In this episode of Leadership Bites, I sit down with Gary Clark, Group Head of Learning and Development at Qatar Airways, based in Doha.

Gary leads group wide learning across a 65,000 person organisation, with a team of around 80, covering everything from operational training that keeps aircraft flying, to leadership and capability, learning tech, digital content, and vendor partnerships. Along the way, we get into what it really takes to run an internal learning function like a business, build credibility fast, and become the supplier of choice inside a complex, high pace, multi subsidiary organisation.

We talk about leading in a multicultural reality, the tension between standards and psychological safety, why bland harmony is a risk, and how to create a community of practice that pulls people together without forcing compliance. We also touch on AI and learning, not as a shiny distraction, but as a tool, while the real edge remains human connection, trust, and leadership craft.

If you care about culture in the real world, not the poster on the wall, this one will land.

Connect with me at livingbrave.com

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Chapters
00:00 Intro and welcome
00:29 Gary Clark and Qatar Airways context
02:51 Scale, growth, and operational pace
05:03 What learning covers in an airline
08:57 Supplier of choice mindset for internal L and D
10:43 Quality, credibility, and Brandon Hall Awards
12:14 Centralised vs federated learning models
14:19 Building community through internal conferences
21:17 Multicultural leadership, standards, and integration
33:04 Clear standards, clear intention
34:03 Human centred leadership and psychological safety
49:13 AI, generational gaps, and learning strategy
57:12 The next few years and what matters most

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com

In this episode of Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom sits down with Dr Steven Farmer DBA MPhil MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Alconex Infrastructure and Solutions Ltd, author of Soft Skills, Hard Numbers. Steve leads a multi utilities business delivering gas, water and electric connections to homes, while expanding into energy transition work across data centres, battery energy storage and solar.

Steve shares a straight talking leadership philosophy that blends soft skills with hard numbers. He talks about rising from an apprenticeship and life on the tools, to senior leadership and board level accountability, then pushing himself through an MBA and a doctorate while working full time. The conversation moves into what servant leadership really means when performance dips, why poor behaviour is a fast route to the exit, and how leaders can build psychological safety without lowering standards.

They explore the human reality leaders are dealing with right now, a workforce arriving already anxious, the importance of being excellent at receiving bad news, and the practical power of one simple principle: do not make life worse for people at work. Steve also unpacks his doctorate research into values based recruitment in construction, and why the industry needs a new story if it wants young talent to choose trade and craft over debt and drift.

Expect clear thinking, grounded experience, and leadership that respects people while still hitting the numbers.

Key moments and ideas
• The route to CEO, and why effort beats talent when talent coasts
• Doctorate level work while leading a business, what it really takes
• Values based recruitment and making construction a cause people want to join
• Servant leadership without softness, command without control
• Psychological safety and performance, do not shoot the messenger
• Bad news is like fresh bread, better when it is new
• High performance, low tolerance, high nurture, the leadership balance
• Creating workplaces where people do not get the Sunday scaries
• One leadership book Steve would still recommend: Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

Guest
Dr Steven Farmer DBA MPhil MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Alconex Infrastructure and Solutions Ltd
Author, Soft Skills Delivering Hard Numbers

Host
Guy Bloom
Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and Team Effectiveness
Living Brave Leadership
Leadership Bites podcast

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com

In this extended studio conversation on Leadership Bites, Guy Bloom sits down with Danny Nelson, MD WINVIC, Industrial & Logistics who has grown with a construction business from its early days into a billion pound organisation. This is not a polished leadership story. It is a real one.

Danny talks openly about starting out as an apprentice, learning the craft from tough early experiences, and what changes when you move from being good at the job to being responsible for people, culture and long term performance. Together they explore what trust actually looks like when you stop micromanaging, why accountability is not about blame, and how letting go becomes one of the hardest disciplines of senior leadership.

The conversation goes deep into lived culture. Not values on the wall, but how standards are set, how people are treated, how suppliers are paid, and how consistency builds credibility over time. They discuss succession, stepping into ownership, recalibrating peer relationships, and why leadership maturity often comes through discomfort, feedback and reflection rather than confidence or charisma.

This episode is for leaders who have grown inside an organisation, who feel the weight of responsibility, and who know that leadership is less about being right and more about learning, trust and sustained behaviour over time.

00:08:56 From apprentice to boardroom learning leadership through craft
00:15:40 Growing inside one organisation what you learn that outsiders do not
00:17:38 Where culture really comes from standards not slogans
00:20:02 Doing it right why credibility is built through behaviour
00:23:56 What culture feels like when it is working
00:26:23 What got you here will not get you there
00:28:50 Leadership maturity learning through reflection
00:30:28 Trust versus control why micromanagement kills leadership
00:32:10 Letting go without letting things fall apart
00:33:37 Accountability without blame owning performance properly
00:35:14 The John Terry effect leadership without needing the spotlight
00:36:53 Succession without ego stepping into ownership
00:39:09 Recalibrating peer relationships at senior level
00:42:05 Getting honest feedback when you are at the top
00:44:21 Why senior leaders hear less truth over time
00:46:03 Trusting each other enough to challenge properly
00:48:11 Why perfection is not the goal in leadership
00:49:21 Advice to younger leaders what really matters
00:51:18 Growth comes from facing into discomfort
00:52:39 Learning from leaders you do not want to become
00:54:10 Leadership is not meant to be easy

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com