Leading Thoughts for September 11, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Colin Fisher on group dynamics:

“Being a member of a group changes how people see reality. Two groups can see the same event but believe wildly different things about it. Groups are a lens through which members view what is true. When a situation is new and uncertain, norms emerge quickly and most people fall in line rather than sticking up for their own (weakly held) points of view. In fact, many people adopt group norms so quickly, they don’t even realize they changed their own views.”

Source: The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups

II.

Margaret Andrews on self-understanding:

“Self-understanding is the foundation of effective leadership. However, society doesn’t emphasize self-understanding. With advertisers telling us what we should want and how we should measure success (usually money and the things money can buy), the power of influencers, the desire for ‘likes’ on our social media posts, and often families that push us to ‘succeed,’ we’re taught to chase what others have, to want what others want, and to care more about status and approval than self-understanding, personal growth, or living a meaningful life. Looking externally rather than internally leads to a lack of clarity about who we are and what we want, and this lack of clarity can lead us to make bad decisions.”

Source: Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:33 PM
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Leading Thoughts for September 4, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Hemant Taneja on radical collaboration:

“Lobbing ‘disruptive’ innovations like random hand grenades into such large, established, and important sectors usually only changes things on the fringes. Those who work on the inside, who have spent their lives in their professions, get the sense that outsiders are invading and telling them they are outmoded or worthless, so they understandably push back. They might outright reject the innovation—or lobby to get policymakers to regulate the innovation away. Systemic transformation gets throttled when these disruptors fail to work with the system. Disruption needs to be disrupted, so to speak, by radical collaboration.”

Source: The Transformation Principles: How to Create Enduring Change

II.

Rolf Dobelli on values:

“When it comes to important issues, values allow you to have radical flexibility. Once you’ve defined your values clearly, you don’t have to weigh the pros and cons every time you are faced with a decision. It’s already been made for you.”

Source: The Art of the Good Life: 52 Surprising Shortcuts to Happiness, Wealth, and Success

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:37 PM
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First Look: Leadership Books for September 2025

HERE'S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in September 2025 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.

The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups by Colin M. Fisher

Why are groups so hard? From boring work meetings to dysfunctional families to warring nations, group dynamics shape every aspect of our lives. How can we avoid the common pitfalls of living and working together and get the most from our groups? The solution isn’t to change individuals—it’s to understand the world from a collective perspective. In The Collective Edge, Colin Fisher, one of the world’s foremost experts on group dynamics, distills decades of research into practical strategies to help groups function at their highest levels. The secret to getting the most from your groups is knowing how to work with the invisible forces of group dynamics instead of being mindlessly pushed around by them. Whether you’re a leader, team member, or simply interested in better understanding how groups work, The Collective Edge provides essential wisdom that will help your groups unlock their true potential.

We Are Ambiverts Now by Karl Moore and Gabriele Hartshorne-Mehl

Based on real-world evidence from senior executives and successful entrepreneurs, this book argues that an effective leader must act like an ambivert: an introvert at times and an extrovert at others. Thanks to landmark books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People, many professionals think that only extroverts can be standout leaders, but Karl Moore’s interviews with over 750 CEOs from around the world prove that introverts make excellent leaders too. These insights make clear that the optimal leadership style is ambivert, with senior leaders combining introversion―being excellent listeners and thinking before they speak―and extroversion―inspiring and connecting with their teams. This book teaches how introverts and extroverts work, manage, and lead effectively and how readers can be better leaders regardless of their natural communication style. It empowers leaders to celebrate the strengths of their personality type while being flexible and to understand when to incorporate the strengths of other types into their leadership approach to be more effective.

Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding by Margaret C. Andrews

What is the “best” way to lead others? The answer may surprise you. The basis for powerful, effective leadership comes from within—from understanding the people, ideas, and events that have shaped your worldview and how these influences express themselves in your leadership style. In Manage Yourself to Lead Others, leadership expert Margaret Andrews helps you understand yourself and translate this understanding into effectively managing yourself, leading others, working with your boss, and making better decisions. Andrews has taught thousands of executives in her professional development course at Harvard, and she shares her insights, practical tips, and questions for reflection here. This book will allow you to identify the kind of leader you want to be, the behavioral patterns that help get you there or stand in your way, and what it takes to develop new leadership capabilities.

