High-Pressure Leadership and the Mistake We Keep Repeating

When decisions are fast, stakes are high, and consequences are real, leaders make a familiar move.

They tighten control. They narrow voices. They prioritise speed over conversation.

And they quietly drop inclusion.

Not because they don’t believe in it but because inclusion feels too soft for hard moments.

That’s the mistake. And the 2025 research is unambiguous about it.

The Assumption That Keeps Breaking Systems

In high-pressure environments (defence, cybersecurity, healthcare, critical infrastructure), leaders often assume:

We don’t have time for inclusion right now.

But pressure doesn’t remove the need for inclusive leadership. It amplifies it.

Because under stress, people:

• hesitate to report errors

• hide uncertainty

• push through fatigue

• default to silence

And silence is not discipline. It’s unreported risk.

What the Evidence Actually Shows

Across healthcare, construction, high-risk infrastructure, and safety-critical operations, inclusive leadership consistently predicts:

• lower burnout and emotional exhaustion

• higher error and near-miss reporting

• stronger vigilance and safety participation

• reduced harm

Not eventually. Not culturally. Operationally.

The mechanism isn’t politeness. It’s fear reduction.

When leaders remove punishment from honest reporting, information surfaces earlier, before errors compound into incidents.

One Leadership Approach. Two Safety Outcomes.

Inclusive leadership works on two safety systems at once.

1. Psychological safety: People speak up. They admit uncertainty. They protect cognitive bandwidth instead of burning it.

2. Physical and operational safety: Hazards get reported. Procedures get questioned. Small failures don’t grow in the dark.

This isn’t softness. It’s signal quality.

Why This Hits Defence and Cyber Especially Hard

European defence and cybersecurity organisations operate in environments defined by:

• zero tolerance for failure

• strong hierarchies

• constant readiness

• moral and legal consequence

In those conditions, silence often gets mistaken for strength.

But the research shows the opposite.

The most dangerous moment is not disagreement. It’s when people stop correcting the system.

Inclusive leadership improves decisions by widening the information leaders receive before it’s too late.

Care Is Not the Opposite of Readiness

One of the sharpest shifts in the 2025 literature is this: Care is no longer framed as kindness. It’s framed as risk management.

Leaders who legitimise rest, listen for strain, and invite dissent don’t weaken teams. They prevent fatigue-driven error, presenteeism, and catastrophic silence.

In high-pressure work, ignoring exhaustion doesn’t create toughness. It creates fragility.

The Pattern Leaders Miss

The dominant causal chain now looks like this:

Inclusive leadership → psychological safety → engagement → safety behaviour → reduced harm

Break the first link, and everything downstream collapses.

That’s why compliance-heavy safety models keep failing under pressure. They manage rules. They don’t manage fear.

The Takeaway

When the stakes rise, leaders don’t need less inclusion.

They need better inclusion.

High-pressure leadership doesn’t require narrowing voices. It requires making sure the right ones don’t go quiet.

P.S. Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026 goes deeper into how psychological safety predicts error reporting, vigilance, and burnout reduction in safety-critical environments. If your work depends on reliability under pressure, this research is worth engaging with before the next hard decision arrives.

What People Actually Mean When They Say “You Have Good Energy”

For years, people have told me some version of the same thing: “You have good energy.” “I feel energized after we meet.” “Your energy on stage is contagious.”

I always smiled, said thanks, and moved on.

I didn’t really know what they meant.

This year’s research changed that.

The Thing We Feel but Rarely Name

The inclusive leadership literature in 2025 starts using a phrase that stopped me cold:

Relational energy.

It’s not charisma. It’s not positivity. It’s not personality.

Relational energy is what people carry with them after an interaction with you.

Do they walk away clearer or heavier? More willing to speak, or more cautious? Energised, or quietly depleted?

That emotional residue, not your intent, not your values, not your leadership style, is where inclusion actually happens.

Or quietly dies.

Inclusion Isn’t Built in Big Moments

Most leaders I work with assume inclusion shows up in:

• policies

• programmes

• town halls

• big statements at big moments

The research says otherwise.

Inclusive leadership is enacted, or undone, in micro-interactions:

• the two-minute check-in before a meeting

• the Slack message you don’t send

• how quickly you respond when someone flags a problem

• whether you pause, or push on, when tension appears

These moments feel small.

They’re not.

They are the mechanism.

Across healthcare, virtual teams, project work, and crisis environments, the same pattern shows up again and again:

Leaders who consistently engage in high-quality micro-interactions build relational energy. Leaders who don’t slowly drain it, even when everything looks fine on paper.

What “Good Energy” Actually Is

Here’s the uncomfortable reframe.

Good energy is not something you project. It’s something people experience.

Relational energy forms when interactions leave people with:

• a sense of safety

• a sense of being seen

• a sense of forward momentum

It builds on psychological safety, but it doesn’t stop there.

Safety allows people to exhale. Energy gives them the fuel to re-engage.

And once that energy exists, it changes everything downstream:

• engagement rises without being demanded

• discretionary effort appears without incentives

• work-life strain eases instead of compounding

• commitment deepens without pressure

Not because people are told to care more, but because they have emotional resources to draw from.

Where Micro-Interactions Matter Most

The research is especially sharp in four settings leaders often underestimate.

1. Hybrid and virtual teams: When informal contact disappears, micro-interactions are the culture. Predictable, human touchpoints matter more than grand digital strategies.

2. High-stress environments (like healthcare): A two-minute leader check-in can buffer burnout more effectively than another resilience workshop.

3. Project-based and temporary teams: When trust has to form fast, energy is built, or lost, in the first few interactions.

4. Crisis and peak-load periods: Under pressure, small moments function as micro-recoveries. Ignore them, and exhaustion compounds fast.

Across all four, one finding is consistent: Formal inclusion training without daily micro-practice does almost nothing.

Inclusion Is No Longer Stable. It’s Variable.

This may be the most unsettling insight in the 2025 literature.

Inclusion is not something you “achieve.” It fluctuates.

Week to week. Interaction to interaction.

Relational energy rises and falls based on presence, attention, and responsiveness, not values statements.

And it’s not one-size-fits-all:

• neurodivergent employees often need predictability, not spontaneity

• caregivers respond to clarity more than enthusiasm

• some people recharge through written affirmation, others through brief verbal connection

The question for leaders is no longer:

“Am I inclusive?”

It’s:

“What do people walk away with after interacting with me?”

Inclusion Lives in the Gaps

The cumulative evidence lands on a simple but uncomfortable truth.

Inclusion is not built in:

• annual reviews

• leadership programmes

• diversity summits

It is built in the hundreds of small moments between them.

When leaders treat micro-interactions as active inclusion sites, pausing, noticing, responding, they build energy reserves people draw on for voice, learning, and contribution.

When they don’t, inclusion becomes performative fast.

The research doesn’t ask leaders to be louder, nicer, or more inspirational.

It asks them to be more aware.

Because inclusion doesn’t live in what you say when it counts. It lives in what people carry away when you think it didn’t.

Inclusion Doesn’t Work in Straight Lines. And That’s the Problem.

