"I know the roof is leaking, but I think the smart move is to spend almost $1.2 billion buying our stock."

Between 2021-2023, while U.S. Steel's facilities crumbled, CEO David Burritt directed nearly $1.2 billion toward stock buybacks instead of crucial modernization. During this same period, Burritt collected $31 million in stock-based compensation.

The irony emerged when Nippon Steel's purchase proposal included $1.4 billion for the desperately needed facility improvements that leadership had bypassed.

When President Biden blocked the acquisition, he unknowingly sealed the fate of a national asset sacrificed by leadership that prioritized short-term gains over long-term sustainability.

If you know me, you know that I love digital gadgets. But, sometimes, it’s the simplest tool that makes the biggest impact: the humble pencil and paper. As a leadership development coach and advisor, I know that this old-school analog approach creates deeper, more meaningful results when leaders work to define themselves.

AI is here to stay. Large language models are just the beginning. The more significant issue is how we, as humans, use this new tool. Many will use it as a soulless crutch to crank out emails and automate redundant tasks, as illustrated in Why agents are the next frontier of generative AI, in a recent McKinsey Quarterly, but the real winners will be the ones that use human thought passion, and emotions in conjunction with AI tools such as large language models to greatly enhance their creativity and their productivity.

Rita and Ron discuss Discovery Driven Leadership and big trends that are impacting leaders and business.

An essential aspect of leadership is focus. The digital world (and the demons within) wants your attention. At Sony we had a simple process for dealing with the demons.

A year ago, we all saw the end of the pandemic just a few months off. Yet, here we are twelve months later, and it is clear we are in this for the long haul. So, I have three simple thoughts that will guide me this year. I guess you can call them my leadership resolutions:

Executives without experience in bringing new ventures to life — whether as entrepreneurs, business leaders, those with transformation responsibilities or other change agents — often think that planning a new venture is like planning for an existing business. It isn’t.