IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Ryushun Kusanagi on living in the now:

"Clinging to the past and using it as a reason to negate the present is a mental trap-a distraction from what truly matters, and a source of inner turmoil. Life is full of missteps and failures. What matters is how you respond to them. Don’t dwell on your mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t look back in regret. Don’t give in to pessimism. Instead, focus on the present, understand it correctly, and dedicate yourself to what you can do right now. Of course, if you’ve hurt someone, it’s important to acknowledge it and sincerely apologize. Doing this is part of taking responsibility. Embrace that moment and take the opportunity to start afresh."

Source: The Practice of Not Reacting

John Maxwell on not taking sides:

"If you’re a leader and you allow yourself to get drawn into taking sides and working against other groups of people, you’re limiting your leadership. As leaders, we all need the people on the other side. Our side doesn’t have all the answers. Believing we do is arrogant. I’m not always right, and neither are you. And those on the “other side” are not always wrong. If you don’t listen to them, you’re shrinking your influence and limiting your impact. If you can’t work with people who disagree with you, you will never become the leader you could be. No one will ever convince me that you can choose only half of the people and get as much done as if you work to lead all the people."

Source: High Road Leadership: Bringing People Together in a World That Divides

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

CHANGE initiatives rarely fail because of flawed strategies or poor execution. They fail because of human behavior: what people do when they feel threatened or at risk of losing status, control, or relevance. A senior leader withholds resources from another team. A project team member hoards information about transition status. Each move undermines the initiative's success. When combined with others, they can derail it.

These are the wrenches people throw during high-stakes change. They can be hard to spot and address because they are often covert, uncoordinated, and unpredictable. Without quick and effective responses, dysfunction grows and plans unravel. Left unchecked, the self-interested behaviors become cultural norms, and the downward spiral to failure accelerates.

Why People Throw Wrenches During Change

Change initiatives typically start well. The leader’s vision of a better future is clear and widely supported. The kick-off builds momentum, and work begins. Before long, people piece together their relative position in the post-change organization.

Employees view disruptions through the lens of personal gain or loss. What will this mean for my role, status, influence, or security? As the answers become clearer, emotions flare, which drives actions intended to improve their position.

Four forces explain self-interested behavior:

• Self-preservation: People try to protect the status, certainty, freedom, camaraderie, and confidence they have.
• Power: People seek the capacity to influence outcomes. They do so through formal authority or personal influence. Change can threaten existing power sources or create opportunities for new ones.
• Politics: People maneuver to influence those who define the future ways of working. Alliances, favor trading, and even rumors can modify outcomes.
• Emotions: Anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, and contempt can harm colleagues and jeopardize the initiative. When emotions surface, self-protection outweighs concerns for others and their organization.

All four forces can be in play at any point in an initiative, so leaders need to anticipate them. Understanding what people perceive they will lose helps you predict likely self-interested behaviors and decide how to best address them.

The Wrenches We Throw

The most common self-interested behaviors vary in their intensity and the risk they pose to an organization. They fall into four categories, based on strategic intent and level of disruption: Influencing, Conspiring, Bullying, and Sabotaging.

These behaviors also evolve as the initiative progresses, because each phase of change reveals more about what people stand to gain or lose. During the planning phase, there are few details to analyze. Preparation activities such as testing, training, and day-in-the-life exercises begin to clarify future conditions. The full picture emerges after the launch when people live and feel their new roles. The clearer the personal consequences become, the stronger the emotional response, and the greater the likelihood of more aggressive behavior.

Responding When Wrenches Appear

When a political maneuver or power play catches us off guard, we often become spectators instead of responders. Silence, or a defensive reaction, can strengthen the behavior and increase its damage.

A consistent, stepped process, designed to interpret people’s behavior, helps you neutralize self-interested tactics. The Four-Step Response offers a simple approach to recognizing and responding to political maneuvers and power plays: Observe, Assess, Select, and Deliver.

1. Observe: Notice what the person says and does. If someone says, “I’ll support your region if you support mine when resources are allocated,” they are favor trading.
2. Assess: Identify the emotion that may be driving the behavior. Anxiety and anger call for different responses. Anxiety signals worry about uncertainty, whereas anger signals hostility over a perceived injustice or error.
3. Select: Choose the response best suited to the behavior and the circumstances around it. Consider the person’s role, the emotion they are feeling, and where the behavior surfaced.
4. Deliver: Give your response, then pause for a reaction. The behavior may stop. If not, their response will indicate your next move, whether to hold, engage or escalate.

If, for example, a team member repeatedly withholds information, an effective response might be to name the behavior directly: “The testing team needs the data we agreed to share. Without it, testing will be delayed. What is preventing you from providing it?” Their response may reveal a technical obstacle or a fear about losing control. Both guide how to proceed.

