From HBR

Become a More Courageous Leader

When uncertainty strikes, the default reaction is often to retreat. But courageous leaders don’t wait for clarity—they create it. Courage is not about being fearless; it’s about acting in service of a purpose, even when fear is present. And it’s a skill that can be developed. Here’s how.

Reframe fear through story. Courage starts with the stories you tell yourself. Look for patterns in the chaos and turn them into a narrative that gives you agency. Frame your actions as a moral mission or draw strength from personal belief systems to reduce fear and move forward.

Build confidence deliberately. Competence builds courage. Study best practices until they become instinctive, expand your problem-solving toolkit, and focus on what you can control. The more prepared and grounded you are, the easier it is to take bold, self-assured steps.

Take action—even if it’s small. You don’t need to know the whole path—just the next step. Evaluate the situation, test a small hypothesis, learn from it, and adjust. That momentum will build clarity and conviction.

Rely on others. Courage grows in connection. Lean on allies for emotional support, resources, and honest feedback. Constructive input from others strengthens your decision-making and reinforces your sense of purpose.

Stay calm. Regulate fear with rest, rituals, and reframing. When emotions spike, stay grounded so you can act from a place of poise.

This tip is adapted from “Now Is the Time for Courage,” by Ranjay Gulati.

Create a One-Slide Strategy That Sticks

If your strategy is hard to explain, it’ll be even harder for others to understand and follow. A clear, well-designed visualization can help you get buy-in from employees and investors alike—and make your message far easier to remember. Here’s how to create a single slide that effectively communicates your strategy.

Group ideas into three or four main concepts. Focus on a few essential elements. Too many components dilute clarity and confuse your audience. People grasp strategy best when they can organize it into a simple, logical framework.

Add layers of detail. For each core concept, include concrete operational details. Help people understand not just what the strategy is, but how it plays out in day-to-day execution.

Design for clarity, not decoration. Use color only to separate layers. Avoid flashy effects or unrelated graphics—overcomplication harms comprehension.

Show how it all connects. Use arrows or flows to illustrate cause-and-effect relationships. A good visualization should mirror the story you’re telling and clarify how each element drives the next.

Keep it horizontal. Layouts that follow a left-to-right flow are easier to process. Our brains are wired to scan landscapes, so align your design with how people naturally absorb information.

This tip is adapted from “You Should Be Able to Boil Your Strategy Down to a Single Clear Visualization,” by João Cotter Salvado and Freek Vermeulen.

6 Steps to Identifying Your Core Values

As a leader, you’ll face numerous high-stakes situations. When there’s no clear playbook for how to handle them, your personal core values can guide your most difficult decisions. But to use them effectively, you need to define them first. Start with these six prompts to surface what matters most to you, then look for common themes in your answers, such as generosity, helping others, and building trust.

Reflect on high-energy moments. When do you feel fully alive and engaged? Think about moments outside of work that energize you, such as volunteering, building community, and solving complex problems.

Recall your best work. Which jobs or roles brought out your strongest performance? What values were honored in those environments?

Listen to what others ask of you. What advice or support do people seek you out for most often? These patterns can reveal strengths tied to your deeper principles.

Imagine your legacy. What do you want people to say in your eulogy? How do you want to be remembered by those closest to you?

Spot your dealbreakers. When have you felt most disengaged or frustrated? These moments often reflect a violation of your values.

Name what you can’t stand in others. Think about behaviors that bother you deeply—they often point to your non-negotiables.

This tip is adapted from “Identify Your Core Values to Make Better Leadership Decisions,” by Robert Glazer.

Build a Custom AI Assistant to Save Yourself Time

Custom AI assistants can save you time and effort by eliminating repetitive tasks. You don’t need to have coding skills to use them, but to get the most out of them, you need to set them up thoughtfully. Here’s how to create an assistant tailored to your needs.

Choose the right platform. Different AI platforms have different strengths. For example, ChatGPT is great for voice interactions, Claude excels at writing style, and Gemini integrates well with Google’s suite of tools. Consider your workflow and pick the one that fits best.

