IN today’s landscape, complete with change, disruption, ambiguity and uncertainty, it’s more important than ever that leaders are effective, not just efficient.

Talent management must shift from being reactive to being strategic, intentional and aligned to outcomes. How do we move from “putting out fires” and reading smoke signals to building the “house”, or environment, to better account for potential business impacts? The answer is simple. Business strategies must also become talent strategies.

Too often, organizations develop business goals and outcomes first, then call talent leaders in later to operationalize them. The deeper opportunity includes inviting talent leaders into the room during the design phase. This enables organizations to become proactive versus reactive.

Across industries, leaders are balancing higher expectations with fewer resources. Employees are navigating uncertainty, financial stress and constant change. The challenge is not simply improving productivity. The challenge is designing workplaces where people feel seen, valued and connected to both their purpose and the organization’s goals.

In my book, Joyful Workplaces, I introduce what I call the Joyful Workplace Design, a practical approach for building workplaces where people feel seen, valued, connected to their purpose and aligned to organizational goals. A joyful workplace is “the natural outcome of an effective, high-performing environment.”

Some leaders may believe that hosting social activities, happy hours, get-togethers and fun offsites build community, show people they are valued and create connection. And, at the surface level, this is true. These moments can create shared experiences and bring people together.

I also encourage leaders to dig deeper and examine the everyday ways they signal to teammates that they are valued and cared for. This may look like sending a short message saying, “I appreciated your work on the presentation today,” or creating opportunities for team members to take on projects and responsibilities that leverage their strengths and interests.

It’s important to recognize that every teammate is unique. Ask questions, engage in conversation and be curious. Explicitly ask, “What would make you feel seen, valued and connected?” Based on their response, tailor your leadership to support their needs.

Research grounded in Self-Determination Theory reminds us that teammates need autonomy, trust and purposeful work. When leaders delegate a task, they should trust that their teammate is able to carry it out.

Mutually agreed upon touchpoints for coaching, support and review may still be needed. But leaders must also create space for teammates to take ownership, contribute their ideas and do their best work. Letting go of excessive control provides teammates with the opportunity to grow, shine and feel that their work matters.

Leaders should consider how they balance autonomy and structure. At one end of the spectrum are leaders who may provide a high degree of structure and low degree of autonomy. Examples of this might include frequent check-ins, repeated review cycles and excessive oversight. This may communicate a lack of trust in one’s team members.

At the opposite end, some leaders may avoid creating structure because they want team members to be creative and feel trusted. The result of this approach may be lack of clarity around expectations, priorities and accountability.

If you want your team members to feel seen, valued and connected, focus on being an effective leader.

Leaders can create this clarity through regular one-on-one meetings, documenting action items and owners after meetings, reinforcing priorities and creating opportunities for employees to ask questions and provide feedback.

When you consider your favorite bosses and leaders over the years, what do most of them have in common? For me, it’s that they did not know me in a transactional or task-based way. There was not a sense of distance or surface-level knowing. The leaders who impacted me most saw me for me. They intimately knew my strengths, interests and potential. Those were the leaders who enabled me to feel seen, valued and connected.

Practically speaking, this means making one-on-one meetings about more than project updates and deliverables. Invite conversations that talk about more than project work or tasks. Over time, you’ll find that relationship building happens beyond the small talk before a meeting or when you see pass someone in the hallway. Another practical step you can take is, when possible, align team members with projects, stretch opportunities and responsibilities that interest them and leverage their unique strengths.

Some of the leaders who impacted me most shared writing, speaking and collaboration opportunities because they knew I was interested in them. Others would send me an article, newsletter or idea with a simple note saying, “Thought of you.” Those leaders made me feel seen. So often leaders may feel like they need to do something big, but many small actions over time build a sense of belonging and connection.

Avoid over-indexing on team-building exercises, socials and offsites to create connection. Yes. Occasionally they may be welcomed by the team and provide light-hearted interaction. But, over the years, I’ve heard countless stories of team members wishing they were back at their office doing work instead of doing forced team building. While often well intentioned, these efforts can feel surface level when they are not supported by deeper relationship building.

How do you sustain a sense of belonging? Build and deepen trust with your teammates over time. Engage in regular conversations including meaningful check-ins and relationship building. Show them that you value their strengths, perspectives and contributions. Create space for others to share ideas and feel heard. During a meeting, ask, “What do you think about this?” “How could we improve in this area?” “Do you have any feedback?” Learn what motivates each member of your team and where they hope to grow.

Joyful workplaces are not built through slogans, perks or one-time initiatives. They are shaped through intentional leadership, thoughtful workplace design and everyday interactions that reinforce trust, clarity, accountability and belonging. In many ways, the little things become the big things.

* * *

RESEARCH shows that nearly 95% of employees do not fully understand their organization’s strategy, and even more concerning, many leaders overestimate how clearly they are communicating it. This disconnect is not just an operational issue—it is a leadership risk, often driven by blind spots at the executive level.

High-performing leaders are often celebrated for their decisiveness, resilience, and ability to deliver results under pressure. They rise quickly, earn trust, and are entrusted with increasingly complex responsibilities. Yet the very traits that fuel their success can also obscure a critical vulnerability: blind spots.

Executive blind spots are not simply weaknesses or skill gaps. They are the unseen patterns, biases, and behaviors that leaders cannot readily identify in themselves, but that others experience regularly. Left unaddressed, these blind spots quietly erode trust, distort decision-making, and create misalignment across teams and organizations.

In many cases, organizations do not fail because of a lack of intelligence or capability at the top. They fail because leaders are unaware of how their behaviors are impacting the people responsible for executing their strategy.

The Paradox of High Performance

The higher leaders rise, the less likely they are to receive unfiltered feedback. Success creates distance. Titles create insulation. And over time, leaders can become surrounded by individuals who are reluctant to challenge their thinking or question their decisions.