For years, we’ve argued about whether inclusive leadership works.

The research has quietly moved on.

The real question now is whether leaders understand how inclusion actually works, over time, under pressure, and through people.

Because inclusion doesn’t jump straight from good intentions to great outcomes.

It moves in chains.

And if you can’t see the chain, you keep pulling the wrong lever.

What the Research Changed in 2025 (Whether Practice Has or Not)

Most leadership advice still assumes a straight line:

Do inclusive things → get engagement, innovation, performance.

That model is basically gone from the serious research.

The 2025 literature is dominated by serial mediation models, studies that trace inclusion step by step as it moves through psychological states, behaviours, and outcomes.

The message is consistent:

Inclusion works sequentially, not instantly. Miss a step, and the whole thing stalls.

Let me show you what that actually looks like in real life.

Chain #1: Voice → Learning → Innovation

A hospital unit under constant strain. Short staffing. High stakes. No time for nonsense.

Leadership rolls out an “open feedback” initiative. Posters go up. Meetings end with: “Any thoughts before we move on?”

Silence.

Not because people have nothing to say. Because they know what happens when you speak up at the wrong moment.

Then something shifts.

A senior leader starts responding differently when issues are raised. No defensiveness. No public correction. No quiet payback later.

Slowly, psychological safety appears.

A nurse flags a near-miss. The team dissects it, not to blame, but to learn. A workaround becomes a new protocol. That protocol spreads.

Innovation didn’t start with creativity. It started with safety. Safety enabled voice. Voice enabled learning. Learning produced better outcomes.

That’s the chain.

Break it anywhere, and you get silence dressed up as compliance.

Chain #2: Thriving → Adaptive Performance

A fast-growing organisation hires a young, diverse team into hybrid roles.

On paper, everything looks right.

But under change, new tools, shifting goals, constant ambiguity, performance wobbles.

Leadership responds with pressure: clearer KPIs, tighter deadlines, more monitoring.

Performance drops further.

Why?

Because adaptability doesn’t come from pressure. It comes from thriving, a combination of energy and learning momentum.

In teams where leaders made it safe to ask questions, admit confusion, and experiment early, people stayed curious instead of defensive.

They adjusted faster. Recovered quicker. Learned in real time.

Adaptive performance wasn’t a personality trait.

It was the downstream effect of inclusion done in the right order.

Chain #3: Relationships → Identity → Performance

In a traditional manufacturing setting, inclusion doesn’t look like workshops or slogans.

It looks like whether the supervisor actually knows your name, and whether it matters.

Inclusive leaders invest in the relationship first. They listen. They follow through. They treat people as insiders, not replaceable labour.

That shifts something subtle but powerful: identity.

People stop thinking, “I work here.” They start thinking, “This is my place.”

And when that happens, effort changes.

Not because of bonuses. Because performance becomes personal.

Again: no shortcuts. No straight lines. Just a chain leaders either build or accidentally break.

The Disruptive Bit Most Leaders Miss

Here’s the uncomfortable truth the research keeps pointing to:

Most inclusion efforts fail not because leaders don’t care but because they don’t see the system they’re operating in.

They act without awareness of which psychological condition must exist first.

They push for outcomes before foundations. They reward results before safety. They demand behaviour before belief.

That’s not a motivation problem. It’s a systems awareness problem.

Why This Is Bigger Than One Newsletter

I’ve shared three chains here.

The 2025 research maps many more including how inclusion drives:

• Green innovation

• Citizenship behaviour

• Knowledge sharing

• Sustainability outcomes

And crucially, where those chains snap depending on context, power, identity, and time.

That’s why Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026 exists.

Not to convince leaders inclusion matters but to show how to make it work on purpose, in sequence, over time.

The Takeaway

Inclusion isn’t a single behaviour. It isn’t a checklist. And it definitely isn’t instant.

It’s a system.

And once you see the chains, you can finally stop guessing where things went wrong.

P.S. If you’ve ever thought “we’re doing the right things, so why isn’t this landing?” the answer is probably hiding in a broken link.

The full report maps the chains. This article just shows you why they matter.

What Psychological Safety Actually Is (And Isn’t)

Psychological safety means this: People believe they can speak up, admit mistakes, challenge decisions, or ask for help without paying a personal price.

No punishment. No subtle retaliation. No reputational damage.

And no, it’s not about being “nice” or lowering standards. It’s about whether information moves or gets trapped.

The 2025 research is blunt on this point:

Without psychological safety, inclusion collapses.

The Shift the Research Has Already Made

Here’s what changed in the literature last year, even if leadership practice hasn’t caught up yet.

Psychological safety is no longer treated as a cultural bonus.

It’s treated as a foundational condition.

Inclusive leadership reliably creates psychological safety. Psychological safety reliably unlocks everything that follows.

Across healthcare, hospitality, telecoms, education, hybrid work, same pattern, over and over again.

Different sectors. Different cultures. Same sequence.

The Chain Leaders Keep Breaking

Most leaders still think inclusion works like this:

Do inclusive things → get engagement, innovation, performance.

That’s not how it works.

The evidence shows a much stricter order:

Inclusive leadership → psychological safety → engagement or thriving → results

Miss the first step, and the rest never stabilises.

When leaders demand voice without safety, people go quiet. When they demand innovation without safety, people play safe. When they demand accountability without safety, people hide mistakes.

That’s not resistance. That’s risk calculation.

What Safety Actually Does (In Real Life)

Psychological safety isn’t abstract. It shows up in four very practical ways:

1. People speak up before damage is done: Concerns, weak signals, bad ideas, surfaced early instead of buried.

2. Mistakes become material, not liabilities: Especially in healthcare and safety-critical work, where reporting errors saves lives.

3. Knowledge flows instead of being hoarded: People share what they know because they trust it won’t be misused or misattributed.

4. Trust survives pressure: Not charisma-based trust. Evidence-based trust. People remember what leaders do when something goes wrong.

Where the Evidence Is Strongest (And Most Uncomfortable)

Healthcare leads the data.

ICUs, nursing units, high-pressure clinical teams, again and again, psychological safety predicts:

• Lower burnout

• Better learning from failure

• Fewer harm events

Hospitality follows closely. Education confirms it in multicultural contexts. Telecoms shows the same mechanism in hierarchical environments. Hybrid and remote teams prove safety matters even more when informal cues disappear.

Different settings. Same pattern.

Measure It or Miss It

Here’s the uncomfortable bottom line:

If you’re chasing innovation, engagement, or retention without measuring psychological safety, you’re treating symptoms instead of causes.

Safety is measurable. It changes with leadership behaviour. And in high-risk environments, low safety correlates with real harm.

Psychological safety should be tracked like any other core performance indicator.

Because if inclusion is the promise, psychological safety is the proof.

P.S. If your organisation keeps saying “we want people to speak up” but they don’t, the problem isn’t motivation. It’s safety.

Next in the series, we’ll look at what leaders actually do that destroys safety without realising it.

Stay with me.

Inclusive Leadership, When the World Is On Fire

I’m publishing Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026 today.

And I want to be honest about the moment it’s entering.

