ABOUT THIS PODCAST 🔗
Breaking the Circle for Leaders is the podcast for frustrated middle managers who feel stuck in the same patterns, working harder but getting the same results, as stress builds. In each episode, Jon Manning, author of Emotional Intelligence Unleashed, draws on 25 years of operational management experience at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Greggs, among others, to explore why conversations spiral, why teams resist change, and why the pressure never seems to let up. Not theory. Not corporate training. Real stories, practical tools, and small shifts in thinking that make Monday mornings feel different.
Update frequency:
weekly
Average audio length:
15 minutes
English
United Kingdom
10 episodes
since March 28, 2026
episodic
IN THIS PODCAST 🔗
LATEST EPISODE 🔗
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I was new in the role, mid shop visit, when someone came and found me to say there was a manager on the phone. A customer had come in saying they'd eaten one of our products and it had broken their tooth. I told them to take the details, fill a complaint form in, offer a repla…
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PREVIOUS EPISODES 🔗
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I'd trained for the Great North Run for six months. Three runs a week since March, never missed one. My sixth in a row, and this year I wanted it to be my fastest.
Two days before the race, four ton bags of logs were tipped into my back lane. I'd ordered them in August …
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I once took over a restaurant for a colleague who was going on maternity leave. Lunchtimes were properly busy. Tables full, buffet orders going out one after another. It looked like a place making decent money.
The system didn't agree. I'd look at the tables actually bein…
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A few years ago I was sat with a coaching client in her early twenties. She'd just moved to a new company, and she'd gone in as a supervisor.
What made that odd is what she'd been doing before. Her manager had been off sick for about six months, and she'd covere…
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I used to do unannounced Sunday visits, four or five times a year, to see what things really looked like when there weren't many managers about. One Sunday I got up, got ready, drove there on autopilot, pulled into the car park and just sat there.
Nothing had happened. That&ap…
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When I was eighteen I raced a Mini on grass tracks. A mate of mine looked after the engine, and every so often he'd ask me the same question. Is it running fine?
And I'd say yes. Every time.
I wasn't lying to him. I genuinely couldn't hear anything wrong. He&apo…
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I was at Greggs, managing daily fresh product into around five hundred shops across London and the South East. Hundreds of lines, thousands of decisions a week. Then the company restructured and a new operations director arrived.
Every week he'd ask me detailed questions I cou…
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At twenty three I was running the bar at a hotel. Then the food and beverage manager left, so I picked that up. Then reception landed on me as well. I was living in, working six days a week, and holding the whole operation together.
And when the promotion came around, I didn't…
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I bought a bag of wonky potatoes because they were cheaper. Got them home, cut one open, and inside it was exactly the same as any other potato. The only thing anyone had ever judged was the outside.
That got me thinking about a label of my own.
Growing up, my mum used to say I was…
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Breaking the Circle is the podcast for middle managers who feel stuck in the same cycles — working hard but going round in circles. Each week Jon Manning takes a real management situation, tells a story, and draws out practical insight you can use the next day. Not theory. Real too…
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jon, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
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