Some of the leadership tools I relied on for years — frameworks that once felt foundational — haven’t always held up in today’s climate.

Earlier in my journey, Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last shaped how I thought about trust and leadership. The idea that true leaders serve their people — creating safety, consistency, and shared purpose — gave me structure. A sense of what “good leadership” should feel like.

But more recently, life has challenged me to go inward — to sit with discomfort, lead with values, and embrace the emotional complexity that comes with modern leadership. Less formula, more humanity.

What I’ve learned in the middle — where trust meets self-awareness — is that transformation rarely arrives with fanfare. It comes in the quiet. In subtle pivots. In the space between what used to work and what’s being asked of us now.

And as AI-enabled leadership tools and bots enter the mix, I’m learning to balance instinct with insight — Letting the bots deepen the understanding, creating shortcuts where needed using them not to replace the human work, but to reflect, stretch, and deepen it. Transformation doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it whispers.
And that’s enough.