This is not a calm year for leadership.

Across the U.S., Europe, and beyond, leaders are navigating political volatility, economic pressure, rising polarisation, and very real fear about what comes next. Institutions feel fragile. Trust feels thin. People are tired and sharper, faster decisions are being demanded anyway.

So the question isn’t whether inclusion still matters.

The question is whether our current ideas about inclusion are strong enough to survive reality.

That question is what shaped this year’s report.

When “Doing the Right Thing” Stops Working

One pattern kept surfacing as I reviewed the 2025 research:

Most leaders are trying. Most organisations are saying the right things. And yet… something still isn’t landing.

Over the past few days, I’ve shared the report quietly with a small group of colleagues, researchers, practitioners, and educators. What came back wasn’t applause. It was recognition.

That response matters because the research doesn’t point to bad intentions as the problem.

It points to fragile assumptions.

What the Research Makes Unavoidable

Across 100 peer-reviewed studies published in 2025, one thing became unambiguous:

Inclusive leadership no longer works as a set of values, traits, or statements.

It functions or fails as a system of mechanisms.

When psychological safety isn’t present, everything downstream collapses: voice, learning, error reporting, innovation, even basic trust.

When leaders demand outcomes (engagement, innovation, accountability) without building the upstream conditions, inclusion becomes performative, especially under stress.

And when work becomes hybrid, AI-mediated, cross-cultural, or cognitively diverse, “standard” inclusion practices quietly exclude the very people they claim to support.

In other words:

Inclusion doesn’t fail because leaders don’t care. It fails because it’s being applied out of sequence, out of context, and without accountability.

Why This Matters Now

In unstable times, leadership shortcuts are tempting.

Pressure compresses behaviour. Ambiguity exposes power. And whatever inclusion is really built on gets revealed very quickly.

This report doesn’t offer comfort.

It offers clarity.

It shows where inclusion still works, where it breaks, and why many well-intentioned leaders keep getting it wrong, not in theory, but in practice.

A Question to Leave You With

If inclusion only functions when conditions are calm, what happens when leadership gets hard?

That question is at the heart of Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026.

The report is now public. Read it if you’re serious about leading in the world we actually have, not the one most leadership advice still assumes.

A Quiet Question Before I Publish "Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026"

I’m about to publish Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026. And before I do, I want to name something uncomfortable.

Most leaders I work with are genuinely trying to do the right thing. And yet… something still isn’t working.

The Pattern I Keep Seeing

Across sectors, countries, and leadership levels, I keep hearing versions of the same sentence:

“We’re doing all the right inclusion things… so why doesn’t it feel different?”

That question didn’t come from opinion pieces or conference stages. It came from reading the research published in 2025, slowly, carefully, and with a growing sense of unease.

Because the problem isn’t lack of effort. It’s something else.

When Leadership Advice Sounds Right But Doesn’t Land

Here’s the tension I can’t ignore:

Inclusive leadership advice often sounds sensible. But in practice, it keeps missing the moment where things actually go wrong.

Not in the big announcements. Not in the strategy decks.

But in the small, everyday decisions, under pressure, under uncertainty, and under time constraints.

That’s where inclusion quietly fails. And where most frameworks stop helping.

Why I’m Hesitating Before Hitting Publish

This year’s research doesn’t flatter leaders. It challenges some deeply comfortable assumptions about how inclusion works.

It raises awkward questions about what leaders do when inclusion becomes inconvenient

I’ve rewritten parts of this report more times than I expected to. Not because the evidence was unclear but because it was.

What Comes Next

Next week, I’ll release Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026. I’ll share what the research actually shows, and where it keeps pointing, even when we’d rather look away.

For now, I’ll leave you with the question that shaped the entire report:

The Question That Wouldn’t Let Go

If inclusion only works when conditions are calm, what happens when leadership gets hard?

P.S.

If you’ve ever felt that inclusion advice made sense on paper but collapsed in real life, you’re not alone.

Next week, I’ll show you why.

Frameworks Don’t Lead. People Do.

Frameworks won’t save leadership. But the right ones can make it easier to lead well, especially when the ground keeps shifting under our feet.

This week, I want to talk about inclusive leadership frameworks. Not as theory. Not as slides. But as tools that help real leaders make better decisions, day after day.

Why Leadership Frameworks Matter Right Now

Leadership today is messy.

More diversity. More complexity. More pressure to perform without burning people out.

In that environment, “good intentions” aren’t enough. Leaders need structures that help them notice overlooked issues, slow down bad habits, and act with consistency, even when things get uncomfortable.

That’s why Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025 focuses on frameworks that translate values into behaviour. Not abstract ideals, but repeatable practices leaders can actually use.

What Strong Inclusive Frameworks Actually Do

Good frameworks don’t add bureaucracy. They reduce guesswork.

Here’s how the ones in the white paper show up in practice:

They build self-awareness on purpose

Assessment centres, feedback loops, and mentoring aren’t about ranking leaders. They’re about helping people understand how their behaviour lands, especially under pressure.

Self-aware leaders manage diverse teams better because they notice themselves before they react.

They make cultural competence actionable

Cultural awareness isn’t about knowing facts. It’s about adjusting decisions, communication, and expectations when one size doesn’t fit all.

Frameworks help leaders pause and ask: Who does this work for? Who might it unintentionally exclude?

That question alone changes outcomes.

They connect inclusion to strategy

Inclusive leadership works best when it’s tied to real goals like innovation, retention, performance.

When leadership practices align with strategy, teams experience clarity instead of confusion. And cohesion grows because people understand why things are done the way they are.

What Leaders Can Take From This Right Now

You don’t need a full transformation programme to start.

Use reflection as a leadership skill

Build in moments to review decisions, not just results. Ask what you’d repeat and what you’d change next time.

Treat inclusion as a system, not a personality trait

Good intentions vary. Systems scale.

Frameworks help make leadership less dependent on who happens to be in the room.

Invest in learning that sticks

One-off training fades fast. Ongoing practice changes behaviour.

That’s the difference between checking a box and building capability.

The Real Lesson

Inclusive leadership isn’t a moment. It’s a practice.

Frameworks don’t replace judgment. They support it. They help leaders stay steady, fair, and human as the future gets more complex.

That’s how leadership grows without losing its soul.

P.S.

The frameworks chapter in Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025 goes deeper into what actually helps leaders adapt over time and what tends to fall apart once the workshop ends.

I’m already building on this for the 2026 edition.

Curious: What leadership habit has helped you most when things got uncertain?

Fairness Is the Floor. Everything Else Is Built on It.

Most leaders say they value fairness. Far fewer realise how quickly things fall apart when people stop believing it’s real.

Justice at work isn’t a moral extra. It’s the base layer that determines whether trust, engagement, and innovation ever show up.

Why Fairness Changes How People Show Up

When people believe decisions are fair, they relax. When they don’t, they start protecting themselves.

That shift matters more than most leaders realise.

Fairness influences whether people:

• speak up or stay quiet

• share ideas or keep them to themselves

• collaborate or quietly disengage

This is why justice plays such a central role in Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025. Across sectors, the same pattern keeps appearing: when fairness erodes, everything else follows.

