What happened when UAE leaders spent a morning being asked whether they were investing in themselves like they invest in the companies they run.
The last Bravos Lab of the 2026 spring season was hosted by Amy du Toit. The theme was YOU Inc., and the question Amy opened with was uncomfortable enough that most of the leaders in the room paused before answering it out loud:
If you were the CEO of your own life, would you invest in yourself?
That is the kind of question that gets nervous laughter in most rooms. In this one, it did something different. It made everyone sit with the fact that they knew how to run their teams, their P&Ls, and their quarterly plans — but had never sat down to run themselves the way they run everything else.
The business of being you
Amy's frame for the morning was simple: most of us run ourselves like an under-resourced business. Clear on the day-to-day, but vague on the strategy and purpose. During the session, she walked the room through the business of YOU Inc. — the roles each of us is already running without realising it, and the foundations underneath them that either power us or quietly work against us.
The exercise was not about optimisation. It was about honesty.
What struck the room most, in Amy's words, was watching people realise they didn't have it all together — and finding this to be a relief, not a failure.
What leaders in the room said
Three lines came up more than once during the pair conversations and small-group exchanges that followed:
"I've never actually thought about this before."
"I've always helped others in this way - but never myself."
"I know what my values are - but I'm just not living them."
That third one, in particular, is the pattern Amy has been working on with senior leaders across Dubai and the region for years. Values are usually not the missing piece. Living them is.
Living the shift
Amy's closing frame was one worth sitting with: if we aren't living as who we are, we are simply existing.
Making the shift toward leading with more intention - dropping the mask of job title, leading from within - opens up more than career opportunities. It opens up the possibility of leadership that other people can actually follow, because you are creating the space for the people around you to be honest about who they are too.
Why this Lab mattered
Bravos exists for leaders who already understand that employee engagement is a strategic lever, not an HR project, not a nice to have. But engagement does not start with the survey or the programme. It starts with whether the leader running the room is being honest with themselves.
That is what Amy's Lab made visible. The most credible engagement leader is not the one with the best measurement tool. It is the one who has done the internal work first.
What comes next
The Bravos community is on summer break through August. The next OFF RECORD evening for CEOs is being planned for early September. The new Lab season opens in September, with new hosts, new questions, and a growing room.
If you have ideas for a Lab, a host, or a leader we should meet, get in touch.
The 2026 founding cohort of Bravos company members is forming. If you want to know where your organisation actually sits on the leadership behaviours the room worked on this morning, the readiness scan is one minute: bravos.ae