This dynamic creates a dangerous paradox: the more successful a leader becomes, the less visibility they often have into their own limitations.

High-performing executives are particularly susceptible to this because they have a proven track record. Their confidence is justified. Their instincts are often correct. But when confidence evolves into certainty, and certainty evolves into rigidity, blind spots begin to form.

These blind spots are rarely dramatic. They show up subtly: in how leaders communicate, how they respond under pressure, how they interpret dissent, and how they prioritize outcomes over people. Over time, these patterns compound.

The Cost of Unseen Behavior

Blind spots are costly because they operate below the surface. Leaders may believe they are communicating clearly, while their teams experience confusion. They may believe they are empowering others, while their teams feel micromanaged. They may believe they are decisive, while others perceive them as dismissive.

The gap between intent and impact is where organizational risk lives.

When this gap widens, several consequences emerge:

• Erosion of trust: Teams begin to question whether leaders are aware of their impact or willing to adjust.
• Reduced engagement: Employees disengage when they feel misunderstood or undervalued.
• Distorted decision-making: Leaders operate on incomplete or filtered information.
• Increased turnover: High performers leave environments where they do not feel heard or developed.

These outcomes are rarely attributed to blind spots directly. Instead, they are labeled as culture issues, communication breakdowns, or performance challenges. But at their core, they are leadership awareness issues.

Why Awareness Is Difficult to Achieve

Self-awareness is often positioned as a personal development goal, but at the executive level, it is a strategic requirement.

The challenge is that awareness does not originate internally. Leaders cannot see what they cannot see. Blind spots, by definition, exist outside of conscious recognition.

Executives who rely solely on self-reflection to assess their effectiveness will miss critical insights. Without external input, leaders often reinforce their existing beliefs rather than challenge them.

Additionally, organizational dynamics can discourage honest feedback. Employees may fear repercussions, damaging relationships, or being perceived as difficult. Even well-intentioned feedback systems can fail if leaders are not prepared to receive and act on input constructively.

As a result, many leaders operate with incomplete data about their own leadership.

Emotional Intelligence as a Strategic Capability

Addressing blind spots requires more than feedback—it requires emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence enables leaders to recognize how their emotions influence their behavior, how their behavior impacts others, and how to adjust in real time. It is the foundation for effective communication, sound decision-making, and strong relationships.

Leaders with high emotional intelligence do not assume they are right. They remain curious. They ask questions. They listen for understanding rather than validation. They create space for dissent and view feedback as a resource rather than a threat.

This does not diminish authority. It strengthens it.

In high-pressure environments, emotionally intelligent leaders are more likely to remain composed, process information accurately, and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. This stability builds confidence across the organization.

Building Accountability into Leadership

Awareness without accountability does not produce change. Leaders must move beyond identifying blind spots to actively addressing them.

This requires intentional systems.

Effective leaders build accountability relationships: trusted peers, mentors, or advisors who are empowered to provide candid feedback. These relationships must be structured, consistent, and grounded in mutual respect. Leaders should also establish mechanisms within their organizations that encourage upward feedback. This includes creating psychological safety, modeling openness to feedback, and demonstrating that input leads to action.

When leaders respond defensively or dismissively, feedback stops. When they respond with curiosity and follow-through, feedback becomes a continuous source of insight.

Aligning Behavior with Values

At the core of addressing blind spots is alignment.

Leaders often articulate strong values—integrity, respect, accountability—but their behaviors under pressure may not consistently reflect those values. This misalignment creates confusion and undermines credibility. High-performing leaders must regularly assess whether their actions align with their stated principles. This requires discipline, reflection, and a willingness to make adjustments.

Consistency is critical. Teams do not evaluate leaders based on isolated moments. They evaluate them based on patterns. When leaders consistently align their behavior with their values, they establish credibility. When they do not, trust erodes quickly.

Creating a Culture That Reduces Blind Spots

Executive blind spots are not only an individual issue, but they are also an organizational one.

Leaders set the tone for how feedback is given, received, and acted upon. When leaders prioritize awareness and accountability, they create cultures where continuous improvement is expected.

Organizations that effectively address blind spots share several characteristics:

• Open communication: Dialogue is encouraged across levels without fear of retaliation.
• Clear expectations: Leaders communicate goals and standards consistently.
• Development focus: Feedback is used to develop, not punish.
• Leadership modeling: Executives demonstrate the behaviors they expect from others.

These environments do not eliminate blind spots entirely, but they reduce their impact by bringing them into the open.

Moving From Awareness to Impact

The most effective leaders are not those who are without flaws. They are those who are aware of them and committed to continuous improvement. Executive blind spots will always exist. The goal is not perfection—it is visibility and responsiveness.

Leaders who actively seek feedback, develop emotional intelligence, and align their behavior with their values are better equipped to navigate complexity, build trust, and sustain performance. In contrast, leaders who ignore or minimize their blind spots risk undermining the very success they have worked to achieve.

High performance is not just about what leaders accomplish. It is about how they lead others to accomplish it. The leaders who sustain impact are not the ones who see everything clearly—they are the ones who are willing to confront what they cannot see.

* * *

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

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on success:

“‘People with very high expectations have very low resilience. Unfortunately, resilience matters in success,’ he later said. ‘Greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character.’ And character, in his view, can only be the result of overcoming setbacks and adversity. To Jensen, the struggle to persevere in the face of bad, and often over-whelming, odds is simply what work is. It is why, whenever someone asks him for advice on how to achieve success, his answer has been consistent over the years: ‘I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.’”

Source: The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant by Tae Kim

Brad Stulberg on rugged flexibility:

“The goal is not to be stable and therefore never change. Nor is the goal to sacrifice all sense of stability, passively surrendering yourself to the whims of life. Rather, the goal is to marry these qualities to cultivate what I call rugged flexibility. To be rugged is to be tough, determined, and durable. To be flexible is to consciously respond to altered circumstances or conditions, to adapt and bend easily without breaking. Put those together and the result is a gritty endurance, an anti-fragility that not only withstands change, but thrives in its midst.”