Following these steps helps you spot self-interested behavior early, identify the emotion behind it, and respond in ways that protect your credibility, relationships, and results.

We All Throw Wrenches

It’s easy to view people who withhold information, spread rumours, or blame and attack as villains. The reality is that we all throw wrenches when change threatens us. It's normal, and it’s human. Knowing what you personally stand to gain and lose can help you manage your behavior and respond better to others' actions.

You can’t control the wrenches thrown or the people who throw them. You can control how you respond. Observe the behavior, assess the emotion driving it, select the best option, and deliver it with purpose to protect the initiative’s progress and results.

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IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Brady, Kliman, and Smith on seeing the full story:

"We feel strongly that empathy and humility aren’t distractions from value creation; they’re the drivers of value creation. In fact, they’re essential if we want to lead difference-filled teams that solve problems creatively, build trust across difference, and adapt in real time to new challenges. These aren’t soft skills. They are strategic capabilities for a complex world. Empathy, the emotional engine behind perspective-taking, is where real understanding begins. Without empathy, it’s impossible to truly see another person’s point of view, because you wouldn’t care enough to try. Empathy and humility ground us in the understanding that we don’t possess all the answers and that other people’s experiences matter just as much as our own in terms of making sense of any situation."

Source: All the Difference. Six Leadership Actions to Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value

Jim Schleckser on peanut buttering:

"A lot of the mediocre and hardworking CEOs we have run into over the years are exceptionally good at what we call ‘peanut buttering.’ When it comes to allocating their time to the various tasks and stakeholders in their businesses—their boards, their supply chains, their investors, their communities, etc.—these CEOs do their best to spread their time as evenly as possible across all of them. The concern, of course, is to make sure everyone feels like they’re getting the CEO’s attention. In this effort, the CEO will work very hard, sometimes as much as eighty or more hours a week. The bad news is that this is the surest way possible to dilute the CEO’s impact on any one issue. Unfortunately, this concept of tending to every stakeholder is taught at many major business schools, which only perpetuates the error. This is done, in part, because CEOs aren’t certain what actions will drive the business forward; consequently, they work on all fronts, hoping one will yield results."

Source: Great CEOs Are Lazy

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in October 2026 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.

The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth by John R. Miles

If you’ve ever wondered, If I stopped performing, producing, fixing, achieving, proving, would I still matter? then this book is for you. As John R. Miles explores The Great Erasure happening in our lives―the sense of loneliness and disengagement despite outward success--he also provides a way for you to remember that you mattered before any professional or personal titles or achievements. Miles examines the cultural shift that has replaced human significance with human usefulness, resulting in exhaustion, self-erasure, and quiet despair. Where others have also diagnosed the symptoms, Miles identifies a deeper cause and offers a solution through M.A.T.T.E.R., a research-based framework grounded in six elements―meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy, and reciprocity―that, when used together, can restore sustainable significance, dignity, and spiritual coherence.

Lead with Quiet Confidence: A Practical Guide to Success for Introverts by Jennifer Marcou

As an introvert, you can become an influential, confident, and authentic leader, without pretending to be extroverted, without performing, and without draining your energy. You don’t need to be the loudest voice in the room to be a powerful leader. Introverted professionals often bring deep thinking, strategic insight, and calm influence. Yet, our strengths can be overlooked in systems built around extroverted norms. Becoming a strong leader is not only about capability; it’s about how your capability is perceived. For introverts, this creates a unique challenge. We don’t lack for capability or value, but may feel insignificant because our significance is expressed in ways that often go unappreciated and underestimated in traditionally extroverted environments. In Lead with Quiet Confidence, you’ll discover research-aligned tools for introverted leadership, quiet influence, and authentic confidence-building:

In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington

For the first time in history, millions of workers can do their jobs from anywhere—and the result is the most contentious workplace debate in generations. Employees fight to protect their freedom. CEOs issue return-to-office mandates by gut instinct. Everyone argues, but no one has the data. Until now. Harvard-trained economists Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington are leading researchers on remote and in-person work. They've spent years tracking millions of work hours across industries, analyzing Fortune 500 firms, startups, tech companies, and call centers. Their findings? Remote work is good for crossing tasks off a to-do list, but can erode the quality of our work, stifle creativity, and hurt mental health. When we're together, our brain-to-brain synchrony increases 10x, accelerating creativity, mentorship, and innovation. That’s why Pixar animators, Nobel Prize winners, and Silicon Valley founders have come up with their best ideas face-to-face with one another.

Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World by Adam Grant

When we vibe with other people, it fuels our happiness and success. Yet building meaningful ties is one of the most pressing problems of our time. As face-to-face interaction gives way to digital screens, communication gets outsourced to AI, and the world becomes more polarized, our loneliness crisis shows no signs of slowing. To reveal how we can forge faster, stronger, and longer bonds, Adam Grant offers groundbreaking studies, expert insights, and myth-busting stories. Filled with the eye-opening takeaways that have brought millions of readers to his books, Vibe teaches us that similarity is not necessary for solidarity, chemistry doesn’t always happen quickly, and closeness doesn’t always take time. Vibe will change how you interact with people. No matter how good you are at connecting, you can always get better—and help others get better too.

Reinvention at the Top: The Playbook for CEOs to Lead Under Pressure by Andrea Petrone

Most CEOs reach the top by mastering performance, yet few define who they are as leaders. In Reinvention at the Top, CEO Executive and Performance Coach Andrea Petrone addresses the silent identity gap that emerges at the highest levels―helping leaders stop performing the role and start leading as themselves. Andrea introduces the The Throughline Framework, a practical methodology for clarifying who you are, crafting a message that moves people, and leading with authentic presence. Drawing from over 20 years advising CEOs and Senior Leaders of Fortune 500s, mid-caps, and high-growth companies, this book provides actionable tools for navigating new roles, major transitions, and legacy-defining decisions with clarity and conviction.

Human Leadership: The Courage To Face Ourselves And Each Other by Kristen Hadeed

For more than a decade, Kristen Hadeed defined herself as a servant leader. As the founder and CEO of a company widely recognized for its compassionate culture, she made sure her people came first, always. But after years of pouring everything she had into her business and her leadership, Kristen came face-to-face with a hard truth: Behind closed doors, she felt trapped beneath the weight of carrying it all. She had built a career around putting others first and abandoned herself in the process. The work she once loved was now tangled up in a web of pressure and expectations. From the outside, she appeared to have it all together. But inside, she was falling apart. Human Leadership is Kristen’s raw, personal account of losing herself in service to others and the difficult work of finding her way back. It’s a story of burnout, ambition, resentment, grief, reinvention, profound self-examination, and the courage it takes to share what you discover with the people around you. By learning to face herself, tell the truth, and take ownership of her choices, Kristen became a more courageous, compassionate leader and built a life and business that would take care of her, too.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”

Here is a selection of Posts from September 2026 that you will want to check out:

• The Biscuit Story: A Lesson in Leadership From the Antarctic via @AdmiredLeaders
• Words That Change the World by @KevinPaulScott
• Leading with Inquiry (How to Have a Better Dialogue) by @EdBatista
• Slumps via @LeadershipMain
• When Every Choice Costs You Something by @PhilCooke
• Why Does Originality Feel So Rare in a World Full of Ideas? by @UX_Person Abigail Aghaibie The willingness to sit with a problem long enough for our own idea to emerge.
• 5 Ways The Greatest Leaders Reproduce Themselves by @BrianKDodd
• Why Speaking Up Doesn't Always Make You More Visible by @SusanMazza
• Be a Ford, Then a Sloan by @SahilBloom
• Authenticity Has a Moodboard Now by @shrutisitara We didn’t kill authenticity. We hired a creative director for it. Have we done this in leadership as well?
• Stuff happens. Where you look matters. How your Locus of Control affects your success. by @artpetty
• Why the Best Communicators Repeat Themselves by @PhilCooke
• What’s Happening to Wonder? by @Julie_WG AI can deliver answers in seconds, but what might we lose when we stop sitting with questions long enough to wonder?
• The Great Delayering Is Solving the Wrong Management Problem by @artpetty
• From Structure to Breakthrough: The 5-Step Leadership Chaos Formula by @BrianKDodd
• Always Encouraging, Never Discouraging by @jamesstrock

See more on Twitter.

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Richard Hagberg and Tien Tzuo on strategy:

"How do you know when your strategy is working? When your employees wake up in the morning knowing (a) why they are working for your company, (b) what the corporate strategy is, and (c) how they can contribute to that strategy by achieving specific goals and objectives. That’s the ideal green light situation."

Source: Founders, Keepers: Why Founders Are Built to Fail, and What it Takes to Succeed

Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach on improving the process:

"The problem with best practices is that, by definition, if everyone around you follows the same best practices, they are no longer best. They are average. And what business leader wants to be average? The playbooks of business that have been crafted over decades yield an approach to management that is more concerned with risk mitigation than delighting customers and staying ahead of accelerating change. Many of these are so ingrained in business habits that there is no explanation for why we do things the way we do beyond ‘Well, that’s just how we do things around here.’"