The Secure Leader: Discover the Hidden Forces that Shape Your Leadership Story—and How to Change Them by Jaime Goff

Since 2020, global events have reshaped our expectations of work and leadership. Today's workforce seeks more than just a paycheck; they crave meaning, purpose, connection, and belonging. Traditional leadership models no longer suffice. In The Secure Leader, Dr. Jaime Goff offers a groundbreaking path forward. She argues that true leadership begins not with mastering techniques, but with understanding who you are and why you lead. Embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery and learn how to: • Deconstruct Your Story: Explore how your early experiences have shaped your worldview and leadership approach, often embedding hidden anxieties and insecurities. • Identify Key Themes: Recognize the constructive and destructive patterns that influence your interactions and decisions. • Re-author Your Narrative: Develop a new, empowering leadership story that honors your past, strengthens your present, and creates a foundation for a fulfilling future.

In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work by Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh

In their important new book, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli and workplace strategist Ranya Nehmeh deliver a balanced, research-based approach to navigating the complex landscape of remote and hybrid work. They provide a fresh perspective on why hybrid models often fail and what organizations must do differently to succeed in this new era―with takeaways that may not be welcome to all. In this timely book, discover: + Why remote work succeeded initially but has become increasingly problematic over time + What has been lost with the move away from in-office work, The hidden benefits of in-person work, How work dynamics post-pandemic have further influenced workplace culture and employee attitudes, How career advancement opportunities have changed, How new hires are faring, and How the changes have impacted home life. In Praise of the Office also reveals when in-office works best, when fully remote work works best, and what is required to make hybrid work. Plus, it identifies what aspects of hybrid can do the most damage to employers and employees.

The Transformation Principles: How to Create Enduring Change by Hemant Taneja with Kevin Maney

Capitalism has historically focused on profit generation, with positive impact left to non-profits. This system has fueled unprecedented growth, but has also generated unsustainable consequences—deepening inequality, widespread job displacement, and eroding social trust. It’s time for a new paradigm—one that recognizes the inextricable link between positive impact and returns. Long-term profitability depends on maintaining public trust, societal wellbeing, and operating legitimacy. This new reality necessitates a new set of principles—transformation principles—to guide our decision-making as we build for growth and for good.

For bulk orders call 1-626-441-2024

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“You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write well without reading well. And I mean that last "well" in both senses. You have to be good at reading, and read good things.”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:49 AM
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LeadershipNow 140: August 2025 Compilation

Here is a selection of Posts from August 2025 that you will want to check out:

• Feeling Blindsided? Try These Six Leadership Shifts by @TerriKlass
• Becoming Unoffendable by @KevinPaulScott
• The Best Teams in the World All Have These 3 Traits by @AlanSteinJr
• 3 Reasons Small Wins Crush Big Goals by Craig Groeschel
• Not All Feedback is Created Equal by @wallybock
• Why working in an office still matters via @FastCompany by Jim Misener
• How curiosity rewires your brain for change by @neuranne Anne-Laure Le Cunff
• 20 Ways to Get Mentally Tough by @JonGordon11
• The Secret to Creative Fire? Gather the Fuel Before You Strike the Match by@wallybock
• The Breakthrough Question by @JeffHenderson
• Leaders Who Attention Bomb via @AdmiredLeaders
• 3 Reasons Leaders Must Care About the Details No One Else Sees by @BrianKDodd
• The Cult of the Rewatch: Why Nostalgia Is Eating Innovation via @LBBOnline In this climate - war, collapse, too many tabs open - people weren’t craving new ideas. They were craving control. Control felt like the past
• A Meretricious Meritocracy 1 of 5 by @jamesstrock This is the first of five posts relating to the modern American meritocracy
• A Meretricious Meritocracy 2 of 5 by @jamesstrock The bureaucratization of everything
• Five Ways To Finally Get Your Talent Noticed by @PhilCooke
• What A World (A few Stories) by @morganhousel
• Is Your Team a Committee in Disguise? Diagnose the Problem and Get Your Teamwork On Track by @SusanMazza
• The Leadership Drift: 7 Reasons Even Good Leaders Fail by @BrianKDodd
• The Irony of Leadership by @PhilCooke

See more on Twitter.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:17 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 28, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Luc de Brabandere on changing twice:

“If you want to change, you have to change twice. You not only need to change the reality of your situation, you also need to change perception of this reality.”

