Personal Note from Rachel

Our shared theme for 2026 is listening.
Not as a skill to master, but as a leadership practice that shapes who we become.

As the year continues to unfold, many leaders find themselves in a familiar place.
They are competent.
Experienced.
Trusted.

And yet, clarity feels less available than it once did.

Not in a dramatic way.
More quietly.

A sense of carrying more than can be easily named.
Decisions that make sense on paper, yet leave a residue.
A subtle fatigue that does not lift with rest.

In regulated professions, particularly in healthcare, as leaders, we are trained to respond, to decide, to act. Listening is often framed as something we do for others.

Over time, I have come to see that this framing is incomplete.

The most consequential listening in leadership is not outward.
It is inward.
And it is systemic.

Listening Beyond Competence

Listening at this level is the capacity to notice what is being overridden in the name of responsibility.
To hear signals that do not announce themselves loudly.
To stay present with tensions we could easily normalise, justify, or explain away.

For many leaders, this shows up in familiar ways.

You find yourself holding competing truths at once.
Wanting to do right by patients, staff, regulators, family, and yourself, while knowing that no decision fully satisfies all of them.

You become very good at explaining things.
At making sense of complexity.
At justifying choices that are reasonable, defensible, even necessary.

And yet, something underneath remains unsettled.

You may catch yourself saying,
“This is just the way it is,”
or “It’s part of the job,”
or “Others have it harder.”

Perhaps all of these are true.

And still, there is a quieter knowing.

A momentary tightening in the chest before a meeting.
A heaviness when certain names or topics arise.
A brief flicker of energy when you imagine things being otherwise, followed quickly by a return to duty.

Because you are capable.
Because people rely on you.
Because stopping to listen can feel indulgent when there is so much to carry.

So the listening that happens is often functional.

Listening for risk.
Listening for compliance.
Listening for problems to be solved.

What receives less space is listening for meaning.
For what is being eroded slowly.
For what still matters deeply.
For what is asking to be acknowledged before it hardens into resignation.

Listening is a Leadership Practice

This is where coaching can offer something quietly different.

Not advice.
Not performance management.
Not another framework to apply.

But a protected space to listen, with a skilled listener whose role is not to fix, rescue, or evaluate you, but to stay present as you listen more honestly to yourself.

In one to one leadership coaching, leaders experience the value of being deeply heard.
Not only in their professional role, but as whole people.

Coaching becomes a place to strengthen healthy self leadership as the CEO of your own life.
To deepen presence and clarity in relationships with family and friends.
To lead teams with greater steadiness, humanity, and discernment.
To navigate organisational complexity with integrity and perspective.
To lead systemically, with a net positive impact on the communities and ecosystems you are part of.

A skilled coach listens for patterns across time, not just issues of the week.

For shifts in energy, what reliably drains you and what quietly sustains you.
For moments when the body speaks before words arrive.
For metaphors that surface uninvited.
For what is said quickly, and what is avoided entirely.
For yearnings that keep returning, and the quiet betrayals that accumulate when they are ignored.

Being listened to in this way often allows leaders to hear themselves more clearly, sometimes for the first time in years.

Not to arrive at instant clarity.
But to recover orientation.
To feel the difference between endurance and alignment.
To choose leadership that is sustainable, humane, and deeply grounded.

February Reflection

As you move through this month, I invite you to pause and ask:

• What part of me has learned to stay silent in order to keep everything moving?
• What signals am I overriding because I believe I should be able to carry them?
• What might change if I allowed myself to listen before deciding?

This is not about self care as a luxury.
It is about sustainable leadership as a necessity.

A February Invitation: Strategic Thinking Session

If you are already sensing that something meaningful is asking for your attention, I offer 1:1 Strategic Thinking Sessions as a confidential, thoughtful space to listen deeply.

Not to fix.
Not to perform.
But to think clearly, with support.

This is a protected 90-Minute conversation for leaders who know that how they listen now shapes how they lead over time.

If you would like to explore this further, you can book a 1:1 Strategic Thinking Session here.

Chat soon!

Thanks,

Rachel

Rachel The Pharmacist Coach
MCC | ACTC | NBC-HWC | EMCC
Director of Education, LCI
Founder, 4Front Pharmacy Solutions

If these reflections resonate, you may wish to continue the conversation in quieter moments here:

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