“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
Photo Credit: Kevin Jordan, Inverness, CA, February 2026
Greetings -
I hope you, your families and friends are well! And for the folks navigating the weather back East, please stay safe and warm.
This edition looks at some of the larger trends influencing today's (and tomorrow's) leaders and how they can best adapt to our ever-changing business (and life, for that matter) context. By no means are the resources presented here a panacea; they are, however, a few thoughtful and thought-provoking reading and listening pieces. These may be of support to you navigating your day-to-day professional leadership journeys. While this edition looks more broadly at the concept of leadership, future editions will provide a more narrow focus on specific topics relevant to clients and colleagues.
I have added a new "Resources" section that I will leverage periodically to provide particularly useful research and analysis. For this month, there are two articles: 1) Gartner's 9 trends that will shape 2026 (heavy A.I. focus); and 2) McKinsey and LeanIn.org's 2025 research on the state of women at work and recommendations to support them.
In the shameless self-promotion department, I would like to thank Julio Gonzalez, host of the From Stuck to Scaled podcast, for the opportunity to be a guest earlier this month! Our conversation focused on the urgent leadership challenges small and mid-sized business owners face today. From navigating growth with mixed-tenure teams to fostering a culture of psychological safety, we shared insights to help these leaders cultivate excellence in their organizations. You can find the show here.
With respect and deep admiration for you all, happy reading and listening!
Be well, take good care of yourselves, families and community.
-kj
PS - (Missed a newsletter? Past editions can be found here: https://www.kevinjordan.coach/blog. And if you hit paywall on an article(s), feel free to send me a note and let me know what you need. I have subscriptions to many of the sources that I cite.)
Featured: Leadership, With Grace
Leadership starts from 'our seat.' It flows from our values, strengths and a commitment to both the quality of our work and the integrity of our relationships. Effective and thoughtful leaders create the conditions to achieve individual and team excellence, define measures of success, and provide the support and grace necessary for us to flourish. Ultimately, they are intent on seeing each individual as well as the collective for who we are and who we might become.
"Leadership is inspiring others to believe—and enabling that belief to become reality.
But at its best, it strives for more….
Leadership transforms self-interest into shared interest.
It is elevating and constructing.
Leadership is uniting.
It offers a voice to the voiceless.
Leadership listens to those who feel unheard.
It is knowing that it is not about us – but it starts with us.
And above all, leadership is grounded in Grace.
For grace is what makes us inherently human—the better self that shines a light for others. A light that can illuminate even the darkest moments."
Articles
Harvard Business Review: The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back. "When we all start working to identify, understand, and reframe our own blockers as well as those facing our colleagues, teams, and organizations, work becomes a place where we can achieve our full potential and collaborate to generate the best results. What begins as personal professional growth becomes positive collective change, which leads to extraordinary achievement." [For the audio-inclined, you can listen to an HBR IdeaCast interview with the author here.]
McKinsey & Company: Building leaders in the age of A.I. "Leadership is ultimately a uniquely human endeavor. AI may transform how we work, but only human leaders can determine why we work and what we’re trying to achieve. Indeed, the ultimate competitive advantage for organizations in this AI era won’t be based solely on the algorithms they create—it will also be based on the authentic, adaptive, and accountable leaders they develop."
Harvard Business Review: The 5 AI Tensions Leaders Need to Navigate. "The introduction of AI into the workplace inherently creates tension. The same tools that relieve drudgery and make work easier, for example, can also remove the challenging friction that gives work its meaning, builds crucial skills, and increases satisfaction. Which tensions are most common in workplaces—and how are they actually playing out?...Smart leaders...stay curious. They treat these and other tensions as design features and constraints. Not as flaws or pesky problems they can and should eliminate, but something to be managed and exploited."
The Wall Street Journal: What Is the One Trait That Makes for a Great Manager? You Might Be Surprised. "A 10-year study of a large multinational firm found that the best bosses steer their employees into just the right roles."
