The Best Leadership Books of 2025

THE titles listed below, published in 2025, improve our self-awareness regarding relationships and communication the sine qua non of leadership and provide us with a wider perspective on innovation and the changes taking place around us.

The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck
by David Spiegelhalter

(W. W. Norton & Company, 2025)

How dangerous is our diet? How much of sports falls into the realm of luck? When authorities categorize a given event as “highly likely”—how likely is that, really? Whether we’re trying to decide if the benefits of a new medication are worth the chance of side effects or if artificial intelligence truly threatens humanity, our lives are riddled with uncertainties both everyday and existential—yet it can be difficult to know how to properly weigh all those unknowns. In lucid, lively prose, Spiegelhalter guides us through the principles of probability, illustrating how they can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to sports to climate change forecasts. He demonstrates how taking a mathematical approach to phenomena we might otherwise attribute to fate or luck can help us sort hidden patterns from mere coincidences, better evaluate cause and effect, and predict what’s likely to happen in the future.

The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More
by Jefferson Fisher

(TarcherPerigee, 2025)

No matter who you’re talking to, The Next Conversation gives you immediately actionable strategies and phrases that will forever change how you communicate. Jefferson Fisher, trial lawyer and one of the leading voices on real-world communication, offers a tried-and-true framework that will show you how to transform your life and your relationships by improving your next conversation. The Next Conversation will give you practical phrases that will lead to powerful results, from breaking down defensiveness in a hard talk with a family member to finding your own assertive voice at the boardroom conference table. Your every word matters, and by controlling how you communicate every day, you will create waves of positive impact that will resonate throughout your relationships to last a lifetime.

More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead
by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter with Marissa Afton and Rob Stembridge

(Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)

Humans have always been good at inventing tools that change the way we live and work—though not always good at adapting to those changes. Will the power of AI create a new era of robotic, impersonal efficiency, or will it catalyze a renaissance, redefining leadership and the world of work? So far, that question has mostly prompted a wave of anxiety about the disappearance of jobs and the loss of humanness in our work lives. AI has the power to transform leadership for the better—the key is in how leaders use it. By delegating tasks to AI and using it to augment skills and behaviors, leaders have an opportunity to unlock a truly human experience of work while enhancing organizational performance. The AI-augmented leader moves beyond a focus on the technology itself to constantly probe how it can enhance and deepen the core qualities of human-centered leadership: awareness, wisdom, and compassion. In this way, AI can help leaders and organizations become more human.

Conquering Crisis: Ten Lessons to Learn Before You Need Them
by Admiral William H. McRaven

(Grand Central Publishing, 2025)

Throughout his 40-year career, Admiral McRaven has experienced every manner of calamity imaginable. From managing failed hostage rescues to responding to student unrest, McRaven has learned how to successfully navigate crises—those moments that push the limits of your experience and challenge your confidence, when leadership skills alone may not be enough. Conquering Crisis provides a new set of tools for facing these stressful moments with poise. It breaks crises down into five phases assess, report, contain, shape, and manage—and provides concrete steps to come out the other side stronger. With incredible personal stories, thought-provoking parables, and memorable lessons, Admiral McRaven sheds light on the ways we can rise to the occasion in times of crisis and act as leaders, no matter the situation.

The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless principles to perfect your leadership of individuals, teams… and yourself!
by Sébastien Page

(Harriman House, 2025)

The Psychology of Leadership offers a fresh take on leadership through the lens of groundbreaking research in positive, sports, and personality psychology. Leaders will develop what feels like mind-reading abilities for interpreting workplace personalities, hidden motivations, and group dynamics. They will learn how to inspire their organization to move mountains, improve their ability to listen, communicate and, when necessary, persuade. Along the way they will dramatically improve their own mindset and resilience.