What Justice Actually Does for Teams

Let’s be concrete.

It deepens engagement

People invest more effort when they believe the system isn’t stacked against them. Fair workloads, clear expectations, and consistent decisions create energy instead of resentment.

It lowers friction before it turns into conflict

Most workplace conflict isn’t about personality. It’s about perceived unfairness, who gets heard, who gets credit, who gets exceptions.

Transparent processes reduce tension long before HR gets involved.

It creates psychological safety that holds

People take risks when they trust outcomes will be handled fairly. Justice tells your team: even if this doesn’t work, you won’t be punished for trying.

That’s where learning and innovation come from.

What Leaders Can Do This Week

Justice doesn’t start with policy. It starts with everyday behaviour.

Explain decisions, especially unpopular ones: Silence breeds stories. Clarity builds credibility.

Apply rules consistently: Exceptions may feel kind in the moment, but inconsistency corrodes trust fast.

Invite challenge without retaliation: If people can’t question decisions safely, fairness becomes performative.

These are small moves. They send big signals.

The Real Takeaway

Fairness doesn’t make leadership soft. It makes leadership sustainable.

When people trust the system, they stop wasting energy on self-protection and start putting it into the work itself. That’s how resilient teams are built.

Justice isn’t the finish line. It’s the foundation everything else depends on.

P.S.

The justice and fairness chapter in Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025 goes much deeper into how leaders unintentionally undermine trust and what consistently works instead.

I’m also building on this for the 2026 edition.

Curious: What’s one leadership decision that felt fair, even if you didn’t like the outcome?

Knowledge Sharing Is How Teams Actually Grow

Everyone says knowledge is power. But most workplaces treat knowledge like personal property.

This week, I want to talk about what really happens when leaders create environments where people want to share what they know, and why inclusive leadership is the difference between growth and stagnation.

Why Knowledge Sharing Changes Everything

When teams share knowledge freely, work moves faster. Problems get solved earlier. And people stop reinventing the same wheel…badly…over and over again.

But knowledge sharing doesn’t happen because you ask for it in a meeting. It happens when the conditions are right.

Inclusive leadership creates those conditions.

That’s why I dedicated an entire chapter of Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025 to this exact topic, not as theory, but as pattern recognition from real teams and real organisations.

What Inclusive Leaders Do Differently

They build trust that actually holds

People share what they know when they trust how it will be received.

Not just trust in intentions, trust in reactions.

Inclusive leaders don’t punish honesty, hijack ideas, or play “gotcha” with expertise. They respond with curiosity and respect, which makes collaboration normal instead of risky.

They make it safe to think out loud

Most ideas start half-formed. In unsafe cultures, those ideas die quietly.

Psychological safety gives people permission to say: “I’m not sure, but…” “I might be wrong, but…” “What if we tried…?”

That’s where learning and innovation actually begin.

They create motivation from meaning

People don’t share knowledge because it’s in their job description. They share it because they feel useful, seen, and part of something that matters.

Inclusive leaders connect contribution to purpose. When people feel their input counts, they offer more of it, freely and often.

What Leaders Can Do This Week

No grand transformation required. Just better habits.

Name expertise out loud

In meetings, explicitly say who knows what. It signals value and invites contribution.

Reward sharing, not just outcomes

Notice when someone helps others learn, not just when they deliver results.

Slow down the loudest voices

Make space for unfinished thoughts. Some of the best insights arrive quietly.

The Real Lesson

Knowledge doesn’t grow when it’s guarded. It grows when it moves.

Inclusive leadership makes teams nicer to work in. It makes them smarter, faster, and far more resilient.

That’s how growth actually happens.

P.S.

If this resonates, the chapter on knowledge sharing in Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025 goes much deeper, with concrete examples and leadership patterns you can steal shamelessly.

And I’m already building on this for the 2026 edition. If you’ve seen great (or terrible) knowledge-sharing cultures in action, I’d love to hear about them.

What helped people share? And what shut them down?

When Teams Feel Good, They Do Good

Last week we talked about stress and leadership. This week we’re flipping the spotlight: What happens when teams actually feel good at work?

Short answer? Work gets lighter. People get bolder. And leaders stop dragging culture uphill with their teeth.

Let’s talk about the power of engagement, the warm, messy, human kind.

Engagement Isn’t a Bonus. It’s the Backbone.

Here’s the thing most leaders underestimate: People don’t commit because they’re told to. They commit because something inside them says, “I matter here.”

When that signal lands? Everything shifts.

• People volunteer ideas instead of protecting them.

• They solve problems before you even see them.

• They nudge struggling teammates because they actually care.

• And they stick around because leaving would feel… off.

Engagement isn’t a mood. It’s infrastructure. And inclusive leadership is what builds it.

(This is one of the big themes I dig into in the upcoming Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026. It’s the year we stop treating “engagement” like glitter and start treating it like plumbing.)

How Inclusive Leadership Lifts Performance

Let’s break down what actually moves the needle.

1. Fairness you can feel

Not the performative kind. Real fairness, where expectations are transparent, decisions make sense, and nobody has to play detective to understand how things work. Fairness creates stability. Stability creates focus. Focus creates great work.

2. Safety that opens doors

Teams speak up when leaders make curiosity the default setting. Not just “my door is open,” but:

• “Tell me what I’m missing.”

• “What’s the awkward thing nobody wants to say?”

• “How can I support you without solving it for you?”

Safety turns complaints into insights and hesitations into momentum.

3. Flexibility that respects differences

Gen Z wants growth and values purpose. Older generations value consistency and clarity. In between sits a whole soup of priorities. Inclusive leaders don’t treat this as a burden. They treat it as a user manual. The goal isn’t to please everyone, it’s to understand what helps them thrive.

Yes, Engagement Shows Up in Numbers

Here’s where the cute turns serious:

When people feel good, your metrics feel good.

• Customer experience improves because your team is actually present.

• Innovation cycles tighten because people share ideas earlier.

• Retention stabilizes because folks aren’t quietly job-shopping at lunchtime.

• Performance rises because stress is no longer clogging the system.

This isn’t magic. It’s mechanics.

What Leaders Can Do This Week (No Unicorn Dust Required)

You asked for concrete. Here’s concrete:

Hold one clarity conversation per person.

Ask: “What’s one part of your role you wish was clearer?” Then fix one thing. Not five. One.

Build one participation moment into your next meeting.

Pick someone who usually hangs back. Invite their view. Not to “include them,” but because their insight might be the missing puzzle piece.

Swap one assumption for one question.

Instead of “They’re disengaged,” try: “What barrier might be sitting in their way right now?” You’ll get better data and better decisions.

Small moves create big signals.

And the signal you want your team to hear is simple: “You matter here, and your work shapes this place.”

The Heart of It? Happy Teams Build Better Things.

If stress shuts people down, engagement opens them up. And when people open up, work gets smarter, kinder, and far more fun.

Leaders don’t need to manufacture motivation. They just need to create the conditions for it to land.

That’s the work of inclusive leadership. And it’s where performance actually begins.

