Solving Complexity.
Stewarding Consequence.
For leaders carrying decisions that don’t come with clear answers — where delay has consequence, and the weight is real.
Senior executive and governance counsel for leaders in the social impact and nonprofit sector — and others carrying the same weight — who need more than good advice. Someone who has held the chair they are sitting in, and knows what it costs.
The Conditions That Bring Leaders To This Practice
Something has shifted and the organisation you’re leading isn’t quite the one you signed up for.
The direction still holds. But what it asks of you has changed — and you are carrying that change without quite having named it yet.
You can see what’s coming and the window to address it is narrowing.
A leadership gap, a funding cliff, a governance fracture. Not yet a crisis. Still yours to move.
The people around you are capable. None of them can quite reach what you’re carrying.
Some of this weight belongs to the chair you sit in. Most advisors don’t get there either.
The same issue keeps coming back and nothing stays decided.
Different meetings, same problem. The energy goes in and something absorbs it before it converts.
Everything is urgent and very little is actually moving.
The calendar is full. Traction is not.
The board conversation that needs to happen hasn’t.
The relationship is still functional. The accountability structure that would make the next decision clean is not in place. And you are managing that gap alone.
If two or three of those resonate, you are not dealing with a performance problem. You are dealing with a structural one. The scan below puts a name to it in six minutes.
Jamie McIntosh
“The leaders I work with are already capable. What they need is someone who has sat in their chair — and who can help them see what is hard to see from inside the weight of it.”
Three-time CEO across international humanitarian, development, and justice organisations. Over 25 years leading through succession, restructuring, growth, and governance challenges — in environments where the stakes were high and the complexity was real.
The practice addresses four domains: governance and leadership integrity, strategic direction and mission integrity, organisational health and transition, and the questions of vocation and the leader’s interior that leadership at this level inevitably raises.
Across those roles, Jamie led teams that raised more than $850 million and stewarded $1.5 billion in global program impact. The Leader’s Guide brings that experience directly to bear — not as a methodology, but as hard-won judgment.
The practice is grounded in Integrated Decision Architecture™ — not a framework borrowed from a business school, but a model built from decades of leading under real pressure, still being sharpened through every engagement.
Speaking, workshop, and media inquiries are given thoughtful consideration.
World Renew (Global Co-CEO) · World Vision Canada (VP Philanthropy; VP Programs & Policy) · Compassion Canada (CPO) · Mercy Ships Canada (CEO) · IJM Canada (Founder & CEO — first international IJM partner)
What The Leader's Guide Does
Leading a complex institution is not the same as leading a simple one. The pressures are different. The decisions are harder. And the people around you — however capable — are rarely positioned to give you the counsel you actually need. That is what this practice is for.
Executive Counsel
Direct, ongoing advisory for CEOs and senior leaders navigating complexity, transition, and decisions that carry real consequence.
Institutional Consulting
Focused work with boards and leadership teams where something is misaligned, stalled, or heading in the wrong direction.
Governance Advisory
Support for boards and chairs navigating transition, accountability, and the decisions that determine where an institution goes next.
Proprietary Instruments
The Bearing™, CAPTiVE Decision Instrument™, CAPTiVE Rapid Scan™, and Integrated Decision Architecture™ — built to identify precisely where things are breaking down and what it takes to restore movement.
See Clearly What You Are Carrying
Most leaders start with a scan. Ten to fifteen minutes. No commitment required. A directional read on what is most pressing — and where the friction is actually coming from.
Both instruments are self-administered. You keep your results. If you want to walk through the picture with Jamie before deciding on anything further, The Read is a 25-minute session designed exactly for that — $125, creditable in full toward any engagement.
Decision Friction & Fracture
When decisions keep looping, execution is lagging, or everything is pressing at once — this is the fastest way to see where the friction is concentrated and what is driving it. Six minutes. You keep the result.
Full Institutional Triage
When you can sense pressure across multiple fronts — governance, succession, fundraising, culture, the leader’s own next chapter — The Bearing gives you a full picture of what is most urgent and where risk is actually concentrated. Fifteen minutes. You keep the picture.
Twelve domains. Seven dimensions. Confidential.
Begin The Bearing →Once you have results, The Read is a 25-minute session to walk through your picture with Jamie — what it is pointing to, what the pattern means, and what to do next. $125, credited in full toward any engagement.
For leaders in career transition — crossing sectors, seeking advancement, or between positions — the Career Compass Scan is a separate five-minute diagnostic that leads to The Compass Call.
The Career Compass Scan
Crossing sectors, seeking advancement, or navigating the open water between positions? Five focused minutes to get your initial reading — what you bring, where you are, and what may be in the way. Leads directly to The Compass Call.
The Sounding
A sounding is what a navigator takes when the charts run out and the water ahead is unknown.
It is a reading of what is actually there. Precise. Honest. Taken before you commit to the passage.
Some moments cannot await an ongoing engagement. They require one conversation with a well-placed person who has navigated these waters, held the wheel in conditions that were anything but ideal, and knows what it takes to make a consequential decision where charts fail to guide.
Now.
The Sounding is a single focused session for leaders navigating a high-stakes moment — a consequential decision, a governance crisis, a difficult conversation, a career inflection, or a condition that needs to be named before it can be resolved. We work the matter until the signal is clear. You leave with a named decision, a path forward, and the composure to act on it — not because uncertainty has been removed, but because it has been properly weighed. In cases of exceptional complexity, the session extends at no additional cost.
New to this practice? Take a diagnostic first — or book a complimentary Fit Call if you haven’t completed one.
Waypoints
A reflection on the inner life of leadership — for those carrying its full weight.
Waypoints is the other side of this work. Where The Leader’s Guide works on structure, systems, and decisions, Waypoints speaks to what sustains the person doing the leading — the questions carried quietly, the moments that reshape you, the disciplines that hold across a long vocation.
835+ subscribers · 9 editions · Publishing on Substack
“An inner harbour for the leader’s soul and craft.”Waypoints — The Leader's Guide
The Voyage Continues. Where Does Yours Begin?
If something is stalling, drifting, or pressing — and you need someone who understands the weight of it — this is the right place to start.
If you’ve completed a diagnostic, The Read is a 25-minute session to walk through your results with Jamie before any further commitment — $125, credited in full. If you haven’t taken a diagnostic yet, the Fit Call is the right first step.
Confidential. Your information is never shared or sold. Prefer to speak directly? Book a Fit Call.