Andrew Bryant
Most leadership development assumes the leader is already steady. They often are not. Senior people are being asked to lead through restructure, AI disruption, and team fatigue at the same time, and the gap between what they expect of themselves and what they can sustain is widening. The organisations that close that gap treat self-leadership as a capability to be built, not a personality trait to be assumed.
Andrew Bryant is a leadership author and coach who built the practitioner field of self-leadership, helping senior leaders deliver results without burning out themselves or their teams.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Andrew Bryant
- He authored the McGraw-Hill book that defined self-leadership for a generation of corporate practitioners, and his research has been cited in more than 150 academic papers and dissertations.
- His 2026 Wiley book Potential-ize introduces the IGNITE Framework, a six-element model for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability rather than be displaced by it.
- He has coached senior leaders inside Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank, and Nokia, so the work is tested against real operating pressure, not a coaching practice that lives only in workshops.
- He carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain, which means executional reliability on stage is a known quantity.
- The President of Singapore has formally recognised his work twice, in 2018 and 2020, for self-leadership programmes that produced measurable outcomes with disadvantaged teenagers and women leaders.
Biography highlights
- Founder of Self Leadership International, established 1999, with clients in over 40 countries.
- Co-author of Self-Leadership (McGraw-Hill, 2012) with Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan, a defining text in the field.
- Author of The New Leadership Playbook (2022) and Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI (Wiley, 2026).
- Certified Speaking Professional, Professional Speakers Association of Australia, 2009.
- Past President of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (2015 to 2016) and Professional Speakers Association Spain (2021 to 2023).
- Acknowledged twice by the President of Singapore, in 2018 and 2020, for community leadership programmes.
Biography
Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your own thinking, feeling and actions toward a defined objective. That definition, written by Andrew Bryant and Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan in their 2012 McGraw-Hill book, is now cited in more than 150 academic papers. It is also the operating idea behind a coaching and keynote practice that has run for more than twenty-five years.
The argument is simple. Leaders who cannot regulate their own attention, energy and reactions cannot reliably lead anyone else through change. Bryant founded Self Leadership International in 1999 and built the methodology out of work with named global organisations, including Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank and Nokia. The 2022 follow-up book, The New Leadership Playbook, translated the underlying research into twelve concrete leadership conversations that teams actually need to have.
His 2026 Wiley book, Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI, extends the work into the live boardroom question. The IGNITE Framework, six elements covering Inspire, Guide, Nurture, Integrate, Transform and Evaluate, is built for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability without losing either. It is the same intellectual line, applied to the workforce conversation that buyers are having now.
Bryant carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain. The President of Singapore acknowledged his community work formally in 2018 and again in 2020. The credentials are useful as proof of seriousness, but the more practical point for a buyer is that he is one of the very few speakers who can credibly claim to have shaped the leadership category he speaks on.
Key speaking topics
- Self-leadership
- Leadership in the age of AI
- Executive presence and personal effectiveness
- Mindset and motivation
- Psychological safety and high-performing teams
- Leading change and restructure
- Human potential and talent development
Ideal for
- CEO, COO and senior leadership teams under pressure to deliver during restructure or AI adoption.
- CHROs and Heads of Leadership Development building self-leadership capability across mid and senior cohorts.
- Boards and executive committees commissioning offsites on resilience, composure and decision quality.
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of self-leadership that leaders can apply to their own behaviour the next day, not just discuss in the abstract.
- The IGNITE Framework as a structured way to think about unlocking team potential alongside AI capability rather than against it.
- A direct view of how composure under pressure compounds into team performance and retention.
- Specific leadership conversations, drawn from the twelve plays in The New Leadership Playbook, that managers can run with their own teams.
Talks
A keynote built around seven leadership principles and twelve leadership plays drawn from Bryant’s books, applied to the audience’s own context.
Key takeaways:
- Self-leadership precedes leading others, and is a learnable practice rather than a personality trait.
- Frames of mind are reinforced by early experience, and awareness of those frames is what enables ownership.
- Accelerated results are produced when clear expectations, the right mindset and the right behaviours are aligned.