Missing pieces in personal growth and leadership development.

The value of tenderness and the end of 'guru energy'

Thank you for being a member of Leadership Squared, where we take a deep dive into human and modern business leadership and the systemic realities of the world in which we live.

Welcome to the February newsletter. This month’s theme is: staying tender.

As always, this is an invite to for you to pass on your thinking and send me ideas, because I treasure it and regard most of what I do here as an emerging, hive-mind process.

Monique

‘You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.’

Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Many of you have reached out with thanks for addressing the urgent need to read the room (to develop perspective, context, discernment) in last month’s newsletter; others have unsubscribed because it was too political.

They’re not wrong, exactly. My writing no longer focuses purely on business and human leadership. But the expectation that it should - that’s the bit I want to pick up on.

When I started advising senior leaders on business and personal growth, I didn’t have a grand plan for what the work would become. I knew I wanted the freedom to work holistically and across disciplines and sectors. Out there, advisory is what you make it, there is no template and no two clients are the same; together, we define the scope and the edges.

What I have learned is that my polymath background and being an ‘outsider’ enables me to ask the questions and connect the dots nobody else is. Clients are getting a lot of value from my work; I know it helps that I’m on a different frequency, it’s what they pay me for.

The relational, organisational and leadership insights and tools that my work exists to provide are only helpful if they take into account the systemic realities of the world in which we live. If you read Leadership Squared, no matter what you thought of January’s post, thank you for joining the conversation.

On My Mind

‘The breadcrumb to the larger dinner’.

This is how Virginia Giuffre’s sister-in-law described the former Prince Andrew’s arrest. It’s an evocative description.

The extraordinary has happened: after years of speculation, the release of photographs, that Newsnight interview, and more recently, the release of the Epstein files, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly prince and eighth in line to the throne, was arrested by police and held in custody – on his 66th birthday. Accused of misconduct in public office, his brother, the King, has now released a statement saying ‘the law must take its course’.

Peter Mandelson, the former spin doctor and ambassador to the US has been arrested, and then bailed, on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Signs of accountability in Dubai, too: Sultan Ahmed Bin Suleyam has resigned as CEO from DP World.

Poland is forming a task force to comb through the Epstein files and are preparing to launch their own independent investigation; Polish officials say they are not satisfied with the watered-down US releases and now officially view the Epstein files as a direct threat to Poland’s national security.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland has been hospitalised after a reported suicide attempt amid an Epstein-linked corruption probe.

In the US, they are less keen on consequences for the powerful. But, nonetheless, they are starting to unfold, at least for some (Thomas Pritzker, Kathy Ruemmler, Brad Karp, Casey Wasserman).

The files and tapes (yes, you can now watch Epstein’s private videos released by the DOJ under the Epstein Files Transparency Act) are casting a long shadow.

Social psychologists describe Epstein’s world as an ‘in group’, upgraded by ‘optimal distinctiveness’. Epstein was the man at the velvet rope, guests at his table had to be interesting, vogue-ish, powerful or useful enough. The price of admission: silence and ‘willful inaction’.

Perhaps the darkest revelation of all is that this attitude - and that of Jeffrey Epstein and the cesspool he created - is embedded in power structures throughout our world.

It feels like the fallout of the Epstein scandal has just started.

‘The longer I live, the more I am certified that men, in all that relates to their own health, have not common sense! Whether it be their pride, or their impatience, or their obstinacy, or their ingrained spirit of contradiction, that stupefies and misleads them, the result is always a certain amount of idiocy, or distraction in their dealings with their own bodies!’

Jane Carlyle, Letter to Mrs Russell, 23 February 1862

For a few days this month my social media feeds were filled with the news of Peter Attia (longevity researcher and health influencer who’d recently been appointed to CBS News as a contributor) and Deepak Chopra (self-help author, alternative medicine advocate and spiritual teacher) appearing in the Epstein files.

The publicly released Epstein files show stomach-churning correspondence involving Attia (who’s since left CBS) and Chopra, taking place after Epstein’s conviction as an abuser of minors.

This isn’t about just these two people; it’s about naming the dynamic of spiritual ego and power asymmetry that hide beyond ‘the language of light’.

