The 2% Who Take the Stairs
Why most leaders avoid the one adventure that would actually change them.
Rhumb Line: Setting a Leadership Direction You Can Return To
A rhumb line is a sailor’s line of constant bearing — the heading you commit to and return to, not the destination you grip. It is also the shape of real leadership growth, and the shape of the nine-month integration journey that follows a CLQ retreat.
Leadership Transformation: What Finally Moves Leaders to Change
Leadership transformation rarely begins with ambition. More often, it starts when staying the same becomes more painful than change. In this reflection, we explore the psychology of growth, the tipping point that moves leaders to transform, and why the right conditions—safety, space, and support—matter.
Conscious Leadership Balance: Integrating Masculine and Feminine Energies
There’s a Native American story about a bird that has been flying with only one wing for centuries, the masculine wing. The feminine wing hasn’t been fully extended. It’s been pulled back, curtailed, suppressed. The result? The bird cannot soar forward. It can only fly in circles. This metaphor captures something essential about where leadership […]
Intentional Living for Leaders: The Airlock Framework for Protecting Your Energy
Last week, my CLQ co-founder Peter Katz stayed with my wife and I while our house was being renovated. Living in a rental on a busy street with an escape-artist cat, we’ve developed a system: enter the garage, close the door to the house, then open the garage door. Reverse it coming back. We started […]
Why Inner Work Is the Real Leadership Legacy
On the decision to change, the courage to look in the mirror, and why inner work is the real leadership legacy. This past weekend, I attended a celebration of life for my friend, Tim Kutzberger. I met Tim years ago in a Saturday morning men’s group. We were all dads who had arrived at the […]
A New Lens for Leadership – Becoming an Anthropologist CEO
How Embracing the Anthropologist CEO Mindset Changed Everything Picture this: You’re running a company with over $10 million in sales, your team is celebrating growth milestones, and from the outside, everything looks perfect. But there’s a problem nobody wants to talk about…the more you grow on the top line, the less you have to show […]
Anxiety Meets Adventure: The Making of a Conscious Leader
Between AI-doom predictions, public layoffs, and macroeconomic whiplash, anxiety is drenching the workplace. But what if the path through uncertainty isn’t about managing stress, it’s about transforming how we show up as leaders entirely? My friend John Stevenson recently shared insights from leadership expert Ranjay Gulati about keeping teams steady in anxious times. Gulati’s framework […]
The Practice Before the Pressure
“In today’s turbulent world, you must establish rituals that nourish and resource you so you can be fully present with whatever comes your way in life.” This spring, as I watched my son Alec graduate from Loyola Marymount University, I was delightfully surprised to hear Academy Award-winning filmmaker and GRAMMY Award-winning artist Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson […]
Good Stress: How Conscious Leaders Thrive Under Pressure
What’s your relationship with hanging out in cold water? Mine was once, well… COLD. I had read the data and tried cold showers, but couldn’t imagine voluntarily embracing discomfort. We live in a modern world that tells us we should never be uncomfortable, right? That pain and discomfort are always problems to be solved rather […]