Source: Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You

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:

Sebastian Wernicke on automating insight:

“Machine learning is not equally suitable for all tasks. It performs best when applied to frequent, repetitive decisions or tasks of manageable complexity. At the same time, the limits of machine learning when it comes to tacit understanding ensure that humans will be anything but redundant for the foreseeable future. For any situation requiring careful, nuanced consideration, developing and deploying a useful algorithm often costs more time and effort than it saves. And even when an algorithm eventually performs an operational activity, humans must still plan and manage it, requiring organizations to cultivate the necessary skills to guide the models and set appropriate guardrails.”

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

Mike Grossman on scope creep:

“No matter how excited and optimistic you are about the business, putting all your eggs in one basket is unsettling. As a result, it’s very tempting to look for ways to diversify. The result is scope creep. It’s also easy to be fooled into thinking that opportunities adjacent to your primary area of focus are natural extensions of your strategy. But that usually isn’t the case. It may seem counterintuitive, but less really is more. If you want to build a great business, it’s crucial to resist the temptation to spread yourself and the company too thin. Excellence demands focus.”

Source: Failure Is An Option: Reflections of a Silicon Valley CEO

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

IT'S a well-worn saying that the only constant in life is change, and that’s doubly true of the business world. If you’re successful, you need to constantly check your rearview mirror because there are always competitors right behind you.

Earlier in my career, I became CEO of a company, Equity Marketing (which became EMAK Worldwide). My thinking at the time was: “Okay, you’re the boss, so you need to come up with all the important strategic and visionary ideas because that’s what your job is and that’s what you’re expected to do.” But I ultimately concluded that’s actually not the job. The job as CEO is to make sure the company has a unique, compelling, and defensible advantage — whether you develop that strategy by yourself, or you curate it from your team.

Defensible in this context means that a competitor can’t easily remove you from your perch in the marketplace because you have a unique process, or unique technology, or unique talent with a unique culture, or unique client relationships. Whatever it is, you own something that makes it hard for a competitor to dislodge you from your position.

The ultimate hallmark of a defensible strategy is that it’s adaptable to the inevitability of change. So, if nepotism is your strategy and you got into Yale or Harvard despite your mediocre high school GPA because you’re a legacy, that’s not going to be sustainable when you get out into the world and your circumstances change. When you graduate from a college you never should have gotten into, all of a sudden you’ll find yourself competing with smarter and more talented people for jobs that they deserve more than you do — and you’ll be out of luck.

Defensible advantages are more fleeting these days than they used to be because technology levels the playing field. And the pace of disruption is also much faster than it used to be. Take advertising and marketing, for example: because of AI and other factors, our industry is undergoing a lot of change and consolidation. Why does the world need our advertising and marketing company (Omelet LLC)? For us, that’s the ultimate question. It’s a hard question to answer, but our survival ultimately depends on our ability to answer it.

The best our service business can do to stay ahead of the curve is to truly understand our defensible advantages and capitalize on them. Here are some keys to making sure our company has a defensible strategy:

1. Hire uniquely strong people. I’m a reasonably smart guy, but my biggest strength is recruiting good people, letting them have a real say, and then creating an environment to let the magic happen. Our competitive advantage when we hire good people is doing incredible work every time and providing impeccable client service.

2. Tap the team’s strategic ideas. The best thing about devising a defensible strategy for your business is that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. If the people on your management team come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives and different kinds of expertise, you can curate the best of everyone’s ideas and then formulate your strategy from their input — getting their ideas and then blending them with your own. It’s useful to have as many different perspectives as possible, because there are many things you might not know. In this way, not only are you developing a more robust strategy, but you’ll find it’s far easier to execute the plan when your people have had a say in developing it.

3. Define the business by the solutions we provide. Because disruption is inevitable, don’t define your business by your product or process. A defensible strategy is never defined by a simple product or service — it has to be something that evolves with the marketplace. And if there’s a better way to provide that solution, you should be indifferent to how you provide it. Some say that horse-and-buggy drivers should have been the inventors of the automobile because they were in the transportation business. I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but the underlying point is valid: you aren’t in the horse-and-buggy business; you’re in the business of getting from point A to point B. When automobiles began to emerge on the scene, the buggy manufacturers should have actively explored building cars.

4. Deliver on a strong work ethic. As I previously noted, I believe I’m a reasonably smart guy, but I’m definitely not smarter than everyone else around me. I don’t have to be smarter than everyone else, however, because there’s a more reliable way to make up for smarts — and that’s honest, hard work. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that natural gifts like intelligence and athleticism don’t matter, or that they don’t provide a strong advantage. But an advantage can be squandered if you don’t have the grit to do the hard work of maximizing it.

Companies can have a variety of defensible advantages — a premium brand, a low-cost operating model, access to low-cost capital, or a network effect like social media titan Meta. The key to winning in the long run is to curate a good strategy, execute it flawlessly, bend with the times, and stay true to your brand identity.

* * *

WHEN I speak to a room of leaders, I like to start with a quick show of hands.

How many would say they’re a bad leader? No hands. Good. How many think they’re exceptional, one of the best to ever do it? A few brave souls, usually with a laugh. And how many would put themselves somewhere in the middle, pretty good to very good?

That’s where most hands go up. And honestly, that’s where mine goes up too.

When Good Stops Being Enough

Here’s the catch. That “pretty good” is exactly where the trouble usually starts right now.

For most of our careers, good was plenty. Show up prepared, communicate clearly enough, hit your numbers, and treat people fairly. Success. In a stable world that adds up to a solid leader and a steady team. But we’re not leading in a stable world anymore. Economic whiplash, AI anxiety, restructuring, burnout, or the news alert that makes a 23-year-old wonder if their job will exist in two years. Uncertainty is the operating environment now.

