BBC Director of Research and Development Jatin Aythora is leaving the corporation after just over eleven years. Announcing his decision on LinkedIn, Aythora highlighted the changing technological challenges facing public […]

Transitioning into cybersecurity without a formal path. 10 years of hands-on experience, from firewalls to YubiKeys, forging expertise through 'f*** around and find out'. #CybersecurityJourney #ITtoSe

An unexpected summer of unemployment became a season of beach days, family rituals, and reclaiming time with the people I love most.

McKinsey warns that AI and automation may displace 36 million jobs by 2035, forcing roughly 11 million U.S. workers to switch careers entirely. The catch: lower-wage workers are 7.6 times more likely to bear the burden, and nearly half have no clear path forward. The next decade may demand the largest workforce transformation in American history. https://qz.com/mckinsey-ai-automation-workers-career-transitions-2035-093026

AI Workforce Transition: 11 Million US Jobs at Risk The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence IT Home reported on September 29 regarding a new study by the consulting firm McKinsey. Consequently, the greatest threat confronting American workers over the next decade is not an employment catastrophe. Instead, the real challenge involves helping millions of individuals transition into entirely new occupational roles.

💼 Divorce isn't just the end of a relationship—it can be the beginning of a whole new career and life. Join Lisa Lisser and special guest Rachel Spekman, Career Alignment Coach, Therapist, and Founder of Made for More Coaching, for an empowering conversation about rediscovering your professional identity after divorce. In this inspiring episode, Rachel shares how divorce can become a catalyst for personal and career transformation. Learn how to overcome self-doubt, reconnect with your strengths, and create a career that aligns with your values, passions, and purpose. Whether you're returning to the workforce, changing careers, or starting a business, you'll gain practical strategies to confidently move into your next chapter. Streamed  on www.NEWStreamingNetwork.com More about Lisa:  Lisa is a retired attorney and mother of three who has lived through the experience of divorce and come out a little broken but a lot stronger, I recognize that people going through divorce need something different. My divorce coaching provides the support and guidance that helps my clients uncover the answers they need that may be buried under years of negative messaging. I help my clients wade through the complicated and scary process of divorce, guide them to avoid pitfalls when they can, and help them exercise more thoughtful decision-making that will shorten the process, empower them along the way, and save them money!  Contact Lisa Lisser:  lisa@lzlcoaching.com  www.LZLCoaching.com More about Rachel: Rachel Spekman is a Career Alignment Coach, therapist, and former corporate leader who helps high-performing professionals build careers that fit who they are—not just what looks good on paper. Combining psychology, career strategy, and practical planning, she helps clients navigate career transitions with clarity and confidence, without sacrificing financial stability. Rachel is the founder of Made for More Coaching, where she empowers people to create work that aligns with their values, strengths, and purpose. Contact Rachel Spekman: rachel@rachelspekman.com https://www.rachelspekman.com/

What experienced corporate professionals discover when they join a nonprofit, and what the sector actually demands of them.

Leadership pressure can impact confidence, decision-making, and career direction. Understanding these challenges helps professionals navigate change successfully.

