Change is easy to announce and hard to do well. In our very first episode, hosts Matt Smith and Joe McGuinness sit down with Kate Collins – founder of Kate Collins Consultancy and former Chief Executive and Director of Fundraising at Teenage Cancer Trust – for an honest, insightful conversation about what it really takes to lead people through change.

After 16 years at TCT, Kate brings a rare blend of hard-won experience, radical honesty, and genuine warmth to one of the most searched-for yet least-talked-about topics in leadership: how to lead people through change – especially when they really don't want to go.

In this episode:

• The "hat, haircut and tattoo" framework – and why a decision that feels minor to you might feel life-changing to someone else
• Why resistance to change is healthy, and when the absence of it should worry you
• The crucial difference between transparency and full disclosure
• Why leading with compassion requires clarity – not softening the message
• The emotional cost of leadership, and why resilience and endurance are not the same thing
• Kate's two things to leave you with: change can't be managed, only navigated – and friction is feedback

Links & Resources

• Kate Collins Consulting: https://katecollins.org/
• Follow Kate on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/katecollinsuk/
• THINK - our webiste - https://thinkcs.org/

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