And uncertainty changes the math. My team and The Harris Poll surveyed more than 2,000 employees about their leaders, and the finding that stuck with me is now on a sticky note on my desk: uncertainty multiplied by good leadership doesn’t produce good outcomes. It produces a slow rise in anxiety, a creeping complacency and a quiet drift. Not a collapse. Nobody calls a meeting about it. It’s the erosion you don’t notice until trust has already thinned.

What I Learned in a Parking Lot

I learned this the hard way, and not in a boardroom.

Late last year I taught my daughter Avi to drive. Picture an empty parking lot. No traffic, no danger, just the two of us and a lot of nerves. She started out confidently. I was the problem. Every time she took a turn a little fast, I grabbed the door handle. Every sharp breath I took, she paused. My white knuckles weren’t keeping her safe; they were teaching her to freeze. She went from learning to surviving, in an empty lot, with the one person who most wanted her to succeed sitting right beside her.

It hit me halfway through that lesson: I do this to my team. Not on purpose. I care about them, same as I care about Avi. But when I lead from my own anxiety, it travels. People feel it, they tighten up, and the very capability I need from them shrinks.

That’s what good leaders tend to miss.

The Mirror

So, here’s the mirror I’d hold up. Three questions, and they’re harder than they look.

1. Do the people you lead feel that what matters to them is valued, not just what they produce? In our research, 35% of employees under good leaders feel their work is appreciated. Only 16% feel that what’s important to them, as a person, is valued. Those are two different things. One says, “nice job on the task.” The other says, “I know what you’re working toward, and I see how this connects to it.” Good leaders are reliably strong at the first; most never get to the second. Good leaders praise the work; exceptional leaders ask what someone cares about beyond it, then connect the work back to that answer.
2. Do they feel heard? Only 19% of employees under good leaders say yes. Sit with that. Four out of five people in your meetings don’t feel heard by you. Usually, it has nothing to do with the leader being callous. A lot of us were taught early that professional means impersonal. Don’t let them see you sweat. So, we armor up. And the thing about armor is that it works both ways. It keeps people from reading us, and it keeps us from taking in what they’re trying to say. Good leaders ask, “how’s it going” and accept “fine.” Exceptional leaders ask, “what do you need from me?” and stay quiet long enough to hear the real answer.
3. Do they feel they’re growing? At 14%, this is the lowest score of all. Most people under good leaders have stopped believing there’s a future worth investing in where they are. They aren’t complaining. Rather, they’re quietly saving their best energy for somewhere that sees their potential. Where a good leader explains what’s changing, an exceptional one shows each person how the change includes them and what their future looks like in it.

None of those gaps show up in a quarterly engagement score until it’s too late. That’s what makes these gaps so easy to miss.

The Leaders No One Worries About

The Heart Work Can Be Taught

The good news is that the distance between good and exceptional isn’t a talent gap but a training gap. These skills are learnable. Today, they’re the heart work of leadership, and not one of them requires charisma or a preference for extraversion. Ingraining new habits is about starting small. In this case, start with gratitude, which our research found is the single biggest differentiator between good and exceptional leaders. Retire “great job, team.” Try “I noticed what you did in that meeting, and it mattered.” Name the behavior, name the impact, and make it personal. Then go further. Have one conversation this week that isn’t about tasks. Ask someone where they want to grow, and how what you’re building together connects to that. Then actually listen to the answer.

I’ve come to believe the leader makes the weather. In a parking lot or a team meeting, the same rule holds. Create a climate of tension and watch people hunker down. Offer calm and watch them start to drive.

Good used to be good enough; it isn’t anymore. The difference isn’t the storm, it’s who’s steering the ship.

* * *

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

Jim Collins on the love of doing the work:

“There is a big difference between being in love with the idea of one’s work and being in love with doing the work itself. It means not just the love in the 0.001% highlight moments; it means love in the other 99.999%.”

Source: What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative

Morgan Housel on the pain of pursuit:

“Most things worth pursuing charge their fee in the form of stress, uncertainty, dealing with quirky people, bureaucracy, other peoples’ conflicting incentives, hassle, nonsense, long hours, and constant doubt. That’s the overhead cost of getting ahead.”

Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

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 June 2026 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.

Data Inspired: Building an Organizational Culture of Inquiry for Lasting Transformation by Sebastian Wernicke

Ninety-nine percent of businesses surveyed say that data and AI are a top priority―but two-thirds admit to feeling stuck. What most leaders miss is that to succeed at becoming a data-driven business requires developing a nuanced understanding of why data holds such transformative power, what a data-inspired culture looks like, and how to get there. Data Inspired shows that the secret isn't to be more data-driven―it is to become data-inspired. This book reveals the crucial strategic distinction between using data to optimize existing operations and using them as a catalyst for deep transformation and innovation.

Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams by Ron Friedman

What do the best teams do differently? To find out, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. The results upend everything we think we know about teamwork. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours. What really sets them apart is the way they manage their energy and attention, bring out the best in one another, and keep improving over time. Blending eye-opening discoveries with unforgettable stories, Superteams takes you inside the writers' room of Succession and Bridgerton, the recording studio of ABBA and Fleetwood Mac, the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants, the laboratories of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, the locker rooms of NBA and NFL teams, and the boardrooms of the world's most innovative companies.

Effective: How to Do Great Work in a Fast-Changing World by Melissa Swift

Navigate the weird, chaotic world of modern work, no matter your position. While there's no shortage of advice on being amazing or avoiding burnout, what if you simply want to get things done in a workplace that feels increasingly impossible? Effective is here to help you get your job done well without losing your mind. Drawing from up-to-date research and provocative interviews with employees across industries and levels, renowned people consultant Melissa Swift offers a positive, well-illuminated path through the dark forest of destabilizing workplace changes.

Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts by Jeremy Pollack

A deep dive and exploration into the critical role of the nervous system in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Drawing from neuroscience, social neuropsychology, predictive-processing theory, and decades of applied conflict resolution practice, Wired for Peace presents a transformational model for understanding why conflict escalates and how sustainable peace is created. Moving beyond traditional communication-skills or mediation-only approaches, this book shows that lasting conflict resolution begins with the autonomic nervous system and the brain’s threat-prediction mechanisms. The book illuminates the internal neural architecture that determines how individuals perceive danger, construct narratives, react to stress, and attempt either protection or connection.

Failure Is An Option: Reflections of a Silicon Valley CEO by Mike Grossman

For nearly three decades, Mike Grossman has been at the center of the world’s most mythologized innovation hub, leading early-stage, venture-funded tech companies through the highs, heartbreaks, and near misses that define life in the Valley. He has raised millions, managed boardroom crises, built great teams, and navigated moments when everything seemed one bad quarter away from collapse. Failure Is An Option gathers forty-four sharp, candid essays shaped by years in the trenches. Together, they form a mosaic of what leadership really looks like when the cameras aren’t rolling: the moments of absurdity, fear, luck, and endurance that make or break a company and the person leading it. Unflinchingly honest and darkly funny, Grossman dismantles the myths of startup success and offers an insider’s view of what it means to build under pressure. This is not a playbook or a victory lap. It is a collection of truths about ambition, uncertainty, and the art of holding it together long enough for the story to make sense.

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

• After the Surface by Manu @27_BUCKS The most creative work in modern history was made by people who'd been told their profession was finished. We are here again.
• Who On Your Team Are Leaders versus Maintainers? by @PhilCooke
• 9 Step Process of Successfully Dealing with Adversity by @BrianKDodd
• Steady Note: The Human Moment by @donhornsby
• Why Edge Intelligence Is the Future of Real-Time Business by @DanielBurrus
• Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI by @artpetty
• The Power of Proximity by @PhilCooke If you want to grow creatively, don’t just ask, “What should I learn?” Ask, “Who should I be near?”
• Agency Interrupted: The Chains We Can't See by @pescatore via @LBBOnline Linear forward-prediction isn't what humans are built for, even smart humans with good intent
• Preserving Process in the Age of AI Design by Olivia Bruhmuller
• What Humility Has to Do With Our Work by @donhornsby
• The Cost of Comfort by Ted Lamade via @collabfund
• No One’s Coming to Assign You by @PhilCooke
• Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It by @ChrisClearfield
• Clarity Is What Creates Speed by @AdmiredLeaders
• When Friction Isn’t Growth: A Leadership Distinction That Changes Everything by MarleneChism @stopyourdrama
• AI is the latest Generation at Work... by @ElizaFilby
• Is America in a Pre-Heroic Moment? by @jamesstrock
• How leaders can help their organizations metabolize strain via @McKinsey
• UK Electoral Earthquake—Harbinger for USA? by @jamesstrock
• From Boomers to Gen Z: What Each Generation Wants from Leadership by @annaliotta
• The 4% Drug That Enhances Your Life by Jamison Price
• The 5 Ways AI Is Affecting Journalism by @AdiGaskell
• The five philosophical disagreements underneath every AI argument by @chalmermagne
• The Feedback Gap at the Top (And Why It Spreads Faster Than You Think) by Karin Hurt and David Dye
• How To Build a Personal Brand That Actually Gets You Noticed by @PhilCooke
• The Art of Thinking Differently In a World That Thinks the Same by Ariyan Rana
• AI is changing our minds. When is that a good thing? via @cosmos_inst
• The Three Tragedies of Change by MarleneChism @stopyourdrama
• Calling Mr. Gladstone by @jamesstrock
• 5 Leadership Secrets to Silencing Critics Without Saying a Word by @BrianKDodd
• 4 Reasons Why Consistency, Not Talent, Defines Great Leadership by @BrianKDodd

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:

Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz on what is required to learn:

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”

Source: Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary

Simone Stolzoff on not knowing:

“When we experience uncertainty, it activates two parts of our brain simultaneously: the amygdala, which is responsible for alerting the brain to potential threats, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for analytical and deliberate thinking. The amygdala signals the body to release stress hormones, while the prefrontal cortex analyzes the situation to plan for a logical response. If the situation is particularly high stakes (for example, a looming layoff at work) or if you have a particularly low tolerance for uncertainty, it’s easy for the amygdala to hijack your brain’s response, prompting you to enter a fight, flight, or freeze mindset-whether or not there is actually a threat to your survival. Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a neuroscientist who helps leaders navigate uncertainty, says, ‘Uncertainty tolerance allows us to explore different options, rather than rushing to whatever is most reassuring.’”

Source: How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World that Demands Answers

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

AT first glance, leadership mistakes are difficult to explain. Many failed decisions are made by highly intelligent, experienced, and capable people. The leaders involved often possess strong analytical skills, deep industry knowledge, and years of practical experience. They are not careless. They are not uninformed. And yet, serious mistakes still happen: A company commits to the wrong strategy despite clear warning signs. A leadership team continues investing in a failing initiative long after the evidence turns negative. An executive becomes increasingly confident precisely when caution is most needed.

From the outside, these failures often appear irrational. But internally, they rarely feel that way. That is what makes them dangerous.

Most flawed leadership decisions do not feel obviously wrong when they are made. They feel reasonable. Logical. Sometimes even unavoidable. The problem is rarely intelligence itself. The problem is the thinking structure behind the decision.

In strategic environments, strong decision-makers eventually learn an uncomfortable truth: expertise does not eliminate cognitive distortions. In some cases, it amplifies them.

Experience improves pattern recognition, speed, and confidence. But it can also create hidden rigidity. The more successful people become within a particular model of reality, the less likely they are to question the assumptions behind that model. This creates a subtle trap. Leaders become highly effective at solving problems inside the framework they already understand, while becoming less willing to question whether the framework itself still fits reality.

