  |
|
06.09.26
Your Company Doesn’t Just Need a Defensible Strategy – It Needs One that Can Adapt
IT'S a well-worn saying that the only constant in life is change, and that’s doubly true of the business world. If you’re successful, you need to constantly check your rearview mirror because there are always competitors right behind you. Earlier in my career, I became CEO of a company, Equity Marketing (which became EMAK Worldwide). My thinking at the time was: “Okay, you’re the boss, so you need to come up with all the important strategic and visionary ideas because that’s what your job is and that’s what you’re expected to do.” But I ultimately concluded that’s actually not the job. The job as CEO is to make sure the company has a unique, compelling, and defensible advantage — whether you develop that strategy by yourself, or you curate it from your team. Defensible in this context means that a competitor can’t easily remove you from your perch in the marketplace because you have a unique process, or unique technology, or unique talent with a unique culture, or unique client relationships. Whatever it is, you own something that makes it hard for a competitor to dislodge you from your position. The ultimate hallmark of a defensible strategy is that it’s adaptable to the inevitability of change. So, if nepotism is your strategy and you got into Yale or Harvard despite your mediocre high school GPA because you’re a legacy, that’s not going to be sustainable when you get out into the world and your circumstances change. When you graduate from a college you never should have gotten into, all of a sudden you’ll find yourself competing with smarter and more talented people for jobs that they deserve more than you do — and you’ll be out of luck. Defensible advantages are more fleeting these days than they used to be because technology levels the playing field. And the pace of disruption is also much faster than it used to be. Take advertising and marketing, for example: because of AI and other factors, our industry is undergoing a lot of change and consolidation. Why does the world need our advertising and marketing company (Omelet LLC)? For us, that’s the ultimate question. It’s a hard question to answer, but our survival ultimately depends on our ability to answer it. The best our service business can do to stay ahead of the curve is to truly understand our defensible advantages and capitalize on them. Here are some keys to making sure our company has a defensible strategy: 1. Hire uniquely strong people. I’m a reasonably smart guy, but my biggest strength is recruiting good people, letting them have a real say, and then creating an environment to let the magic happen. Our competitive advantage when we hire good people is doing incredible work every time and providing impeccable client service. 2. Tap the team’s strategic ideas. The best thing about devising a defensible strategy for your business is that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. If the people on your management team come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives and different kinds of expertise, you can curate the best of everyone’s ideas and then formulate your strategy from their input — getting their ideas and then blending them with your own. It’s useful to have as many different perspectives as possible, because there are many things you might not know. In this way, not only are you developing a more robust strategy, but you’ll find it’s far easier to execute the plan when your people have had a say in developing it. 3. Define the business by the solutions we provide. Because disruption is inevitable, don’t define your business by your product or process. A defensible strategy is never defined by a simple product or service — it has to be something that evolves with the marketplace. And if there’s a better way to provide that solution, you should be indifferent to how you provide it. Some say that horse-and-buggy drivers should have been the inventors of the automobile because they were in the transportation business. I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but the underlying point is valid: you aren’t in the horse-and-buggy business; you’re in the business of getting from point A to point B. When automobiles began to emerge on the scene, the buggy manufacturers should have actively explored building cars. 4. Deliver on a strong work ethic. As I previously noted, I believe I’m a reasonably smart guy, but I’m definitely not smarter than everyone else around me. I don’t have to be smarter than everyone else, however, because there’s a more reliable way to make up for smarts — and that’s honest, hard work. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that natural gifts like intelligence and athleticism don’t matter, or that they don’t provide a strong advantage. But an advantage can be squandered if you don’t have the grit to do the hard work of maximizing it. Companies can have a variety of defensible advantages — a premium brand, a low-cost operating model, access to low-cost capital, or a network effect like social media titan Meta. The key to winning in the long run is to curate a good strategy, execute it flawlessly, bend with the times, and stay true to your brand identity.    Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:36 AM
06.05.26
Are You A “Good” Leader? That Might Be the Problem