P.S.

Two questions for you this week:

1. What’s one thing your leader did that made you feel genuinely engaged?

2. And what’s one gesture you’ve used that lifted your team’s energy?

Some of your answers will make it into the 2026 edition of Inclusive Leadership Trends. Let’s build this one together.

Stress Less, Achieve More: What Inclusive Leaders Need to Know

I’ve spent the past year studying how mental health and inclusive leadership shape performance. And one thing is clear:

Workplace stress isn’t an employee problem. It’s a leadership pattern, and leaders can fix it.

Back in January, I released my annual white paper, Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025. As I start work on the 2026 edition (coming next month!), I’ve been reflecting on one chapter that sparked a lot of conversations:

“Stress Less, Achieve More.”

Here’s the heart of it.

Mental Health Is a Leadership Skill

Leaders who understand mental health, and model simple self-care, send a powerful message: “You’re allowed to take care of yourself here.”

This isn’t soft. It’s strategic.

Teams follow the tone you set. And when leaders reduce stigma, people ask for support early instead of burning out silently.

Psychological Safety Reduces Stress

Every leader says they want open communication. But inclusive leaders create it.

• They listen before they speak.

• They invite the quiet voices in.

• They treat feedback as a gift, not a threat.

When people feel safe raising concerns, stress drops, and performance rises.

Psychological safety isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the engine behind trust, innovation, and retention.

Tech Makes Support More Accessible

Hybrid work changed how people access help.

Leaders who champion tools like mindfulness apps, digital therapy, peer support channels, and flexible check-ins aren’t just adopting tech, they’re removing barriers.

Accessibility is inclusion. And inclusion reduces stress.

What This Means for Leaders

You can transform team well-being with small, intentional actions:

• Adjust workloads with equity in mind.

• Clarify roles to reduce avoidable stress.

• Use tools that meet people where they are.

• Build habits of listening, checking in, and holding space.

When leaders care, teams dare. And that courage shows up in performance, creativity, and commitment.

Looking Ahead

My new white paper, Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2026, drops next month. It builds on these insights and digs into what leaders need now to navigate the next wave of change.

If you want to catch up before it lands, you can still download last year’s edition: Inclusive Leadership Trends for 2025

P.S. A question for you:

What’s one stress-reducing action you wish more leaders took? (I’ll include some of your answers in the upcoming 2026 edition!)

Too Nice to Innovate? That’s the Silliest Thing I’ve Heard All Year

You know the type.

Crisp shirt. Power stance. Silicon Valley swagger. The kind of guy who thinks he’s being “provocative” when he’s really just being condescending.

Let’s call him Will.

Will flew in from the U.S. to give a keynote about innovation and entrepreneurship in Norway. His big takeaway?

“Norwegians are too nice. Too trusting. That’s why you’ll never succeed.”

And the audience, polite as ever, nodded along.

I nearly fell out of my chair.

Because here’s the thing: no one in the world is looking at America right now and saying, “Wow, I wish we had that level of trust or professionalism.”

When Arrogance Masquerades as Insight

Will’s take wasn’t just lazy. It was hegemonic.

He wasn’t analyzing Norway’s innovation ecosystem, he was exporting American dysfunction and calling it expertise.

The assumption baked into his comment is the same one I’ve heard a hundred times from visiting “thought leaders”: that success looks like them. That Silicon Valley’s brand of hyper-competitive, winner-takes-all chaos is the gold standard.

It’s the same mindset that gave us the 2008 crash, mass tech layoffs, burnout-as-a-badge-of-honor, and an economy where “move fast and break things” ended up breaking … people.

So forgive me if I’m not impressed.

What Niceness Actually Means in Norway

In Norway, “nice” doesn’t mean naïve. It means competent, collaborative, and considerate.

It means not screwing over your suppliers for short-term gains. It means trusting your colleagues to do their jobs without constant surveillance. It means recognizing that the person cleaning your office deserves just as much respect as the person signing the checks.

That’s not weakness, that’s maturity.

And it’s the foundation for one of the world’s highest levels of innovation per capita, a globally trusted brand, and an economy that doesn’t collapse every ten years because someone wanted a bigger yacht.

I’ve Lived in Both Worlds

I’ve worked in the U.S. system where fear, job insecurity, and competition fuel “innovation” until people burn out, quit, or get replaced by the next shiny hire.

I’ve also worked in Norway, where collaboration, trust, and psychological safety make people stay, share, and actually create together.

One system runs on adrenaline. The other runs on sustainability.

Guess which one produces fewer scandals, fewer lawsuits, and more balanced lives?

Will’s comment, that trust is a weakness, perfectly encapsulates why so many American companies are in crisis. They’ve mistaken dominance for competence, and fear for focus.

Trust Is the Future of Innovation

Let’s be clear: trust is not a soft skill. It’s a strategic asset.

High-trust organizations move faster because they waste less time on politics and self-protection. They take smarter risks because information flows freely. They attract talent that values purpose over prestige.

If anything, Norway’s “niceness” is what the rest of the world needs more of - not less.

The Real Weakness

The real weakness isn’t trust. It’s arrogance.

It’s the inability to imagine that your model might not be universal. It’s walking into another country and lecturing them on how to succeed all while your own house is on fire.

If the price of success is cynicism, Norway’s doing just fine.

The world doesn’t need more sharks. It needs more seahorses, steady, graceful, and thriving in community.

P.S.

This isn’t a Norway-vs-America argument. It’s a reminder that the future of innovation belongs to the systems that trust their people. If you’re a leader who still thinks “nice” is a liability, you might want to look around because the world has already moved on without you.

Welcome to the Post-Inclusion Era: Where Human Rights Are Optional

I always thought inclusion was the finish line. I celebrated representation. I helped write policies. I ran workshops and campaigns.

And for a while, I could see it working. Doors opened. Conversations changed. The word belonging became a business buzzword.

But somewhere between political backslides, rising extremism, and digital tribalism, something shifted. Now, inclusion feels less like progress and more like a memory.

I believe we are entering a post-inclusion era. And in this era, human rights are starting to look negotiable again.

The False Sense of Arrival

We’ve spent decades building laws and language around fairness. Equal pay. Anti-discrimination. Gender balance.

But progress made a lot of us comfortable, made us feel like it was inevitable, and this made us careless. While we celebrated milestones, the foundation was quietly cracking.

Across Europe, the rollback has begun and continues:

• Hungary banned LGBTQ+ education in schools.

• France and the Netherlands tightened restrictions on asylum and religious expression.

• The UK debates deportation flights like it’s routine public policy.

• AI systems discriminate in hiring, policing, and healthcare, bias now coded into our institutions.

Meanwhile, global conflicts and cultural divides have reignited fear, nationalism, and othering.

Inclusion Was Never the End Goal

Inclusion was supposed to be the means, not the end. A tool for recognizing humanity, not a trophy for those who say the right words.

Corporate culture turned inclusion into a PR exercise. Governments turned it into compliance. And activists, exhausted, turned it into survival.

But when your right to exist is questioned, because of who you love, where you’re from, or what you believe, inclusion becomes secondary. Recognition comes first.

