Nobody in the firm would have said they were treating Rasheed unfairly. In fact, if you'd asked them, they'd have said the opposite. He was well-liked and respected. A capable solicitor with a sharp legal mind and a growing client rapport. But his caseload over twelve months tells a depressing pattern. Routine conveyancing and straightforward wills. These cases, while necessary, offered him little opportunity to develop, or to build the kind of client relationships that lead to progression. His colleague, John, who had qualified the same year, was handling the complex commercial disputes. These were high-value clients, and the type of cases that get talked about in partner meetings. It wasn't as if the supervising partner had sat down and made a decision to hold Rasheed back. There was no agenda, and no conversation that anyone could point to as the moment it went wrong. It was the supervising partner who had simply made an assumption he had not examined: "assumed the clients would feel more comfortable with someone who looked like them. I never said that out loud. I'm not sure I even said it to myself. But looking back, that's what I was doing." That's what the supervising partner told me - not immediately, but after some reflection. It took a conversation and the right questions to get there. The supervisor wasn't a malicious person. He was an experienced, well-intentioned leader who had made a series of small decisions over time, each of which felt entirely reasonable in the moment, that had accumulated into something that was neither reasonable nor fair. Rasheed, had started to notice. he was being sidelined. He had begun to gradually withdraw. This played out in him being less energetic in meetings, offered fewer ideas. He had a growing sense of not quite belonging in a place he had worked hard to be part of. The enthusiasm he had arrived with slowly slipped away. After two years he left, and with him client relationships he had quietly been building. What was really happening The supervising partner was viewing the situation through his own prism. His assumptions about what clients wanted and who would make the right impression felt like professional judgement. That is precisely why these decisions can be difficult to spot. We all interpret situations through our own experience. The PRISM Lens helps leaders pause long enough to question that interpretation before it becomes a decision affecting somebody else's opportunity, development or progression. What better leadership would have looked like A better decision would have started with a brief pause before allocating the case: Am I making this decision based on what Rasheed can do, or on what I assume the client will think? If Rasheed could handle the case well, what was actually stopping him? The assumption about the client belonged to the supervising partner, not the client. And over time, decisions like this were affecting far more than Rasheed's caseload. They were affecting his development, his visibility within the firm and ultimately whether he wanted to stay. That small pause is where better people leadership begins. Moving from assumption to a more considered decision about the person actually in front of you. Managing people who are different to you is a skill. Like any skill, it can be learned. If Rasheed's story made you think about how decisions are being made in your firm, let's talk. If you recognised something in Rasheed's story - whether as a leader reflecting on your own decisions, or as someone who has been on the receiving end of them - I'd like to talk.

The manager at the centre of this story was experienced, well intentioned and proud of his team. But nobody had ever helped him think about how his own assumptions might affect the way he managed different people. I was asked to work with the organisation after a senior leader noticed growing tension within the team. What I found was not one dramatic incident. It was a series of small management decisions that, taken together, were affecting trust, fairness and whether people wanted to stay. Incident one: the discipline that wasn't applied equally Abdul had been with the organisation for six years and was managing a small team. He was diligent, well-regarded, and had never had a formal complaint raised against him. When a process error occurred in his department - the kind that happens in busy teams - he was called into a meeting within the week. A formal written record was made of his error. Similarly, a month later, another error had occurred followed by a second written record and meeting. But three months earlier, a white colleague in an equivalent role had made a similar error. There was a conversation. No written record. When I raised this with the line manager, his response was immediate. "Abdul's team is higher profile. The stakes are different." When I asked him to explain what made the stakes different, he couldn't. The work was comparable. The error was comparable, but the response was not. He genuinely believed his own explanation. That is how an unexamined prism works - it doesn't feel like bias. It feels like judgement. Incident two: the Friday phones Every Friday, the team finished at 5pm. Most people headed to the pub but Abdul stayed until 6pm to answer the phones. Nobody had asked him directly. It had simply become assumed that, because he wasn’t drinking, he could stay on. When I asked the manager who had decided Abdul would cover the phones, he looked genuinely puzzled. "He's always just done it. He doesn't seem to mind." He had never asked Abdul whether he minded. Abdul minded a great deal. But he hadn't said so, because he didn't feel he could and didn’t want to cause trouble and have people annoyed with him. Meanwhile, the in-crowd left for the pub at five. And the social connections, the informal conversations, the relationships that lead to opportunity - all of that was happening in a room Abdul was never in. The real cost The organisation had invested in recruiting Abdul. But it had placed him with a manager who had never been given the tools to lead effectively across differences. Small assumptions accumulate. And what accumulates eventually costs. Abdul was disengaged. The cost of replacing him would have comfortably funded the kind of leadership development that might have prevented the situation in the first place. The problem was not bad intention. It was a series of everyday management decisions that had never been examined. This is the gap I work in. Helping leaders notice those moments earlier, question their assumptions and respond differently. Because recruiting good people is only the beginning. Keeping them, developing them and getting the best from them requires good people leadership. If you recognised something in this story, I’d like to talk. Take our free quiz, Discover Your Leadership Blind Spots, and find out where your own prism might be shaping decisions you haven't examined yet. Discover Your Leadership Blind Spots

I know Hasan. And when he told me what had happened at his place of work, I wasn't surprised. I had heard versions of this story before. Hasan had been with the firm for six years. His work was excellent and partners requested him by name on complex assignments. His client feedback was strong. And yet, when he looked around at the people being put forward for the senior accountant review, being mentored, being sponsored, having doors opened for them - he wasn't among them. Nobody had said anything. It had simply happened that way. When he first joined the firm, he would join colleagues for soft drinks at the pub and the Friday lunches. He laughed at the same things his colleagues laughed at. Nobody thought of him as particularly different - he was just Hasan, good at his job, easy to be around. Over time, Hasan's faith became a more visible part of his working life. He grew a beard, prayed during the day, stopped drinking alcohol and observed Ramadan. Nothing about the quality of his work changed. But some of the relationships around him did. There were awkward comments and jokes, and gradually Hasan became less involved in the informal life of the firm. None of these moments seemed significant on their own. But together they changed how included Hasan felt, and nobody in leadership appeared to notice. The client dinner he stopped attending In his first two years, Hasan had attended every client dinner, every team celebration, every informal gathering after a long week. After his faith became more visible, the invitations became less frequent. Eventually, they became rare. Nobody had deliberately excluded Hasan. The partners thought they were being considerate. Hasan thought he was no longer wanted. One conversation could have corrected both assumptions. This is the PRISM Lens in action - or rather, the absence of it. A conscious leader gives it thought before making assumptions on someone else's behalf. They consider what the situation looks like from the other person's reality, not just their own. "I would have gone," Hasan told me. "I liked being part of things. I just stopped being asked." Many of the relationships that matter in professional services are built outside formal meetings, at dinners, social events and the informal moments where people get to know one another. Gradually, Hasan had found himself outside many of those informal spaces, even though nobody had consciously decided to exclude him. What the firm lost Hasan eventually accepted an offer from another firm. A partner there had taken the time to ask about his ambitions, what he wanted from his career and what support he needed. His existing partners were surprised. Hasan had continued delivering good work, rarely complained and had never formally said he was unhappy. But that was part of the problem. Nobody had asked. Over time, small assumptions about what Hasan wanted, where he fitted and which opportunities would interest him had changed his experience of the firm. The firm did not lose Hasan because of one dramatic incident. It lost him through a series of small decisions and missed conversations. Better people leadership means noticing those moments before a good person decides to go. If Hasan's story makes you wonder who might be becoming less visible in your firm, let's talk.