Experiment first. Start by using AI in a regular chat. Use detailed prompts and refine responses by giving the tool explicit feedback. Once you’re getting useful results, synthesize the most-effective prompts and feedback into a structured set of instructions for your AI assistant.

Write clear custom instructions. Define your assistant’s persona, purpose, and goals. Use second-person instructions (for example, “You are a detail-oriented data analyst”). Be clear on the format, style, and KPIs for success.

Upload reference files. Make your assistant smarter by providing documents it can use for context, such as past reports, style guides, or FAQs. This improves accuracy and consistency.

This tip is adapted from “How to Build Your Own AI Assistant,” by Alexandra Samuel.

How to Be an Inspiring Leader

A leader’s ability to inspire depends on how well they play three key roles: visionary, exemplar, and mentor. Here’s how to embody each one.

Visionary. People rally around leaders who provide meaning, purpose, and optimism. Your message should be big-picture, values-driven, and simple yet vivid. For example, you might say, “Make our customers smile” instead of “Make our customers happy.” Repetition strengthens clarity, so communicate your vision often. A useful exercise? List your five core values, rank them, and use them to guide your messaging.

Exemplar. Inspiring leaders are calm and courageous, facing danger and protecting others from it. They’re also authentically passionate, espousing their ideas and principles with conviction—while also embodying them. Those emotions and behaviors are infectious, encouraging your team to follow your lead and become more resolute, brave, excited, and driven.

Mentor. True leaders elevate others. Delegate responsibility, listen deeply, and give credit when it’s due. Try a simple exercise where you consider a colleague’s perspective—what motivates them? What challenges them? Good mentoring requires understanding that different people have different needs, and really listening to what those needs are.

This tip is adapted from “What Sets Inspirational Leaders Apart,” by Adam D. Galinsky.

Manage Overwhelm Before It Spirals into Burnout

Overwhelm is easy to miss and costly to ignore. As a leader, your job is to recognize when capable people are quietly running on empty, burning out, or disengaging—and intervene accordingly. Here’s how.

Spot the silence and the strain. Don’t mistake calm for calmness. Overwhelm often hides behind composure or quiet disengagement. Watch for subtle signs: restlessness, missed deadlines, indecision, or working through breaks. Ask open-ended questions to surface what’s really going on.

Create micro-control in unpredictable times. When everything feels urgent and uncertain, help your team regain focus. Break down big goals, clarify what matters most, and align on what can wait. Small doses of predictability restore a sense of control.

Recalibrate expectations—starting with your own. Perfectionism and invisible standards fuel overwhelm. Replace assumptions with shared definitions of success. Ask, “What does 80% done look like?” or “Where can we let go?” to lower pressure without lowering ambition.

Make it safe for people to say “I’m at capacity.” Model and normalize boundary-setting. Shift from “Can you take this on?” to “What would make this manageable?” Publicly support those who speak up.

Design work for recovery, not endurance. Encourage rhythms of effort and rest. Normalize breaks, time off, and mental detachment as essential to performance—not perks.

This tip is adapted from “Do You Know If Your Team Is Overwhelmed?,” by Alyson Meister and Nele Dael.

What to Say When Disagreeing

Constructive disagreement can spark creativity, prevent costly errors, and drive better decisions. To keep disagreements from escalating into conflict, you need to use language that shows your counterparts that you’re coming from a place of curiosity and empathy. Here’s how to turn disagreements into better ideas and decisions.

Signal that you want to learn. Start by stating your curiosity. Try: “It seems we see this differently. I’m curious how you’re thinking about it.” This makes others feel heard without weakening your own position.

Acknowledge their perspective. Repeating what someone just said accurately and without judgment shows respect. “I hear you. The team’s been working long hours…” signals that their message landed with you, even if you ultimately disagree.

Find shared goals. Highlight common ground with phrases like “We both want…” or “I agree with some of what you’re saying.” This frames the conversation as collaboration, not combat.