Intelligent people are often exceptionally good at defending conclusions that feel internally consistent. Once the underlying assumptions become flawed, intelligence can make the problem worse rather than better. The danger is not bad reasoning. The danger is good reasoning built on unexamined assumptions.

The Expertise Trap

Experience is one of the most valuable assets a leader can possess.

• It improves judgment.
• It accelerates pattern recognition.
• It allows leaders to process complex situations more quickly and with greater confidence.

In stable environments, this creates a major advantage. The problem is that expertise is built from past patterns. It relies on accumulated models of how the world works. Most of the time, those models are useful. But when conditions change, the same expertise that once improved judgment can begin to distort it. Leaders start interpreting new situations through outdated assumptions.

Signals that contradict the existing model are dismissed as temporary noise. Evidence is filtered selectively. Familiar explanations are favored over uncomfortable alternatives.

This happens because expertise creates efficiency. Experienced leaders do not evaluate every situation from first principles. They rely on mental shortcuts developed through repetition and prior success. That is normally rational. Without those shortcuts, decision-making would become impossibly slow. But shortcuts introduce vulnerability.

The more often a particular model has worked in the past, the harder it becomes to recognize when it no longer applies. This creates one of the most dangerous dynamics in leadership:

Success increases confidence in the model precisely when the model may need to be questioned most.

In strategic games, strong players sometimes lose not because they misunderstand the position, but because they interpret it through patterns from previous games that no longer fit the current reality. Leadership works the same way. Past success can quietly reduce curiosity. And once curiosity declines, assumptions stop being tested. That is where intelligent leadership mistakes often begin.

One of the clearest examples of this dynamic can be seen in elite sports leadership. For years, José Mourinho achieved extraordinary success using a highly disciplined and defensively structured approach to football management. He won league titles across multiple countries and captured Champions League titles with teams that were not considered tournament favorites. The success was so consistent for so long that belief in the model became almost unshakable. And that is understandable. When a framework repeatedly produces elite outcomes, questioning it begins to feel irrational. The model has earned trust through years of validation.

But environments change. Opponents adapt. Cultures evolve. New strategic approaches emerge. What once created an advantage may gradually become a limitation.

One of the most difficult challenges for highly successful leaders is recognizing when the methods that created success are no longer producing the same edge, not because the original model was flawed, but because every model has conditions under which it works best.

The danger is that prolonged success can quietly reduce the willingness to re-examine those conditions. At that point, confidence in the model becomes stronger than sensitivity to new evidence. Once that happens, adaptation slows down precisely when it becomes most necessary.

Organizations Reinforce Assumptions

Leadership decisions are rarely made in isolation. Even highly independent leaders operate inside systems shaped by culture, incentives, hierarchy, and group dynamics. Over time, these systems begin reinforcing certain assumptions automatically.

This creates another hidden risk. Once an organization collectively accepts a particular interpretation of reality, that interpretation becomes increasingly difficult to question, not necessarily because people are afraid to disagree, but because the underlying assumptions gradually stop being visible. They become embedded in the language of meetings, strategic priorities, performance metrics, and internal narratives. What once began as a hypothesis slowly evolves into something treated as self-evident.

At that point, organizations stop testing assumptions and start defending them. This is especially dangerous during periods of success. Strong performance creates psychological validation. Growth, profits, or market dominance make the existing model appear unquestionably correct. As long as results remain positive, few people feel pressure to challenge the structure behind them.

However, success can conceal structural weaknesses for surprisingly long periods of time. A flawed strategy may continue producing acceptable results simply because market conditions remain favorable. A leadership model may appear effective because past momentum continues carrying the organization forward.

The danger emerges when the environment changes. Organizations that built their identity around a particular way of thinking often struggle to adapt because adaptation requires more than operational change. It requires cognitive change. And cognitive change is uncomfortable. It forces leaders to reconsider assumptions that may have defined years of previous success.

In many organizations, the cost of questioning the model quietly becomes higher than the cost of defending it. That is when intelligent organizations begin making predictable mistakes, not because nobody sees the problem, but because the system itself discourages seeing it clearly.

The strongest leadership cultures are not the ones that eliminate disagreement. They are the ones that make constructive doubt acceptable before reality forces the issue externally.

The Illusion of Confidence

One of the paradoxes of leadership is that confidence is both necessary and dangerous. Leaders are expected to project certainty. Teams want clarity. Investors want conviction. Organizations tend to reward decisiveness far more than hesitation.

In uncertain environments, visible confidence creates stability. However, confidence and accuracy are not the same thing. Over time, many organizations begin confusing the appearance of certainty with the quality of judgment itself. This creates a subtle distortion.

Leaders who express strong conviction are often perceived as more competent, even when the underlying assumptions behind their decisions remain untested. Meanwhile, leaders who openly acknowledge uncertainty may appear weaker despite thinking more carefully about the problem.

As a result, organizational cultures can unintentionally reward overconfidence, not because people deliberately reject thoughtful analysis, but because certainty feels reassuring. In strategic environments, however, certainty is often precisely where the greatest risk hides.

The strongest decision-makers rarely assume they fully understand a complex situation. They remain aware that every model is incomplete and every interpretation contains blind spots.

That awareness does not make them indecisive. It makes them adaptive.

Poor leaders often protect certainty. Strong leaders protect the ability to update. This distinction becomes critical when environments begin changing quickly.

Leaders who tie their identity too closely to being “right” become slower to update when reality changes. New information starts feeling like a threat rather than feedback. At that point, confidence stops functioning as a leadership tool and starts functioning as a defense mechanism.

Once certainty becomes emotionally protected, intelligent decision-making begins to deteriorate rapidly.