The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies
by Robert E. Siegel

(Crown Currency, 2025)

A groundbreaking blueprint for mastering “cross-pressures” in a rapidly changing world, teaching leaders to execute and innovate, think locally and globally, and project ambition and statesmanship alike—from a Stanford Business School lecturer and consultant to some of the biggest and most innovative CEOs. Part of the problem is that these challenges, while acutely felt, are rarely articulated in a way that makes them graspable and actionable. Robert E. Siegel has witnessed the impact of these cross-pressures from different perspectives. As a lecturer in management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, an operator, a venture capitalist, and a consultant, he sees countless teams of managers, at all sorts of companies, struggling to lead their companies into the future.

Blindspotting: How To See What's Holding You Back as a Leader
by Martin Dubin

(Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)

A groundbreaking blueprint for mastering “cross-pressures” in a rapidly changing world, teaching leaders to execute and innovate, think locally and globally, and project ambition and statesmanship alike—from a Stanford Business School lecturer and consultant to some of the biggest and most innovative CEOs. Part of the problem is that these challenges, while acutely felt, are rarely articulated in a way that makes them graspable and actionable. Robert E. Siegel has witnessed the impact of these cross-pressures from different perspectives. As a lecturer in management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, an operator, a venture capitalist, and a consultant, he sees countless teams of managers, at all sorts of companies, struggling to lead their companies into the future.

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

(Wiley, 2025)

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.

A CEO for All Seasons: Mastering the Cycles of Leadership
by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra and Kurt Strovink

(Scribner, 2025)

In the high-stakes world of corporate leadership, becoming a Fortune 500 CEO is an Everest-like ascent—with only the savviest managing to avoid falling off the mountain. In A CEO for All Seasons, you’ll find an essential climbing route that will take you through every stage. Unique in applying a number of sophisticated metrics to isolate the world’s top 200 CEOs, reduce them to a representative sample, and then reap their wisdom, the McKinsey team, in A CEO for All Seasons, spotlights the specific stage-based hurdles that CEOs face. From preparing for the role to starting strong to sustaining momentum to ensuring a lasting legacy, the book leaves no segment of the journey unmapped. Along the way, it offers proven strategies for maintaining forward progress and, crucially, alerts readers to common blind spots that can sabotage success, as revealed by a detailed survey of thousands of executives.

Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead)
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

(Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)

“Just be yourself” might be the worst advice you’ve ever received. For years, we’ve been told that authenticity is the key to success—that we should be true to ourselves, tune out others’ opinions, and lead with unwavering genuineness. This feel-good message has spawned countless self-help books, leadership seminars, and viral social media posts. There’s just one problem: science says it’s wrong. Drawing on decades of research, renowned psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic reveals an uncomfortable truth: our obsession with authenticity is backfiring. From Silicon Valley’s authenticity worship to failed diversity programs, he exposes how our fixation on our “true selves” undermines both individual and organizational success. (Blog Post)

Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success
by Phil Gilbert

(Wiley, 2025)

Irresistible Change details one of the largest and most formidable transformations in corporate history: to shift the foundations of work for IBM’s nearly 400,000 employees and thousands of interdisciplinary teams across 180 countries and help them become more entrepreneurial, agile, and customer focused. Written by Phil Gilbert, IBM’s former General Manager of Design and architect of this ambitious change effort, this book is part narrative and part field guide. Irresistible Change describes how the choices made at IBM affected the Change Program Office’s development at each stage of its growth and provides readers with key insights they need to conduct transformational change within their own organizations.

Biographies:

Elliott Parker writes, “Biographies and history books are more likely to teach first principles and to generate more ideas about what to do differently than a typical business case study.” He adds, “And often, the further you look outside your immediate context, the more likely your mind is to be stretched to find creative solutions.” Here are some of the best from 2025.

The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future
by Kevin Evers

(W. W. Norton & Company, 2025)

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the company’s board. The episode was a demonstration of how quickly the industry is moving, and of Altman’s power to bend reality to his will. In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman’s rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham’s protégé and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk, a former friend and now Altman’s bitter opponent.

