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Theresa Shan
Executive Business Leader | Author of SOFT Leadership
Blog by Theresa Shan
A space for leaders, and those aspiring to be.
Excerpts from my upcoming book Soft Leadership: Stop leading from pressure, Start leading from presence. A human-centred approach to leadership. How to hold space with calm authority, and finding your own way to lead that is authentically yours.
Including my thoughts on the fitness & wellness industry in Asia, and other random reflections.
FLOW: What It Actually Means to Lead from Alignment
This is the fourth article in a series introducing SOFT Leadership. If you missed the previous ones, start here: What is SOFT Leadership? There is a version of leadership that looks productive from the outside but feels like friction from the inside. Where you are moving, always moving, but nothing quite flows. Where you are saying yes to things that drain you, holding commitments that no longer fit, running at a pace set by everyone else's urgency rather than your own truth.
Theresa Shan
1 day ago4 min read
OPEN: Why Making Space is a Leadership Skill
This is the third article in a series introducing SOFT Leadership. If you missed the previous ones, start here: What is SOFT Leadership? There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes not from working too hard, but from never stopping. From moving so continuously, so relentlessly, that you lose the ability to tell the difference between momentum and avoidance. Between drive and fear. Between leading well and simply not allowing yourself to pause long enough to find out.
Theresa Shan
Sep 73 min read
SENSE: The Practice of Leading from the Inside Out
This is the second article introducing SOFT Leadership. If you missed the first one, start here: What is SOFT Leadership? Most of us were never taught to lead from the inside out. We were taught to lead from the outside in. From the strategy deck, the quarterly target, the expectations of the board, the pressure of the room. From everything except the one source of intelligence that is always available to us and almost never consulted first. Ourselves. Sense is the first phas
Theresa Shan
Aug 283 min read
Leadership Is Human. Not Mechanical.
I believe leadership is innately human. We lead people, not machines. And yet, so much of how we've been taught to lead asks us to treat people exactly like machines. Faster. Harder. Always producing. Always performing. Always overriding the very things that make us human. SOFT is my answer to that. As a philosophy, it puts the human back into leadership. It asks a different question. Not "how do I get more output from these people," but "how do I lead from a place that resp
Theresa Shan
Aug 102 min read
How I Learned to Lead (The Hard Way)
I kind of fell into leadership. Although if you asked my brother, he'd tell you I was destined to be a boss from a young age. I was a very bossy child :) As a teenager, though, I was obsessed with the film industry. I wanted to be a film director. I studied Film and Media and worked in production for five years before leaving that world to start my own business. I created a brand of yoga accessory products and co-founded an events and marketing platform for wellness. At the t
Theresa Shan
Aug 33 min read
Why the Future of Leadership Is Changing
The future of leadership is changing. The old directive norms just aren’t cutting it anymore. People are smarter now. More informed. They carry a higher sense of self-worth, and they have options. When something isn’t working, they have the ability to jump ship. Gone are the days when someone stayed at the same company for their entire career, collecting a pension and a plaque at the end. The way we work has changed. Work is no longer just a means to pay the bills. It’s becom
Theresa Shan
Jul 272 min read
What is SOFT Leadership?
For most of my career, I led the way I thought was the right way to lead. Fast. Decisive. Always on. Always pushing through the exhaustion, the doubt, the quiet signals from my body that something wasn't right. I built businesses, scaled teams, turned around companies in crisis. By every external measure, I was succeeding. But I was exhausted, and if I was honest, I was miserable. The problem with how we lead We inherited a model of leadership built on constant output. On ove
Theresa Shan
Jul 103 min read
You Know What You Did
You don’t know why it bothers you so much when people don’t see what you’ve done. You think about all the effort you’ve poured into their businesses and brands; the days, nights, weekends when the work lived in your head, taking up space. You came in with good intentions, trying to make things better than when you began. And yet, somehow, the only thing they can focus on is what hasn’t “landed” yet. Why? Of course, things can always improve. And shareholders will always want
Theresa Shan
Jun 123 min read
Learning To Receive
There’s one more thing that is hard for women in particular: it requires us to stop giving and start receiving. And receiving whether that’s help, recognition, support, or just stillness, can feel deeply uncomfortable. We’ve been taught that our value lives in our output. In how much we give, do, and hold together. But here’s what I’ve learned: the façade of having it all together isn’t strength. It’s separation. The moment I admitted I couldn’t do it all, that I needed help,
Theresa Shan
Jun 121 min read
Shut Up, And Listen
Here’s something worth asking yourself honestly: are you always the one talking in meetings? Because stillness isn’t just personal, it changes the dynamic of your entire team. You don’t need to be the loudest voice in the room to be respected. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do as a leader is create space and let others fill it. Your calm creates safety. Your silence gives others permission to speak. I’ve led teams in Asia where the cultural default is to defer to l
Theresa Shan
Jun 121 min read
Rest Is Not A Reward, It's A Strategy
Let me say something that might feel uncomfortable. Rest is not something you earn. It’s not the prize waiting for you on the other side of the milestone, the big launch, or the financial target. It’s not for when you’ve “made it.” Rest is not a reward. It’s a necessity. And for most of us in leadership, it’s the most underused tool we have. I know, because I learned this the hard way. The five-year mistake When I was building my business, I went five years without a proper p
Theresa Shan
Jun 122 min read
The Leadership Nobody Taught You
We were taught that leadership looks a certain way. Assertive. Sharp. Decisive. Loud. We were handed blueprints built on dominance over discernment, speed over reflection, achievement over peace. The message was clear: to lead, you must override your natural rhythms. Suppress your emotions. Push beyond your limits. Prioritise logic over feeling. And when we tried — when we showed up exactly as we were told — we were still told we were too much. Or not enough. What if that was
Theresa Shan
Jun 123 min read
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