Trends
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UnitedHealth Names Patrick Conway CEO of Optum Health: Steering the Division Through Change
UnitedHealth Group appoints Patrick Conway as CEO of Optum Health to restore growth, advance value-based care models, strengthen compliance, and drive digital innovation amid regulatory challenges.
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Leadership Links – #3
Leadership Links #3 brings you five essential insights on boardroom culture clashes, authentic DEI strategies, phased leadership transitions, sustainability as resilience, and broader talent oversight.
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Rewriting the Story of Work: Finding Meaning Whether You’re Lit Up or Burned Out
When most people think of work, they picture the thing that pays the bills. It is often reduced to a job description, a department, or a performance review. For some, work brings energy and purpose. For others, it becomes a source of pressure, routine, or quiet dissatisfaction. No matter where you land, your relationship with work has a powerful influence on your overall well-being. It shapes your identity, controls your schedule, and defines your sense of accomplishment. Yet at some point, many professionals stop asking themselves a simple question: does this still feel meaningful?
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Regis Corporation Announces CEO Transition: Ensuring Continuity and Strategic Renewal
Regis Corporation names veteran executive Jim Lain as interim CEO following Matthew Doctor’s departure, ensuring seamless leadership and ongoing digital innovation.
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Leadership Links – #2
Discover five essential insights on shareholder activism in Japan, AI-focused restructuring at Accenture, record S&P 500 CEO turnover, leaner management layers, and Alphabet’s AGM outcomes to guide your leadership strategy.
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The Invisible Balancing Act: Managing Work, Family, and Health Without Losing Yourself
The idea of work-life balance shows up everywhere. It appears in leadership seminars, corporate values, and wellness programs. Yet for many professionals, it feels like a phrase that belongs more in theory than in reality. Life does not move in clean, evenly divided segments. Work often flows into the evenings, family needs interrupt structured plans, and personal health is quietly set aside until it demands attention. Trying to balance everything equally can leave you feeling like you are always behind. No matter how carefully you manage your schedule, the scales never seem to settle evenly.
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CEO Succession in 2025: Urgency and Opportunity
In early 2025, chief executive turnover among S&P 500 companies reached 14.8 percent, with 646 departures in the first quarter, marking the highest quarterly total on record since 2001. This surge reflects several factors happening at once, including aggressive cost-cutting initiatives that eliminated layers of middle management, changing career expectations among younger professionals and a persistent underinvestment in deliberate leadership development.
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Leadership Links – #1
In a business landscape increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, workforce evolution, and global uncertainty, today’s leaders must stay informed and adaptable. This edition of Leadership Links brings together essential articles and resources that explore the future of work, the rise of agentic AI, and the tools needed to shape high-performance teams. Whether you’re refining your HR strategy or navigating workforce transformation, each link below offers timely insights that can help you lead with clarity and foresight. Use these resources to challenge your assumptions, realign your priorities, and make smarter, people-centered decisions.
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From Burnout to Breakthrough: Building BAWDY Goals That Actually Motivate You
Many managers are excellent at setting goals. They are taught to tie objectives to key performance indicators, align targets with strategic plans, and monitor progress through data. On the surface, this seems like a recipe for success. But the truth is, many professionals continue to feel directionless or disengaged even when those goals are met. The reason isn’t a lack of effort or commitment. It’s that most traditional goals are built for systems, not for people. They keep the machine running, but they rarely speak to personal growth or purpose.
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Shut Down the Inner Critic: Rewriting the Mental Playlist of Self-Defeating Managers
Some of the harshest criticism leaders ever hear comes from within. The internal voice that says you’re not ready, not smart enough, or not the right person for the job […]
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Declare War on the Status Quo: How Leaders Can Break Free from Complacency
At some point in every career, a quiet question begins to form: Is this all there is? The job is steady, the team is functional, and the goals are being […]
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Time Is Made, Not Found: A New Philosophy for Managers Drowning in Busyness
It’s one of the most common phrases in the modern workplace. Managers say it. Teams say it. We all feel it. Being busy has become a symbol of productivity and purpose, even though it often means the opposite. Calendars are packed, inboxes are overflowing, and the most important work gets pushed to the edge of the day or forgotten entirely.
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Lead Like You’ll Be Remembered: Embracing Mortality as a Management Mindset
One of the most powerful ways to transform how you lead is to begin thinking about how you’ll be remembered. Not in terms of reputation management or brand-building, but in the quiet, personal sense. Ask yourself a simple but profound question: if someone were to speak at your funeral, what would you want them to say about how you lived, how you worked, and how you made others feel?
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From Invisible to Invaluable: Managing Your Brand at Work
Many professionals assume that strong performance will naturally lead to recognition. They believe that if they work hard, follow the rules, and avoid mistakes, their efforts will be noticed. While this may happen in some environments, it is not a reliable strategy. In reality, waiting to be discovered often leads to frustration. Your contributions may be essential, but without visibility, others may not know the extent of your impact.