Whilst there is no evidence yet of anything illegal from Attia or Chopra, the exchanges disturbingly show what some people will turn a blind eye to for fame or fortune.

‘Health’ has been taken over by patriarchy and capitalism – and re-branded as ‘longevity’: bro-wellness, anti-ageing, optimisation culture dressed up as increasing your healthy lifespan. And women influencers are doing it too.

Are you treating your body like a machine you have to dial, hack and override – or are you supporting, nourishing, repairing and replenishing?

Everything doesn’t need to be tracked, optimised or ‘fixed’.

Thriving starts with nurture. With self-trust, with self-love. With coming back to basics. And with remembering that you are your own best healer – not a (wo)man with a microphone, a Substack, or supplement stack … or worse a stack of misogynistic beliefs and friends.

A massive following isn’t authority, it’s marketing and power which is too often misused.

It demonstrates – again – that we can’t take people at face value.

I read between the lines and stay off those podcasts and out of that world because it has no integrity; its’ promises and crumbs give you answers and products they make you believe you need.

It’s never been more important to form your own opinions and become a person who can decipher style from substance.

If you have followed Attia, Huberman, Hyman, Ferriss or any of the other ‘bro-wellness’ influencers – what is it you were looking for? If you have been following any of the women who emulate their business models or who have appeared on their podcasts – because they believe in them or want their exposure – what is it you were looking for?

When a teacher becomes a brand, we often overlook the shadow underneath.

It’s time to bring that back into the realm of accountability.

I’m beyond fed-up with the ‘Starmer is a decent man’ hokum. If this whole Epstein-Mandelson imbroglio has proved anything beyond doubt, it’s how conspicuously not-decent his passive, principle-free managerialism is in its’ actual, real-world effects.

You begin to suspect that what we call democracy might be more like a stage: a circus of competing politicians who look like leaders but function, in reality, as employees of a system they do not control.

It’s hard for me to fathom why any European delegates would have been applauding Rubio’s Munich Security Conference speech. Was it just that it wasn’t as unhinged as Vance’s last year?

It isn’t an audience particularly interested in colonialism / imperialism. Atlanticism is the key. They just wanted nice words about NATO and less overt AfD stuff? Its Munich, after all, not Paris or London or Madrid.

Zombie Atlanticism dominates European elites, which means that they will gladly clap like seals at any sign the US still has some residual NATO commitment. Intellectually, they still haven’t fully accepted Carney’s point in his Davos speech, that a ‘rupture’ has occurred and they need to build new alliances.

The US strategy is clear. They are accelerating, pushing to weaken and fracture Europe. That’s how the meeting between Rubio, Fico, and Orbán should be understood. An axis is taking shape, one that aims to undermine Europe from within. Backing pro-Putin figures isn’t accidental.

Brexit’s tragedy: the UK gambled on free trade just as the world turned protectionist; it dismissed European continental solidarity as the platform for our security just as events made it more important than ever; and it bet the farm on the Special Relationship just as Trump arrived.

The United States is on the cusp of becoming a pariah state, ruled by a spoiled man-child who is increasingly and openly mocked for his obvious failings.

It only takes one person to say the emperor has no clothes to give others the courage to act.

We need people to lead well. To be an anchor point of consciousness. To speak with strength and let their earned and learned wisdom come out.

Over To You

‘What do we owe each other now?’

Esther Perel asked this provocative question in the context of our relational encounters: civic intimacy means there is an ethical dimension to them. It’s not just how you make me feel and how I make you feel; it’s what we owe each other. It’s how we need to act. It’s how we need to be for each other.

We absolutely need to take more responsibility, all of us. The ethical dimension is what transforms intensity into maturity.

Earlier this month, I accompanied my mother on her move to a long-term residential care home managed by an organisation who specialise in delivering personalised care for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s in small scale settings.

I’ve been full of awe and admiration for how the team are trying to get to know Mum; what triggers her, what makes her angry or happy, and what makes her sad, by observing and tending to her with curiosity.

Since then, I have found myself sitting with these questions:

How do we stay tender?

In what ways can our hearts remain open in a world that seems to insist on encouraging apathy and guarded self-interest?

Growth doesn’t always come from doing ‘more’; sometimes, it comes from narrowing our lens, sometimes is comes from opening our heart.

