Leadership Insights

In my last article, I wrote about AI as a consensus machine. About how the race to adopt, integrate, and optimize for AI might be producing the opposite of what we're hoping for — smoothing away the rough edges of original thinking, replacing instinct with output, and delivering the most agreeable answer when what we actually need is the most honest one. The response surprised me. Not because people disagreed. But because of how many people wrote back and said some version of

I have written critically about AI before. And since then, it feels like the criticism has been growing. Today I have more thoughts I felt I needed to share. Some of them may be unpopular. But they could mean the difference between actually moving forward as humans, leaders or businesses — or falling steadily behind. So here it is: The AI-enabled world we are all rushing toward may actually be producing the opposite of what we're hoping for. Not because AI isn't powerful. It

I once worked with a senior leader who told me he did his best thinking in the car. Not in strategy sessions. Not in offsites. Not in the back-to-back leadership meetings that filled his calendar from 8am to 6pm. In the car. Alone. On the drive home. That thirty-minute window — no agenda, no notifications, no one needing anything from him — was where things clicked. Where the tangled problem from Tuesday's meeting suddenly had an answer. Where he'd realize what he actua

I lost someone recently. It was sudden. There was no warning. No time to prepare. No final conversation I knew would be final. One day they were here. The next — without explanation, without transition, without any of the things we tell ourselves we'll say when the time is right — they were gone. And that's the thing about sudden loss that nobody warns you about. It doesn't just take the person. It takes every future moment you had assumed was still available to you. The coff

“It’s lonely at the top.” I was reminded of just how true—and how heavy—that can feel in a conversation last week with a senior leader I’ve been coaching. Our work often centers around solving real, tangible challenges—decisions, team dynamics, competing priorities. But just as importantly, I serve as something else: a sounding board, a mirror, a thinking partner. A space where he doesn’t have to perform leadership—he can simply be . This time, he paused mid-conversation and

As this year comes to a close, it’s impossible to ignore how heavy it has been for so many. We’ve seen continued reductions in force. Shifting priorities. Persistent uncertainty. Even the most seasoned leaders have felt it — that quiet pause, that recalibration, that question beneath the question: How do I keep leading when the ground keeps moving? And if we’re honest, all signs suggest this environment isn’t resolving anytime soon and a similar climate will follow us into 2

As a society, we’ve decided to follow AI wherever it leads—even if that means walking ourselves over the edge. I know this opinion might not be popular. In fact, it might even sound a little naïve, cynical, or “anti-progress.” That’s fine. Because someone needs to say it — out loud, without the spin and without the hype. We’re all being swept up in a wave of AI "enthusiasm" that feels unstoppable. The momentum is intoxicating. Everyone’s talking about transformation, disrupti

This weekend, I found myself watching back some of the recorded sessions from the UN General Assembly in New York. And one thought kept coming up again and again: Courage is missing at the top. And I don’t just mean politics. I mean CEOs, business leaders, and anyone who holds influence and power. We live in a world where power is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of people—people with visibility, access, and a platform. And yet, too often, we see that pow