There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift
by Wilbur Ross

(Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)

Singer-songwriter. Trailblazer. Mastermind. The Beatles of her generation. From her genre-busting rise in country music as a teenager to the economic juggernaut that is the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift has blazed a path that is uniquely hers. But how exactly has she managed to scale her success—multiple times—while dominating an industry that cycles through artists and stars like fashion trends? How has she managed to make and remake herself time and again while remaining true to her artistic vision? And how has she managed to master the constant disruption in the music business that has made it so hard for others to adapt and endure? In There's Nothing Like This, Kevin Evers, answers these questions in riveting detail. With the same thoughtful analysis usually devoted to iconic founders, game-changing innovators, and pioneering brands, Evers chronicles the business and creative decisions that have defined each phase of Swift's career. Mixing business and art, analysis and narrative, and pulling from research in innovation, creativity, psychology, and strategy, There's Nothing Like This presents Swift as the modern and multidimensional superstar that she is—a songwriting savant and a strategic genius.

Delivering the Wow: Culture as Catalyst for Lasting Success
by Richard Fain

(Fast Company Press, 2025)

In Delivering the WOW, Fain shows how a culture united people around a mission, delighted guests, and unlocked extraordinary performance. Drawing on vivid stories from 33 years at the helm, Fain explains how a remarkable culture was forged and strengthened through: • Alignment: ensuring every employee understands the same clear mission, beyond hierarchy or titles • Intentionality: never losing sight of the ultimate goal and ensuring that every action, big or small, supports that objective • Continuous improvement: never being satisfied; always believing that there are ways to improve • Crisis response: deeply rooted culture as a stabilizing force during black swan events, including the global pandemic. Invaluable principles like these are woven into unforgettable stories which help explain how the company's profitability, guest capacity, and employee base all grew more than thirtyfold.

Bag Man: The Story Behind the Improbable Rise of Coach
by Lew Frankfort

(Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)

Lew Frankfort knew nothing about fashion when he became assistant to the founder of Coach. By the time he left, Frankfort had spent 29 years as CEO, growing Coach from a scrappy maker of leather bags with a small cult following to a beloved lifestyle brand. Along the way, Coach created a new market segment—accessible luxury—that redefined an industry. In Bag Man, Frankfort explains how the son of a Bronx policeman, after working in city government, built a business that challenged conventions, grew it 1000%, and became recognized as one of the world's best CEOs.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:21 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 18, 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.

L David Marquet and Michael Gillespie on focusing on our future self:

“By changing our time-based point of reference, we inoculate ourselves from the present moment-biased effect of temporal discounting that we are otherwise subject to. The temporal distance reduces the importance and even the visibility of practical constraints. We do not feel them. When those practical constraints fade away, what we are left with is our ideal self. It is almost always a better human and allows us to focus on what we care most about, distinct from the urgent hassles, compromises, concessions, and justifications of today.”

Source: Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions

II.

Margaret Andrews on managing yourself:

“Self-understanding gives us insight, but self-management helps us get there. Altering the way we behave changes the way people perceive and respond to us, and can change the way we think and feel about ourselves. With time and practice, the new behavior becomes a more natural component of our leadership style and way of being. This, in turn, has transformative effect on our own leadership abilities as well as the product of the work we do with and through others.”

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

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:26 PM
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Lessons from the Octopus About Leading AI Transformation

SIXTY-SIX million years ago, an asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs and 75% of Earth’s species. Among the survivors was a creature that would teach us critical lessons about thriving amid disruption: the octopus.

While other animals’ external armor was useless against this new threat, the octopus survived by being radically adaptable. It has a rare ability; it can edit its RNA to adjust to new conditions within hours.

Today’s leaders face their own asteroid strike: artificial intelligence. And like that ancient catastrophe, AI is reshaping the business landscape with breathtaking speed. The question isn’t whether your organization will be transformed, but whether you’ll lead that transformation or be overwhelmed by it.