YouTube video by Venkat Ramakrishnan

The deepest wound of losing a senior role is not unemployment. It is the loss of the identity that the organization quietly taught you to become. For many executives, redundancy is described as a career event. It appears in financial models, restructuring presentations, and headcount reports as an operational necessity. The organization moves resources. Costs are reduced. Functions are consolidated. Shareholders receive an explanation. The process is presented as rational because, from the organization’s perspective, it often is. That description explains the business decision. It does not explain the human experience. Executives rarely grieve the salary first. They grieve the disappearance of the person they believed themselves to be. Years of responsibility gradually fuse the role with identity until separating the two becomes almost impossible. The person who ran the business, solved impossible problems, carried difficult conversations, and absorbed pressure without complaint wakes up one morning without a place where those capabilities are needed. That is why so many accomplished leaders describe redundancy not as disappointment but as grief. They are mourning a version of themselves that no longer has anywhere to exist. --- The Organization Doesn’t Just Employ You. It Shapes You. Executive work changes people. The calendar becomes your operating rhythm. Your phone becomes the organization’s early warning system. Problems find you because everyone assumes you can solve them. Escalations become normal. The difficult conversations become yours. Decisions accumulate until carrying responsibility feels less like a task and more like a permanent condition. Few people notice the transition while it is happening. Over time, introductions stop beginning with your name and start beginning with your title. Your reputation becomes attached to the organization. Your confidence becomes attached to your ability to influence outcomes inside that system. Your days are structured around problems that matter because thousands of people, millions of dollars, or critical customers depend upon your judgment. The organization benefits from that fusion. Executives who identify strongly with their role often carry extraordinary commitment. They answer late-night calls. They postpone holidays. They solve problems that were never officially theirs. They absorb uncertainty because they believe the mission deserves it. The danger is that identity quietly becomes organizational property. When the role disappears, the infrastructure that reinforced that identity disappears with it. What remains is often a question few executives expected to ask at this stage of their career. Who am I when nobody needs me to run this anymore? --- The Competence Trap There is another paradox that makes separation especially painful. The more competent you become, the less visible your competence often appears. Exceptional operators remove friction before it becomes visible. They prevent crises rather than receiving recognition for resolving them. They build management systems that make instability look like stability. They coach managers before failures become customer complaints. They resolve conflicts before they become board discussions. Success gradually erases the evidence that success was required. Someone described it perfectly: “Problem-solvers are like scaffolding: essential while the building is being repaired, quietly removed once everyone starts admiring the frontage.” That observation captures something many organizations never acknowledge. The strongest operators often become victims of their own effectiveness. Once the system appears stable, attention naturally shifts toward growth, strategy, innovation, or commercial expansion. The invisible work of maintaining operational integrity receives less attention precisely because it succeeded. Governance has an uncomfortable blind spot here. Organizations measure outcomes far more easily than they measure prevented outcomes. The crisis that never occurred has no dashboard. The regulatory action that never happened receives no quarterly update. The customer who never left rarely appears in the board pack. Eventually the scaffolding is mistaken for unnecessary structure instead of essential support. --- Resilience Creates Another Illusion Competence often arrives with resilience. The executive who absorbs pressure quietly becomes known as dependable. The leader who never appears overwhelmed becomes the person everyone assumes is coping. The operator who continues delivering despite impossible circumstances becomes the organization’s emotional shock absorber. That reputation carries hidden costs. People stop asking whether you are managing. They assume you always are. Your resilience becomes evidence that you require less support than everyone else. Colleagues check on those who visibly struggle. Few think to check on the person who consistently keeps the organization functioning. Ironically, the people carrying the greatest organizational burden frequently receive the least emotional attention. Not because people are uncaring. Because competence creates the illusion that competence extends to every part of life. It rarely does. --- Shame Ignores Organizational Logic Most senior leaders understand how restructuring decisions are made. They know businesses rebalance portfolios. Markets change. Acquisitions create duplicate functions. Investors demand lower costs. New strategies require different capabilities. Entire divisions disappear regardless of the quality of the people inside them. They understand this intellectually. Emotionally, another conversation begins. It usually starts around three o’clock in the morning. The mind begins reviewing meetings that seemed insignificant at the time. Decisions are replayed repeatedly. Conversations are reinterpreted. Small moments suddenly feel loaded with hidden meaning. Somewhere in the review, the search begins for the mistake that must explain what happened. Shame is not looking for accuracy. Shame is looking for causality. If it can identify the error, perhaps the outcome becomes understandable. Perhaps the pain becomes controllable. Perhaps the next loss can be prevented. Except many restructures have no personal explanation. A name becomes attached to a cost center. The cost center moves. No amount of replay changes that arithmetic. Understanding this intellectually rarely quiets the emotional search. --- The Silence After the Announcement Organizations have legitimate reasons to control communication after executive departures. Legal obligations exist. Confidentiality matters. Commercial relationships must be protected. Customers require confidence. Remaining employees need stability. None of those considerations are unreasonable. The consequence, however, is that public narratives become remarkably similar. Grateful for the opportunity. Proud of what we achieved. Looking forward to the next chapter. Professionally written. Entirely incomplete. The severance agreement protects the family financially. The accompanying silence protects the organization institutionally. The real story often remains inside the executive’s home, shared only with a spouse, a trusted friend, or perhaps nobody at all. An entire professional chapter closes with language that says almost nothing about what was actually experienced. --- Recalibrating the Psychological Contract One observation from another executive has remained with me. “Almost no company cares about the individual the way most individuals care about the company.” The sentence initially sounds cynical. I do not think it is. Organizations and individuals operate under different obligations. An organization has fiduciary duties, strategic priorities, capital constraints, competitive pressures, and responsibilities that extend beyond any one employee. Individuals have mortgages, families, friendships, identities, ambitions, and memories that cannot be entered into a spreadsheet. Those two realities coexist. Problems arise when we expect them to be symmetrical. Many experienced executives eventually respond by holding part of themselves back. They continue performing with excellence, but they stop allowing their entire identity to become absorbed by the institution. They invest more intentionally in relationships outside work. They build intellectual capital that survives employment. They cultivate communities where their value is not dependent upon an organizational chart. Some interpret that as disengagement. Often it is simply wisdom purchased through experience. The lesson is not to care less about your work. It is to remember that your employer leases your capability. It should never own your identity. --- Board-Level Reframe This discussion is often treated as an individual resilience issue or an executive wellness issue. It deserves a broader governance lens. Organizations increasingly depend upon experienced operators who carry institutional memory, absorb uncertainty, mentor successors, and stabilize execution under pressure. When those individuals leave, the organization loses more than labor capacity. It loses judgment accumulated across years of operating reality. Boards rightly examine succession plans, leadership pipelines, and retention risks. They should also understand the conditions that encourage experienced leaders to invest their full selves in the organization while simultaneously recognizing that those investments may one day be returned without warning. Healthy governance requires clarity about that psychological contract. Neither sentimentality nor detachment serves the enterprise well. Mutual respect does. --- Give your employer your best work. Never give it your entire identity. --- Final Reflection Every executive eventually discovers that titles are temporary, organizations change direction, and careers rarely unfold as straight lines. None of those realities diminish the value of the work that was done. They simply remind us that our identity cannot depend entirely upon a role that another organization has the authority to remove. The leaders who recover most successfully are rarely those who cared the least. They are the ones who eventually rediscover that their judgment, character, and capability existed before the title arrived and remain after it leaves. Organizations hire those qualities for a season. They do not create them, and they cannot permanently take them away. That distinction is easy to understand while employed. It is much harder to believe on the morning after your access badge stops working. It is also one of the most important distinctions an executive can learn. Reflection Questions * Has your professional identity become inseparable from your current role? * What parts of your capability exist independently of your employer? * If your position disappeared tomorrow, what sources of purpose would remain? * Are you building a career, or are you building an identity that only one organization can validate? * What investments outside your job would still compound if your title vanished today? --- About Pi of Leadership We translate complexity into signal, helping leaders see what is changing, what it means, and where attention is required before risk compounds or opportunity passes. If you’re new to Pi of Leadership, you can follow for free to get future issues or paid to expanded views for actionable guidance. Subscribe now --- Leave a comment Share Pi of Leadership by PIOL ---