WHEN I speak to a room of leaders, I like to start with a quick show of hands. How many would say they’re a bad leader? No hands. Good. How many think they’re exceptional, one of the best to ever do it? A few brave souls, usually with a laugh. And how many would put themselves somewhere in the middle, pretty good to very good? That’s where most hands go up. And honestly, that’s where mine goes up too. When Good Stops Being Enough Here’s the catch. That “pretty good” is exactly where the trouble usually starts right now. For most of our careers, good was plenty. Show up prepared, communicate clearly enough, hit your numbers, and treat people fairly. Success. In a stable world that adds up to a solid leader and a steady team. But we’re not leading in a stable world anymore. Economic whiplash, AI anxiety, restructuring, burnout, or the news alert that makes a 23-year-old wonder if their job will exist in two years. Uncertainty is the operating environment now. And uncertainty changes the math. My team and The Harris Poll surveyed more than 2,000 employees about their leaders, and the finding that stuck with me is now on a sticky note on my desk: uncertainty multiplied by good leadership doesn’t produce good outcomes. It produces a slow rise in anxiety, a creeping complacency and a quiet drift. Not a collapse. Nobody calls a meeting about it. It’s the erosion you don’t notice until trust has already thinned. What I Learned in a Parking Lot I learned this the hard way, and not in a boardroom. Late last year I taught my daughter Avi to drive. Picture an empty parking lot. No traffic, no danger, just the two of us and a lot of nerves. She started out confidently. I was the problem. Every time she took a turn a little fast, I grabbed the door handle. Every sharp breath I took, she paused. My white knuckles weren’t keeping her safe; they were teaching her to freeze. She went from learning to surviving, in an empty lot, with the one person who most wanted her to succeed sitting right beside her. It hit me halfway through that lesson: I do this to my team. Not on purpose. I care about them, same as I care about Avi. But when I lead from my own anxiety, it travels. People feel it, they tighten up, and the very capability I need from them shrinks. That’s what good leaders tend to miss. The Mirror So, here’s the mirror I’d hold up. Three questions, and they’re harder than they look.
None of those gaps show up in a quarterly engagement score until it’s too late. That’s what makes these gaps so easy to miss. The Leaders No One Worries About I want to be direct about something, because it’s easy to soften. If you’re a competent, well-meaning, dependable leader, you’re exactly the person this is written for. The leaders I worry about most aren’t the ones who are obviously struggling. It’s the good ones, precisely because no one thinks to worry about them, including themselves.The Heart Work Can Be Taught The good news is that the distance between good and exceptional isn’t a talent gap but a training gap. These skills are learnable. Today, they’re the heart work of leadership, and not one of them requires charisma or a preference for extraversion. Ingraining new habits is about starting small. In this case, start with gratitude, which our research found is the single biggest differentiator between good and exceptional leaders. Retire “great job, team.” Try “I noticed what you did in that meeting, and it mattered.” Name the behavior, name the impact, and make it personal. Then go further. Have one conversation this week that isn’t about tasks. Ask someone where they want to grow, and how what you’re building together connects to that. Then actually listen to the answer. I’ve come to believe the leader makes the weather. In a parking lot or a team meeting, the same rule holds. Create a climate of tension and watch people hunker down. Offer calm and watch them start to drive. Good used to be good enough; it isn’t anymore. The difference isn’t the storm, it’s who’s steering the ship. Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:51 AM
06.04.26
Leading Thoughts for June 4, 2026
IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: Jim Collins on the love of doing the work: “There is a big difference between being in love with the idea of one’s work and being in love with doing the work itself. It means not just the love in the 0.001% highlight moments; it means love in the other 99.999%.” Source: What to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative Morgan Housel on the pain of pursuit: “Most things worth pursuing charge their fee in the form of stress, uncertainty, dealing with quirky people, bureaucracy, other peoples’ conflicting incentives, hassle, nonsense, long hours, and constant doubt. That’s the overhead cost of getting ahead.” Source: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:22 PM
06.01.26
First Look: Leadership Books for June 2026
HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in June 2026 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.
Ninety-nine percent of businesses surveyed say that data and AI are a top priority―but two-thirds admit to feeling stuck. What most leaders miss is that to succeed at becoming a data-driven business requires developing a nuanced understanding of why data holds such transformative power, what a data-inspired culture looks like, and how to get there. Data Inspired shows that the secret isn't to be more data-driven―it is to become data-inspired. This book reveals the crucial strategic distinction between using data to optimize existing operations and using them as a catalyst for deep transformation and innovation.
What do the best teams do differently? To find out, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. The results upend everything we think we know about teamwork. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours. What really sets them apart is the way they manage their energy and attention, bring out the best in one another, and keep improving over time. Blending eye-opening discoveries with unforgettable stories, Superteams takes you inside the writers' room of Succession and Bridgerton, the recording studio of ABBA and Fleetwood Mac, the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants, the laboratories of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, the locker rooms of NBA and NFL teams, and the boardrooms of the world's most innovative companies.
