What your peers were reading and talking about this year
As the year comes to a close, I wanted to pause and say thank you. Thank you for reading, sharing, responding, and for trusting me with your real leadership questions — the ones that don’t have clean answers or tidy soundbites.
This community has grown because we’re willing to talk honestly about what leadership actually feels like right now: ambiguity, pressure from multiple directions, and the quiet emotional labor that comes with senior roles.
So instead of a new framework or case study, this edition is a reflection — a look at the ideas that resonated most this year, and an invitation to help shape what we explore together next.
Work I’m especially proud of this year
I don’t often pause to acknowledge my own wins — but leadership requires us to notice what’s working, not just what’s broken. I write because I believe shared experience reduces isolation. And because naming what’s happening makes it more workable.
Your engagement here on LinkedIn tells me what you’re grappling with in real time. These pieces sparked the most conversation this year:
What to Do When You Have Too Many Bosses: A reflection on navigating overlapping authority, conflicting expectations, and the exhaustion of trying to satisfy everyone.
We All Have Our Tells — Do You Know Yours?: A look at the small behaviors that signal stress, overload, or misalignment — often before we consciously recognize them ourselves.
What Your Leadership Team Isn’t Telling You — and Why It Matters: Because silence is data. And what goes unsaid in leadership teams often carries more weight than what’s discussed openly.
I also launched an email newsletter that many of you have subscribed to. You can read those editions in my blog archive at any time, or subscribe here to make sure you never miss one.
These were the email editions that many of you forwarded, replied to, or referenced in conversations with me later:
Why Your Team’s Energy Feels Scattered — And How to Reclaim It: Tips for how to strengthen collaboration and bring discipline to how decisions are made.
When the COO Says One Thing and the CEO Another: Insights for leaders navigating leadership politics.
Why Your Team Feels Second-Guessed (and How to Fix It): Getting to the bottom of micromanagement and how to break the cycle.
What struck me wasn’t just the open rates — it was how often readers said, “This put words to something I’ve been feeling but couldn’t quite name.”
That’s always the goal.
This year also stretched me as a writer, publishing on platforms like Harvard Business Review and Fast Company.
These are the ideas, conversations, and leadership challenges I’ve seen resonate most deeply on other platforms this year, and they reflect the questions so many of you are grappling with in real time.
Managing Your Team When the C-Suite Isn’t Providing Strategic Direction This piece was named one of the best articles of the quarter on HBR.org and will be published in an upcoming print issue. I still can’t quite believe I’ll be standing in Barnes & Noble holding a physical copy of something I wrote. The article reflects a reality many of you quietly named: when senior leaders don’t align, the burden falls to everyone else.
When Your CEO Is Semi-Retired — but Meddling Full-Time This was the first article I published solo. I was nervous — and I went for it anyway. It explored a dynamic I see often but rarely see addressed directly: when authority is technically delegated but emotionally retained.
When Professional and Personal Setbacks Hit at the Same Time This one brought the most private messages I’ve ever received. People wrote to say it found them on a day they really needed it. What struck me most was the response pattern: many women reached out privately, while men I didn’t know were publicly sharing it. Leadership pain doesn’t look the same — but it’s widely felt.
Across all these works, a clear theme emerged: leaders aren’t struggling because they lack competence — they’re struggling because the system around them is noisy, ambiguous, and emotionally demanding.
What I’m curious about now
As we head into a new year, I’d love to hear from you.
What leadership situation are you navigating that feels especially complex or stuck?
Where do you feel pressure to perform certainty when you don’t actually have clarity?
What conversations do you wish leaders were having more honestly?
If you’re comfortable, share in the comments. If it feels more private, send me a message. Many of the pieces above started with a single question someone was brave enough to ask.
Leadership doesn’t get easier — but it can get more intentional, more humane, and more effective.