Dale McDermott
On judgement, power and institutions.
Strategic advisory, writing and conversation, from someone who has spent fifteen years studying how power is really held, and advising the people who hold it.
Dale McDermott studies how power is actually exercised: who gets to hold it, what separates real judgement from mere competence, and why capable people fail in the moments that matter most.
The work is discreet by design. The counsel sits with the person who has to make the call, not the audience. What travels between the advisory, the essays and the podcast is a single conviction: judgement matters more than credentials, and institutions are only as strong as the people willing to tell the truth inside them.
Advisory, writing and the podcast are the same idea, expressed three ways.
The Advisor
Counsel for CEOs, boards and senior leaders in the moments that decide a reputation: succession, scrutiny, and the transitions that do not forgive a bad call. Private, and by invitation.
The Writer
Essays on leadership, power and institutional health that take a position and hold it. No hedging, no house style, just the argument you'd hear if the room were smaller.
ExploreThe Host
Next Round, long-form conversation on business, politics and society, brought to the international stage with the same lens he applies behind closed doors.
ExploreThe questions the work keeps returning to.
Judgement vs. Competence
Why highly qualified leaders fail in the moments that matter most.
The Architecture of Power
How influence actually moves through an organisation, regardless of the org chart.
Institutional Health
Building structures that survive the individual leader.
From the desk.
11 February 2026
The Presence Paradox: Why the WFH Debate is a Leadership Failure.
The 'Work From Home' war is not about where we sit. It is a referendum on modern leadership, and right now many leaders are failing the test.
26 January 2026
The Insularity Trap: Why Rolling Back DEI is a Mistake.
True DEI was never about exclusion; it is about opening doors. Retreating now doesn't just weaken an organisation internally; it validates a dangerous new crisis of insularity.
Where leadership genuinely matters, so does the conversation.