Navigate the weird, chaotic world of modern work, no matter your position. While there's no shortage of advice on being amazing or avoiding burnout, what if you simply want to get things done in a workplace that feels increasingly impossible? Effective is here to help you get your job done well without losing your mind. Drawing from up-to-date research and provocative interviews with employees across industries and levels, renowned people consultant Melissa Swift offers a positive, well-illuminated path through the dark forest of destabilizing workplace changes.
A deep dive and exploration into the critical role of the nervous system in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Drawing from neuroscience, social neuropsychology, predictive-processing theory, and decades of applied conflict resolution practice, Wired for Peace presents a transformational model for understanding why conflict escalates and how sustainable peace is created. Moving beyond traditional communication-skills or mediation-only approaches, this book shows that lasting conflict resolution begins with the autonomic nervous system and the brain’s threat-prediction mechanisms. The book illuminates the internal neural architecture that determines how individuals perceive danger, construct narratives, react to stress, and attempt either protection or connection.
For nearly three decades, Mike Grossman has been at the center of the world’s most mythologized innovation hub, leading early-stage, venture-funded tech companies through the highs, heartbreaks, and near misses that define life in the Valley. He has raised millions, managed boardroom crises, built great teams, and navigated moments when everything seemed one bad quarter away from collapse. Failure Is An Option gathers forty-four sharp, candid essays shaped by years in the trenches. Together, they form a mosaic of what leadership really looks like when the cameras aren’t rolling: the moments of absurdity, fear, luck, and endurance that make or break a company and the person leading it. Unflinchingly honest and darkly funny, Grossman dismantles the myths of startup success and offers an insider’s view of what it means to build under pressure. This is not a playbook or a victory lap. It is a collection of truths about ambition, uncertainty, and the art of holding it together long enough for the story to make sense.
   
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” — Charles W. Eliot
Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:56 AM
05.31.26
LeadershipNow 140: May 2026 Compilation
See more on Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:53 AM
05.28.26
Leading Thoughts for May 28, 2026
IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz on what is required to learn: “Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.” Source: Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary Simone Stolzoff on not knowing: “When we experience uncertainty, it activates two parts of our brain simultaneously: the amygdala, which is responsible for alerting the brain to potential threats, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for analytical and deliberate thinking. The amygdala signals the body to release stress hormones, while the prefrontal cortex analyzes the situation to plan for a logical response. If the situation is particularly high stakes (for example, a looming layoff at work) or if you have a particularly low tolerance for uncertainty, it’s easy for the amygdala to hijack your brain’s response, prompting you to enter a fight, flight, or freeze mindset-whether or not there is actually a threat to your survival. Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a neuroscientist who helps leaders navigate uncertainty, says, ‘Uncertainty tolerance allows us to explore different options, rather than rushing to whatever is most reassuring.’” Source: How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World that Demands Answers Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:24 AM
05.22.26
Why Intelligent Leaders Still Make Bad Decisions
AT first glance, leadership mistakes are difficult to explain. Many failed decisions are made by highly intelligent, experienced, and capable people. The leaders involved often possess strong analytical skills, deep industry knowledge, and years of practical experience. They are not careless. They are not uninformed. And yet, serious mistakes still happen: A company commits to the wrong strategy despite clear warning signs. A leadership team continues investing in a failing initiative long after the evidence turns negative. An executive becomes increasingly confident precisely when caution is most needed. From the outside, these failures often appear irrational. But internally, they rarely feel that way. That is what makes them dangerous. Most flawed leadership decisions do not feel obviously wrong when they are made. They feel reasonable. Logical. Sometimes even unavoidable. The problem is rarely intelligence itself. The problem is the thinking structure behind the decision. In strategic environments, strong decision-makers eventually learn an uncomfortable truth: expertise does not eliminate cognitive distortions. In some cases, it amplifies them. Experience improves pattern recognition, speed, and confidence. But it can also create hidden rigidity. The more successful people become within a particular model of reality, the less likely they are to question the assumptions behind that model. This creates a subtle trap. Leaders become highly effective at solving problems inside the framework they already understand, while becoming less willing to question whether the framework itself still fits reality. Intelligent people are often exceptionally good at defending conclusions that feel internally consistent. Once the underlying assumptions become flawed, intelligence can make the problem worse rather than better. The danger is not bad reasoning. The danger is good reasoning built on unexamined assumptions. The Expertise Trap Experience is one of the most valuable assets a leader can possess.
