Source: forbes.com In the film The Fabelmans, director Steven Spielberg committed some of his early childhood directing experiences to the silver screen. The man who would later become a three-time Oscar winner documents his boyhood efforts to create films using an 8mm camera. He wasn’t a professional director yet, but he sure acted like one.
Source: fastcompany.com Crash courses in trust, delegation, judgment, and growth. Leadership positions may be the stuff of envy. From the outside, it can look like the person in charge has it all figured out. But leaders are human, too. And that means bumping up against some harsh realities as they ascend to roles with increasing responsibility. Great leaders take the lessons they learn along the way and make it part of the way they do business.
Source: forbes.com I have coached in several founder-led companies, and these are some of the most interesting clients I have worked with. They are smart, resourceful and usually right about more things than the average leader. That last part is exactly the problem. Being right is what helped build the company. Being right, unchecked, is what keeps them from leading it well once the organization begins to outgrow them.
Source: bizjournals.com I’ve found that when professionals value themselves and their abilities, their confidence expands. I saw this firsthand years ago, when I was asked to speak at a conference for small-business owners on how to find potential clients.
Source: fastcompany.com Break down silos through shared outcomes and clear ownership. Teamwork makes the dream work. It is cliché, and yet true. But teamwork often involves multiple departments and various roles, each with individual goals and priorities. As a cross-functional collaborative team, it’s important to recognize where everyone is coming from and how those objectives can be reached from a company perspective. Sometimes that means dialing down individual ideas to serve the greater good. That is hard to do and it requires good leadership to corral everyone around that vision.
Source: hcamag.com Retention and recruitment of these workers is about more than compensation, say two HR leaders For all the noise about artificial intelligence, geopolitics, and economic uncertainty, many companies are overlooking a quieter but equally disruptive force: the rise of Gen Z in the workforce.
Source: forbes.com Artificial intelligence is changing how companies find new people to hire in a quicker and more efficient way. New platforms and tools are coming out, each with constant updates. Although many companies that handle hiring are experimenting with AI tools, there is much speculation that these tools will eventually replace human recruiters.
Source: forbes.com The strongest leaders recognize that learning and skill development are not one-off initiatives, but ongoing practices built through experience, feedback and continuous adaptation. This growth can take many forms over the course of your career, whether through mentorship, stretch assignments or reflection. Organizations that prioritize this kind of continuous development are often better positioned to build stronger pipelines of future-ready talent. To help leaders continue sharpening their skills over time, 20 Forbes Human Resources Council members share the strategies they use to keep learning and evolving throughout their careers. 1. Adopt A Flexible Mindset To Stay Open To Growth In general, I believe that leaders should have a learner posture and mindset. The world is changing and evolving around us every day, so the only constant is change. Being able to be flexible and keep learning versus posturing as an expert will allow inputs from different people and perspectives, and keep leaders nimble and in tune with the latest ways of working and doing things. – Emily Venizelos, 72andSunny 2. Treat Leadership Development As A Lifelong Journey The most effective leaders treat learning as an ongoing journey. That includes investing in development, learning from peers and mentors and continually honing their skillset….
Source: rte.ie Analysis: Organisations must look past the most visible signals of leadership potential and focus on how bosses support and develop their teams Plenty of people have worked under a manager who appears confident, articulate and highly visible, yet they struggle to lead their team effectively. Team members can become disengaged, decision-making slows and performance declines. But despite this, the same people always seem to progress through the hierarchy.
Source: hrdigest.com Toxic leadership in the workplace may sound like a superficial problem, but such management can guarantee employee burnout. A recent study of employee dehumanization at work revealed the follies of allowing abusive supervision to reshape the organization.
Source: forbes.com As more organizations embrace the concept of a coaching culture, people development is not left to the C-suite alone. Beyond balancing employee workloads and cascading executive communications, today’s managers are more responsible for fostering both individual and collective goals, growth, ownership and independent thinking across their teams.
Source: fastcompany.com It starts by creating a work culture people can actually feel. Corporate culture isn’t built by policies. It’s built by moments—the unscripted experiences that catch us off guard, bring us closer, and quietly shape how we show up for one another. But many efforts labeled “culture-building,” including onboarding programs, leadership retreats, and all-hands meetings, still feel like productivity theater: tightly scheduled and heavy on performance. Today, it’s worth asking whether that model has simply run its course.
Source: forbes.com Leading an organization is rarely simple. Even seasoned CEOs and founders find their mental real estate consumed by profitability and competition. But the toughest, most persistent challenges come from people. Navigating that complexity takes more than technical skill—it demands executive presence. Executive presence isn’t just about what a leader says. It’s about how they enter a room, regulate tension, influence others, and project confidence before a single slide appears.
Source: psychologytoday.com How does your team measure up? Determining the recipe for successful work teams is big business, as a lot is at stake. Is the key having the right set of members based on their skills or personalities? Is the primary driver of team effectiveness the environment in which teams operate? Is the secret having a dynamic leader?
Source: inc.com Buffett’s leadership test is quite simple. And yet most bosses fail it. Here’s why. Warren Buffett is famous for many reasons, including his simple and timeless wisdom, and this quote is no exception. Often attributed to Buffett and quoted in Tom Rath’s Strengths-Based Leadership, Buffett said something that sounds obvious at first—and then gets uncomfortable the longer you sit with it.
Source: psychologytoday.com Three quiet leadership lessons on burnout, trust, and learning under pressure. Leadership rarely announces its lessons loudly. They tend to surface after the meeting ends; when a leader lingers on a comment they can’t shake, when a decision technically works but feels wrong, or when exhaustion becomes impossible to explain away.
Source: entrepreneur.com Burnout sneaks in quietly through late nights, missed family moments and the slow loss of joy in what once inspired us. Here’s how to find your purpose again. Success is both a privilege and a responsibility. For many ambitious leaders, it begins as a calling to build, innovate and make an impact. Over time, however, that sense of purpose can evolve into an unending pursuit of achievement. We start to judge our worth by the amount we produce, the meetings we attend, the projects we finish and the milestones we hit. Yet, the more we accomplish, the less fulfilled we often feel.
Source: forbes.com As we move into 2026, AI is no longer the next wave of technology, it is a strategic imperative with the power to reshape how companies compete, operate, and innovate. If 2025 was the year of AI experimentation, 2026 will be the year of AI transformation. The stakes are high: a 2025 Dataiku/Harris poll found that 74% of CEOs believe their jobs are on the line if they fail to deliver measurable business results from AI.