Source: Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter on inertia:

"Our default response in life is not to experience meaning or happiness. Our default response is to experience inertia. We think of inertia as the state of being inert or motionless—one of our purer displays of passivity and disengagement. It's not. Inertia is an active event in which we are persisting in the state we're already in rather than switching to something else."

Source: The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment

Sebastian Wernicke on data objectivity:

"It's easy to understand why one would intuitively view data as a kind of 'objective truth.' After all, we assume that data originates from objective measurements, making the resulting numbers clear and unequivocal. However, capturing our reality in numbers is rarely straightforward. Defining precisely how we arrive at a number isn't mere nitpicking, as these choices can carry significant consequences when we use that number to make a decision. Fundamentally, there is no single 'right' method to translate reality into data. Usually many valid methods exist, but each will turn the facts into a different number. Data compresses a subjective view of the world. Those who look at data see not an objective truth but rather a specific (hopefully at least consistent and documented) interpretation of the world, expressed as numbers."

Source: Data Inspired: Building an Organizational Culture of Inquiry for Lasting Transformation

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Nick Bare on doing the work:

"Sometimes, we think that just doing more of something or working harder on anything will get us to our goal, but just because you're working harder doesn't mean you deserve the outcome. It doesn't mean you've earned it. The work we put in needs to be strategic, intentional, and very thoughtful to have the outcome we want and desire."

Source: Go One More: Find the Clarity to Make Intentional, Life-Changing Choices

Aaron Chapman on cutting corners:

"There's only so many places the opportunivore can go before you completely run out of options altogether. If you could just go back to the beginning, work in the service of others. Ensure their benefit. The time will come that the compound effect of all that energy and work returns to benefit you. Those who choose to take from others or cut corners from the beginnin' eventually find that there is nothin' left for them. Fits right into the overall concept: take a beatin' up front doin'the right thing, bein' accountable, bein'trustworthy, and you'll have an abundance poured upon you. Cuttin' corners, takin' advantage of people, and cheatin'the process might make for some easy returns up front, but over time avenues will dry up; others become wise to your BS, and now you're takin' an enormous beatin' 'cause you can't find a single soul to deal with you."

Source: Redneckonomics: Unconventional Success by Takin' the Beatin' Path

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

WE don’t need more freedom; we need more helpful boundaries. David Epstein, author of Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, says we don’t need to work outside the box as much as we need to be working inside the right box.

We instinctively add to solve a problem when the best course of action is to subtract. Boundaries provide clarity. Ideas are plentiful. Figuring out what not to do is the key. You need constraints. Constraints are so important that engineer and designer Tony Fadell admonishes, “If you don’t have constraints, then make up constraints!” Constraints make room for learning. Constraints make you think. Epstein explains:

As the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has written: “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It’s designed to save you from having to think.” Because the brain is naturally inclined to avoid effortful thinking and to rely instead on familiar patterns, complete freedom tends to lead to unoriginal ideas, simply repeating what is known. Constraints push the brain beyond its default tendencies, forcing it to engage in deeper problem-solving. Total freedom, then, is the enemy of creativity, and constraint its companion.

“In other words,” says Epstein, “when anything is possible, it becomes nearly impossible to do anything new. Complete freedom, paradoxically, leads to conformity.”

In a chapter entitled The Remix of Everything, he explains that Martin Luther King, Jr. borrowed and remixed to create his messages. He “grew up in the folk-preaching tradition—beginning with watching his father—in which borrowing words was not only encouraged but expected, and language was not thought of as proprietary. Excessive originality, in fact, was seen as self-centered, if not downright suspicious. Listeners expected the reinforcement and recharging of lessons with authority and familiarity, not originality.” The lesson here is that “The more novel his ideas, the more familiar the context had to be.” It connects because the audience had heard a version of it before.

Even Edison and Shakespeare “constantly took the approach of looking for existing material that they could modify or perfect, rather than inventing from a blank slate.” The self-imposed constraint breaks down resistance. Lesson: “Familiarity acts as an anchor for radical ideas, providing a point of reference. The more disruptive the idea, the more essential that grounding becomes.”

Focusing on inherent constraints of a system enables better design and useful innovations. Working memory is a bottleneck of human cognition. Connecting new concepts to the old and familiar takes the strain off of the working memory and facilitates problem-solving and critical thinking. It helps to put new information in writing that the learner can refer to instead of trying to hold it in their working memory.

Classes often rightfully emphasize a need to teach critical thinking, but if we want a learner to practice it-whether they encounter the new material in school or at work-we need to make sure they have some background familiarity with the terms and subJect matter. Otherwise they won’t stand a chance; their working memory will be flooded just trying to keep track of new information. This familiarity effect is one reason why rereading a book or rewatching a movie unlocks new layers of depth.