In stable environments, this creates a major advantage. The problem is that expertise is built from past patterns. It relies on accumulated models of how the world works. Most of the time, those models are useful. But when conditions change, the same expertise that once improved judgment can begin to distort it. Leaders start interpreting new situations through outdated assumptions. Signals that contradict the existing model are dismissed as temporary noise. Evidence is filtered selectively. Familiar explanations are favored over uncomfortable alternatives. This happens because expertise creates efficiency. Experienced leaders do not evaluate every situation from first principles. They rely on mental shortcuts developed through repetition and prior success. That is normally rational. Without those shortcuts, decision-making would become impossibly slow. But shortcuts introduce vulnerability. The more often a particular model has worked in the past, the harder it becomes to recognize when it no longer applies. This creates one of the most dangerous dynamics in leadership: Success increases confidence in the model precisely when the model may need to be questioned most. In strategic games, strong players sometimes lose not because they misunderstand the position, but because they interpret it through patterns from previous games that no longer fit the current reality. Leadership works the same way. Past success can quietly reduce curiosity. And once curiosity declines, assumptions stop being tested. That is where intelligent leadership mistakes often begin. One of the clearest examples of this dynamic can be seen in elite sports leadership. For years, José Mourinho achieved extraordinary success using a highly disciplined and defensively structured approach to football management. He won league titles across multiple countries and captured Champions League titles with teams that were not considered tournament favorites. The success was so consistent for so long that belief in the model became almost unshakable. And that is understandable. When a framework repeatedly produces elite outcomes, questioning it begins to feel irrational. The model has earned trust through years of validation. But environments change. Opponents adapt. Cultures evolve. New strategic approaches emerge. What once created an advantage may gradually become a limitation. One of the most difficult challenges for highly successful leaders is recognizing when the methods that created success are no longer producing the same edge, not because the original model was flawed, but because every model has conditions under which it works best. The danger is that prolonged success can quietly reduce the willingness to re-examine those conditions. At that point, confidence in the model becomes stronger than sensitivity to new evidence. Once that happens, adaptation slows down precisely when it becomes most necessary. Organizations Reinforce Assumptions Leadership decisions are rarely made in isolation. Even highly independent leaders operate inside systems shaped by culture, incentives, hierarchy, and group dynamics. Over time, these systems begin reinforcing certain assumptions automatically. This creates another hidden risk. Once an organization collectively accepts a particular interpretation of reality, that interpretation becomes increasingly difficult to question, not necessarily because people are afraid to disagree, but because the underlying assumptions gradually stop being visible. They become embedded in the language of meetings, strategic priorities, performance metrics, and internal narratives. What once began as a hypothesis slowly evolves into something treated as self-evident. At that point, organizations stop testing assumptions and start defending them. This is especially dangerous during periods of success. Strong performance creates psychological validation. Growth, profits, or market dominance make the existing model appear unquestionably correct. As long as results remain positive, few people feel pressure to challenge the structure behind them. However, success can conceal structural weaknesses for surprisingly long periods of time. A flawed strategy may continue producing acceptable results simply because market conditions remain favorable. A leadership model may appear effective because past momentum continues carrying the organization forward. The danger emerges when the environment changes. Organizations that built their identity around a particular way of thinking often struggle to adapt because adaptation requires more than operational change. It requires cognitive change. And cognitive change is uncomfortable. It forces leaders to reconsider assumptions that may have defined years of previous success. In many organizations, the cost of questioning the model quietly becomes higher than the cost of defending it. That is when intelligent organizations begin making predictable mistakes, not because nobody sees the problem, but because the system itself discourages seeing it clearly. The strongest leadership cultures are not the ones that eliminate disagreement. They are the ones that make constructive doubt acceptable before reality forces the issue externally. The Illusion of Confidence One of the paradoxes of leadership is that confidence is both necessary and dangerous. Leaders are expected to project certainty. Teams want clarity. Investors want conviction. Organizations tend to reward decisiveness far more than hesitation. In uncertain environments, visible confidence creates stability. However, confidence and accuracy are not the same thing. Over time, many organizations begin confusing the appearance of certainty with the quality of judgment itself. This creates a subtle distortion. Leaders who express strong conviction are often perceived as more competent, even when the underlying assumptions behind their decisions remain untested. Meanwhile, leaders who openly acknowledge uncertainty may appear weaker despite thinking more carefully about the problem. As a