How to Scale, Evolve, and Navigate Modern Careers – Lessons from Sean Sankey on The MorePeople Podcast
Welcome back to The MorePeople Podcast, your go-to source for the latest strategies, insights, and real-world advice in the recruitment space and beyond. Whether you're navigating your career journey or looking to build high-performing teams, our conversations aim to unlock the secrets to long-term success.
In this episode, Managing Director Richard Hanwell sits down with Sean Sankey, founder of Much Clearer, a company that supports top teams through executive coaching and commercial strategy. Since 2011, Sean has been helping individuals and organisations scale their impact, navigate conflict, and lead with clarity.
The Skills That Matter Most at the Top
As Sean points out, technical ability is just the entry ticket. To truly progress in your career, you need to layer on two key areas:
Commercial Acumen – Understanding how the business works and how your role drives value.
Personal Leadership Skills – Influencing, motivating, and leading others, especially in challenging environments.
Career growth demands personal growth. It's not just about getting better at your current job. It's about becoming the kind of person who can handle bigger budgets, lead larger teams, and navigate complex decisions with confidence.
Multiplying Your Impact
A common challenge for professionals stepping into leadership roles is letting go of being the “doer” and becoming the “enabler.” Sean recounts advice shared with one of his clients: “You don’t want to be a genius with a thousand followers.” Scaling your value means transferring your knowledge to others so that your organisation doesn’t depend on your individual output alone.
That shift requires humility—giving credit to others, sharing expertise, and creating space for others to thrive.
Navigating Workplace Conflict with Clarity
Sean draws from his early training in conflict resolution to unpack a critical skill for any leader: managing tension constructively. Conflict, he says, is inevitable in high-performing environments and comes in three forms:
Rational
Political
Emotional
While most people try to resolve issues rationally, real resistance often lives in the emotional or political space. Learning to understand where others are coming from, what fears, stakes, or pressures they may be facing is a game-changing skill for navigating tension without leaving damage in your wake.
Why Talent Chooses to Work With You
As the conversation shifts to employer branding and attracting top talent, Sean makes a compelling point: you’re not just competing with businesses that look like yours. You're competing for attention. For time. For energy.
People have choices. They can freelance, consult, start side businesses, or create content. So how do employers stand out? Be bold. Be different. One restaurant chain, for instance, advertised for chefs in tattoo parlours instead of the usual platforms and got a strong response. The lesson: break the mould to cut through the noise.
Rethinking Strategy for Real Growth
Sean also challenges the traditional idea of long-range strategy. Instead, he advocates for agile, market-facing experiments inspired by tech startups. In fast-changing markets, the ability to test, learn, and adapt beats slow-moving plans every time. Small experiments offer faster feedback and can often outperform traditional strategy cycles in both insight and impact.
Advice to Your 24-Year-Old Self
As MorePeople celebrates 24 years in business, Richard asks every guest what advice they would give their 24-year-old self. Sean’s answer? Build a strong peer group. People you respect and can grow with. Not just friends, but challengers. Mentors. Allies. “Who you spend time with is who you become,” Sean reminds us.
Final Thoughts
This episode underscores one central theme: evolving in your career is less about mastering tasks and more about mastering yourself. From conflict resolution to personal reinvention and from team leadership to employer branding, the modern workplace rewards those who can think clearly, act intentionally, and grow continuously.
