Think for yourself
See more clearly
Make better decisions
Live on your own terms
Speaking
Training
Unleash your inner | strategist
I’m Alicia McKay. I help people be more strategic: leaders, councils, conference rooms, and readers.
Named one of the world’s top 25 thinkers in local government by the LGIU in 2025.
- 500+ Not An MBA graduates
- Fonterra
- Woolworths
- Hosted 1,000 mayors at ALGA
- LGIU Top 25 thinkers, 2025
- ICMA, Florida
- NZ Herald
- Sky News
- Crown Law
- NZ Treasury
- Mayors’ School
- 40,000+ on LinkedIn
- 11,000+ subscribers
New this week
Latest · Wednesday 28 October
Your lack of boundaries makes you hard to trust
Every 'no' makes a 'yes' mean more
Ah, boundaries. Millennial therapy speak 101, amirite? I wrote about boundaries in last week's Friday Flurry - the risk of 'squishy' people infiltrating your wellbeing with their poor boundaries and weak sense of self. This week I'm turning the mirror around, because the squishy person in someone else's story might be you.
Boundaries and responsibility
People who lead families, teams, and communities tend to be high-responsibility people - and high-responsibility people can take on too much. Lots of Not An MBA graduate stories mention the relief and impact of saying no.
My favourite take on responsibility comes from Brené Brown (👑). Brown breaks it down to response-ability. You can't control what comes at you, or what others do - but you always have the ability to determine your response. Genius.
You can decide your response on the spot (and sometimes you'll have to), but if you want to be a consistent, reliable person who others can depend on, I suggest having some personal policies to guide you - a.k.a. boundaries.
Boundaries aren't just for you
My earlier work on boundaries is largely around what they do for you: they operationalise your values, offer you invisible armour in tricky situations, open doors to new opportunities, and stem the flow of whatever's draining you.
This is all great stuff, but it misses what your boundaries do for the people around you: boundaries are an act of leadership, and a facilitator of trust.
Boundaries and leadership
At the height of the pandemic, I ran an online workshop for some rural firefighters in Australia. They were locked down, and their senior leaders had sent a clear message: in this wild time, put your families and wellbeing first, not work.
Naw. This would have been great, except the email which contained this message was sent on a Sunday at 11pm. They were saying one thing, but doing another. The message staff heard was: to succeed around here, this is how you'll behave.
And hey, the sender might have spent the whole week chilling with their family and looking after their health, hence the weird time, but that's not what lands. (Also: scheduled send, guys, get on it.)
When you're in charge of a team, family, or organisation, your boundaries don't just affect you. They become a model for what success looks like and they risk becoming everyone else's default. If you send emails at 11pm on a Sunday, your team learns that's what leaders do. If you say yes to every request that comes down the chain, your people inherit the workload. If everything is urgent to you, nothing is a priority for them.
Holding a line is a powerful thing. It shows people it's allowed. It also gives them room to grow, because every time you over-function, you take away someone else's chance to step up.
Boundaries and trust
Poor boundaries make you untrustworthy. If you say yes all the time, to everything, you'll end up stressed out, overworked, and dropping balls. This makes you unreliable, no matter how good your intentions are.
When you're a yes man/woman/person, your yes stops meaning anything.
That makes you the squishy person in someone else’s Friday Flurry. From this angle, boundaries aren't so much a self-care indulgence as a cornerstone of your personal integrity and a gift to the people around you.
(This angle hits hard with high-responsibility leaders on naMBA. They might squirm at setting limits for themselves, but they do not want to let others down!)
"There is no trust without boundaries" - Brené Brown
Queen Brown, in her viral video on what trust is made of, uses the acronym BRAVING. Guess what the B is for? You guessed it: boundaries. There is no trust without boundaries. You don't ruin relationships by being clear, consistent, and values-aligned; you improve them. When you're honest about what you can and can't do, and stick to it, your word carries more weight. Every no makes a yes mean more.
Where to go from here
There's no universal rulebook for what your boundaries should be, because boundaries aren't universal rules, they're personal policies. But if you're looking for guidance for what to do about your habits and niggles, check out this workbook.
The Little Black Book of Boundaries is a workbook for paid members. It's a six-step, fillable guide for turning your triggers into clear boundaries, expressed as personal policies. Enjoy!
Alicia McKay
Til next week,
A
P.S. Boundaries are week two of Not An MBA. If you’re the person everyone depends on, check out upcoming cohorts.
About Alicia McKay
I’m a former foster kid, teen mum, and high school dropout who talked my way into university at 17.
Since then I’ve worked with over 120 organisations and some of New Zealand and Australia’s most senior leaders, written three books, trained thousands of people in strategic skills, and led major strategy and change initiatives at places like Auckland Council and Crown Law.
These days I read, write, and teach. I read over 100 books a year, have written Wednesday Wisdom each week since 2018, and graduated 500+ leaders through Not An MBA.
From foster care to own boss: how a teen mum defied the odds. — NZ Herald, 2025
My motto
No buzzwords. | No bullshit.
“When the world feels like it’s being driven off a cliff, Alicia helps you grab the wheel.” Michael Sharpe, reader
Writing
I read widely, think deeply, and write plainly.
I've been reading and writing my way to sense since I was a kid. When I'm facing a tricky problem or the noise in my head is too loud, I pick up a book, go down a rabbit hole, and put it on the page. A few years ago, I realised this wasn't just a weird quirk, but one of the most valuable things I had to offer.
Strategy and writing are the same sort of job. Both of them start with a hunch or a question, both get messier before they make sense, and both make the world feel more manageable by the end. I bring the same skills to my essays as I do to my workshops: digging into context, asking curly questions, sorting through what matters, and deciding what to do with it.
My writing brings together my professional experience, bogan voice, and manic nerdery to put a complex world into plain English.
Wednesday Wisdom
A free weekly newsletter on strategy, systems, work, and society. Every Wednesday since 2018.
Friday Flurry
For paid members. A behind-the-scenes peek into what I’m reading, thinking about, and working on, every second Friday.
These are a drop of sanity and therapy for me on days when I am on edge. — Idil Kaplan
Your analysis always makes me think, while being really readable and direct. Thank you! — James Adams
You keep it real, there’s no BS. Every time I read one of your emails, I’m like ‘Yes!!!’ The topics you cover are interesting, relevant, and you get my mind cranking. — Sam Hope
Subscribe
Weekly ideas about strategy, systems, work, and society. Read by over 11,000 people.
An eight-week live online course for experienced leaders working in complex, changing systems. Learn the five skills of strategic leadership from You Don’t Need An MBA.
By the end, students:
- Respond more confidently to change and uncertainty.
- Set firmer boundaries around their time and energy.
- Make better, smarter decisions.
- Tackle systemic issues in their organisations.
- Lead more authentically and with greater passion.
More than 500 senior professionals have graduated from Not An MBA since 2021, from councils and government to construction, banking, FMCG, science, and tech.
Not An MBA shifted my thinking to be wider than me and my team, to think at an organisational level. I needed this course. I wish I had enrolled earlier. — Veronique Gibbons, Pinnacle Midland Health Network
Books
Three books on strategy, change, and leadership.
From Strategy to Action
You Don't Need An MBA
Local Legends