Resources
Harvard Business Review: 9 Trends Shaping Work in 2026 and Beyond. "CEO expectations for AI-driven growth remain high heading into 2026, even as evidence shows most AI investments are failing to deliver meaningful returns. The result is a set of emerging risks—from premature layoffs and cultural dissonance to declining mental fitness, low-quality AI output, and new security and governance challenges—that threaten performance if left unaddressed. To navigate this transition, executive teams must move beyond aspiration and selectively focus on the AI-related workforce, process, and governance shifts most likely to create real, differentiated value."
McKinsey & Company: Report: Women in the Workplace 2025. "Women face less career support and fewer opportunities to advance as companies show declining commitment to women’s progress. While women are as dedicated to their careers as men, there is a gap in their desire for promotion...If organizations commit to building environments where women are encouraged to pursue their ambitions, the payoff will extend far beyond fair opportunity for women. It will create workplaces that work better for everyone—places where all employees can grow, contribute, and chart futures filled with possibility." [For an excellent companion piece that looks deeply at the concept of"experience capital" and its importance to women in the workplace, check out HBR: How Women Can Win in the Workplace.]
Blog Posts & Opinions
Michael Watkins: Developing Future-Ready Leaders: Six Roles for a Complex World. "These future-ready leaders must be more than just top performers. They must be agile learners, adaptive thinkers, and systems-minded strategists. They must balance innovation with resilience, speed with foresight, and autonomy with alignment. Identifying these individuals and accelerating their growth has become a strategic necessity."
Chief Executive: The New Leadership Is Teamship. "...Teamship is a fundamental shift from traditional leadership—where managers direct subordinates—to a model where team members actively step up to meet leaders in shared responsibility."
Big Think: The systems that build star performers. "Many top performers start behind — and overtake the early leaders later."
Podcasts
HBR IdeaCast: Purpose-Driven Leadership in an Era of Polarization. "Even in difficult times, leadership must be about empathy, authenticity, fairness and service. That's according to Darren Walker, the outgoing CEO of the Ford Foundation...Drawing on his own upbringing in rural Texas to his time at the helm of one of the world’s largest philanthropies, Walker explains how inequality erodes hope, why discomfort is essential for meaningful change, and how leaders can build the courage to speak honestly."
TED: Worklife with Adam Grant: ReThinking: Brené Brown on courageous leadership. "...[Adam and Brené] discuss how to identify your core values, what courageous leadership looks like, and whether vulnerability has gained popularity. They also address the problems with “executive presence,” compare notes on how to have hard conversations and set boundaries...and reflect on what Brené learned from working with FBI hostage negotiators."
TED: Worklife with Adam Grant: ReThinking: Megan Rapinoe & Sue Bird on leading great teams and moving on. "Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird are two of the greatest athletes of all time...Now that the couple have each retired from their legendary sports careers, they host a podcast together, a Touch More, and continue to play a major role in the meteoric rise of women’s sports. They talk with Adam about how to make a team great and leadership lessons from sports. They also discuss their difficult decisions to retire, and how to know when it’s time to let go and move on."
Arts, Music, Culture & Humor Corner
The New York Times: The Curious Incident of the Dog in ‘The Night Watch.’ "What inspired that furry figure in the corner of Rembrandt’s celebrated painting? Researchers at the Rijksmuseum say they’ve solved the longtime mystery."
The Guardian: ‘A nasty little song, really rather evil’: how Every Breath You Take tore Sting and the Police apart. "Sting and his former bandmates go to the high court over a royalties dispute this week – the latest chapter in the song’s remarkably fractious story."
Big Think: The digital age’s reversion to pre-literate communication. "Digital tools are pulling us away from fixed texts and back toward fluid, interactive communication."
The New Yorker: David Sedaris: Your Hip Surgery, My Headache. "Getting Hugh home after his hip replacement involved a thick cushion and a car with legroom. “Ow!” he said whenever I tried to help. “You’re making everything worse!”"
Reflections
"What I've learned along the way is that existence is cosmic theater, but paradoxically, we should play our roles to the absolute best of our ability while having the wisdom not to take them too seriously." ~ Tom Robbins
"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. The effect you have on others’ lives is the highest expression of your own." ~ Maya Angelou
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." ~ Robert F. Kennedy