Too few constraints remove the clarity. Vagueness works against you. Projects balloon and nothing gets done. You lose track of the end-goal. If you can work out the boundaries ahead of time, you can move quickly when the time comes. “As the renowned venture capitalist Bill Gurley (Uber, Zillow) told me: ‘We have a saying in venture: ‘More startups die of indigestion than starvation.’”

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IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Jenna Nicholas on hope:

“Hope is more than a lofty ideal; it's a lifesaving force. Ultimately, hope encourages us to think expansively while integrating our vision into our daily actions, both big and small. It also challenges us to remain realistic and grounded. We may never achieve a human utopia on earth, but hope doesn't require us to remake the world in some sparkly image of perfection. Instead, we can stay focused on making the next positive changes, both personally and professionally, that support those around us and our vision of integrated, healthy progress.”

Source: Enlightened Bottom Line: Exploring the Intersection of Spirituality, Business, and Investing

Lloyd Blankfein on a partnership culture:

“It takes more time to treat your partners as owners. It takes time to inform people, entertain objections, and, sometimes, accede to contrary views. It means more iterations and slower decision-making. But the decisions are likely to be better, and the outcomes better accepted, because people were consulted and listened to, even if they didn't get their way in the end.”

Source: Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in September 2026 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.

The Executive Condition: The Hidden Health Crisis of High-Performing Leaders by Denis Cronson

High performers aren't burning out—they're breaking down. The Executive Condition exposes how modern leadership accelerates biological decline and then shows executives how to turn health into their next strategic advantage. Leadership performance is built on biology—and that foundation is failing. Sleep debt becomes personality. Stress hardens into culture. Decision quality narrows even as résumés grow longer. Boards notice it late. Teams feel it early. And the body—quietly, relentlessly—keeps the score. For too long, modern leadership has rewarded the very habits that erode it: relentless pace, chronic sleep loss, performance martyrdom, and identity fused to output. The result is a hidden crisis at the top of organizations: leaders who still look successful while their cognition, metabolism, emotional range, and judgment quietly decline. This is not a character flaw. It is an operating-system failu

Leadership Intelligence: Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges by Caroline Webb

In times of great change, great leadership is crucial—and our current times are no exception. Today, along with the demands that leaders have always faced—balancing short-term progress with long-term planning; delivering strong results without burning people out—we're also in an era of major technological disruption. As that change accelerates, the instinct to lean hard into AI can feel more urgent than anything else. But the best leaders know better. As AI capabilities become more universal, the leaders who stand out won't be those who only use technology well—it will be those who can also draw out and develop the best of the human intelligence on their teams, by maximizing distinctly human strengths like critical thinking and interpersonal insight. In Leadership Intelligence, economist and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb shows readers how to rise to this challenge.

The Adaptability Quotient: Rewiring Your Mind for Success in the Next Human Era by Alec Litowitz

Groundbreaking investor and global enterprise builder Alec Litowitz shows how to move from "making the right decision" to "making decisions right" in The Adaptability Quotient, a guide to thinking and acting under uncertainty. Over decades of success across volatile markets, creating cultures and businesses that innovate at scale and endure, Litowitz arrived at a crucial insight. What separates progress from paralysis is not foresight, but adaptability. In an era of uncertainty, decision-making and problem-solving require developing a high adaptability quotient or AQ―the ability to think clearly, act decisively, and pivot when the path ahead isn't clear. And unlike intellect or emotional intelligence, AQ is not fixed. It can be learned.

The Catalyst CEO: Why CEOs Can't Lead Transformation Alone—And What the Best Do Instead by Constantine G. Alexandrakis

In The Catalyst CEO, veteran leadership advisor Constantine G. Alexandrakis delivers an insider's guide to leading systemic change across complex organizations. Drawing on decades of experience advising world-leading companies, he challenges the cult of the hero CEO and offers a powerful new paradigm on what it truly takes to make business transformation happen―and stick. Through real-world stories of CEOs globally who have successfully transformed their organizations, Alexandrakis reveals why even brilliant visions and strategies fail if they're not owned, led, and executed by the right teams. You'll learn how to turn your board, executive team, and leaders into force multipliers―creating the conditions required for transformation to scale and endure.

