Public displays of fitness by American politicians are nothing new. Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant, among others, were all depicted riding warhorses as symbols of "leadership and executive ability."[3] America's twenty-sixth president, Theodore Roosevelt, was renowned for his love of fisticuffs. He often asked professional boxers to strike him in the jaw, and then he would hit them back.[4]
At a Conservative donors event last week, Kemi Badenoch was asked for a selfie by the former Spice Girl Geri Horner. The Tory leader was, her allies say, a little bemused by the approach. But they were clear about what it meant: cut-through. Badenoch's leadership got off to a poor start. Still reeling from the Tories' worst general election defeat, she took over a diminished and disheartened party, which was languishing in the polls
McLaren Racing's championship resurgence offers a clear view into how leaders can rebuild a stalled organization. In this issue of the HBR Executive Agenda, editor at large Adi Ignatius writes about his recent interview with McLaren CEO Zak Brown, reflecting on the talent decisions and data-driven discipline that helped bring McLaren into the future.
A survey from People Insights found that only 56% of employees believe senior leaders genuinely make an effort to listen, which is down from 65% two years ago. We live in a world where algorithms reward noise. Visibility has become a proxy for value, and airtime is the metric that many use to measure leadership presence. But real influence doesn't come from speaking more. It actually comes from listening better. Influence grows through empathy, trust, and the ability to see and understand people.
Leaders need to make themselves vulnerable when it comes to AI. As Rajan observed, there is power in saying I don't know. Of admitting that I don't know what the future will hold or what the best AI use cases will be. That's a hard pill for most lawyers to swallow and for managing partners of a firm full of aggressive lawyers to admit.
The Dangers of Avoiding Disagreement Picture the scene: You have presented your latest ideas to your colleagues in a leadership team meeting. You have spent hours developing your arguments and are emotionally invested in the solutions you have proposed; you truly believe they provide the best route forward for your department. As the discussion moves around the table, one of your closest colleagues unexpectedly challenges your suggested solution.
Alex Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in NHL history and one of the league's all-time greatest players. The 40-year-old legendary winger would seemingly have every reason to become aloof and withdrawn from his teammates, but he has done the complete opposite and continued to foster a winning environment with the Washington Capitals. Bruce Boudreau, who coached a much younger Ovechkin for parts of five seasons with the Capitals (2007-2012), has seen firsthand the impact The Great 8 has had on the club's culture.
NYU professor Suzy Welch recentlyreleased the results of her study on Gen Z and businesses across America. Welch teaches M.B.A. students and attempts to prepare them for a life of purpose and leadership. There's just one problem: their values. Welch's analysis produced an outcome that startled her and her team: A mere 2% of Generation Z members hold the values that companies want most in new hires, which are achievement, learning, and an unbridled desire to work. Generation Z respondents' top three values were:
Manchester United have been linked with a surprise move for the Spanish international defender, Sergio Ramos. The 39-year-old has been linked with a move back to Europe despite joining Monterrey at the start of this year, and it will be interesting to see if Manchester United can get the deal done. According to a report via Fichajes, Manchester United are hoping to sign him during the January transfer window.
I began the year with a blunt reality check: leadership today is forged in public, under pressure, and in real time. With Donald Trump already installed as US president for his second term, markets have moved faster than at any point in my career, reacting not to speculation but to executive action, rhetoric, and resolve. The first lesson this year has burned itself into my thinking: certainty beats comfort.
Leaders need to invite disagreement, not just expect it. When the invitation to offer their opinion is not clear, teams will assume you don't want it. Leaders often don't realize that their status can unconsciously silence dissent. No matter how often leaders stress that no one will be punished for disagreeing, their own zeal, conviction, intelligence, and energy can be intimidating.
I was 38, and the role - which oversaw standards, best practices, and technology for Amazon's 200+ site merchandisers - was the biggest of my life by far, one I'd been thrust into just three months after my arrival in Seattle and at Amazon. I was thrilled (and a bit terrified) by the size of the opportunity, and threw myself into it.
When in my 20s, I equated hope with "sunny-side-of-the-street" wishful thinking-what we now call " toxic positivity." I was wrong. I live, work, and lead these days with a new kind of grounded hope. Many thoughtful, intelligent people today are sliding toward cynicism. But recent research shows something surprising about the nature of hope in the face of cynicism. I want to share research conducted on cynical college students-and how that research shifted the outlook even of the chief researcher.
Unpredictable. That is the defining condition of the world today. Leaders, especially CEOs, are grappling with the hard truth that the models, forecasts, and strategic assumptions they once relied on no longer apply. Today's most urgent leadership challenges are fast-changing, interconnected, and largely shaped by human behavior.
If my three-decade journey in the corporate world has taught me anything, it's that in business, as in life, the only certainty is uncertainty. In the past 20 years, periods of upheaval, from pandemics to financial crises to AI hysteria, have restitched the fabric of how we work, travel, and communicate. While this uncertainty can generate tension and turmoil, it also forges the best leaders.
When asked who a successful leader is, some people will say Barack Obama, some will say Jean Luc Picard, and others may say Oprah Winfrey. For many people, a successful leader is someone who has vision, a well-defined strategy, and is great at decision-making. These skills help a leader to motivate teams, drive sales, and ensure that the teams they oversee offer great long-term performance.
Neuroscience and sports psychology (for example, acceptance and commitment therapy) show that anxiety, perfectionism, and fear of mistakes shrink cognitive flexibility and creativity. The more we obsess over results, the more our attention collapses into the future. This focus makes us less present with what is happening now. As mental performance coach Graham Betchart puts it: "Stress is the absence of presence."
There's no such thing as perfection. Even when we're doing well, we always want more - that will remain the case. I handle praise the same way I handle criticism. I'm focusing on the next game. We have a good feeling at the club, also in terms of the atmosphere. I want to do my job, motivate the boys, and make sure they make the right decisions. Anything can happen in a game, but I'm confident that we can always be successful,
I got the words I said there completely wrong, said a sheepish Stokes. Has-beens is a horrible word. It's the only thing that managed to come out of my mouth at that moment. God, I'm going to be one of those one day. But it's not at all what I meant by that. Talk of lessons being learned is a common refrain from defeated sides but Stokes preferring one-on-one debriefs rather than all in one room was happy to expand on a few.
Oh yes, I can't have soup without pepper. I like herbs and flavours. I'm sure that has something to do with my African roots. At home, we had traditional Belgian cuisine, but also dishes from the Congo, my father's homeland, like Pili pili. But today I also enjoy Bavarian food - sausage salad, for example.
When leaders assume "responsibility," they take ownership of a situation, managing it in as many dimensions as necessary so that problems are resolved and all the moving parts operate in sync. They may need to call on skills they didn't know they had -or develop new ones fast. But beyond skills, responsibility is an attitude. It implies attentiveness, and the will to make hard choices. It means that you can take the heat and stand up for what you think is right.
