Author
Vlad Tudorie
This piece is part of the Business Insights Series—a collection of candid conversations with business leaders, educators, and change-makers across the world. These are not sales calls. They’re real talks about what works, what breaks, and what drives meaningful growth.
My recent conversation with James Fleming MQ , founder of the UK’s fastest-growing leadership training company (The Power Within Training), stuck with me. His company has trained leaders inside the top three construction firms in the UK. Their program is grounded in neuroscience, but what makes it stand out isn’t just the science—it’s how deeply it connects with human behavior.
Leadership vs. management: two different conversations
“Most people go on a leadership course and they’re very rooted in management mindset and communication style” James told me. “Being a manager and being a leader are very intertwined but are two completely different skills sets and communication styles… when you try and teach someone who is rooted in a manager mindset things about how to be a great leader, it doesn’t pass by their filter, so it just bounces off and goes ‘yeah it sounds good but probably won’t work for me. Leadership mindset and communication is an entirely different thing altogether.”
According to James, that resistance isn’t stubbornness—it’s neurology. Their framework, called Motivational Intelligence (MQ), is designed to cut through those filters using storytelling, shared experience, and emotional resonance.
“When somebody says to you, ‘let me tell you a story,’ automatically your mind opens up to possibility”, James explained. “And in that story is a lesson or a best practice. That’s how we bypass the filter. We open their mind to possibility and then embed the learning”.
The formula for real transformation
As someone who has seen firsthand how difficult it is to shift organizational culture, I found this approach incredibly refreshing. It doesn’t start with telling people what to fix. It starts by getting them to see it for themselves.
James broke it down in three simple steps:
“They have to think it’s a good idea, they’ve got to believe they’re capable of the results, and they’ve got to find out what’s in this for me. Change and best practices become inevitable once you meet those three objectives for everyone.”
That simple framework stuck with me, because it explains why so many change efforts fall flat—not because the tools are wrong, but because the mindset isn’t ready. When we skip those internal checkpoints—belief, confidence, and personal relevance—our best strategies never land.
The leadership perception gap
One of the most telling moments in our conversation was when James brought up a statistic:
“Between 90 and 95% of managers and leaders believe they’re great leaders and great managers. Now, ask their direct reports… 30% to 32% would say yes. So you get 70% of people saying absolutely not.”
That number stopped me in my tracks. It’s one thing to say there’s room for improvement—it’s another to realize there’s a deep disconnect between how leaders see themselves and how they’re actually experienced by their teams.
The lesson here? Leadership isn’t just about skills or experience—it’s about perception, trust, and emotional impact. And those things are invisible unless you’re actively asking, listening, and learning.
From internal mindset to external messaging
Now, what struck me beyond the framework itself was James’s humility about the challenges his own company is facing in marketing. Despite all the success, conversion rates have dropped from 20% to 2% as they scaled.
James openly shared:
“We’re experts at leadership and management and business development. We’re not experts at digital marketing.”
This vulnerability and self-awareness was a perfect full-circle moment. Because just like with leadership, marketing requires understanding how people think, what they fear, and what language actually resonates.
As I told James:
“Maybe it’s not the right people coming back to the website… maybe you got too broad.”
That moment made me reflect on how important it is—not just to lead well on the inside, but to communicate clearly on the outside too. Whether we’re growing a team or reaching out to new clients, how we show up matters. If our messaging doesn’t match what our audience needs to hear, we might be working harder than we need to—and still missing the mark.
Final thought: real change starts with alignment
What James helped reinforce for me is this: real change isn’t a matter of telling—it’s a matter of tuning in. Whether you’re trying to lead a team or reach an audience, the breakthrough comes when your message resonates with how people actually see the world. When your vision speaks their language, when your goals connect with their lived experience—that’s when alignment becomes influence, and communication becomes transformation.
