The world spent a week debating Katie Zacharia’s hair, intellect and qualifications. Louise Mahler watched her briefing and saw something else: a body in full emergency mode. Here is what performance anxiety looks like under the brightest lights in politics, and why polishing the image without building the skill is a risky bet for any leader.

“They’re actually really lovely in real life.” So why does the public see arrogance, dismissiveness or even contempt? From Scott Morrison’s hose to Churchill’s beaches, Louise Mahler unpacks how schoolroom survival habits become leadership liabilities, and why every leader should stop asking “How do I protect myself?” and start asking “What do my people need from me?”

The NFL could only play at the MCG once the turf itself was changed. Many new leaders face the same problem: same company, same field, completely different game. Your job is no longer to be the smartest person in the room. It is to manage the psychological state of the room. Here are three rules for playing the new game.

Senior leaders never get three clear days to prepare. Once you accept that, preparation changes shape. It stops being something you do the night before and becomes something you already have: frameworks for structure, and a voice and body that hold up when the call comes at 8.30am and you are on camera at 10.

A nurse may be brisk, tired or distracted. Every nurse cares. AI is the reverse: it sounds sympathetic and writes elegant sentences, but it does not care. That gap is your advantage as a leader. Here is how to use it in networking, presentations and interviews.

There are moments when leaders need to explain, and moments when they need to shut up. The more sensitive the situation, the more disciplined we need to be about what we say. You owe people an explanation. You do not owe the world the autopsy.

I was with friends this week discussing what they'd wear to the awards. I wasn't watching the outfits. I was watching how they planned to walk onto the stage. Perfectly impressive people were about to undermine their credibility before they reached the trophy. Here are ten tips.

You do not need opera training to speak well in a boardroom. Most of what people call a "bad voice" is a set of physical habits: held breath, tight throat, collapsed body. Voice is breath flow. Fix the flow and the pitch, pace and volume sort themselves out.

A LinkedIn comment claimed the loudest person wins the room and we mistake their certainty for executive presence. Bundled into that are four assumptions treated as one: extroversion, confidence, loudness and competence. They are not the same. Here is how to tell them apart, and what to say instead of "you need more confidence".

A senior leader sat down and named exactly what she thought was wrong with her: "It's my voice. It's too soft." It wasn't. It rarely is. Underneath her is the same wave building in boardrooms everywhere, and it is no longer an individual problem. The wave is not coming. We are under it.