What Could Possibly Go Right?: The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture by Danny Meyer

Restaurateur, entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling author Danny Meyer reveals the secrets of his widely admired leadership philosophy and the tools he uses to build an energized, cohesive, and motivated culture. In 2006, Danny Meyer owned eleven restaurants, was nurturing a single parkside burger kiosk called Shake Shack, and had just written a bestselling book, Setting the Table, about his company's unique culture of Enlightened Hospitality. On the first page of that book, Danny proudly declared that in twenty-five years he had never closed a restaurant. But just a few years later, he shuttered his beloved Tabla, a decision that filled him with shame—but sparked a reckoning within him about what it means to be a leader. Danny realized that his fear of failure wasn't just misguided: it was also an impediment to his innate entrepreneurial spirit. In What Could Possibly Go Right?, he takes the reader along on his journey to learn how he's delivered a winning culture of excellence at scale. Businesses and organizations have long understood how to scale systems of production. But it's a much trickier challenge to scale uplifting human relationships, particularly in a fluid, growing organization—one that has now spawned 700 businesses spread across twenty-four countries.

Friction: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders by Ross Blankenship and Maggie Sass

Emotions are messy. Life is full of friction. Here's what to do about it. You've felt it — the meeting that goes sideways after one wrong word, the feedback that lands wrong no matter how carefully you planned it, the relationship that keeps getting stuck in the same loop. You've felt it inside yourself too: the moment you react before you mean to, the pressure that makes everything harder than it should be, the Sunday evening dread that has nothing to do with the actual work. That tension has a name. It's friction — and most of us have never been taught what to do with it. In Friction, Sass and Blankenship make the case that friction isn't random, it isn't weakness, and it isn't just "bad communication." It's a predictable force that shows up in three distinct places — inside you, between people, and in the systems and structures around you — and it's quietly shaping everything from your own performance to your team's culture.

Here is a selection of Posts from August 2026 that you will want to check out:

• What Launches an Organization or Initiative Isn’t What Sustains It from @AdmiredLeaders
• No Excuses: Lesson #1 from a Lifetime of Leadership by @TomBrady When you’re explaining, you’re losing
• Write Down Your Purpose Statement and Read It Each Day by @JonGordon11
• Your Culture Is Built by What You Celebrate by @daveferguson
• Why Every Leader Needs a Point of View by @PhilCooke
• The 6 Leadership Lessons You Need When Everything Is on the Line by @BrianKDodd
• 4 Secret Habits of the World’s Best Performers by @BrianKDodd
• Deep Work: How to Actually Focus When Your Brain Has Been Trained to Scroll by Michela Allocca @breakyourbudget
• Ordinary Abundance Our lives today are a gallery of past generations’ heroic efforts to do the same.
• 6 Ways Great Leaders Find Value Where Everyone Else Sees None by @BrianKDodd
• Who Gets to Decide? Why the Future of Leadership Is Becoming More Decentralized by @DanielBurrus
• The Decisions You Delay Will Eventually Make Themselves by @PhilCooke
• The Danger of Outsourcing Your Thinking to AI by John Spence @AwesomelySimple
• Nothing Past 1967 by @donhornsby When a founder is gone, there’s a real temptation to become a tribute act.
• How Does a Leader Become a Leader? by @SusanMazza
• The 4 Stages of Leadership Drift by @BrianKDodd on Leadership
• 10 Ways to Strengthen Your Self-Confidence by @FSonnenberg
• Betrayal by @jamesstorck
• Say Less: When More Words Mean Less Impact by @Julie_WG
• You Spent a Fortune on Talent and Strategy - Culture Neglect Is Wasting It by Sean Glaze
@leadyourteam
• The Difference Between a New Idea and a Useful One by Ai Yat Goh

See more on Twitter.

WORRIED about AI? You’re not alone. About three-quarters of adults have concerns about where AI is taking us. And no wonder. Doomsayers predict that AI could destroy humanity. Evangelists promise that it will usher in a golden age. The truth is that nobody knows exactly what’s coming. But you can prepare yourself to succeed.

Consider a thought experiment. Two explorers are trekking through a hostile jungle. One is “jungle literate,” knowledgeable and experienced. The other is a novice. The experienced explorer studies the terrain, recognizes danger, and chooses a sensible route. The novice blunders ahead without understanding the risks. It’s easy to predict who is more likely to make it through safely.

We can expect a similar divide in the workplace. AI-literate professionals will be better positioned to navigate an uncertain future. Those with limited understanding risk falling behind. It’s a jungle out there, and strategic AI literacy can help you navigate it.

I’ve watched a similar transition before. When personal computers surged into business, much of the early attention went to learning word processors, spreadsheets, and other programs. Those skills mattered, but computer literacy became broader: understanding what computers could do, recognizing where they could add value, and knowing enough to work effectively with technical specialists.

AI literacy is developing in much the same way. Knowing how to prompt ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude is useful. But strategic AI literacy is broader.

