Empathy Archive - Page 3 of 39 - This Moment Counts

This might upset people

You make a call that will upset people.
You know it.
And you still have to make it.

That’s leadership.

But here’s what most leaders miss.
You don’t lose your people because of the decision.
You lose them because they don’t see the fight that led to it.

They see the outcome.
Not the sleepless nights.
Not the trade-offs.
Not the part where you tried to protect what matters most.

In a world where only 14 percent still trust senior leaders to make the right calls, that’s a real problem.

Your people don’t need another polished message that glosses over their concerns. Let alone an “iron fist” that powers through.

They need a glimpse of the struggle behind the message.
They need a stake in the story.
A reason to believe they still belong here.

Show them what you wrestled with.
What you had to let go of.
And what you refused to compromise on.

That’s what makes a tough decision believable.
That’s what keeps people walking with you even when it hurts.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

The lions will eat you for lunch

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.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why some words spread and others don’t

Good communicators find words that make you get them.

Great communicators get you and make you feel they’ve just put your thoughts into words.

And that’s why their words resonate.

(They are also so much easier to pass along.)

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why you aren’t cutting through the noise

There was a time when the megaphone was a brilliant invention.

If you had something to say and you said it loudly enough, people would listen. You could rise above the noise, because there wasn’t much noise to begin with.

But let’s face it: that world is gone.

Today, everyone has a megaphone. Every leader. Every company. Every cause. Every idea. They’re all shouting, all the time. And when everyone’s shouting, the shouting itself is the noise.

And people? They’ve had enough. They’re slipping on noise-cancelling headphones and filtering all of it out. Including yours.

That’s the part many leaders still refuse to face. They tell themselves people are too distracted. Too busy. Too overwhelmed. As if the audience were the problem. But it isn’t.

The problem is that your message isn’t worth taking the headphones off for.

It’s not that people can’t hear you. It’s that they don’t want to. And no amount of shouting will change that. Noise-cancelling is getting better fast.

Worse: If you’re honest, shouting is often simply a way to avoid the harder work. It’s easier to blame the audience than to ask yourself why they would care in the first place. It’s easier to talk about what you want to say than to do the work of figuring out what would make them actually wanna hear it.

But that’s the shift you need to make. It doesn’t matter what you think should matter to them. The only thing that matters is what actually does.

Their headphones are very good at filtering out “should.” If your message doesn’t pass that test, it never even gets a chance.

The ones that do make it through aren’t louder. They’re sharper. They’re more aligned. They’re so deeply connected to what matters to people that the filter lets them in.

So stop trying to be heard and start trying to hear.

Otherwise you’re message is the noise.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

It blew up in my face

Everyone loves clarity… right up until it gets them into trouble.

You know, I get a lot of heavy nods when I say that clarity forces you to take a stand. And people mean it. They want to take a stand.

But eventually, someone speaks up with a but: “I’ve tried that. I spoke plainly. I was very clear. And it blew up in my face.”

And I get it. That’s a real scar.

Maybe people pushed back.
Maybe the room went quiet.
Maybe the project stalled because someone felt threatened.

Whatever it was, it taught you a lesson:
that clarity is dangerous.

Here’s the thing though. That lesson is incomplete.

Because what really happened isn’t that clarity failed. It’s that clarity revealed something: about the culture, about the priorities, about the willingness to have hard conversations.

And that’s precisely why clarity matters.

If your words never create friction, they probably never cut deep enough to matter. And if the truth never meets resistance, maybe it’s not the real truth.

Clarity is not the absence of pushback. It’s often the cause of it. But that pushback is information. It shows you where the real work begins.

The leaders who light the path don’t avoid those moments. They walk straight into them … not to win an argument, but to move the conversation forward.

So, to me the question isn’t so much “What if it backfires again?”

The question is “What might change if you kept going after it did?”

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

How to bridge the gap

Boardrooms love to talk about bridging the gap between vision and results. But most of the time, that’s the wrong problem.

The problem is not the gap.
It’s fog.

And therefore the solution is not a bridge.
But to lift the fog.

If people cannot see the vision in the first place, then there is nothing to bridge to.

In most companies the reality is that most employees cannot state their company’s vision.

And the ones who can often just know the words, but don’t embrace the meaning.

Too often, “visions” sound like they came out of a strategy generator: “To be the premier provider of innovative solutions that deliver value to our customers”

Nobody wakes up in the morning to fight for that because nobody knows how to act on it. (Not to mention, what it even means.)

But when you make the vision so clear and feel so real that people can see themselves in it, that’s when they’ll want to walk towards it.

And that’s when a bridge might make sense.

Although, it might turn that now you don’t even need one anymore, because once you’ve turned on the light, people can see the path themselves.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

When to say “I” vs. “we”

This is a very interesting piece of communication by Mark Zuckerberg. After Meta’s latest press conference he wrote:

Note how he chose to say “I”.

When a founder says “I,” it can sound bold and clear.
When a team member says “I,” it can sound isolating.

That’s a tension leaders need to navigate:
When to speak for the collective, and when to speak as a person.

Both can be fine.
But neither is neutral.

Great leaders switch between the two with intent.
They say “I” when taking responsibility.
And “we” when sharing credit.

Whatever you choose, choose intentionally.

What’s your take on Zuckerberg’s choice in his post? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

How much do you care?

Many leaders care deeply, but too few can make their care contagious.

Walk into almost any organization and you’ll find people who stay up at night worrying about doing the right thing.

They care about their team.
They care about their customers.
They care about making things better.

But.

Most of that care never makes it past the inside of their own head.

Or it’s trapped in slides, reports, and statements.

Detailed, but at the same time strangely vague.
Rigorous, but not passionate.

Their team might know they care.
But they can’t see where that care leads.
They don’t feel it in their bones.

So the team never cares as much, not because the leader didn’t care enough but because the caring wasn’t contagious.

What we need are leaders who make their care impossible to miss.

Leaders who speak with such clarity that others see what they see, feel what they feel, and sense an irresistible pull.

If you care, show me.
Let me feel it.

Make it so clear that I can’t miss it.
Make it so real that I want to act on it.

That’s the difference between caring and lighting the path.
And it’s the kind of leadership your team craves.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

An irresistible pull

This morning I realized I’ve never actually written down a plain and simple definition of what I mean by ‘lighting the path.’ So here is one:

Lighting the path is when you make things so clear and real that people feel an irresistible pull: “This is the way to go.”

Not because you pushed them.
Not because you argued them into it.
But because it just clicks.

They can see it.
They can feel it.
And they want to be part of making it real.

That’s lighting the path.

Will you?

Hope so,
Michael

Here lies a brilliant idea

Born in passion.
Died in a PowerPoint.

Cause of death:
Ignorance.

No one cared enough to look for better words.
No one cared enough to ask for clarification.

It never had a chance.

Rest in peace.

Posts in Tag: Empathy