result, organizational cultures can unintentionally reward overconfidence, not because people deliberately reject thoughtful analysis, but because certainty feels reassuring. In strategic environments, however, certainty is often precisely where the greatest risk hides. The strongest decision-makers rarely assume they fully understand a complex situation. They remain aware that every model is incomplete and every interpretation contains blind spots. That awareness does not make them indecisive. It makes them adaptive. Poor leaders often protect certainty. Strong leaders protect the ability to update. This distinction becomes critical when environments begin changing quickly. Leaders who tie their identity too closely to being “right” become slower to update when reality changes. New information starts feeling like a threat rather than feedback. At that point, confidence stops functioning as a leadership tool and starts functioning as a defense mechanism. Once certainty becomes emotionally protected, intelligent decision-making begins to deteriorate rapidly. What Strong Leaders Do Differently The strongest leaders are not necessarily the smartest people in the room. Nor are they always the most confident. What separates exceptional leaders is often something less visible: the ability to continuously re-examine the assumptions behind their decisions. They understand that every model eventually becomes incomplete. As a result, they build systems that make adaptation easier rather than harder. This often means deliberately introducing friction into the decision-making process. Strong leaders invite disagreement before reality forces correction externally. They encourage alternative interpretations, stress-test assumptions, and actively look for information that contradicts their preferred conclusion, not because they lack confidence, but because they understand the limits of confidence. In strategic environments, the goal is rarely to eliminate uncertainty completely. That is impossible. The goal is to remain responsive to new information without becoming emotionally attached to previous assumptions. This creates an important distinction between weak and strong leadership cultures. Weak leadership cultures optimize for agreement. Strong leadership cultures optimize for accuracy. That difference becomes especially important during periods of success. When performance is strong, the pressure to question the existing model naturally declines. This is precisely when the best leaders become more vigilant, not less. They recognize that success can validate flawed assumptions for long periods of time. As a result, they continue asking uncomfortable questions even when the system appears to be working.
These questions create cognitive flexibility, and cognitive flexibility is one of the most important competitive advantages a leader can possess in changing environments. The leaders who adapt fastest are rarely those with the strongest certainty. They are the ones most willing to update The Ability to Update Leadership is often described as the ability to provide answers. However, in complex environments, leadership is equally the ability to question assumptions before reality forces the issue externally. The most dangerous leadership mistakes rarely begin with incompetence. They begin with certainty that slowly stops being examined. Experience reinforces the model. Organizations normalize the model. Success validates the model. Over time, intelligent people can become trapped inside systems that once created advantage but no longer fit reality. This is why strong leadership is not simply about confidence, decisiveness, or expertise. It is about maintaining the ability to update. The best leaders do not assume they are immune to cognitive distortions. They assume distortions are inevitable and build processes designed to expose them early. Leadership quality is ultimately not determined by how strongly a leader believes in a model. It is determined by how quickly the leader recognizes when the model needs to change. Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:56 AM
05.21.26
Leading Thoughts for May 21, 2026
IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: Brad Stulberg on goals: “Goals are like mountaintops. They are important insofar as they provide definition and direction for our journeys. They serve as targets, offering a wellspring of motivation. They keep us focused and prevent us from aimlessly wandering. Yet nearly all of our growth, development, and meaning occur not at the point of accomplishing a goal but during its pursuit. There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life. What will change your life is how you are transformed in the process of going for it. When you select what goals to pursue, you are selecting what kind of person you want to become.” Source: The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World Anne Lamott on forging ahead: “There are parts of your life you keep placing just out of reach because they feel inconvenient, unclear, or not quite ready yet. So you wait for the right stretch of time, the right version of yourself, or the right set of circumstances that will finally make it all make sense. But life doesn’t rearrange itself for clarity. It responds to movement. The thing you keep circling might not need more thinking. It might need a first step. What you are waiting for may be created by the act of beginning.” Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas.
Posted by Michael McKinney at 06:14 PM
|
 |
BUILD YOUR KNOWLEDGE
 
How to Do Your Start-Up Right STRAIGHT TALK FOR START-UPS 
Grow Your Leadership Skills NEW AND UPCOMING LEADERSHIP BOOKS 
Leadership Minute BITE-SIZE CONCEPTS YOU CAN CHEW ON 
Classic Leadership Books BOOKS TO READ BEFORE YOU LEAD |
|
ABOUT
FOLLOW US:
     
Recent Posts
CategoriesFull site feed
 Subscribe via RSSMONTHLY ARCHIVE
|
 |
| ||
 | Follow us on:
© 2025 LeadershipNow™  |
| |
Data Inspired
Superteams
Effective
Wired for Peace
Failure Is An Option
Here is a selection of 