I chose the word strategic deliberately because the goal is more than AI proficiency. It is to develop the understanding to recognize where it can create value, what risks to watch for, and how to adapt rapidly as AI and the workplace change.

I view strategic AI literacy as four dimensions: Know, Use, Grow, and Engage.

1. Know: Build a Useful Mental Model

Imagine you’re driving down the street and the light turns red. You put your foot on the brake because you know red means stop. That bit of conceptual knowledge keeps you safe.

AI literacy is also based on conceptual knowledge. You do not need to understand the technical details, but you do need a useful mental model of what AI is doing. You should understand, for example, that language models are trained on enormous amounts of data and generate responses by identifying patterns. They can produce remarkably useful answers but are not an omniscient source of truth. Once you see AI as a powerful pattern matcher, you ask better questions and judge the answers more critically.

2. Use: Apply AI to Real Work

You learn AI by using it.

Start with work you already do. Try AI for research, planning, writing, analysis, meeting preparation, or exploring a decision. See where it saves time, where it improves quality, and where it gets in the way.

The important part is to experiment. Don’t simply accept the first response. Try another approach. Ask for alternatives. Question the answer. Compare results. That is how you begin to develop a practical sense of what AI does well.

A textbook understanding of AI is not enough. You need hands-on experience.

3. Grow: Use AI to Strengthen Your Own Capabilities

Imagine learning to play tennis. As you get better at the game, you also develop strength, coordination, and fitness that transfer to other parts of your life.

Similar growth is possible with AI. You can use it to solve an immediate problem while also strengthening your thinking and communication skills.

Ask AI to challenge an argument, surface assumptions, explain something you don’t understand, role-play a skeptical customer, or rehearse an important presentation. Ask it what you may be overlooking.

Used to engage your brain, AI can help you become more capable. Used simply to replace your thinking, it can lead you in the opposite direction. The win is to come away from the interaction, knowing more or performing better than before.

4. Engage: Look Beyond Your Own Task

AI doesn’t affect only individual productivity. It changes workflows, roles, business processes, and relationships.

So look beyond “Can AI do this?” Ask what happens if your team uses it this way. Who is affected? What new risks appear? What happens to privacy, accountability, trust, or the way decisions get made?

You don’t need to become an expert in AI governance. You do need enough context to recognize that a useful tool can have ripple effects. That broader perspective is part of what makes AI literacy strategic.

AI Literacy in Action

Imagine two people who each decide to create a side hustle selling clever, topical T-shirts online.

The passive AI user asks for ten funny slogans, chooses a few, uses AI to create designs, puts them on a website, and promotes them on social media. Will they succeed? Maybe, if they’re lucky. Will their business thinking improve? Probably not much.

The AI-literate user uses AI to identify successful competitors, analyze customer reviews, explore market niches, challenge assumptions in the business plan, and role-plays a skeptical customer reacting to marketing drafts. This user has a better chance of success.

Both use AI. But only one uses it to improve strategy and develop skills that can transfer to the next project.

Where Do You Start?

There is no single curriculum for becoming AI literate. People have different jobs, different levels of experience, and different needs.

The good news is that you can start with the AI tool already in front of you.

That is largely how I began. When I first encountered ChatGPT, I was fascinated by what it could do. So I started asking AI questions. How does this work? What can it do? Where does it fail? One question led to another, and over time I developed a much richer understanding of both the technology and how I could use it.

You can do the same. Ask AI to explain how large language models work, what training means, why they sometimes make mistakes, or what an agent does. Ask follow-up questions. Request examples. If the explanation is too technical, ask for a simpler one. If you think you understand something, ask AI to quiz you or challenge your explanation.

Use judgment as you learn. When an answer seems surprising, internally inconsistent, very specific, or important to a consequential decision, look more closely. Sometimes that means checking the original source. Sometimes it means comparing the answer with another AI model. And sometimes it simply means stopping and asking, “Does this make sense?”

You don’t need to know exactly what to ask. Let AI lead the conversation.

Try This Prompt

“I want to become more AI literate in ways that are useful for my work. Ask me up to six brief, non-overlapping questions, one at a time. Adapt them to my answers and focus on one concrete work task, my current knowledge and use of AI, what I want to improve, any important constraints or risks, and how I would judge success.

Then identify my main strengths and gaps and recommend no more than three practical next steps. Make the advice specific to my work, clearly state the first action I should take, and keep the discussion appropriate to my experience.”

Strategic AI literacy isn’t something you finish. You develop it by learning, using, questioning, evaluating, and adapting. And you can start today. It’s easier than you think.

