Nik Kinley

Consultant, Assessor, Coach.

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A London-based leadership consultant and coach, Nik is a psychologist and psychotherapist with 35 years’ experience, specialising in assessment and behaviour change. Nik is a London-based leadership consultant, assessor and coach. His varied background includes commercial roles, senior corporate HR positions (with BP and Barclays), and consulting roles (with YSC and Accenture), as well as over a decade working in prisons as a forensic psychotherapist. He thus has the unique experience of having worked with royalty, criminals, CEOs, politicians, and children. And the list of leaders he has assessed and worked with includes the CEOs of national banks, the heads of national security, hedge-fund bosses, senior civil servants, and the leaders of children's care homes.

As a consultant, he has worked with over half the top 20 FTSE companies, spent nearly a decade working across the Middle East and Asia, and has led culture change and integration programmes in some of the world’s biggest organisations. As an assessor, he has personally interviewed over 1,200 senior executives from across the world, primarily for CEO and C-Suite roles, including every type of commercial, technical and functional leadership position. And as a coach, he has worked with CEOs and executive teams across industries and regions, in organisations big and small, from founder-led portfolio companies to the largest multinationals.

He has published a highly successful series of books on leadership, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. He has appeared regularly as an expert on major TV networks such as the BBC and France 24, been featured in and interviewed by leading media outlets such as The Times, The Economist, and the FT, and has lectured at some of the world’s most prestigious business schools, including regularly at IMD in Switzerland.

His previous book, published in 2024, titled Re-writing Your Leadership Code: How Your Childhood Made You the Leader You Are was a ground-breaking study of how early experiences shape workplace behaviours and was shortlisted for multiple prizes. His new book, The Power Trap: How Leadership Changes People and What to Do About It was released in July 2025, and has already been featured by the likes of the BBC, Forbes, Fast Company, HR Director, and CEO World.

New book coming soon!

Out August 2025

We have an entirely messed-up relationship with power. It is something that almost everyone wants, that promises much and can help us achieve great things. Yet power isn't something we openly talk about or understand, and that’s a problem. While power is an essential part of every leadership role, it is also a difficult and sometimes toxic partner that changes everyone who holds it. And often, in ways that make being a good leader much harder.

Approached carefully, however, the worst of power's negative effects can be avoided and balanced by its positives. This book shows you how.

It reveals what power does to people, and how it both affects them as leaders and the people they lead. And it shows how, in turn, leaders can affect the positions of power they hold, too.

Incorporating the latest neuroscience, the book offers clear lessons for how to successfully manage power. For leaders, it provides practical advice on how to survive having power, avoiding its worst effects. For organisations and institutions, it is about how to ensure that the people who have power are equipped and supported to thrive with it. And for us all, as people who choose and follow leaders, it is about how we can identify those most at risk of falling to power's dark side.

It thus provides a plan for how we can have a healthier relationship with power, so that as individuals we can be better leaders, and as organisations and societies we can be better led.