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The Myth of Hard Work Alone
Many professionals are taught that hard work is the key to success. From early schooling to entry-level roles, the message is clear: if you want to get ahead, put in the hours. While this advice is not entirely wrong, it is incomplete. Hard work is important, but it is not the only ingredient in a successful career. People who rise to leadership roles and gain influence often do more than just work hard.
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Build the Belief That Fuels Growth
Success begins in the mind. The stories we tell ourselves about what we are capable of tend to shape our outcomes more than the actual challenges we face. Many professionals carry a silent doubt that eventually limits their growth. Even those with proven track records may question whether they are truly ready for a larger role or a new challenge. These thoughts often go unspoken, but they show up in small ways. They appear when we hesitate to speak up, avoid taking on new responsibilities, or second-guess our own ideas.
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The Three Proficiencies That Define Career Momentum
Most professionals enter the workforce believing that mastering their job responsibilities is the most important factor in advancing their careers. Technical proficiency forms the base of your credibility and ensures that you meet the expectations of your role. Whether you work in marketing, finance, operations, or any other field, being dependable and detail-oriented is essential. People who consistently deliver quality work build trust and are more likely to be invited into conversations about higher-stakes projects.
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The Call to Action People Won’t Ignore: How to Move Teams from Talk to Transformation
Every meeting, presentation, or one-on-one conversation has an unspoken test at the end. Did the message lead to action, or did it simply fill time? Many professionals deliver compelling updates, share thoughtful insights, and lead productive discussions, but still fail to create movement. The missing piece is often a clear and actionable close. A strong call to action is not about wrapping things up with polite phrases or open-ended invitations. It is about giving people direction, purpose, and clarity on what comes next. Without that clarity, even the best message loses momentum the moment the meeting ends.
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Make It Stick: Storytelling Techniques That Turn Information Into Impact
Every day, professionals share data, strategies, and updates that are important but quickly forgotten. The problem is not the content. The problem is that most messages lack emotional connection. Without emotion, the human brain treats information as disposable. Storytelling changes that. A well-told story gives people something to relate to, something they can picture and feel. It wraps facts in meaning and turns ideas into experiences. When you use storytelling to communicate, you give your audience a reason to care and a way to remember.
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Speak So They Listen: Body Language, Energy, and the Unspoken Rules of Influence
People often focus on what to say when preparing to speak, but they overlook how much of their message is conveyed without words. Communication is not just verbal. It is physical, emotional, and visual. The way you stand, move, look, and gesture sends signals long before you ever begin to talk. In fact, much of what people remember from a conversation or presentation has less to do with the words and more to do with the delivery. That is why mastering your nonverbal communication is not optional. It is essential. If you want people to listen, believe, and remember what you say, then you must learn to use your body, voice, and energy as tools for influence.
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The 12-Step Blueprint for Unforgettable Communication
Every professional has sat through a meeting, workshop, or presentation that was technically correct but utterly forgettable. The problem is rarely with the facts or the intent. The issue lies in the structure. Without a clear and compelling flow, even strong content becomes hard to follow and easy to forget. Whether you are leading a team discussion or presenting to senior leaders, your ability to engage others relies on the way you organize your message. Most people rely on instinct or tradition to shape what they say. But the most impactful communicators follow a specific path. That path is built on twelve simple steps that help guide your message from start to finish.
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Read the Room Like a Pro: How to Diagnose People, Power, and Purpose
Before you say a single word in a meeting or presentation, your message is already competing with distractions, assumptions, and unspoken dynamics. That is why strong communicators never begin with content. They begin with diagnosis. They look at the people in the room, the relationships at play, the current emotional tone, and the purpose of the interaction. Diagnosis is not about reading minds. It is about reading context. When you understand the people, the power, and the purpose behind a meeting, you begin to see what actually needs to be said and how it needs to be said. This level of awareness separates those who inform from those who influence.
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A Closer Look: What Your Team Really Thinks About Work
Earlier in my career, I worked for an organization where our Division Leadership was focused on the hours we were clocking in. If you weren’t burning the midnight oil or […]
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From Boring to Bold: How to Design Messages People Actually Remember
Most professionals spend a great deal of time gathering facts, building presentations, or organizing talking points, but still end up delivering messages that fail to stick. The common assumption is that good content will naturally lead to good communication. Unfortunately, that assumption often leads to frustration. People tune out during meetings, forget what was said, and fail to act on important ideas. What many communicators overlook is that the brain does not process information in a vacuum. It needs structure. The design of your message matters just as much as the content itself. If you want to be remembered, you must become intentional about how you organize and deliver ideas.
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The 5 Habits of Leaders Who Actually Follow Through
Great leadership isn’t about ideas; it’s about execution. Plenty of people have incredible visions, innovative strategies, and ambitious goals, but without the discipline to follow through, those ideas never materialize. The leaders who stand out, the ones who build successful teams, organizations, and careers, are not necessarily the ones with the most talent. They are the ones who are disciplined enough to take consistent action. Following through on commitments, finishing what you start, and staying focused despite distractions requires more than just motivation. It requires discipline built on intentional habits.