Having worked with dozens of organizations navigating AI adoption, we’ve seen that the most successful leaders don’t treat AI as just another technology implementation. Instead, they recognize it as a catalyst for fundamental organizational redesign.

Here are four critical lessons for leading this transformation.

1. Distribute Intelligence to the Front Lines

The octopus has two-thirds of its neural tissue in its arms, not its brain. As a result, each arm can solve problems independently while remaining coordinated with the whole. This is the ideal model for organizations: push decision-making power to where the action happens.

Most companies still operate with a “hub and spoke” command structure, where information flows up for decisions and then back down for execution. This creates costly delays.

AI changes the game by making sophisticated analysis available at every level. A sales rep can now access predictive customer insights. A supply chain manager can run complex optimization scenarios. A customer service agent can resolve issues that once required escalation.

Take the case of Mass General Brigham, one of the world’s leading healthcare systems. AI tools help frontline clinicians identify patterns and make treatment decisions faster, while leadership focuses on ensuring these tools integrate seamlessly into workflows and align with core values.

Action Step: Identify three decisions currently made at the management level that could be delegated to frontline teams with the right AI support. Then invest in making that support first-rate.

2. Create Knowledge Flow, Not Silos

The octopus has a “neural necklace,” a ring of nerve bundles that connects all its arms, enabling instant information sharing without involving the central brain.

Your organization needs the digital equivalent.

Too many companies treat AI as a series of disconnected point solutions: a chatbot here, a forecasting tool there, an image recognition system somewhere else. But AI’s real power emerges when insights flow freely across organizational boundaries. When your customer service AI informs your product development AI, which feeds your supply chain AI, you create compounding intelligence.

This requires rethinking your data architecture. Follow Amazon’s example: for over two decades, teams have been required to make every dataset accessible through well-documented interfaces.

Action Step: Map the information flows your AI systems require to be most effective, then eliminate the structural barriers preventing those connections. This often means confronting uncomfortable truths about departmental turf and legacy systems.

3. Embrace Three-Hearted Leadership

The octopus has three hearts: one for its body and one for each gill. These hearts serve different purposes, and one can even be stopped temporarily to redirect energy to the others. Modern AI transformation requires a similar multiplicity of leadership approaches and an ability to shift focus.

First, you need operational leadership that maintains excellence in your core business while AI tools enhance productivity. Second, you need experimental leadership that explores how AI might create entirely new business models or revenue streams. Third, you need cultural leadership that addresses the very human concerns about what AI means for people’s roles and dignity.

The computer accessories company Logitech has balanced all three hearts effectively. It has used AI to streamline operations, explored AI-powered new product categories, and conducted town halls where employees could voice concerns and shape how AI would be deployed. This has resulted in both productivity gains and sustained employee engagement.

Action Step: Assess which of these three leadership dimensions you’re neglecting. Then tell managers which styles to focus on and when.

4. Accelerate Through Accurate Sensing

The octopus has exceptional sensory capabilities. It has thousands of chemoreceptors on its arms that constantly feed information about its environment. In an AI transformation, your sensing mechanisms are how you detect both opportunities and emerging problems.

Most organizations implement AI tools but fail to instrument them adequately. They can tell you if the tool is being used, but not how it’s changing workflows, where it’s introducing errors, or what new capabilities users wish it had. This is flying blind.

Build comprehensive sensing into every AI initiative from day one. This means usage analytics, certainly, but also regular qualitative feedback sessions, error tracking with root-cause analysis, and competitive intelligence on how others in your industry are applying similar capabilities. When you spot patterns—positive or negative—you can respond at AI speed rather than committee speed.

Action Step: Before deploying your next AI tool, design the feedback mechanisms that will tell you what’s really happening. Make reviewing this feedback a weekly ritual, not a quarterly afterthought.

The Transformation Imperative

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs created the conditions for mammals to flourish. AI’s disruption is similarly clearing space for new organizational forms, ones that are more adaptive, more intelligent, and more resilient.