Source: The Forgotten Half of Change: Achieving Greater Creativity through Changes in Perception

II.

Nido Qubein on bureaucracy:

“There is a tendency in any organization for it to become self-serving. The larger the organization grows and the older it is, the stronger this tendency expresses itself and becomes this kind of inertia, a growing gravitational field if you will, that pulls everything into its orbit. Whatever its stated goals or original mission may have been, the organization’s everyday purpose becomes more and more about the perpetuation of the organization itself. This is the essence of the term bureaucracy.”

Source: Extraordinary Transformation: An Entrepreneurial Blueprint for Leaders Who Seek Transformational Growth in Any Organization

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:27 AM
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Extraordinary Transformation: An Inspiring Blueprint for Transformational Growth

NIDO QUBEIN began serving as Highpoint University’s president in 2005. As he toured the school in January of that year, it was not a school that he would even send his own children to. He was about to change that. He has led the university through an extraordinary transformation during his two decades and counting in office, including:

Undergraduate and graduate enrollment has increased from 1,500 in 2005 to a record 6,335 students last fall, with the addition of 12 academic schools. This has been supported with a jump in the number of faculty members from 108 to more than 500.

The Campus itself has also grown significantly with the construction of 128 new or renovated buildings on Campus and a total investment of more than $3 billion. The Campus has expanded from 91 acres to over 550 acres.

In addition, HPU’s rankings have jumped from #17 in 2005 to #1. The university has maintained the #1 Regional College in the South for 13 consecutive years in “America’s Best Colleges” by U.S. News & World Report and #1 Most Innovative for 10 consecutive years.

Extraordinary Transformation: An Entrepreneurial Blueprint for Leaders Who Seek Transformational Growth in Any Organization not only explains how this transformation happened but also provides the principles that can be applied to your professional and personal life. Entrepreneurs take note.

Qubein provides a guide to transformational change. Here are some of the insights found in this book:

You have to peer into the interior of events and circumstances and find out for yourself what’s really going on there.

On the need for big change over incremental changes: That would not be a bad thing—but there would be no story to tell. This is not to say that incremental change has no value at all. There are places where incremental development is precisely what is called for, where moving fast may even be counterproductive. These are situations where making small improvements consistently over time can add up to have a powerful cumulative effect. Exercise is like that. So is the accumulation and assimilation of new knowledge or the learning of a new discipline. We needed to be noticed, and when you want people to notice, you have to make your moves big.

Having a personal vision sets up a creative tension between the world as it is and the world as you would like it to be. That creative tension provides fuel and leads you onto a path of accomplishment and fulfillment.

We had to become the place the students wanted to be.

The truth is that it does not have to take huge amounts of money to make a profound shift in people’s experience. The process is not capital-intensive; it is empathy-intensive.

Where can we remove irritants in the system?

One of the lessons I’ve learned in life is that your connections, your relational capital, will help you achieve your goals. They believe .in you, you believe in them, and they will work on your behalf with no questions asked.

You cannot effect meaningful change unless the underlying culture changes first. All other transformation starts here. It is the who that defines the what, never the other way around. And ultimately, it is the why that matters the most. If you want to transform your organization, you first must decide what kind of culture you want it to be.

There is a tendency in any organization for it to become self-serving. The larger the organization grows and the older it is, the stronger this tendency expresses itself and becomes this kind of inertia, a growing gravitational field if you will, that pulls everything into its orbit. Whatever its stated goals or original mission may have been, the organization’s everyday purpose becomes more and more about the perpetuation of the organization itself. This is the essence of the term bureaucracy.

Please don’t think outside the box because when you do that, you’re still using the box as your frame of reference. Let us throw the box out the window.

Always retain an entrepreneurial edge and outlook.

Nobody will notice the value you provide unless you tell them. Creating value is essential to establishing your brand, but it is just as essential that you continually interpret that value—not only to your clients and potential clients but also to your staff, investors, board members (if you have them), and every stakeholder connected with your enterprise. We also had to communicate to our students, to our parents, and to our community why we were doing that and what difference it made to them.

Here is something else about leadership that my years in business had taught me: When you are frightened, you have to let it show—to someone. To a carefully selected, deeply regarded few. Knowing who those few are and being able to fully confide in them—that, too, is leadership. Sometimes, in moments of crisis, you need to reach out to someone you trust, someone you can talk to.

