Did you ever try to push open a door that needs to be pulled?
I’ve certainly bumped into one more than once. Just yesterday, actually.
I pushed. Pushed harder. And only after the third attempt did I notice the small word near the handle.
→ Pull.
This is what trying to be right feels like.
You trust your first idea. You commit to it. You invest effort.
And when it doesn’t move, you push harder because you are sure the idea should work.
Trying to get it right feels very different.
You stop pushing and look for clues. You change your approach. When you find one, you change your approach.
And suddenly, the door moves with almost no effort.
That’s also how resonance works in communication.
When ideas meet resistance, people often simply repeat their arguments and persuade harder. But the problem is rarely a lack of force. More often, it’s a lack of clues. Figuring out what we’re missing.
Three quick thoughts:
1. What are people optimizing for that you are not? For example, if your success metric is different, you might be pushing against strong resistance.
2. What risk are they carrying that you are not? For example, a regional leader who signs their name under the plan will resist in ways that a global function head will not.
3. What constraint are they assuming that you have not made visible? For example, there might be a funding rule, a contractual detail, or a political reality that completely changes the feasibility of your idea.
Once you have this information, you can adapt.
That is the pull moment.
And suddenly, doors open easily that once felt impossible to move.
Keep lighting the path!, Michael
PS: The current issue of What the Best Leaders Say digs deep on what exactly happens when you switch your organization from a being right attitude to a getting it right attitude.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, recently said, “IQ without EQ, it’s just a waste of IQ.”
Not long ago, people would have been laughed out of the room for a statement like this. But here we are …
The leader of one of the biggest tech companies says it out loud.
As you know, I come from a tech background. I was surrounded by people who could basically calculate anything, build anything, and debug anything. If there was a puzzle, someone would raise their hand and start cracking it.
Unsurprisingly, the widespread belief was simply that more intelligent people would produce better outcomes.
Only that that’s not true.
Those same teams failed when they couldn’t end an argument. Or they went silent because they didn’t feel safe to speak the truth. They wasted weeks on side-tracks that didn’t contribute to the strategy.
People felt misunderstood and were misunderstood.
In environments like these, intelligence stops being a strength. It’s simply unused potential.
That is the reality many companies face today. The real bottleneck is rarely knowledge.
Even more so, when we take AI into the equation.
If AI is eating IQ work, what exactly is left that only humans can do?
So, the bottleneck isn’t knowledge. It’s the inability to talk about what truly matters. It’s the inability to empathize with others. To notice what people are actually worried about, even when they do not say it out loud.
Teams get stuck not because they lack IQ but because the conversations that would unlock progress never happen.
This is why Nadella’s line matters so much today.
EQ is no longer a nice to have. It is the condition that allows IQ to work at all.
And this places communication right at the center of modern leadership. Not in the form of polished statements or clever storytelling.
No, I mean the kind that invites people to speak with clarity. That fosters curiosity. That makes it safe to speak up. That surfaces the skeptical voices just as much as the enthusiastic ones.
Think of it like this: IQ only matters when it flows between people.
And that flow is almost never an intellectual problem. It is an emotional one.
It depends on whether people believe their thoughts will be met with curiosity rather than consequences. Whether we strive to get it right instead of fighting over who is right.
This is why Nadella is right about EQ.
EQ is not the candle next to the spotlight of IQ. It is the oxygen that lets the flame burn at all.
That’s why Nadella’s line is more than a nice slogan.
If you want more IQ inside your company, you do not begin with more intellectual talent.
You begin with the simple act of making it possible for people to tell the truth.
Everything flows from there.
What’s your take on this?
Keep lighting the path, Michael
PS: In the current issue of ‘What the Best Leaders Say’ I take a closer look at this shift. How do you form a culture that makes best use of the team’s potential?
For listening to someone who had nobody to talk to. For asking the question when everyone else only had answers. For staying gentle when the moment was not. For softening the moment with a smile. For being there. For being kind. For being you.
Most of us are terrible at being silent in a conversation. But here’s what happens if you become better at it.
→ Someone finally says what they really mean. → Someone admits a worry they would not share otherwise. → You catch a detail you almost missed. → You realize your first reaction was off. → Someone corrects themselves and lands on something clearer. → A better idea appears because there was space for it. → A quiet person finally speaks up.
Because they feel like you are actually listening.
Or, in other words, because you stayed silent long enough for this to happen. Often, that means a little longer than feels comfortable for others.
Silent is … how we pay attention. … how we allow others to open up in a conversation. … how we give the space for their words to unfold naturally. … how we reflect on what is being said.
If we cannot stay silent for that to happen, are we really listening? Worse, too often we talk ourselves out of an insight we were just about to receive.
And so, I’m now going to shut up and listen to what you have to say about this. Would love to hear what you make of the fact that listen and silent are anagrams. Just hit reply.
In a few days, my new project “What the Best Leaders Say” will launch. I thought it would be fun to look at the opposite first.
The things they never say.
What makes this list interesting to me is that most of it sounds reasonable at first sight. Human even. Like, this is a caring person.
But in my experience, it often achieves the opposite of what was intended.
Most of them, in fact, signal a lack of empathy. Worse, some use them to manipulate. To give the appearance of calm and clarity while the reality is anything but.
If you’re using one or more of them, don’t beat yourself up, though. I’ve done it myself. Still, it’s useful to take a look how they look from a distance so we can actually say what we really mean.
So, here goes …
1. “Trust me.” When you have to ask for trust, it means you have not earned it. And it won’t calm anyone down.
2. “That’s just how we do it.” Yes. Until now. Because it clearly doesn’t work.
3. “I already explained this.” If they didn’t get it, they didn’t get it.
4. “We’ll figure it out later.” Do you? Or are you just hoping that the issue somehow magically vanishes?
5. “It’s not personal.” It always is.
6. “We need something more exciting.” You need something more relevant and specific.
7. “Everything’s fine.” No, it isn’t. And everyone knows it.
What would you add?
And, of course, if you’re curious for the other side of this, why not check out “What the Best Leaders Say”?
You know how many times someone told me I needed to change?
That I was too calm. Too nice. Too patient.
Like, “Michael, that’s not how you show up in business. You’ve gotta have a commanding voice. You’ve gotta show dominance.”
And for a while, I actually tried. I played that game. I pushed harder. I tried to make my words command attention instead of invite it.
And guess what? It worked.
Kind of.
Because it never stopped feeling wrong. It simply wasn’t me.
That’s why I never stopped looking for a different way.
Oh, what a rabbit hole that has led me into.
Because once you start looking, you see it everywhere:
→ The quiet leaders who read the room instead of performing in it.
→ The humble ones who don’t have to prove they are right because they’re busy getting it right.
→ The thoughtful ones who bring calmness when everyone else is panicking.
As I said, I’ve been told a thousand times that this wouldn’t work.
That the lions would eat you for lunch. That in rooms like these, the loudest always win. That people will take advantage of your openness.
That you simply can’t walk into the arena with calm and reason when everyone else is armed with politics and power plays.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
My new newsletter “What the Best Leaders Say” is dedicated to the people who prove this. It tells their story. It shows how they lead. And it goes deep to surface how you can too.
It’s going to launch soon and if you’ve ever wondered whether there’s a place for calm and kind in leadership, I think you’re going to absolutely love it. Click here if you want to get notified.