What Strong Leaders Do Differently

The strongest leaders are not necessarily the smartest people in the room. Nor are they always the most confident.

What separates exceptional leaders is often something less visible: the ability to continuously re-examine the assumptions behind their decisions. They understand that every model eventually becomes incomplete. As a result, they build systems that make adaptation easier rather than harder. This often means deliberately introducing friction into the decision-making process.

Strong leaders invite disagreement before reality forces correction externally. They encourage alternative interpretations, stress-test assumptions, and actively look for information that contradicts their preferred conclusion, not because they lack confidence, but because they understand the limits of confidence.

In strategic environments, the goal is rarely to eliminate uncertainty completely. That is impossible. The goal is to remain responsive to new information without becoming emotionally attached to previous assumptions.

This creates an important distinction between weak and strong leadership cultures. Weak leadership cultures optimize for agreement. Strong leadership cultures optimize for accuracy. That difference becomes especially important during periods of success.

When performance is strong, the pressure to question the existing model naturally declines. This is precisely when the best leaders become more vigilant, not less. They recognize that success can validate flawed assumptions for long periods of time. As a result, they continue asking uncomfortable questions even when the system appears to be working.

• What if our current advantage is temporary?
• What assumptions are we treating as permanent?
• What evidence would prove that our model no longer fits reality?

These questions create cognitive flexibility, and cognitive flexibility is one of the most important competitive advantages a leader can possess in changing environments. The leaders who adapt fastest are rarely those with the strongest certainty. They are the ones most willing to update

The Ability to Update

Leadership is often described as the ability to provide answers. However, in complex environments, leadership is equally the ability to question assumptions before reality forces the issue externally.

The most dangerous leadership mistakes rarely begin with incompetence. They begin with certainty that slowly stops being examined. Experience reinforces the model. Organizations normalize the model. Success validates the model.

Over time, intelligent people can become trapped inside systems that once created advantage but no longer fit reality. This is why strong leadership is not simply about confidence, decisiveness, or expertise. It is about maintaining the ability to update.

The best leaders do not assume they are immune to cognitive distortions. They assume distortions are inevitable and build processes designed to expose them early. Leadership quality is ultimately not determined by how strongly a leader believes in a model. It is determined by how quickly the leader recognizes when the model needs to change.

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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:

Brad Stulberg on goals:

“Goals are like mountaintops. They are important insofar as they provide definition and direction for our journeys. They serve as targets, offering a wellspring of motivation. They keep us focused and prevent us from aimlessly wandering. Yet nearly all of our growth, development, and meaning occur not at the point of accomplishing a goal but during its pursuit. There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life. What will change your life is how you are transformed in the process of going for it. When you select what goals to pursue, you are selecting what kind of person you want to become.”

Source: The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World

Anne Lamott on forging ahead:

“There are parts of your life you keep placing just out of reach because they feel inconvenient, unclear, or not quite ready yet. So you wait for the right stretch of time, the right version of yourself, or the right set of circumstances that will finally make it all make sense. But life doesn’t rearrange itself for clarity. It responds to movement. The thing you keep circling might not need more thinking. It might need a first step. What you are waiting for may be created by the act of beginning.”

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

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

THE causes of job strain, burnout, and poor mental health at work are well understood — and so are the solutions. Workload can be managed. Jobs can be designed with autonomy and voice. Leaders can be trained to create psychological safety. Systems can be built that reward recovery and fairness, not just output. Which means harm to our workers isn’t inevitable — it’s a design choice.

Organizations that fail to design for good work will pay for it in absenteeism, turnover and disengagement. But the deeper cost is borne by the workers.

People don’t thrive when they’re confused, unsupported, or underused. They thrive when they feel capable and valued. Research by organizational psychologist Arnold Bakker shows that when employees have structural resources (such as autonomy), social resources (such as support), and challenging demands (such as growth tasks), they experience more flow and less burnout.

If organizations are serious about sustainable performance, they need to design for it. That means pacing workloads instead of treating every week like quarter-end.

Well-designed work provides energy. Poorly designed work sucks it out. Designing roles that are sustainable, setting realistic expectations, and creating cultures where people feel safe and valued are central to worker’s mental health and sustainable high performance. They also fuel innovation and pay dividends in productivity.

The pathway for enabling a fully functioning and committed workforce is through designing the way that people work. Every role has an architecture — the tasks, responsibilities, and demands that make up a day. Too often, that architecture grows by accident: jobs are patched together over time, loaded with new tasks but rarely redesigned with intention. The result? Roles that look efficient on paper but leave people feeling like crap.

The alternative is positive job design — treating the structure of roles as a wellbeing lever, not just an operational one. Done well, it turns work into a source of energy rather than depletion.

Being intentional about work design means stepping back and asking: What are we really trying to achieve here, and how can this role be structured so it fuels rather than drains energy? From there, it’s about making deliberate choices. That might mean:

• Stripping away tasks that no longer add value
• Redesigning workflows so people can focus on the most meaningful parts of their role
• Checking whether decision rights actually match responsibilities

To make work contribute to worker wellbeing, job design needs to be embedded into the systems of work — shaping the policies, structures and rhythms that govern how people work. This involves:

1. Building it into strategy, not side projects — Treat work design as a lever for performance and wellbeing, not just a P&C responsibility. Ask in strategy reviews: Are our roles structured tofuel human energy as well as output?

2. Using a SMART check in decision-making — When restructuring, allocating resources, or introducing new technology, run a SMART check. For each decision, ask: Will this increase stimulation, mas tery, agency, relationships, and tolerable d emands or undermine them?

3. Making job audits routine — Every couple of years, or after major change, review roles and workflows. Look for where tasks have piled up, where decision rights are mismatched, or where demands outstrip resources. Don’t wait for burnout data or turnover to tell you.

4. Empowering leaders to co-design with their teams — Encourage managers to have regular design conversations with their people: What’s energizing? What’s draining? What could we shift?