During the pandemic, he said, “These are times when we have to forget about all the things we must do and think about the things we must be. We need to think, ‘Who must I become in a time like this?’”

Leadership resides within all of us. We simply have to take advantage. Of the talents we have. When we do, we will know who we are and become who we want to be.

If you want to know what it means to become extraordinary, then this book is for you. Read chapter 8, What is Your Promise? and raise your game.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:54 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 21, 2025

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Richard Daft on reflection:

“Reflection is also a choice: that of thoughtful wisdom over instant reaction. The idea of reflection is to find deeper understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, because organizational problems often are more complex than they look. Things move so fast that often you may not know what you really think or feel about an issue. Reflection makes your mind proactive rather than reactive.”

Source: The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader's Guide for Achieving Inner Excellence

II.

Antony Bell on humility:

“Humility rests firmly on the foundation of self-awareness. Humility generates two qualities: a thirst for personal growth and a healthy dose of self-discipline. Requires a certain measure of humility to recognize what you don’t know and an equal measure to want to keep on learning. Humility recognizes that greatness requires work, and work requires self-discipline. Great leaders work hard, and, most of all, they work hard on themselves.”

Source: Great Leadership: What It Is and What It Takes in a Complex World

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:23 PM
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The Systems Leader

WE experience a tsunami of chaos in our environment, creating cross-pressures to achieve what appear to be contradictory goals at the same time. The solution is what Robert E. Siegel calls Systems Leadership. “Leaders face pressure to do opposing things at the same time, which can make them feel like no matter what they do or how well they do it, they are getting it all wrong.”

The Systems Leader by Robert Siegel is based on systems thinking as made accessible in Peter Senge’s classic book The Fifth Discipline. In it, he “emphasized the interplay of actions and reactions between components of any kind of system, and the importance of studying those relationships holistically, not as isolated parts.”

Systems Leadership incorporates strategies to reframe and learn how to master five key dimensions of cross-pressures that most leaders find themselves embroiled in and many fail to confront:

Priorities: The need to succeed at both execution and innovation
People: The need to project both strength and empathy
Sphere of Influence: The need to focus both internally and externally
Geography: The need to think both locally and globally
Purpose: The need to pursue both ambition and statesmanship

Systems Leadership begins with embracing how much you don’t know at any given moment, and gives you a way to move forward with reasonable confidence but not delusional overconfidence.

Siegel asserts that many leaders fail to deal with these cross-pressures because they engage in counterproductive behaviors that feel good in the moment. For example, replacing decorum with outrageousness, focusing on trivial goals, ignoring changes you don’t like, and indulging in self-righteousness. Regarding ignoring changes you don’t like, he says some leaders act like nothing has changed, “hoping that the traditional ways of the universe will somehow reassert themselves.” He adds, “Fully understanding the reasons for past successes can help you internalize whether your old ‘playbook’ is still useful for a current or future challenge.”

Systems leadership is the “ability to master processes and strategies from different perspectives at the same time.” And to do it consistently in good times and bad. Here is a checklist of principles to guide your systems leadership:

A Systems Leader’s Checklist

Leader, know thyself. To be able to act intentionally rather than impulsively. “Leadership is the ability to constrain a response to a given stimulus.”

Do the hard jobs yourself. You are not so important that you can’t get your hands dirty and model hard work. It’s moral authority.

Be brave enough to say, I don’t know. No one has all the answers, nor are you in control of all that is happening. It’s okay.

Listen to internal teammates you can trust. You can avoid many mistakes by listening to internal experts.

Find trusted partners outside the company. You need trustworthy voices from outside the organization who can tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear.

Hold two truths at once. “No matter how good things are now, prepare for a challenging future. And no matter how bad things are now, take heart that bad times don’t last forever.”

Watch where you spend your time, because the people who report to you are watching. Make time for what matters most.

Be mindful of the difference between skill and luck. There are times when your luck mattered more than your skills. “If nothing else, it will bring an awareness that the things you did during your lucky moments are not necessarily the playbook you should copy in the future.”

Ask yourself if you’d rehire yourself today for your current job. Are you the best person for your role now? Changing times require new skills.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:43 PM
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