A reader wrote something a few weeks ago that I haven’t been able to put down. He’d retired after twenty-five years in a senior seat. And what he reported wasn’t the triumph or the grief you might expect. It was quieter and stranger than that. The organization hadn’t collapsed. Nobody had called with a problem that only he could solve. The place he’d given a quarter-century to had simply carried on, competently, without him. He offered it as perspective, gently. It landed on me as something closer to a warning, because it named a question most operators never ask until the moment they can no longer avoid it. Who are you without the job? For most of a career, that question doesn’t even parse, because “what do you do” and “who am I” are the same answer. Ask a senior operator who they are and they’ll tell you their role. Not what they did on the way to it, not what they care about, not the person underneath. The title. The role isn’t something they do. Over enough years, it’s something they’ve become, and the becoming is so gradual that nobody notices it happening. It’s an efficient arrangement, while it lasts. The role answers a lot of hard questions cheaply. Why does my day matter, what am I for, where do I stand relative to other people, am I doing well. The title answers all of it without you having to think about it, which is exactly why it’s so easy to let it. You outsource your sense of self to your function, and the function pays out reliably, right up until it stops. Then the role is gone. Not always by retirement. A restructure, an exit, a pause between things, the pivot that the Cycle sends to almost everyone eventually. And when it goes, two things arrive together, and they’re very different in weight. The first is easy, even freeing, once the sting passes. The organization is fine. You were more replaceable than your calendar implied, than the number of people who needed you by end of day implied, than the sheer density of your own importance implied. That’s humbling, but it’s mostly good news, because the belief that you were indispensable was never true and was quietly costing you — it’s a large part of what kept you from ever stepping back. Finding out the machine runs without you is the release of a burden you’d been carrying as if it were a status symbol. The second is harder, and it doesn’t pass on its own. You are not entirely sure who you are now. The thing that answered “who am I” for twenty-five years has been switched off, and if you never built an answer that wasn’t the role, the silence where it used to be is genuinely disorienting. People describe it as feeling invisible, or unmoored, or like they’ve lost not a job but a self. Because in a real sense they have. They’d let the self and the role fuse, and only one of them left the building. Here’s what I think the reader was actually telling me, underneath the calm. The work required to have a self that survives the job has to be done while you still have the job, because afterward is too late and you won’t have the materials. It’s the same shape as the piece I wrote earlier this month about building capital the employer doesn’t own except the asset here isn’t money or network. It’s identity. A life, an interest, a relationship, a source of meaning, a sense of who you are that doesn’t route through your business card. Something that would still be there, and still answer the question, when the title is switched off. I’m not writing this from the far side of it, and I want to be honest about that. I’m still in the seat, and the seat is still doing a lot of the work of telling me who I am, more than I’d like to admit. The reader’s note landed the way it did precisely because I recognized the fusion in myself. But I’ve started asking the question deliberately, on purpose, before circumstances ask it for me. When the role is gone and one day it will be, who’s left? If the honest answer is “I’m not sure,” that’s not a problem to solve after the exit. It’s a problem to work on now, while there’s still a person here who isn’t only the job. None of this is an argument for caring less about the work. Pour yourself in. Just don’t pour all of yourself in, because whatever you don’t keep, the role will happily take, and it will hold onto it right up until the day it hands you back nothing but an empty office and a badge that no longer opens the door. The job will give you a title, a calendar, and a ready answer to “what do you do.” It will not give you back the person who existed before it. That one, you have to keep yourself. --- About Pi of Leadership We translate complexity into signal, helping leaders see what is changing, what it means, and where attention is required before risk compounds or opportunity passes. If you’re new to Pi of Leadership, you can follow for free to get future issues or paid to expanded views for actionable guidance. Subscribe now --- Leave a comment Share Pi of Leadership by PIOL ---