The uncomfortable truth is that cautious, incremental approaches won’t cut it. The companies that thrive will be those willing to redesign their organizations around AI’s capabilities—distributing intelligence, connecting insights, embracing complexity, and moving at the speed of algorithms.

The question facing every leader today isn’t whether to transform. It’s whether you’ll transform deliberately, learning from nature’s most adaptable creature, or be transformed by forces you didn’t see coming.

The asteroid has already struck. The age of the Octopus Organization has begun.

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Stephen Wunker is Managing Director of New Markets Advisors, a global consulting firm helping ambitious innovators—including 32 of the Fortune 500—find their next wave of growth. One of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, he’s led a decade’s worth of AI initiatives, advised hundreds of organizations, and authored five bestselling books including AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Superintelligent Firm. Jonathan Brill is the Futurist-in-Residence at Amazon and Executive Director of the Center for Radical Change. Ranked the #1 futurist in the world by Forbes and described as “the world’s leading transformation architect” by Harvard Business Review, Brill converts the chaos of AI, geopolitical shifts, and economic disruption into bold advantage. He’s unlocked tens of billions for multinational corporations, frontier tech firms, and national governments.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:31 AM
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Leading Thoughts for December 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.

Paul J. H. Schoemaker on the value of scenario planning:

“The purpose of developing scenarios is not to pinpoint the future, but rather to experience it. Scenario planning is not really about planning but about changing people’s mindsets to allow faster learning and smarter actions. The process of developing scenarios is one of gaining experience in a simulated future. When You feel the future deep in your bones, you gain a set of instincts that allow you to respond quickly and effectively to new challenges they unfold. The process enlarges the repertoire of responses available to managers based on superior pattern recognition. In an uncertain and changing environment, faster learning is the only lasting source competitive advantage, and scenario planning is a powerful way to accomplish this elusive goal.”

Source: Profiting from Uncertainty: Strategies for Succeeding No Matter What the Future Brings

II.

Max Bazerman and Michael Watkins on challenging the status quo:

“Decision-makers, organizations, and nations often fail to prepare for predictable surprises because of the natural human tendency to maintain the status quo. Above and beyond concerns about the cost and time requirements of change, when a system still functions and there is no crisis to catalyze action, we will keep doing things the way we have always done them. Acting to avoid a predictable surprise requires a decision to act against this bias and to change the status quo. By contrast, most organizations change incrementally, preferring short-term fixes to long-term solutions. To avoid predictable surprises, leaders must make the case for change and eliminate the status quo as an option.”

Source: Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming, and How to Prevent Them

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:50 PM
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Holding the Middle During Organizational Upheaval: The Real Work of Self-Leadership

MOST leadership narratives talk about upheaval change as if it’s solely managed as a sequence: a plan, a timeline, a communication strategy, a rollout. Apply the favored change management steps, and all will be well.

But when you’re inside a pending reorganization, merger, leadership removal, cultural overhaul, or sudden strategic pivot, you quickly learn something most leadership books never say: The hardest part isn’t the change. It’s the in-between.

The stretch of time where what was no longer fits or exists, and what’s coming hasn’t yet taken shape, is an uncomfortable period of ambiguity, disorientation, and suspended identity for organizations, teams, and leaders themselves.

Call It Liminality

Upheavals such as a reorganization, merger, or unexpected leadership transition create a liminal space — a structural in-between where the old way, strategic plan, norms, and org charts no longer exist but the new one hasn’t been created. What leaders and teams experience inside that space is liminality: the psychological, emotional, and identity-level disorientation that comes from being suspended between two realities.

The term liminality comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. It originated in the early 1900s when anthropologist Arnold van Gennep used it to describe the middle stage of rites of passage — the ambiguous and amorphous period as someone leaves behind who they were but hasn’t yet stepped into who they’ll become.

