Insights

For years, I believed the story we were all told. That if I just leaned in harder, spoke louder, pushed further, and powered through, I could have it all. I thought success was a formula: show up, work harder, say yes, keep climbing.  And when that formula did not...

Years ago, when psychological safety became the buzzword du jour for business leaders, I was 100% on board. It was the answer to the power structures that kept employees silent, and finally we had a label for a common dynamic—and thanks to Amy Edmonson, some...

I used to work for a leader who always took the ultimate accountability for results. On weekly calls he would frequently say, “The reality is we didn’t hit our goal and that’s on me.” He said it with pride, believing this approach built trust and loyalty with his...

We have all had moments when something we said or did landed in a completely different way than we intended. Maybe it was a joke that fell flat. Maybe it was feedback that was meant to motivate but ended up discouraging. In your mind, you were clear and constructive....

One of the most common mistakes we see with our clients is the tendency to want to change others before changing yourself. Leaders will launch new values, reorganize teams, and roll out engagement initiatives, but if their own beliefs and behaviors do not match what...

Conscious Capitalism gave the business world something it desperately needed: a new definition of success.  It challenged the idea that shareholder value had to come at the expense of employee wellbeing or societal impact. It showed that purpose and profit could work...

We’re used to talking about the gig economy in terms of Uber drivers and freelance designers. But in 2025, it’s the CEO role that’s starting to look more like a contract gig. And the implications for culture are bigger than most people realize. So far this year, a...

By now, you have probably seen the Coldplay video. The CEO of Astronomer, Andy Byron, attending a concert with his CHRO. The video spread quickly. Then came the memes. Then the resignation. What might have stayed an internal HR issue is now one of the most...

Fear and faith might feel like opposites. One holds you back. The other moves you forward. But underneath, they are the same thing. Both are a belief in something that hasn’t happened yet. In the workplace, we encounter the unknown all the time. A new leader steps in....

There is something I have come to believe about relationships of all kinds—whether it is at work, at home, or with friends. Every relationship eventually encounters friction. You hit a disagreement. Misalignment. A tough moment where two people need to figure out how...

When something goes wrong inside an organization, leaders often look for signs of disruption. Complaints. Conflict. Declining performance. But some of the most serious culture issues do not make noise. They go quiet.  Silence is not a neutral signal. It is often the...

This week on CEO Daily Brief, I spoke with my friend John Frehse. John is a labor strategy expert, and one of the few people I know who can talk about cost-cutting with both depth and humanity. We’ve known each other for years, but somehow this conversation uncovered...

Let’s talk about the A-word.  Accountability gets tossed around in every leadership meeting, strategy deck, and performance conversation, but rarely with clarity. What we call accountability is often just thinly veiled evaluation: performance reviews, stack rankings,...

Everyone left the offsite feeling “jazzed”. The decks were slick, the breakout sessions were productive, and the whiteboard had a lot of arrows that made everyone nod. The best part was the keynoter who inspired everyone.  That lasted about three days.  But two weeks...

AI is transforming business. That much is clear. The real question is whether leaders are equipped to guide their people through the change. Some are. Others are trying to have it both ways, insisting they are “people first” while replacing…people. And a few are...

Let’s talk about change initiatives. You’re likely in the middle of one right now—a technology rollout, a reorg, a “new way of working.” We label it, build a timeline, hold a few town halls, maybe even bring in a consultant with a colorful 5-step model. We grit our...

I stole that line from a client I was working with in Orlando last week.   This particular client is a global pharmaceutical and manufacturing company in the animal health space. We were about to kick off a leadership session with their top 100 leaders, all focused on...

In the 1990s, a group of high-earning professionals formed Workaholics Anonymous. A founder of the group said, “No matter how much work I did, it was never enough.”  Sound familiar?  This addiction is one we collectively share. It goes beyond an addiction to work—it...

A friend of mine once described working at Amazon as “building a rocket ship while being pushed off a cliff.” Back then, the company’s obsession with innovation made that intensity feel exciting. But today, Amazon’s attempt to reignite that startup energy feels less...

We’ve been sold a lie about leadership.  We’ve been told that great leaders take control. That they set the vision, enforce accountability, drive engagement, and build culture through sheer willpower.  But here’s the thing: Culture can’t be controlled. It can’t be...

I just got off the phone with the CEO of a global corporation with a $75B market cap who was expressing a common challenge: her team needs to learn how to collaborate now more than ever. The old rules of leadership, where silos were merely inefficient, no longer...

AI has gone from public enemy number one to the golden child of innovation in record time. Just look at this week’s AI summit in Paris. JD Vance made his first major policy speech there, declaring that the U.S. is going all in on AI and urging other countries to...

Everyone gets selective about their outrage. We see it in politics, in business, in culture—everywhere. But what separates outrage that leads to meaningful change from outrage that’s just noise? Accountability. Take the federal government. The Trump administration,...