Resilient Leaders Elements

How often do we leave a conversation having heard the words, but missed the person?

A Cherokee saying that stops us in our tracks: "Listen or your tongue will make you deaf."

Leadership Presence is one of the four Elements of the RLE™ Framework. After 25 years working with over 17,500 leaders, one thing is clear: presence is not about authority. It is about attention.

Creating the conditions for others to step forward - their growth, their voice, their moment - is easily crowded out by pressure, pace, and the pull to demonstrate competence. But some of the most resilient leaders we've worked with have discovered that their steadiness creates room for others to find theirs. That stepping back is not a loss of authority. It is the fullest expression of it.

Real Leadership Presence is not about commanding a room. It is about what you make possible in one.

So a question worth sitting with: in your last five conversations, how much of what you heard were you already thinking about your response?

Some leadership challenges are about complexity. Others are about holding a community together when the systems around it have failed.

Melaku Zeray is a Secondary Schools Supervisor in Tigray and on our April 2026 Resilient Leaders Elements™ Accreditation.

His region is living in what he describes as a dangerous limbo: neither full war nor true peace. With no federal budget, no salaries, and growing fear that conflict could return, Melaku is still focused on keeping hope alive for the children, young people and educators around him.

He told us:

“This programme is my mental anchor. It helps me lead with a Presence that provides stability for my community when the systems around us have failed.”

Melaku is using the RLE™ tools to stay grounded, support his team, and work towards building an education system that can withstand future crisis.

“I want to be the steady point for my team, the person they can trust and lean on when everything else feels uncertain.”

Follow Melaku’s story as he works towards becoming an Accredited Resilient Leaders Consultant in December 2026.

Find out more about the programme here: https://resilientleaderselements.com/rle-accreditation

Before a coaching conversation begins, ask this:

Not “What do you want to achieve?”
But “Can you see it already done?”

One invites a wish list.
The other creates orientation.

That is Strategic Intent: the ability to picture success clearly enough to use it as a compass when the path becomes uncertain.

In RLE™ Lead in Uncertainty, this leadership behaviour improved by 68.4%.

Because Strategic Intent is not optimism.
It is orientation

Today's CIOs are already quasi-CEOs.

Across the Middle East, North Africa and the wider Global CIO Forum network, the pace of transformation has compressed from years to months. The leaders holding these roles are not simply managing technology. They are shaping strategic direction, building entirely new operating models, and leading through uncertainty that is unprecedented in its speed and scale.

Global CIO Forum identified the gap between technical capability and readiness for the top table - and partnered with RLE to close it. Not as a generic bolt-on. As a strategic investment in its community, underpinned by 25 years of empirical research, designed to develop the human capabilities that turn exceptional technology leaders into the CEOs their organisations will need.

"CIOs are increasingly expected to lead across strategy, culture, risk, and organisational performance. That expectation does not begin at appointment - it develops well before." - Rachel Cooper, Co-Founder and CEO, Resilient Leaders Elements

Through RLE Accelerate, RLE Lead in Uncertainty, and RLE Resilient Leadership Unlocked, GCF's 48,000-strong community now has access to evidence-based development that has produced 20%+ average growth in resilient leadership capability across 18,000+ leaders worldwide.

Read the full article: https://gecnewswire.com/todays-cios-are-already-quasi-ceos/

Today’s CIOs are already quasi-CEOs % Global CIO Forum and Resilient Leaders Elements have partnered to develop technology leaders who will run tomorrow’s organisations.

Ex British Army Officer with the Royal Engineers. Operations Manager at Waitrose & Partners. Project manager at Aldi UK. Now an ICF-accredited Coach and Leadership Consultant based in Kuwait.

Cassie Luttig has led in more contexts than most. And across all of them, she kept coming back to the same question: what allows people to adapt, lead well and bring others with them through change and uncertainty?

She joined the Resilient Leaders Elements™ Accreditation, looking for a framework that reflected her lived experience, one with real structure, real language, and the ability to have more dynamic conversations with her clients. What she found was a framework built on a principle she'd seen proven across every role she'd held. Everyone leads.

Through the RLDP™ she also reframed her own relationship with progress, giving herself permission that development doesn't need to be perfect or linear. Her Strength Mantra, "keep moving," became a train journey: continuing forward while knowing when to pause, reflect, and adjust direction.

She now plans to bring the RLE™ framework into her consulting work, particularly supporting leaders in the wellness sector to build resilience and thrive.

As Cassie puts it: "My Tuesday lunchtimes here in Kuwait were the highlight of my week. You have all made me feel so welcome and that my opinion matters. I have learnt from all of you."

A special thank you to Skye Deane for introducing Cassie to our community.

Become a Resilient Leaders Consultant - starts on 14th April >>https://www.resilientleaderselements.com/consultants-accreditation

237 students. One question.

"What is it about who I am and what I do that would have people choose to follow me?"

We are proud to announce our partnership with Rugby School, the first school in the world to adopt the Resilient Leaders Development Programme™. Every lower sixth former now has access to a personalised, evidence-based leadership development programme across the full academic year. And the Levée selection process has been reshaped around observable behaviour and real-world capability, not reputation or assumed seniority.

This is a move beyond traditional sixth form preparation for leadership roles. The emphasis is on how resilient leadership behaviours are demonstrated and strengthened over time - setting a new benchmark for how schools develop capabilities increasingly required in higher education, the workplace and wider society.

We are proud to be part of a partnership that is reshaping what leadership development in schools can look like.

Read the full story, including reflections from Lara Hampton, Deputy Head of Rugby School, and Rachel-Cooper. CEO and Co-Founder of Resilient Leaders Elements

Sixth Form Leadership Development Programme at Rugby School | Resilient Leaders Elements Resilient Leaders Elements™ partners with Rugby School to reshape Sixth Form leadership development and prefect selection for students.