Hedge your claims. Show humility with language like “From my view…” or “It might be the case…” People trust those who allow for complexity instead of clinging to certainty.

Tell your story. Share a personal experience that shaped your view. Vulnerability builds trust faster than data alone and helps shift the conversation from facts to understanding.

This tip is adapted from “A Smarter Way to Disagree,” by Julia A. Minson et al.

How to Recover from the Emotional Drain of Leadership

Leadership is emotionally taxing. Whether you’re delivering tough news, navigating team changes, or absorbing others’ stress, the emotional labor quietly adds up. Over time, ignoring your own emotions can erode your health, performance, and relationships. To stay resilient, adopt these three recovery practices.

Reflect to build emotional awareness. After a hard moment, pause and ask yourself: What am I feeling? Where do I feel it in my body? What are my emotions telling me? Write down your answers or record a voice memo. Processing your feelings—not suppressing them—helps you move forward without carrying invisible weight. If journaling isn’t for you, talk to a trusted peer. Reflection doesn’t need to take long, but it must be intentional.

Reframe to change your perspective. Emotionally tough experiences can distort how you see yourself or your situation. Ask: What’s the silver lining? How might this help me grow? Reframing isn’t denial—it’s choosing a more empowering narrative. Practice self-compassion by offering yourself the kindness you’d extend to a colleague in the same situation.

Restore to rebuild your energy. You can’t lead well on an empty tank. Protect your emotional reserves by detaching from work, relaxing intentionally, learning something new, and reclaiming control over small parts of your day. These are leadership necessities, not indulgences.

This tip is adapted from “Leading Is Emotionally Draining. Here’s How to Recover.” by Dina Denham Smith.

Transitioning from Frontline Management to Senior Leadership

Stepping into a senior leadership role is about more than simply managing a bigger team. It requires a new mindset, focus, and definition of success. If you’re finding this transition to be harder than you expected, you’re not alone. Here’s how to recalibrate your approach.

Coach, don’t solve. You’re no longer the go-to problem solver. Your value now lies in helping your managers become confident decision-makers. Instead of offering answers, ask strategic questions. Let them wrestle with complexity so they build their own judgment. It may feel uncomfortable at first—but your silence can be more powerful than your solution.

Drive impact through others. Your hands-on habits won’t scale. Focus on creating the conditions for high performance, not overseeing every task. Strategic conversations, mentoring, and alignment now define your productivity. As a leader, many of your wins won’t come with instant gratification but will instead surface over time—for example, the feedback you give a manager today might translate to higher performance next quarter.

Build systems, not bottlenecks. You can’t track everything—nor should you try. Identify the few issues that demand your direct attention and set clear escalation guidelines. Use dashboards and written updates for visibility. The goal is to enable autonomy while staying informed.

This tip is adapted from “Navigating the Jump from Manager to Executive,” by Melody Wilding.

Weave Kindness into the Fabric of Your Team

Want high-performing teams that collaborate, communicate, and stay engaged? Treat kindness as a core management responsibility—not a personal trait or optional extra. Here’s how to operationalize kindness on your team.

Set clear expectations. Make kindness measurable by turning it into clear behavioral standards. Define what respectful, inclusive, and supportive interactions look like. Use onboarding, performance reviews, and team norms to embed those expectations into daily work. Don’t let small moments of unkindness slide. Address them consistently, just as you would any other performance issue.

Treat kindness as a hard skill. Through coaching and ongoing feedback, help managers meet the expectations you’ve defined. Focus on building specific capabilities, like giving constructive feedback with care, listening without defensiveness, and handling conflict thoughtfully. When managers consistently model these behaviors, they create teams where trust, openness, and psychological safety can grow.

Measure it. Track whether kindness is showing up in your culture the way you intend. Use surveys to assess how employees experience respect, inclusion, and psychological safety. Collect feedback from team interactions and customer experiences. Benchmark the results, and share them with teams. When you measure something, you can reinforce it