Later, anthropologist Victor Turner expanded the concept, describing liminality as a space of:

• Uncertainty
• Identity dissolution and disorientation
• Destabilized roles and rules that no longer apply
• Heightened and perhaps intense emotion ranging from excited to afraid
• What Turner called communitas — collective meaning-making and camaraderie from navigating liminal space together

Historically, liminality and the other side of the threshold represented profound transformation. Today, liminality resonates as the psychological and relational experience of navigating major transitions in times when the structures, norms, and identities that once guided us are temporarily gone.

It validates the collective unmooring impacting leaders, teams, and the frontline simultaneously. Everyone is in a version of the fog at the same time.

Liminality Impact

Liminal space can be used for good, but leaders must be honest about how it impacts their own leadership identity as they attend to the same questions for those they’re leading. Numerous organizational impacts during upheaval can contribute to leaders’ liminality-related unmooring.

Some of these include:

• Changing roles
• Collapse of cultural norms
• Questioned decisions
• Anxious teams
• Fractured, inconsistent narratives
• Fragile trust
• Unclear expectations

Statements and questions I’ve heard from leaders I’ve supported in these situations sound like:

• “I don’t know where I fit anymore.”
• “I’m not sure my approach is still relevant.”
• “I see what’s ending for me.”
• “What narrative or norm are we even in right now?”

Sometimes leaders carry the burden silently, assuming either that they shouldn’t feel unmoored or that honesty about their experience can’t be shared with those they’re leading. In reality, and per the research, ambiguity increases anxiety and emotional contagion. Leaders under high emotional load communicate less effectively, and teams detect a leader’s emotional state with very high accuracy (70-80%).

But leaders who acknowledge liminality’s impact on them and the organization isn’t weakness — it’s leadership.

Identity Clarity in Liminality

When leaders have identity clarity — alignment between who they are, how they lead, and what they stand for — they have a grounded, stable center, while everything around them is shifting and waiting in the middle feels unstable. Research shows that identity-secure leaders better tolerate ambiguity and exhibit resilience and ethical behavior under pressure.

Leaders committed to their core, essential foundation, ask themselves during liminal waiting:

• Who am I as a leader in these uncertain and uncomfortable conditions?
• What values and convictions continue to guide me even when the path is unclear?
• What do I refuse to compromise?
• How do I stay aligned with my deeper purpose during instability?

Not only does this ground the leader during upheaval-imposed liminality, but it also gives leaders greater capacity to:

• Model and reinforce psychological safety via authentic honesty and care
• Build a shared narrative to reduce ambiguity and stress
• Facilitate transparency, which builds trust

Identity clarity doesn’t give leaders all the answers, but it does provide them with a grounded presence that others can anchor to.

3 Strategies to Hold the Middle During Liminality

Strategy 1: Name the liminal season clearly and often
Use language that normalizes the experience:

• “We’re in a transition without a map yet.”
• “It’s normal to feel unsettled right now.”
• “This is a liminal period — an in-between — and it won’t last forever.”

Why it works: Research shows that naming an emotion or experience reduces the activation of fear and anxiety. It literally calms the brain.

Strategy 2: Use the phrase, “This is hard, and we keep going.”
Most leaders either over-employ empathy (“I know this is hard”) and lose direction, or over-rely on execution (“We still have work to do”) and invalidate the emotional reality. The artistry of leading in liminality is holding both truths at once: “This is hard and we keep moving: together, steadily, intentionally.”

Acknowledging the discomfort might sound like:

• “This is a lot.”
• “Ambiguity is uncomfortable.”
• “Your frustration makes sense.”
• “I feel the weight of this too; how can we move through this together?”

Beyond the emotional validation, the team and frontline also need to know what still matters, what they’re still responsible for, and what they can count on.

Strategy 3: Create micro-stability in the middle of macro-uncertainty
Do small, consistent things that give reassurance:

• Weekly “what’s true now?” huddles
• Consistent Friday updates and Q and As
• Opening and closing rituals
• Shared wins
• Clarity around the next one or two steps, what is known

Why it works: Predictability is one of the strongest buffers against the stress of uncertainty. Micro-stability equals macro-resilience.

