Monica Federico's Recent LinkedIn Posts

I am a 56-year-old woman. And the only reason that matters today is this: I have a very clear memory of the last five decades. I remember being asked at job interviews whether I had a boyfriend. Whether I was planning to have children. I was told what to wear. Told how I should wear my hair. My skirts were too l…

The fastest way to destroy a company culture? Outsource it to HR. Culture is not built in policies. It is built in behaviour. And behaviour is modelled by the leaders. I was reflecting on this recently with one of my clients. It brought back a lesson I learned early in my career. Because I have lived the conseq…

5 interview questions to spot integrity: (Buffett was right) Most hiring processes obsess over capability: skills, speed, track record. Useful, but not the thing that decides whether someone will strengthen or destabilise your team. Integrity does that. It shows up when no one is watching, in the small choices,…

One bad hire is a people problem. Five bad hires is a leadership problem. In a founder-led business, repeated hiring problems are rarely just about the individual hire. Sometimes, of course, you genuinely hired the wrong person. They don’t have the capability. The attitude is wrong. The fit isn’t there. But if…

When I was leading teams, I thought I was delegating because I had handed over the work. Then I realised people were still coming back to me for every decision. "Monica, can you just check this?" "What do you think?" "Are you happy for me to go ahead?" "Mon, can you approve this before I send it?" Technically, I…

We’ve reached the point where peace and quiet is a premium product. Think YouTube. Netflix. Spotify. We pay for the subscription. Advertisers pay to interrupt us. Then we pay more so they won’t. That’s quite a business model. But there’s a bigger cost hiding underneath it. We are being interrupted constantly.…