Before we can talk about belonging, we need to make sure people are still allowed to be.

The New Fight: From Belonging to Being

This isn’t just about identity politics. It’s about existence politics.

We’re living through a moment when rights once considered untouchable, reproductive rights, asylum rights, freedom of expression, are back on the negotiating table. And that means the inclusion conversation needs to evolve.

It’s not enough to ask who’s missing from the table. We have to ask who’s being locked out of the building.

A Call to Arms (and Hearts)

If we want to reclaim the progress we’ve made, we can’t wait for policy to catch up. We have to act like inclusion still matters, especially when it feels risky to do so.

That means:

• Calling out dehumanization: in the media, in politics, in boardrooms.

• Refusing neutrality: silence is just compliance with whoever holds power.

• Building cross-movement solidarity: because women’s rights, refugee rights, the rights of persons of color, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights are the same fight under different names.

The old fight was for fairness. The new fight is for survival.

The Hope That’s Left

I have hope. Because every time someone tells their story, every time an ally steps up, every time a community refuses to disappear, inclusion lives on.

P.S. This isn’t a eulogy for inclusion, it’s a rallying cry. If you’re feeling disillusioned or burnt out, remember: the progress we made wasn’t an accident. It was built by people who refused to give up. Now it’s our turn. Keep practicing inclusion, even and especially when the world makes it hard.

Native Language-Only Job Ads Are Just Discrimination In the Guise of Quality Control

Okay. Bear with me. If someone is fluent, can do the work, and communicates clearly, why on earth are we still demanding “native language proficiency” in a lot of jobs?

Short answer: we shouldn’t be. In 99% of roles, “native only” isn’t a quality standard, it’s a iron gate.

The Myth of “Native” = Better

“Native” sounds objective. It isn’t. It’s a proxy for comfort and sameness. It tells immigrants and multilingual pros: we don’t trust you, even when your skills and results say otherwise.

Fluency is what gets work done: clear meetings, precise emails, sound decisions, respectful relationships. “Native” is not a skill. It’s a birth condition.

When “Native Only” Quietly Becomes Discrimination

Look at where this shows up: office jobs, blue-collar roles, internal-facing teams. No public poetry. No courtroom briefs. No national broadcast scripts. Just… meetings, docs, Slack, customers, colleagues.

Requiring “native” here does three things:

• Shrinks the talent pool (and then we complain about shortages).

• Signals bias (“we hire people like us”).

• Punishes multilingualism—the very asset global companies claim to value.

So… When Is “Native” Legit?

It’s a short list. Really short.

• Precision prose that’s public-facing: brand copywriting, literary editing, top-tier journalism, national ad slogans.

• Statutory language work: legal drafting that must conform to local idiom, legislation, or precedent.

• Specific performance demands: acting roles where the character requires a native accent.

• High-stakes, idiom-heavy representation: prime-time news anchoring, comedic writing reliant on local wordplay.

Notice what’s missing? Most corporate roles. Most operational roles. Most customer roles. Most tech, finance, consulting, healthcare, education roles. If you can communicate clearly at C1-ish fluency, you can do the job—and do it well.

“But We’re Norwegian at Work”

Great. Then measure Norwegian fluency, not nativeness. Ask for B2/C1 (or equivalent) and assess it like any other skill, with tasks.

• Need patient-facing nurses or doctors? Test comprehension, clarity, and bedside communication.

• Need project leads? Test meeting facilitation and written summaries.

• Need sales? Test discovery calls, objection handling, and proposals.

“Native” is lazy screening. Task-based assessments are real screening.

Objection Playbook (And Better Reframes)

“Work should be in Norwegian.” Absolutely, so hire fluent professionals and support growth to C1. “Native” won’t run your business. Fluency will.

“Clients expect perfect language.” Clients expect outcomes, clarity, and trust. Use editorial reviews for final polish where needed. Stop using nativeness to outsource management.

“It’s about cultural nuance.” Then train it, pair people, and build review loops. Culture is learned. Nativeness is inherited.

What Smart Employers Do Instead

• Specify proficiency, not birthplace: “Norwegian C1 required; English B2 a plus.”

• Use work samples, not vibes: role-play calls, write a recap, draft a short note, present a decision.

• Edit the Job Description: replace “native” with “fluent” and the tasks that prove it.

• Support language as a skill: paid classes, mentoring, feedback on docs, time to practice.

• Pair and review: bilingual teams, buddy systems, lightweight copy checks for external materials.

• Track outcomes: retention, customer loyalty, cycle time, error rates, not accent anxiety.

The Leadership Test

This isn’t a language debate. It’s an inclusion test. If your bar is “native,” your bar is actually “people like me.”

Raise it.

Ask for fluency. Assess the work. Support the growth. Hire the talent you keep saying you can’t find.

“Native” is a passport. “Fluent” is a skill. Hire skills.

P.S. This sits right at the heart of my broader theme: inclusion is a capability, not a concept. If you’re wrestling with job language, send me a Job Description, and I’ll show you how to rewrite it for fluency, fairness, and better hires.

The Tough Guys: Why Boomers Needed Better Role Models

If you grew up in the post-war West, your idea of a “real man” probably came with a cigarette, a fist, or a stiff drink. John Wayne didn’t cry. James Bond didn’t apologize. Rambo solved every problem with a machine gun.

For a generation of boys who became today’s executives, those were the role models. And we’re still paying the price.

The Blueprint of the “Tough Guy”

In the late 20th century, the media machine was busy manufacturing heroes who equated strength with dominance and silence with control.

The pattern was everywhere:

• John Wayne taught men to grit their teeth and go it alone.

• Sean Connery’s Bond seduced, killed, and quipped but never questioned himself.

• Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson showed that anger could look noble if you called it justice.

• Rocky turned pain into proof of worth.

• Winston Churchill and General Patton proved that bravado could pass for brilliance if it came with medals.

It was a global export, broadcast straight from Hollywood and the BBC to every boardroom dreamer with a TV.

What These Heroes Taught Future Leaders

Those films didn’t just entertain. They trained. They whispered that real leaders don’t flinch, don’t doubt, and definitely don’t ask for help.

And when those boys grew up, they brought that training to work:

• Empathy became “weakness.”

• Listening became “indecision.”

• Collaboration became “compromise.”

• Vulnerability became “liability.”

Sound familiar? You’ve probably worked for one of them. The boss who mistakes silence for respect. The executive who treats feedback like mutiny.

This is the cultural residue of the tough-guy generation.

The Missing Message

While the world celebrated men who conquered, it largely ignored those who connected. There were alternative scripts. People like Fred Rogers, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, people who, though certainly not perfect and in many ways problematic, nonetheless led through empathy, patience, and care. But they were background characters in a culture obsessed with dominance.

They proved you could be gentle without being soft, but the spotlight rarely lingered on that kind of strength.

Why It Matters Now

Corporate leadership still carries their fingerprints. We still reward volume over value, certainty over curiosity, charisma over character. But the cracks are showing: burnout, disengagement, distrust.

