When Capability Isn’t Enough
What happens when the leadership that got you here is no longer enough to lead what comes next?
The Presence In Action Roundtable is a focused hour, once a month, where leaders and founders have the honest conversations that actually move things forward. No slides. No performance. No generic advice. Just an honest conversation about what it takes to make the shift and to earn trust in the rooms where the biggest decisions are made.
We celebrate resilience. But what if we have been celebrating the wrong thing?
Leaders are often rewarded for being the person who can handle anything.
The pressure.
The politics.
The difficult people.
The impossible deadlines.
The organisational dysfunction.
You become known as dependable. Resilient. Capable. But there comes a point when being able to handle it is no longer the same as being able to lead it.
Because the question changes when you have more authority.
It is no longer: “How do I survive this environment?”
It becomes: “What am I responsible for changing?”
This month, we are going there.
From Surviving Leadership to Leading with Agency
We’ll explore the uncomfortable territory between capability and leadership authority:
When does resilience become self-abandonment?
The ability to absorb pressure can look like strength. But when does “I can handle it” become a reason to stay in situations, relationships or systems that need to change?
Can psychological safety coexist with high performance?
How do leaders create environments where people can speak honestly, challenge decisions and make mistakes without turning psychological safety into an excuse for avoiding accountability?
What happens when the leader is part of the problem?
It is easy to diagnose a toxic culture from the inside. It is much harder to ask whether your own leadership behaviour is contributing to the culture you are trying to change.
What becomes harder to hear as you become more senior?
The more authority you have, the more carefully people may speak around you. So how do you know what your team really thinks?
And what does agency actually mean when you have power?
At some point, leadership means moving from reacting to the environment to taking responsibility for what the environment feels like for everyone else.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Three things you will walk away with every single session.
HOW THE SESSION WORKS
One hour. One uncomfortable question. One room where people can be honest.
Adiza opens the conversation with a real leadership tension and invites our guest into the discussion.
From there, the room becomes part of it.
There are no presentations to sit through and no leadership frameworks to perform.
Instead, we examine the issue from different perspectives, challenge assumptions and surface the questions that often stay outside the formal leadership conversation.
Come with an experience; Come with a question.
Come with something you have been thinking about but haven’t quite said out loud.
If you have enough authority to change things but are still finding yourself managing around them, this conversation is for you.
This room is for: CEOs, FOUNDERS, MDs, VPs & DIRECTORS navigating the realities of leadership at the top.
LEADERS WHO ARE CARRYING TOO MUCH because being the person who can handle it has become part of their identity.
LEADERS BUILDING TEAMS who want psychological safety without compromising standards.
LEADERS WHO ARE QUESTIONING THEIR OWN IMPACT and are willing to consider that they may be contributing to the culture they are trying to improve.
LEADERS IN TRANSITION who are moving from being the high-performing individual who gets things done to the leader responsible for how an entire system performs.
LEADERS WHO WANT THE REAL CONVERSATION.
Not the polished version.
NEXT SESSION: SEPTEMBER 23, 2026 | 19:00 UTC
THIS MONTH’S GUEST
Ofosua Daaku Ammah
Leadership, Psychological Safety & Agency
Ofosua brings a rare perspective to this conversation: experience operating inside complex organisations, leading innovation and transformation across markets, and a deeply personal understanding of what it means to move from workplace survival to agency.
Her work now focuses on helping managers and organisations build psychologically safe, high-performance cultures without sacrificing wellbeing.
This is not a conversation about avoiding difficult workplaces.
It is a conversation about what leaders do with their power once they recognise what is happening.
THE QUESTION WE’RE BRINGING INTO THE ROOM
What did you once call resilience that you now recognise as survival?
And once you recognise it, what are you going to do differently?
Meet the host
Adiza Brimah-Annan | Leadership Presence Strategist & Founder, WALANII
For nearly two decades, she has worked with senior executives, founders and public figures across Africa, helping them close the gap between how capable they are and how they are perceived.
She hosts the Presence In Action Roundtable because she believes the conversation that changes a leader’s trajectory is rarely the one in the formal programme.
It is the conversation where someone finally says the true thing out loud.
This is that room.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Everything you need to know.
Is this a webinar?
No. It is a live, facilitated roundtable designed for participation and honest exchange.
Do I need to attend live?
A replay is available. But live attendees can ask questions directly and receive in-the-moment coaching. If the topic is relevant to where you are right now, come live.
Can I share the link with a colleague?
Please do. The room is richer when the perspectives are diverse. The only requirement is that they come ready to engage, not just observe.
What if I have never attended before?
You will not be behind. The roundtable is structured so that every session stands alone. Come ready to think, and you will leave with something useful.
How are topics chosen?
Topics are chosen based on what Adiza is seeing in her work with leaders right now, the real, live challenges showing up in boardrooms, media appearances, and leadership transitions across Ghana and the continent. If you have a topic you want covered, reach out.
Do I need to prepare?
No presentation is required. But come ready to think, contribute and challenge your own assumptions.
Is this only for CEOs?
No. The room is designed for senior leaders, founders and executives carrying meaningful responsibility and authority.
Will there be a recording?
The value of the Roundtable is the candour of the room.
It is a space for honest conversations, real perspectives, and insights that cannot always be captured in a public post.
Recording details will be shared exclusively with members of our community. Selected snippets and insights from the conversation may also be featured in the Presence In-Action newsletter.
Subscribe to Presence In-Action or join the WALANII Collective to access the conversation.
Why should I attend?
The leadership conversation you need rarely happens in the formal room.
It happens when someone asks the question everyone else has been avoiding.
Come into the room.
The conversation that changes your leadership rarely happens in the formal room.
Reserve your seat for the next session. It is free, it is focused, and it is the kind of honest exchange that most leaders spend years looking for.