Why the little exceptions leaders make are never actually small. In the 1970s, engineers at Ford knew the Pinto’s fuel tank design had a serious flaw. In certain rear-end collisions, the tank could rupture and the car could catch fire. The leadership team ran the numbers. They weighed the projected cost of settling the wrongful … Read more
In the spring of 2020, Patrick McBrayer was the CEO of ACell Inc., a medical device company with a workforce that had gone home, a supply chain under pressure, and an industry landscape that was changing by the week. The pandemic was not a problem that could be solved with a good quarter or a … Read more
Over the course of my military career, I learned early on that uncertainty was part of the fundamentals of strategic planning. The prominent military theorist Carl von Clausewitz described it this way: “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Conditions shifted. Sometimes the ground literally shook beneath our feet. But what stands … Read more
The Question Leaders Keep Asking: “Why does this feel so much harder to navigate than disagreements used to?” I hear this all the time. It’s not that we suddenly discovered disagreement—we’ve disagreed, sometimes fiercely, through every chapter of our national story. But something has changed. The disagreements feel sharper. The emotional temperature is higher. And … Read more
Why Trust Has Become Today’s Leadership Imperative The Trust Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About Something fundamental has shifted in how people relate to authority, to information, and to each other. Trust—the foundation of every high-performing team I’ve ever led or studied—has become fragile. And in many organizations, it’s broken entirely. This didn’t happen overnight. … Read more
Tactical patience is necessary for today’s turbulent times. Volatility is no longer the exception — it’s the operating system in which we need to lead. Disruptive technologies, shifting markets, and complex stakeholder demands often leave leaders with more questions than answers. Traditional approaches, rooted in certainty and playbooks, fall short when the rules themselves are … Read more
