High performance used to be sold as hustle, grind and pushing harder. Claire Brumby’s argument is cleaner: leaders perform better when they understand who they are, what they value and where they are out of alignment.
Claire brings that view from lived business experience. An award-winning entrepreneur, best-selling author and entrepreneur speaker, she founded the healthy snacking brand Scrubbys Crisps, grew it from a kitchen-table idea into a recognised FMCG brand, and later pitched the business on Dragons’ Den. She now works as an ICF-accredited executive coach, NLP Practitioner and business mentor, helping leaders and teams build clarity, confidence and sustainable performance.
Her work draws on the commercial realities of building a brand, the pressure of leadership and her MAGIC Framework™, which focuses on Mindset, Awakening, Gumption, Intuition and Charisma. For Claire, modern leadership is not about hierarchy or control. It is about self-leadership, alignment and having the courage to perform without burning out.
In this exclusive interview with the London Keynote Speakers Agency, Claire Brumby discusses modern leadership, high performance, intuition, burnout and why the old rules of leadership are no longer fit for the world businesses are working in now.
How should leaders understand modern leadership in a workplace where hierarchy carries less authority than it once did?
Modern leadership is about self-leadership.
It is not about job titles anymore. It is not about hierarchy. It starts with understanding ourselves: our values, our boundaries and what we stand for.
When we understand those things and can convey them clearly, we build more trust in our teams. People see authenticity. They see that we are not unravelling because we are misaligned.
Modern leadership is the reinvention of self-leadership.
What happens when leaders ignore their instinct and continue making decisions they know are misaligned?
The biggest cost when leaders ignore their gut is misalignment.
Many leaders try to trade time against that misalignment. They tell themselves, “It’ll all work out,” or “I’ll just go along with this decision,” or “We’ll just get this deal over the line,” or “We’ll just finish this project.”
But when misalignment is there, it seeps deeper and gets worse. It affects clarity, teams and culture. That is why alignment needs to be in place.
What are the real fundamentals of high performance, beyond the old culture of hustle and constant output?
For me, the key fundamentals of high performance are clarity, energy and courage.
“In the old world of leadership, high performance was equated with doing more, hustling, grinding and pushing harder.
For me, it is not about that. It is about being aligned, being decisive and having an internal anchor, so you can perform outwardly from inward clarity.
How can leaders sustain high performance without driving themselves or their teams into burnout?
In the past, high performance was linked with going at all costs and just keeping going.
But the best leaders I know do not run on adrenaline. They run on clarity.
That clarity comes back to alignment. Get the alignment right, and you get the clarity. Then performance is not about pushing at all costs.
Your new book, Forget Normal. I Want Magic., introduces the MAGIC framework. What does that framework give leaders and teams?
My new book is called Forget Normal. I Want Magic.
MAGIC is a framework I have created. It stands for mindset, awakening, gumption, intuition and charisma.
People often come to me because they need a certain element for their team or their leaders. We can dial into whichever pillar is most relevant.
That might be mindset, where we help teams unlock a different way of thinking. It might be gumption, where a team needs more action, courage or momentum.
That is how the keynotes work alongside the book.
Ultimately, it is about leaving behind the old hierarchical control mechanisms of leadership, because they are no longer fit for the modern world. Leadership is changing. The world is changing. We need to forget that normal. It is all about magic.
When people leave your talks, what do you want them to understand about leadership, self-belief and their own potential?
What I know people take away from my public speeches is inspiration. I have been told that time and time again, in person, by email, through DMs and on social media.
People get inspiration to keep going. They also get permission to go for whatever it is they want.
What I hope they take away is a better understanding of who they are. I want them to separate the truth from the mindset fiction they may be telling themselves: that they are not good enough, they cannot do this, they are not cut out to be a leader, or they cannot change the culture.
I want them to leave with self-belief. I want them to think, “I can do it. I can put the mindset monkeys to one side. I can be the person and the leader I want to be.
This exclusive interview with Claire Brumby was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.