Maybe the issue isn’t that men today are broken, maybe their role models were.

What Comes Next

In Part 2: The Human Leaders, I'm planning to look at the empathy-driven figures who offered a different blueprint, and how leaders can finally learn from them.

Because strength without empathy isn’t leadership. It’s legacy cosplay.

P.S. Think about your earliest heroes. Who taught you what strength looked like, and have you updated that definition since? Drop your role models in the comments, and then check out Part 2: The Human Leaders to see how the story evolves.

What Taylor Swift Is Teaching Men About Inclusion

When my business partner, Anne Igeltjørn, invited me to a Taylor Swift album launch party, I hesitated.

Not because I didn’t like Taylor Swift - I do. (Blame Anne for introducing me to Reputation and Midnights.) I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I belonged.

I pictured a sea of glitter, friendship bracelets, and women in their teens and twenties singing every lyric by heart. And then me - a 45-year-old man, clapping on the wrong beat, trying not to look like someone’s confused uncle.

But Anne got me a ticket, and a simple “of course, you should come!” turned into a quiet masterclass in inclusion.

Men, This Is What Inclusion Feels Like

Here’s the thing: I was nervous to walk into a space that wasn’t built for me. But that’s the feeling a lot of people live with every day - stepping into rooms where they’re not sure they belong.

And that night, I got a tiny glimpse of what that feels like.

But I also got something else: an example of how inclusion actually happens.

Because no one at that event made me feel like an outsider. No one questioned why I was there. No one treated me like an intruder.

It was open, joyful, welcoming. The kind of energy that says, “You can sit with us.”

And for a lot of men in leadership - especially those of us used to being the default in most rooms - that’s a lesson worth sitting with.

What Taylor Swift Does That Many Leaders Don’t

Taylor Swift has built one of the most engaged, loyal communities in the world. But she didn’t do it by commanding authority. She did it by creating connection.

By letting people see her. By being vulnerable. By telling stories that make millions feel seen too.

That’s not weakness. That’s leadership.

She’s built an ecosystem where empathy is a feature, not a flaw - where emotions aren’t just accepted but celebrated. And that’s something a lot of male leaders could learn from.

Three Things Men Can Learn From the Swifties

💡 1. Show Up Anyway. Sometimes inclusion starts with discomfort. If you only enter rooms that feel familiar, you’ll never grow your empathy.

🎶 2. Listen Before You Lead. Swift’s power isn’t just in her voice - it’s in how she gives voice to others. Men who want to lead inclusively should do the same.

🪩 3. Celebrate Without Controlling. At that launch party, no one was trying to “manage” the joy. People were crying, laughing, dancing, and being human. Real leadership doesn’t control the energy - it creates safety for it.

The Real Test of Inclusion

After the event, I scrolled through social media. The backlash was immediate - the jokes, the dismissiveness, the casual misogyny dressed up as critique.

And I thought: This is what women experience all the time. This constant judgment, this cultural policing of joy, this need to make something smaller just because it wasn’t made for you.

That’s the real test for men who want to be allies: Can you celebrate something even when it’s not about you?

The Bigger Picture

We talk a lot about men joining the conversation on inclusion. But joining means more than attending a training or signing a pledge. It means showing up in spaces where you’re not the center, and listening without defensiveness.

It means doing what Anne did for me that night: inviting someone in, without hesitation, and saying, “There’s room for you here.”

P.S. Inclusion doesn’t start in boardrooms. It starts in small, human moments, an open invitation, a song, a shared story.

So, men - maybe our next leadership lesson isn’t in a seminar. Maybe it’s at a Taylor Swift concert. 💫

The Room Full of Swifties: What a Taylor Swift Party Taught Me About Belonging

When my business partner Anne Igeltjørn told me she was going to the Taylor Swift launch party for The Life of a Showgirl, I hesitated before asking the question: “Can I come?”

I hesitated because, well, I’m 45. A man. And I wasn’t sure if I’d fit in at an event that, at least from the outside, seemed like it was built for someone else.

But Anne, being Anne, didn’t miss a beat. She’d already called the venue, found an extra ticket, and invited me to join her and her sister. That simple act, “of course, you should come!”, was the first moment I realized this wasn’t just a party. It was a masterclass in inclusion.

The Awkward Part (That Never Came)

Walking in, I’d braced myself to be the old guy in a room full of glitter, friendship bracelets, and youthful energy.

But what I found was something entirely different. The crowd was mixed, men and women, friends and couples, strangers singing and dancing. The average age was somewhere in the 30s, and instead of feeling out of place, I felt part of something joyful, warm, and human.

At one point, I noticed a couple beside me swaying together to the music. She teared up during one of the songs, and he just quietly reached over and held her hand. No fanfare. No posturing. Just presence.

That moment hit me harder than I expected. It was connection. Empathy. Care.

The Real Lesson in Belonging

Here’s the thing about belonging: you can’t manufacture it with slogans or strategy. It happens in small, genuine moments, when someone makes space for you, when you make space for them.

Anne didn’t just get me a ticket; she gave me permission to show up. The couple next to me reminded me that shared emotion builds bridges faster than shared opinions. And Taylor Swift, whether you like her or not, has somehow created a global community built on listening, storytelling, and joy.

That’s inclusion. Not the kind that checks boxes, but the kind that opens doors.

Beyond the Backlash

Of course, the next morning, I opened social media and saw the criticism. The think pieces. The hot takes. Some fair, some not. And a whole lot that revealed something bigger about us - our need to tear down what we don’t understand, or what wasn’t made for us.

But here’s what that night reminded me: when we enter spaces with curiosity instead of defensiveness, we find humanity. When we stop asking, “Is this for me?” and start asking, “Can I make room for someone else here too?”, everything changes.

Why It Matters

I walked into that event feeling like an outsider. I left feeling like part of a community I didn’t know I needed.

And maybe that’s the point. Inclusion isn’t about making everything for everyone. It’s about making sure everyone knows they’re welcome to show up.

P.S. This one’s for Anne - for being the kind of leader who invites others in. And for anyone who’s ever wondered, “Do I belong here?” - try showing up anyway. You might be surprised who’s waiting to hand you a bracelet. 💫

40 by 30: A Collective Journey for Maritime Leadership

Norway’s maritime industry is one of the most innovative in the world. But like so many sectors, it’s still missing out on a big opportunity: women in leadership. Today, women hold around 15% of leadership roles in the industry.

That’s where WISTA Norway’s “40 by 30” pledge comes in.

What the Pledge Is About

The idea is simple and inspiring: by 2030, let’s make sure 40% of leadership positions are filled by women. Companies who sign the pledge commit to:

• Setting clear goals for gender balance.

• Measuring and sharing progress.

• Making diversity a leadership priority.

It’s not just a statement - it’s a roadmap.

Why It Matters

The maritime sector is facing huge shifts: green transition, digitalization, and global competition. To meet those challenges, we need all the talent, creativity, and perspectives we can get.

Research consistently shows that diverse leadership teams make better decisions, drive stronger performance, and create healthier workplaces. That’s good for business, and it’s good for people.