I’ve noticed how quickly assumptions and judgements form when our world gets small. When our inputs stay the same. When our conversations don’t stretch us.

It is counter intuitive that with softening you become stronger and more resilient, in business and in life; in my experience, it’s an incredible secret weapon.

Tenderness, a desire to stay open, thoughtful, and hopeful, can be practiced through small gestures throughout our day and our lives.

Keeping wonder and awe is one way of tending to, cultivating and sustaining an openness of our heart and spirit to the wider world; wonder keeps us curious and sensitive to life around us.

In leadership, the challenge is often striking a balance between high standards and high compassion. Overcoming an empathetic hijack so you can lead with compassion is a critical skill for any leader. I think of it as ‘tough empathy’: giving people not necessarily what they want, but what they need to grow and achieve their best, leading with your head and heart.

When you ask the simple question ‘What do you need? you have initiated a solution to the issue by giving the person an opportunity to reflect on what may be needed. This will better inform you about how you can help. And for the other person, the first step toward being helped is to feel heard and seen.

Remember the power of non-action. When it comes to people having challenges, it is important to remember that in many instances people do not need your solutions; they need your ear and your caring presence. Many problems just need to be heard and acknowledged. In this way, taking ‘non-action’ can often be the most powerful means of supporting.

Show self-compassion by practicing authentic self-care. There is a cost to managing one’s own feelings to better manage others. Often called emotional labour, the task of absorbing, reflecting, and redirecting the feelings of other people can be overwhelming.

When we show up with these qualities, people can lean on us and find solace and comfort in our well-being.

When was the last time you felt genuine wonder, and what softened inside you through that experience?

How can we cultivate tenderness in our interactions with ourselves, others, and the world around us?

Perhaps if we all understood that we belonged to a much larger, complex ecosystem, and our hearts broke open more readily - were more tender - would we live differently?

How would we lead differently?

Monique Loves

Things I have watched, read, listened to and loved this month

Watched

Gisèle Pelicot: The Newsnight Interview

Victoria Derbyshire talks to Gisèle Pelicot in Paris.

I love Pelicot’s line about shame changing sides; that it is the men who should be feeling the shame not her. I was also impressed by her bravery, composure and lack of bitterness.

The most tender part of the interview is when she is shown a series of vox pops with French women who talk about how her taking the stand has emboldened women everywhere to call out sexual abuse. If you haven’t watched it yet, please do.

Small Prophets, BBC iPlayer

Understated and brilliant, truly original.

The magical and the mundane unfold in a suburban shed as a lonely man stumbles into the supernatural. A weird and wonderful world from Mackenzie Crook, starring Michael Palin.

Crook’s way with characterisation overall is a marvel, an acute understanding of minor human foibles that say a lot.

I binged the 6 episodes in two sittings.

The Tucker Carlson Show - The Mike Huckabee interview

US ambassador to Israel Huckabee sparked outrage over the comment that Israel has the biblical right to take over the entire Middle East, or at least the lion’s share of it.

Only the interminably obtuse would be shocked by his words. Despite the so-called redline on annexation, the Trump Administration in 1.0 / 2.0 has enabled, acquiesced and not so quietly supported Israel’s annexationist policies. That red line turned pink awhile back.

Annexation of multiple countries is quite new.

I can think of no two individuals who are less pious than Trump and Netanyahu. Men of faith they are not. Yet policy in DC is driven by end-of-days evangelicals, and in Jerusalem by biblically inspired settlers reconstructing Ancient Israel and messiah besotted Temple Mount activists.

I’m not a fan of Tucker Carlson, but as an interviewer, Carlson brilliantly asks follow-up questions and keeps going, in a way that pretty much no US TV interviewer has done with pro-Israel guests since Oct 7. And Huckabee falls apart.

The novelty is that Carlson’s now independent journalism (he was with Fox for 10 years) - asking critical questions about a state committing serial war crimes in full public view, questioning his government’s support for that state, and soliciting the views of its’ victims - is not about Sudan, Myanmar, or Bosnia, but about Israel.

That is also an important part of the reason why Israel has definitively and irrevocably lost the public square: alternative media is available to all.

