully deal with exits as a leader / Part 1
Few things test a leader more than watching a valued team member walk out the door. This is part 1 of a two-part series - today we focus on voluntary exits (i.e. a team member hands you their notice). Next week we’ll tackle the equally challenging involuntary exits. 🔎Spot the early signs No leader can control someone else’s #career choices, but, you can tune into the signals that someone might be considering a #change: Drop in engagement or curiosity Reduced participation in

Christina Ioannidou
Oct 22, 20252 min read


Upskill them or lose them: why training your team has become more important and urgent than ever.
Everyone talks about “investing in people.” But when it comes to actual learning and development, too many leaders tick a box and move on. Maybe you have a learning budget or maybe your #team even attended a workshop last year. That's a great start but not a real investment. Especially not when McKinsey’s research shows that demand for advanced #tech #skills could rise by almost 90% by 2030. And it’s not just technical know-how but social, emotional, and critical thinking ski

Christina Ioannidou
Oct 16, 20252 min read


Can you go back to being an individual contributor after leading a team?
I once worked with an engineering team lead in a #tech scale-up who, after three successful years leading a team, decided to pivot back into a DevOps role. He cared deeply about his people, but he missed building things. The more his leadership responsibilities grew, the further he drifted from hands-on technical #work. And like many first-time leaders, he had no real mentorship or formal training - he was simply “the most senior engineer” and his still young start-up at the

Christina Ioannidou
Oct 9, 20252 min read


What do people say about your leadership when you’re not in the room?
Most people only think about personal branding when they’re job hunting or promoting a business. But your brand is bigger than that. I'm sure you’ve heard the classic line: a brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. In other words, your reputation. Philosopher Gloria Origgi even calls reputation a form of currency. And like any currency, you either manage it wisely or let it lose value. Regardless of how important your reputation is as a leader, I'm de

Christina Ioannidou
Oct 1, 20252 min read


Urgency Vs Strategy: when you need to hire, where do you look first?
Every #hiring decision feels urgent. Which is why many leaders skip the first, most important question: Where should I look? Inside the...

Christina Ioannidou
Sep 26, 20252 min read


Can you believe 2026 is almost 2 months away?! 😯
Disclaimer: the purpose of this post is NOT to stress you out but to prepare you. You can keep reading, it's safe (and optimistic!) For...

Christina Ioannidou
Sep 18, 20252 min read
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