Most leadership books teach capability. This one is about capacity: the physical, psychological and relational resources that determine whether you can lead well under sustained pressure, not just when conditions are ideal.
A performance book about what makes leadership sustainable. Written by Andrew May.
The leadership problem most organisations are misdiagnosing
In 2026, Gallup reported that global employee engagement fell to 20%, costing the world economy approximately $10 trillion in lost productivity. The sharpest decline was among managers. Their engagement dropped nine points in three years.
Everyone is calling it an engagement crisis. I think that is the wrong diagnosis.
Engagement is what you measure downstream. What determines it upstream is the quality of leadership capacity: the physical, psychological, operational and relational resources a leader can draw on, day after day, under real pressure. When that capacity is depleted, everything downstream reflects it. Culture, performance, AI adoption, team output. All of it.
The organisations getting this right are not asking why their people are disengaged. They are asking a harder question: what is the actual capacity of our managers to build and sustain engaged teams while managing their own energy, focus and output at the same time?
That is the question this book is built to answer.
The gap between capability and capacity
For too long, leadership development has focused on capability: strategy, communication, influence, emotional intelligence. The leaders I work with understand all of it. They know what good leadership looks like.
The gap is not knowledge. It is capacity.
Capability is knowing what to do. Capacity is the ability to do it consistently, under sustained pressure, while managing your own energy, cognition and psychological state at the same time. Most organisations measure the first. Very few have a system for building the second.
The Ripple Effect examines how leaders build that capacity, and how it moves through the teams and organisations they lead. The book draws on more than 25 years working directly with senior leaders, elite athletes and high-performance organisations across Australia.
- The demands placed on modern leaders
- And the internal physical, cognitive and emotional resources they have available
For too long, leadership development has focused on capability — strategy, communication, influence.
Important.
But incomplete.
Because capability tells you what to do.
Capacity determines whether you can sustain it.
Inside The Ripple Effect, You’ll Discover:
- Why engagement is a downstream metric
- The difference between capability and capacity
- The four dimensions of leadership capacity
- How internal regulation shapes external culture
- A practical framework for building sustainable performance
This is not a wellbeing book.
It is a performance book grounded in science, lived leadership experience, and two decades working with elite performers and executive teams.
Who this is for
- Senior leaders navigating volatility and scale
- People & Culture executives responsible for performance systems
- Aspiring leaders wanting to future-proof their leadership
- Organisations ready to upgrade their internal operating system
Why now
AI, hybrid work, economic uncertainty and rising expectations have changed what leadership requires. The leaders who will navigate this well are not the ones with the most skills. They are the ones who have the capacity to sustain high performance across a long career, under real pressure, without burning through the people around them.
That capacity is buildable. But it requires the right diagnosis, the right system, and consistency in how it is reinforced. The Ripple Effect is that system, in book form.
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