Climbing the ladder

Building relationships is far more difficult than stepping over them. While it’s tempting to imagine that we’re always racing upward, it’s far more likely we’ll meet those same people again when we are forced to descend....

Small words matter most

Napoleon’s Grande Armée conquered most of Europe. But the empire crumbled within months when his soldiers stopped saluting their officers. Small gestures reveal big truths about character. The Forgotten Art of Basic Respect Research from the University of...

Ego blinds everyone

The most powerful and richest people on the planet are locked in a very public struggle. But this isn’t about policy or progress. It’s about ego. Ryan Holiday nailed it in “Ego is the Enemy.” He wrote, “The ego we see most commonly goes...

Leadership theatre always fails

Reed Hastings didn’t become Reed Hastings by copying other media executives. Yet most leaders do exactly that—they grab tactics from admired bosses and stitch them together like a corporate Frankenstein. Consider how Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft. He...

The curve that wins

Change breaks people before it makes them. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve shows us exactly how this breaking happens: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Most leaders pretend this emotional chaos doesn’t exist. They announce a change and...