Read

Living With Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial

Gisèle Pelicot’s story outraged the world. The sickening parade of crimes to which she was subjected and her betrayal are dark pages in France’s history. Feminist philosopher Manon Garcia decided to attend the trial and to analyse its resonance for our future.

It became the trial that demonstrated that trials will never suffice to serve justice. If the perpetrators, for the most part, seemed so unashamed of what they had done, can we see in their sentencing anything meaningful? If their lawyers defend their clients by relieving them of responsibility for their actions, how will these men, their families, their friends see this trial as anything other than an injustice? If, even as the most explicit proof streamed before the court, the victim was stonewalled with the bland denial of facts, what can juries achieve in cases when the evidence is lacking?

The threat of incarceration will never be powerful enough to stop men raping. If trusting the justice system, as those who fret about ‘feminist overreach’ counsel us to do, gets us nowhere, what do we do? Above all, one question haunted Garcia: under such circumstances, can we live with men? And at what price?

Manon Garcia is a philosopher and professor at Freie Universität Berlin. She is the author of several books, including The Joy of Consent and We Are Not Born Submissive.

Allegations in Epstein files may amount to ‘crimes against humanity,’ UN experts say - Reuters

Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a ‘global criminal enterprise’ that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council says.

The UN has officially called out the scale of the Epstein network. If the US and other governments continue to redact names and protect ‘respected’ figures, they are complicit in a crime against the conscience of humanity. No more excuses.

What the Epstein class fear most is these mass movements leading eventually to some kind of accountability. I think we should actually give them what they’re afraid of.

Jeffrey Epstein was a paedophile, and we all live in his world - Carole Cadwalladr for The Nerve

Perhaps the darkest revelation of all is that this attitude - and that of Jeffrey Epstein and the cesspool he created - is embedded in power structures throughout our world.

Another heartbreak for me are the ‘high-status’ women coquettishly falling over themselves to offer up girls to Epstein. Girls less wealthy, powerful and connected than themselves, of course, and offered with a stomach-turning fawning flirtation.

I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day | Anonymous in The Guardian

Banning kids from social media won’t come close to addressing the fundamental misogyny that’s alive, well and thriving in contemporary society. If all of us refused to accept it, called it out for what it is, culture would change.

How tech has turned against women - Laura Bates for The Financial Times

So-called ‘nudify’ apps. Smart glasses that secretly record video. An explosion in sexualised deepfakes.

Tech has turned against women, and it’s time to regulate it properly, says author and gender equality campaigner Laura Bates.

The Massacre of Aid Workers in Tel Al-Sultan, Gaza Strip, 23 March 2025

A report by Earshot and Forensic Architecture.

The claims and allegations of the Israeli internal enquiry continue to be collectively rejected by PRCS, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) , and the PCD service.

This investigation sought to draw on the combined expertise of Earshot and Forensic Architecture (FA), combining specialised audio and spatial analysis practices in order to map out the trajectory of the incident with unprecedented precision.

Committee to Protect Journalists Special Report

‘Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,’ said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.

‘Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators. We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.’

A record 129 journalists were killed worldwide in 2025.

At a time when armed conflict has reached historic levels around the world, journalist killings also reached an all-time high primarily due to the actions of one government: Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist and media worker killings in 2025, driving the total number killed worldwide last year to a record 129 — the highest ever number documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists since the organisation started keeping records more than three decades ago.

Listened to

My Mother’s Murder, Tortoise Media

Daphne Caruana Galizia spent her career uncovering corruption at the highest levels of politics on the Mediterranean island of Malta. She stood out as a lone voice in an increasingly hostile environment. She endured arson attacks and arrests, until October 2017, when she was murdered in a car bomb attack. In this series, her son Paul returns home to make sense of what led to his mother’s murder. But within a day of retuning, events take an unexpected and momentous turn that will change the course of the murder investigation and Malta.

Loved

Acqua de Madre Remedio Infusions

Whole fresh fruits, blended and fermented to a thin paste, ready to stir into hot water (lemon & ginger), add to stir-fries (turmeric & ginger), and drizzle over yoghurt (blackcurrant & ginger).

I bought the mixed case as a gift for a friend - and asked to try them all.

Vibrant, zesty and quite fiery! And quite convenient.