A Shared Effort

“40 by 30” isn’t about one company or one initiative. It’s about the whole industry pulling together. Each step forward makes the sector stronger, more competitive, and more attractive to the next generation of talent.

Looking Ahead

2030 may feel far away, but it’s just around the corner in strategy terms. With intentional effort and collaboration, it’s absolutely achievable.

And imagine the signal it would send if Norway’s maritime industry - already a global leader - also became a global example of gender balance in leadership.

P.S. If you’re part of the maritime sector, this is a wonderful chance to join a collective movement for change. You can read more and sign the pledge here → WISTA Norway 40 by 30

Chapter 3: Speak Up Even When It Costs You: From "The Big F#cking Book on How to Be a Decent Guy"

Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way:

Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good. It’s not always safe. It’s not always rewarded. But it always matters.

Health Class, 1990s

Small-town America. Conservative. The kind of place where the worst thing you could be called… was gay.

We’re in health class. The teacher starts a unit on HIV/AIDS. And the whole thing turns into a parade of misinformation and homophobia. Jokes. Blame. Bluster.

I remember sitting there thinking: This is wrong. And for once, I didn’t keep it to myself.

I raised my hand and said:

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay.”

Dead silence. Then came the pushback. I lost friends. Got bullied. Spent the rest of that year wondering if I’d made a huge mistake.

But I hadn’t. Because what I’d actually done was practice being the kind of guy I wanted to become.

Doing the Right Thing Isn’t Always Popular

I don’t tell this story to get applause. I tell it because we need to normalize the cost of doing the right thing. Especially for young men.

It’s easy to stand up for others when it’s cool, safe, or hashtag-approved. It’s harder when it costs you your reputation, your popularity, your peace.

But that’s when it counts most.

How That Moment Shaped My Life

That awkward, painful moment in health class was a turning point. It’s the moment I realized that values without action are just opinions.

Since then, I’ve gone on to:

• Research public health and LGBTQIA+ equity

• Build companies where inclusion isn’t a checkbox

• Work alongside brilliant people across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum who’ve taught me what allyship really means

But I wouldn’t have gotten there if I hadn’t first learned how to sit in discomfort without backing down.

What I Want Young Men to Know

If you’re reading this and you’re teenager, or raising someone who is, here’s what I want you to hear:

🛑 You don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room 📢 But you do have to be a voice, especially when the room gets quiet

🫱🏼🫲🏽 You don’t need to know everything 💡 But you do need to notice when something’s off, and choose not to look away

💪🏻 You don’t need to be perfect 🧭 You just need to show up for people in ways that sometimes may cost you something

That’s how integrity works. That’s how decent guys are made.

P.S.

This is Chapter 3 from my new book The Big F#cking Book on How to Be a Decent Guy - a self-help guide for young men who want to do better, be better, and lead without being a jerk.

💥 If you liked this chapter, you can preorder the book now at a 60% discount ahead of the July 2026 release: 👉 inclusiveleadership.solutions/store/p/the-big-fcking-book-on-how-to-be-a-decent-guy

👦🏽👨🏻👨🏿🦱 If you’re raising a teenage boy - or mentoring a young man who’s trying to figure things out - please share this with them. And if they have thoughts or questions, I’d love to hear them.

Let’s give the next generation a better blueprint for masculinity.

Not louder. Just better.

The Bar Is on the Floor: Why CEO Misconduct Keeps Happening and How We Actually Stop It

When a man at the top behaves badly, no one is shocked anymore. We shrug. “It’s just another Tuesday.”

Sexual misconduct, bullying, massive layoffs with no warning, romantic relationships with direct reports, fraud, coverups, whistleblower retaliation.

In 2025 alone, Nestlé, Barclays, and JLL Australia all made headlines for CEO behavior that violated ethics, policy or both.

And if you think these are outliers, you haven’t been paying attention.

The CEO Misconduct Hall of Shame

Let’s start with a few recent examples:

• Nestlé (2025): CEO Laurent Freixe was dismissed after an undisclosed romantic relationship with a subordinate, violating internal conduct rules (Reuters).

• JLL Australia (2025): CEO Dan Kernaghan was removed after reinstating an executive accused of sexual harassment and mishandling misconduct complaints (Courier Mail).

• Barclays (2025 ruling): Former CEO Jes Staley was banned from UK financial services for misleading regulators about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein (The Guardian).

• McDonald's (2023): Stephen Easterbrook was fined and banned by the U.S. SEC after misleading investors about inappropriate relationships with employees (BBC).

• P&O Ferries (2022–2025): Peter Hebblethwaite oversaw mass layoffs by video, triggering years of public backlash and an eventual resignation (BBC).

That’s just a taste. Toss in Theranos, Wells Fargo, PwC Australia, Papa John’s, and “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli for a full buffet of bad behavior.

Why Does This Keep Happening?

It’s not just about bad apples. It’s about systems that reward rot.

Here’s what could be driving these behaviors:

1. Unchecked Power: CEOs operate in bubbles. The higher they climb, the fewer people challenge them. Leader isolation and excessive confidence (a.k.a. hubris) reduce self-correction.

2. Gendered Entitlement: Men in male-dominated industries are often socialized for dominance, risk-taking, and boundary-pushing. The result? More misconduct in the form of bullying, sexual harassment, and unethical decision-making.

3. Rewarding Results Over Process: As long as CEOs deliver on growth and shareholder value, toxic behavior is tolerated until it explodes.

4. Weak Guardrails: Boards look the other way. HR doesn’t touch the top floor. Whistleblower protections fail. In founder-led firms or family businesses, oversight can be non-existent.

The Bar Is on the Floor

We are not asking for much.

Let’s be honest: "Don’t harass or assault anyone" is not a high standard. Neither is "Don’t lie to regulators or shareholders."

So let’s put it plainly.

Three Things Not to Do (The Basic Bar):

1. Don’t abuse your power to harm others.

2. Don’t lie, cover up, or retaliate.

3. Don’t create or tolerate toxic environments.

Three Things To Actually Do:

1. Use your power to protect others.

2. Use your influence to elevate others.

3. Use your visibility to model integrity.

Why It Might Finally Matter

The consequences are catching up:

• Legal bans and fines (Barclays, McDonald’s, Wells Fargo)

• Clawbacks and criminal charges (Theranos, Shkreli)

• Public boycotts and talent drain (Papa John’s, P&O Ferries)

• Loss of legacy - permanently tarnished reputations

Boards are starting to tie bonuses to conduct, regulators are getting more aggressive, and even C-suite peers are turning their backs on misconduct.

Younger employees? They’re watching. So are your customers. And they’re not quiet.

So What Do We Do About It?

We shift the culture of leadership.

That means stronger governance, not just louder branding. That means promoting people with character, not just charisma.

And it means raising the bar from “don’t be a criminal” to something higher.

Decency. Accountability. Courage.

If you’re a board member, investor, or employee, it’s time to stop shrugging.

And if you’re a CEO?

Lead like people are watching.

Because now they are.

P.S. Want to know who’s doing it right? I'm thinking that should be the next article. What do you think about a list of the folks who are doing it right?