Next Generation Leadership

One of the most profound realities of organizational life is this: Employees don't actually experience "the organization." They experience their manager. A strategic plan is finalized and announced.The organizational values are on the website for everyone to see. The email from the executive is delivered to all-staff. And yet, depending on who someone's manager is, the experience can be...

I’ve been at a lot of “family and friends” events lately. Sometimes the family and friends are family of friends, people I don’t even know and have no context for knowing. Of course, I have to make small talk. That’s what we do, isn’t it?

For years, conversations about organizational effectiveness have focused on familiar questions: How do we improve collaboration? How do we make better decisions? How do we become more efficient? How do we reduce duplication of effort? Those are important questions. But increasingly, I think they are secondary questions. The real insight is not that organizational effectiveness...

“I took a management skills workshop that you led 15 years. It changed the trajectory of my career. My biggest take away was that management doesn’t have to be scary or intimidating, and that as a manager, I’m not being mean by sometimes having the tough conversations. You have this ‘kind but firm’ approach that really stuck with me.” This was the beginning of a conversation last week; a dean...

There’s a moment many leaders are finding themselves in right now—and it doesn’t always have a clean name. It shows up somewhere between intention and reality. You’ve set direction. You’ve aligned on priorities. You’ve named what success looks like. And then, almost immediately, something shifts. Not enough to start over. But enough that what you defined no longer fits quite the same way. And...

Think about a time when you were learning something new.

It’s performance review season.

2025 was tough. Whew. Even writing that, I can feel my jaw tighten a little. And it wasn’t just me. Almost everyone I spoke with this year used the same language. Heavy. Disorienting. Relentless. If I had to choose one word, it would be this: uncertainty. Uncertainty is painful. Not knowing what is coming next. Not knowing whether who we have been is the same as who we will be. Not knowing...

Change is not primarily a communications issue, or a morale issue. And it's definitely not "just" a cultural issue. Though, that's where a LOT of emphasis is placed during and especially major organizational changes. Change is about alignment. Alignment between vision, strategy, structure, and culture. When one of these shifts, the others must follow. If they do not, the organization fractures. ...