Leadership rarely falls apart because of strategy.It falls apart in the moments no one sees - the pressure, the politics, the slow erosion of clarity that eventually costs influence. 🎅 Santa brought me a very early gift - the wonderful opportunity to speak with the brilliant Cynthia Corsetti about what I’m seeing inside senior rooms right now: where influence slips, why decision traction matters more than ever, and how leaders can read the signals that tell them when they

I finally hired a housekeeper.😊 I've resisted for years. Not a single woman I grew up with back in Sweden has household help. I didn't have help when I was running a city and a law firm at the same time. I saw no reason to start now, when I am doing fewer hours and someone else is running my European companies. But I finally agreed. Mostly so I could spend more time doing things I actually want to do. After they...

She showed up with a list, and honestly, she read it to me like she was a little proud of it. It was a long list. None of it was her job. All of it had her name on it. I told her, none of the reasons you're telling me about why you do this is a reason that is to your benefit. Not at this level.

No suits. No slides. Just dust, fire pits, bourbon - and conversations they’d been avoiding for a year. That’s what it looked like in Wyoming, where I brought one of the most high-performing yet misaligned leadership teams I’ve ever worked with. They didn’t need another strategy deck - they needed something real. And they let me take them there.

What if that confident silence you’re seeing isn’t a sign of trust… but a symptom of survival? I’ve coached inside many high-stakes...

A Chief of Staff in a national defense organization once asked me: "Why is it so hard to get people to take ownership? We have clear...

I watched the Astroworld documentary the other night. The chaos was horrifying - but what struck me most wasn’t what happened. It was what didn’t. Security was overwhelmed. Medics were begging for help. Audience members were screaming for the show to stop. And still - no one pulled the plug. That moment - when people know something is dangerously wrong but stay frozen in place - isn’t just a tragedy of poor logistics. It’s the consequence of a leadership culture that quietly

The quiet truth about many high performers? They’re already halfway out the door - but still in the room. After my last post, a senior leader messaged me: 💬 "I’ve mentally left, but I don’t want to wreck my reputation on the way out. I just… can’t bring myself to care anymore." That’s the real risk in the “checked out but not out” phase.

She was a high-performing senior manager, leading a successful team and delivering results. But when she applied for a VP role, she was passed over - twice. Her frustration was clear: "I don’t get it. I’ve been doing everything right. Why am I still stuck?" The answer? She was executing, not leading. She was seen as a high performer, but not as a strategic leader - and in her organization, that distinction made all the difference. Hard work alone won’t get you promoted. A