Liminality Is Shared and Can Be Utilized

Leadership in an era of big change and upheaval isn’t always about having the answers. Of course, decision-making and operations must be managed. But so must identity clarity and grounded presence that’s strong enough to hold the in-between with others.

When teams and the frontline are suspended in the middle, they don’t anchor to strategy — they anchor to the human leader in front of them.

The leader who can say, “I’m navigating this with you. The unknown is uncomfortable. Let’s stay connected, grounded, and honest as we move forward,” is the leader people trust to guide them through liminality.

Acknowledging liminality doesn’t slow organizations down — it stabilizes them. Leaders who convey the truth of the in-between build stronger trust and deeper resilience across their teams. What emerges on the other side is not just a new structure, but a more aligned, adaptive, and human organization.

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Natalie Pickering, PhD, is a TEDx speaker, organizational psychologist, and executive coach who helps leaders trade performance pressure for authentic influence. For more than two decades, she has partnered with executives, founders, and teams across healthcare, education, startups, and global organizations to navigate change, strengthen culture, and lead with courage. She is the founder of The Becoming Institute, a leadership development firm dedicated to helping organizations scale without losing soul. Her new book is Leading Becomes You: A Real-World Framework for Leading from Inside Out (Sept. 18, 2025). Learn more at drnataliepickering.com.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:57 PM
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Leading Thoughts for December 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.

Jordan Peterson on vision:

“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”

Source: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

II.

Paul Millerd on prototyping:

“Payoff can be profound. For most people, life is not based on all-or-nothing leaps of faith. That’s a lie we tell ourselves so that we can remain comfortable in our current state. We simplify life transitions down to single moments because the real stories are more complex, harder to tell and attract less attention. The headline Quits to Live on a Sailboat seems more impressive and is easier to talk about than Couple Slowly and Purposefully Tests Out a Life Transition While Aggressively Saving Money over Five Years. As a result, we hear fewer of the real stories, most of which include some kind of prototyping.

“By experimenting with different ways of showing up in the world and making small, deliberate changes, we can open ourselves up to the unexpected opportunities, possibilities, and connections that might tell us what comes next.”

Source: The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:06 PM
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First Look: Leadership Books for December 2025

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

The Seismic Shift in You: The Seven Necessary Shifts to Create Connection and Drive Results by Michelle Johnston and Marshall Goldsmith

In a world more connected than ever, why are we all feeling so disconnected? Leadership expert Dr. Michelle K. Johnston reveals the hidden crisis plaguing modern workplaces: an epidemic of disconnection that’s eroding team performance, personal satisfaction, and organizational success. The Seismic Shift in You offers a transformative approach to leadership that starts with the most critical factor—you. Drawing on years of coaching top leaders and the latest research, Johnston outlines seven powerful shifts to help you lead more effectively, including: Rediscover your sense of purpose and direction, Transform everyday interactions into meaningful connections, Spark authentic engagement by starting from within, and Cultivate high-performing teams grounded in trust and collaboration. With real-world stories and practical tools, Johnston offers the clarity you need to lead with greater meaning, fulfillment, and results.

You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI by Joseph Bradley and Don Tapscott

AI tools are already reshaping the way we work and communicate, but as they gain autonomy, they will no longer be mere tools; they will become active participants in our world. As our digital identities become smarter and more capable, we enter the age of “Identic” AI: a place where ever-present AI companions streamline daily tasks, enhance wellbeing, and offer lifelong learning. For professionals, these intelligent agents will amplify creativity, boost productivity, and expand human potential. But with this extraordinary promise comes profound risks—to individuals, businesses, and society itself. From technology experts Joseph M. Bradley and Don Tapscott, You to the Power of Two is a thought-provoking and timely guide that will prepare readers to thrive in world of personal AI agents

Monster Transformation: Conquer Your Digital Fears, Be AI Ready, and Focus on What Matters to Your Organization by Ari Lightman, Rafeh Masood and Gary Hirsch

