Battling with Business

In this week’s episode we explore what really drives resilience, leadership, and high performance when everything is on the line. What happens when ordinary people, just like you or me, are placed in extraordinary circumstances and there is no escape from the team, the pressure, or the goal?

We sit down with Felicity Ashley, a mother of three and former marketing leader who decided while recovering from ...

In this week’s episode we explore a deceptively simple idea that reshaped the modern world. We tell the story of Malcom McLean and the rise of the shipping container, not as a tale of invention, but as a masterclass in leadership, systems thinking, and the real impact of change.

We start by stepping back into a world where global trade was slow, fragile, and expensive. Goods were moved by hand, ports wer...

In this week’s episode we continue our two part series exploring one of the most unusual leadership problems imaginable. How do you prepare an organisation or even an entire country for something that everyone hopes will never actually happen.

In the previous episode we introduced the idea of the British Government War Book, a set of detailed plans created to guide the country through the first chaotic m...

In this week’s episode we start the first of a two part series looking at how people plan for events that they hope will never actually happen.

The story begins with a visit to the National Archives at Kew where Chris spent time reading declassified documents about real British wartime planning that started just after the First World War and continued late into the Cold War. This plan, the British Govern...

In this week’s episode we explore a simple but uncomfortable truth about leadership: pressure is the point. It is not something to be avoided, minimised or delegated away. It is the arena in which performance is revealed.

We sat down with Simon Jeffries, a former Special Boat Service operator turned mindset and performance coach, to unpack what elite military environments can teach leaders in business. F...

In this week’s episode, re-released from the heady early days of the podcast in 2023, we tackle a question that sits at the heart of leadership and management: how do you move from a bold vision to meaningful action? It is easy to talk about strategy. It is much harder to create a clear destination that inspires people and then connect it to what people are actually doing on a Monday morning.

We explore ...

This week we revisit, as a re-released episode, one of the most controversial figures in political and leadership thinking as part of our Influencers series. We ask a simple but uncomfortable question. Do good leaders sometimes have to do bad things? It seems particularly relevant given the world around us today.

We return to Niccolo Machiavelli and explore whether he truly deserves his reputation as the...

In this week’s episode we conclude our three part series on AI by tackling one of the most uncomfortable and important questions of all: surveillance, control and the future of decision making.

If AI can see more than we can, interpret more than we can and act faster than we can, what does that mean for leaders, managers and the societies we operate in? Are we witnessing a natural evolution of tools that...

In this week’s episode we continue our exploration of what it really means to lead and manage in a world increasingly shaped by AI. Rather than asking whether AI is good or bad, we focus on a harder and more important question: how leadership, culture, trust and experience change when intelligent systems begin to make decisions alongside us, or instead of us.

We reflect on how quickly AI is moving from a...

In this week's episode we start a new mini series by asking a question that sits underneath all the noise about artificial intelligence and jobs.

What does leadership and management actually mean when AI becomes a permanent participant in how organisations think, decide, and act?

Rather than debating whether AI is good or bad, we focus on the practical reality that it is already here and al...

In this week’s episode we look at one of the most uncomfortable leadership stories of the modern business era. Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos force us to confront how easily confidence, narrative, and status can be mistaken for competence and truth. We explore how a young, driven, and highly credible founder built a nine billion dollar company, attracted world class investors, and became a symbol of innovation, while quietly crossin...

In this week’s semi-emergency episode we discuss the recent events in Venezuela attempting to look beyond the obvious political and moral dimensions, and instead look to see what we can learn from a leadership, management and culture perspective. Of course, knowing Gareth and Chris it also leads to a conversation about the future of NATO!

If you've ever wondered what it takes to plan a military raid, wel...

Leadership under extreme pressure is rarely about heroic speeches or rank. It is about judgement, trust, and knowing when to lead and when to follow.

In the second part of our conversation with Baz Gray former Royal Marine, polar explorer, leadership coach and now Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London we explore what Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions really teach us about leadership today. Baz draws on h...

In this episode of Battling with Business, Gareth Tennant and Chris Kitchener record from one of the most iconic leadership environments in the UK, the Tower of London, joined by Baz Gray, former Royal Marine, Arctic explorer, and Yeoman Warder.

Drawing on a career that spans reconnaissance operations, mountain leadership, extreme expeditions, and senior military command, Baz explores what calm, credible...

Battling with Business returns with Part Two of its Influencers series on Charles de Gaulle, moving from wartime exile to political dominance and lasting national legacy.

In this episode, Gareth Tennant and Chris Kitchener examine how leadership is forged not just through bravery or competence, but through narrative control, political instinct, and an unyielding sense of purpose. As de Gaulle outmanoeuvr...

In this Part 1 of 2, re-release of an earlier Influencers series of Battling with Business, Gareth Tennant and Chris Kitchener explore the leadership and influence of Charles de Gaulle, a figure often overlooked in British narratives of the Second World War. Through the lens of military history and modern management thinking, they examine how conviction, strategic foresight, and personal ego combine to shape leaders i...

This episode explores how leaders can navigate unprecedented change by understanding the hidden forces reshaping conflict, technology, and decision making. In this conversation with Dr Matthew Ford, we unpack how the smartphone has quietly transformed modern warfare and why leaders in every sector must rethink how they interpret information, manage uncertainty, and respond to rapid shifts.

We start to lo...

This episode  of Battling with Business dives deep into modern leadership and management through the lens of defence innovation. Gareth Tennant and Chris Kitchener are joined by John Ridge, Chief Adoption Officer at the NATO Innovation Fund, to explore how technology, agility and organisational culture shape today’s capabilities.

Leaders often talk about innovation, speed and agility, but how do those id...

In this episode Battling with Business explores leadership and decision making under pressure through a deep dive into “The War Game,” a five‑part immersive geopolitical simulation from Sky.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wargame/id1547225334

Gareth and Chris unpack how realistic war gaming exposes blind spots, stress‑tests assumptions, and reveals how people truly behave when ev...