5. Embedding work design into leadership development — Treat work design as a core leadership skill, not a niche topic. Teach leaders how to analyze jobs through the SMART lens, how to run role-redesign conversations, and how to balance demands with resources.

6. Tracking energy, not just output — Alongside KPIs and dashboards, measure how energizing jobs are. Pulse surveys can include questions about variety, agency, and connection. Imagine if leaders were held accountable not just for results, but for how they structured jobs to unleash energy?

When leaders and teams take these small, deliberate steps, they contribute to worker wellbeing in ways that are practical and immediate.

Keep in mind that good work design isn’t a policy or even a program. It’s a practice that’s shaped and reshaped with people over time. Think of it less like drawing up blueprints for a house and more like tending a garden. You don’t plant once and walk away. You prune, water and replant depending on the season.

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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:

Nicole Vignola on learning as default thinking:

“The first major underpinning of a growth mindset is that people with this mindset understand that learning is a valuable opportunity in the face of adversity. When people believe that they can improve and grow from failure and setbacks, they are more likely to engage in challenging tasks and persist through difficulty. When people know and understand that the brain is malleable and are willing to adapt to circumstance, they are more likely to persist in the face of obstacles. This perseverance can enhance pathways in the brain that are associated with learning, which strengthens the notion that learning is a dynamic process that’s forever evolving.”

Source: Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change (Your Neurotoolkit for Everyday Life)

Morgan Housel on happiness:

“Your happiness depends on your expectations more than anything else. So in a world that tends to get better for most people most of the time, an important life skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving. It’s also one of the hardest. A common storyline of history goes like this: Things get better, wealth increases, technology brings new efficiencies, and medicine saves lives. The quality of life goes up. But people’s expectations then rise by just as much, if not more, because those improvements also benefit other people around you, whose circumstances you anchor to. Happiness is little changed despite the world improving.”

Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

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

MOST leaders reach a point where they can see exactly where their company needs to go. The vision is clear — more sophisticated, more scalable, more aligned with the leader they’ve become. They didn’t get to this point by accident. The clarity they have now is the product of a commitment to transformation expressed through years of building, learning, and evolving.

But the company is still organized around an earlier version of their leadership. The revenue is real. The clients are happy. On paper, it works. But the routines, the roles, the decision-making patterns were designed for a different stage. Maybe a different strategy entirely.

As the founder, every day pulls you back into the same patterns: the firefighting, the decisions only you can make, the sense that if you stop moving, everything stops.

This is the tension between where you’re going and what got you here, and it’s one of the most common inflection points in a founder’s journey. At this stage, part of your responsibility as a leader is to transform the company along with you.

New Goals Demand New Thinking

A founder I worked with ran a specialized professional services firm. Over a few years, he had made an important leap from transactional operator to strategic advisor. He built a new framework, renamed his practice, and reimagined his value proposition to create a market segment he could own — higher-trust, higher-fee, more durable client relationships.

He knew where he was going. But the company was still organized around what had gotten him here.

The team’s routines were built for the old model: high volume, fast turnaround, lots of reactive work. The systems rewarded output, not depth. His top producer embodied the old approach perfectly, earning seven figures doing it the traditional way.

There was no reason for that person to change. Because they were successful, challenging the model felt like challenging results.

The founder said it plainly: I can see it. My challenge has been to get there.

He wasn’t confused about the destination. He was caught in the tension between the leader he had become and the organization that was still designed to produce something else.

This is the principle most founders eventually collide with: personal transformation enables organizational transformation, but it doesn’t happen automatically. You have to redesign the organization to match the leader you’re becoming.

Creating that alignment is the hardest part of leadership. But there is a way through it, and it starts with seeing clearly.

Stepping Back to Move Ahead

Rose, a co-founder I worked with, ran a predictive-maintenance startup. In a single hour-long meeting about one of her strategic priorities, she got interrupted eight times; every decision, every customer question, every call was routed through her. She was the bottleneck and she knew it.

The conventional answer would have been to delegate more. However, delegation wasn't the issue. As we worked together, Rose started to recognize that she was actively choosing urgency.

Once she could see what urgency gave her (a feeling of being essential and in control) and what made strategic focus so easy to avoid (it felt boring and lacked immediate payoffs), she recognized that her own choices were keeping her stuck as the bottleneck.

Her dedication to urgency had built a system where her team had no way to make decisions without her, not because they lacked capability, but because she had never designed the conditions for them to use it.

As she changed her relationship to urgency, her team’s relationship to it started to shift as well. Instead of answering questions, she started designing what her team needed to move ahead on their own: clear context, clear constraints, clear freedoms. The company didn't change because she hired new people. It changed because she became a different kind of leader — a designer instead of a doer.

And once she made that shift, she could actually spend her time on strategy instead of being drowned in the urgent. That shift didn't just free up her calendar, it changed what the company was capable of without her in the room.

This kind of transformation starts with three moves:

1. See the tensions you’ve been avoiding: Where loyalty to what built this company conflicts with what the company needs next. Where your habits serve comfort instead of progress. Where good enough has become the ceiling. These aren’t problems to solve. They’re tensions to navigate.
2. Own your contribution to the pattern: Acknowledge that you designed this system and it’s doing exactly what it was built to do. The meeting cadence, the decision flow, the hiring bar, the standards you enforce and the ones you work around are living expressions of your leadership. The company is a mirror.
3. Shift from doer to designer: Stop solving problems and start redesigning the processes, roles, and culture of accountability that align better with the future you've envisioned, not the past you’re coming from. Finally, curtail your instinct to intervene so your team learns to trust themselves and stops gravitating toward old habits.

The next phase of growth is a different kind of growth. Not more effort, not better systems, not another hire who’ll finally take things off your plate. It’s the work of closing the gap between where you’re going and what got you here so that growth stops being a grind and starts feeling like momentum.

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