In Monster Transformation, a team of veteran digital leaders delivers an expert framework to digital transformation that focuses on the competencies your employees will need to have―and develop―to enable your organization to function in a world defined by generative artificial intelligence. Monster Transformation blends actionable insights, real-world case studies, and immediately recognizable organizational behaviors that can either move forward or derail transformation in the age of AI. Whether you are leading, a part of, supporting or interested in organizational transformation, this book challenges conventional thought on dealing with transformation, provides insights on how and why barriers to effective change arise and pragmatic mechanisms to address challenges, diminish barriers and leverage employees.

Human Edge in the AI Age: Eight Timeless Mantras For Success by Nitin Seth

If you're wondering how to stay relevant in a world where AI seems to be mastering capabilities once thought to be uniquely human, from cognitive tasks to emotional intelligence, Human Edge in the AI Age is your answer. This is not another book about what AI can do. It's about what you can do to thrive alongside it. As AI disrupts industries and job roles and the possibility of job displacement looms, it may also herald a new human renaissance---an Era of Entrepreneurs---where individuals take charge of their destinies, innovate fearlessly, and create value grounded in timeless human strengths such as creativity, empathy, and leadership. To navigate this seismic shift, Nitin Seth introduces the POSSIBLE framework, an original eight-dimensional guide to rediscovering the human edge.

The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation by Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner

Our organizations are stuck. We talk about agility but find ourselves bogged down in bureaucracy. We aspire to innovate but run into systems built to prevent mistakes, not spark breakthroughs. We need to learn and adapt, but we're operating with an outdated playbook built for efficiency and control. And our attempts to fix all this—by pouring trillions into huge, top-down transformations—make the problems worse. But there is a better way: Building an Octopus Organization. One of nature's most intelligent and curious creatures, the octopus is everything your organization needs to be: smart, endlessly adaptable, and highly resilient. Its eight tentacles work in concert, but each can also think for itself. This book shows how to achieve the same balance of cohesion and autonomy and to guide your organization toward a living, breathing system—one that learns, adapts, and thrives by tapping into the distributed intelligence of its people.

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 12:59 PM
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LeadershipNow 140: November 2025 Compilation

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

• Warren Buffett Was Always a Brand Guy by Craig Shapiro @cshapiro Emotional moats are deeper than financial ones.
• Your Ceiling Becomes Their Starting Point: A Guide to Building Healthy Family Habits via Chasing Excellence. Why modeling health beats managing behavior — and how to actually do it.
• Motivation Is a Feeling. Discipline Is a Decision by @AlanSteinJr
• Top 10 Reasons Leaders Stop Leading: And How to Get Going Again by @DanReiland
• A Gratitude Question That Changed Everything via @TheDaily_Coach “What does it look like to be grateful in this?”
• It's the Most American Day of the Year by @jamesstrock Thanksgiving Is Essential to Our National Identity, Character.
• 5 Silent Killers of Church (and Any Organization's) Staff Culture by @toddrhoades of Chemistry Staffing @churchchemistry via @BrianKDodd
• Jim Rohn Was Right: The Science Behind Becoming the Average of Your Five Closest Friends by @BrianKDodd
• 14 Thoughts about Building a Great Culture by @JonGordon11
• Should Lawrence Summers Resign from Harvard? by @jamesstrock
• 20 Differences between Winning Cultures and Losing Cultures by @BrianKDodd
• The Art of Ending Well by @KevinPaulScott
• I Stopped Caring About Results (And Started Getting Them) by @RyanHoliday
• 4 Essentials of Successful Innovation by Craig Groeschel
• 3 Reasons Why Happiness Is The Wrong Goal In Life by @LaRaeQuy
• Final Thoughts — Lessons on Leading from Growing Up Around Dad by @artpetty
• How to Create a Great Story by @DrNickMorgan
• Perfect Imbalance via @LeadershipMain

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 02:01 PM
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