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IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

Dave Rossi on the growth journey:

“In athletics, we’re used to having coaches. We expect a trained eye to point out our mistakes, give us adjustments, and help us fine-tune our game. Most people don’t think of applying that same level of observation and correction to themselves. What if you were both the athlete and the coach? What if your inner growth demanded the same film review, the same humility to be corrected, and the same willingness to adjust?”

Source: Alphas Die Early: For the Man on a Mission — And the Women Who Love Him

Owen Fitzpatrick on reframing to change the view:

“Reframing is a skill that, as leaders, we absolutely must have. It involves changing the language used to describe a situation or event. It helps to get others to look at things from different perspectives, influences how important something is perceived to be, and dictates what matters most in a situation. Change perspective and ask, ‘Whose point of view are we looking at this from? What’s another way of looking at this? How big will this be a year from now? What’s most important here?’”

Source: Inner Propaganda: Leading Hearts and Minds Through Turbulent Times

Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index.

EXCELLENCE is a mindset. The right mindset is what differentiates top performers from others. A mindset is simply the way you approach the circumstances you are faced with. It is a chosen approach to life that either propels you forward or leaves you drifting. Your mindset is a choice. Choose wisely.

In Learned Excellence, Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle say that “learning excellence starts with developing a deeper understanding of ourselves: how we act, why we act that way, and what drives us.” In other words, our identity. Too often we worry too much about what people think of us, and it affects our performance. Our focus should be on our identity—what we value—and our reputation will take care of itself. Behave from our values, not our reputation.

Eric defines his personal identity with ten words: wonder, stay hungry, stay humble, stay connected, loyalty, listen, laugh. He adds, “I have used it to guide every important decision of my life, and I counsel my clients to do the same.”

Our identity defines our mindset. But how do you practice the mindset you’ve chosen?

My answer: the controllables. Among all the top performers I have worked with or interviewed, the ones at the top will talk about controlling what they can control and not worrying about the rest. This is a skill that is difficult to master, but in my experience, it is through the controllables that one can best evolve into and practice a mindset.

What can you control?

There is attitude: the way you think about a thing or person. There is effort: how hard you work. And there is behavior: the actions you take. That’s it, that’s all you can control: your attitude, your effort, and your behavior. The rest, ignore. To live your mindset, you need to activate it through all three controllables simultaneously; two or one out of three won’t cut it.

Get good at controlling the controllables and ignoring the rest. Easier said than done at times.

Eric’s advice is to stay in the circle—what you can control—attitude, effort, and behavior. Everything else—what you can’t control—is outside the circle.

Attitude:

It is easy to focus on the negative. “The best way to practice the first controllable—attitude—is to manage your self-talk. As you go through your day and encounter various challenges (the conversation that doesn’t go your way, the failed opportunity for that glib one-liner, the little mistakes of life), observe what you tell yourself about yourself. Filter out your chatter about others (That jerk just cut in line!) and notice your chatter about yourself (How could I let him do that? That’s just like me, being too nice.) When you talk to yourself, are you a critic or a coach?”

Flip that negative self-talk to positive and affirming statements about your circumstance. Observe like a friend would and speak in second person. For example, not “I am…” but “You are…”to distance yourself and create the space for an objective look.

Effort:

You have to put in the work to succeed.

Effort is perhaps both the easiest and hardest aspect of mindset to practice. Easy because you know what needs to be done: more practicing, more studying, more exercising, more time. Hard because: more work! For some people (and many high performers), hard work is innate. They keep at it naturally; they don’t have to make themselves do it. But most of us are what I like to call ‘human’: we have a limit. When we reach that fork in our day when we could spend an hour practicing that thing we care about or rot our brains watching viral videos or reality shows, too often we opt for the videos. We’ll practice tomorrow. We suffer from (or benefit from, depending on whether you are sitting comfortably on your couch or not) an intention-behavior gap. We intend to do something, but we don’t do it.

Recognize when the intention-behavior gap—the knowing-doing gap—surfaces and make the choice to bridge it.

Behavior:

Behavior is our mindset manifested in our actions. Behavior reflects what we really think about ourselves and the world around us.

Create habits that embody your chosen mindset. Think about the mindset, observe people who exhibit it, and practice the things they do that help them live it. How you express yourself, both internally and to others, is a powerful way to practice mindset. Notice and avoid using language that does not embody your chosen mindset.

Life will not go as planned, and when it doesn’t, how you react to it will define you. Excellence is about how you respond to life. No one is born excellent; it is something you learn. And constructive feedback from people who have our best interests in mind is critical to that learning process.

American historian, writer, and philosopher Will Durant wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Make it yours. Learning excellence starts now.

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