Ron Carucci's Recent LinkedIn Posts

It's no secret you're facing things for the first time. So don't try to hide it. A team that visibly evolves in response to change gives others confidence they'll stay adaptive — not defensive — when circumstances shift again. Tell people what you're learning, how you're learning it, and what you're doing with the new knowledge. Rapid cycles of learning and unlearning demonstrate relevance and humility — both essential right now. Two places to start: open your next leadership meeting with a "what I'm learning right now" round. And create a shared space — physical or digital — where your team posts articles, tools, or experiences tied to current challenges. The leaders people trust most aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones honest enough to say they're still finding them. What's one thing you're actively trying to learn or unlearn as a leader right now? #leadership #learning #teams

For years, conversations about gender equity at work have often framed men as the problem to solve. But what if the real opportunity is to invite men into the solution? For a long time, I misunderstood what my role was in conversations about gender equity. Like many men, I thought the most respectful thing I could do was step back and listen. And while listening matters, I eventually realized something deeper: progress doesn’t happen if men simply step aside. It happens when we step in as partners. That's why I'm so excited about my friend Jennifer McCollum’s new book Men at Work: The Roadmap to Gender Partnership makes exactly that case, and does it with both courage and practicality. It shows how the same stereotypes that hold women back also trap men in narrow definitions of leadership, strength, and success. Jennifer argues that real progress happens when men and women work together as gender partners, challenging outdated norms and creating workplaces where everyone can bring their full humanity to work. I was honored that some of my work with White Men for Racial Justice (WMRJ) was included in the book. The work we do there is grounded in a simple idea: when men examine the stories they’ve inherited about power, masculinity, and belonging, they can become powerful allies in building more just communities and workplaces. As men, we can stop seeing equity as a threat and start seeing it as an invitation to lead differently, more honestly, and more humanely. This book offers leaders a practical roadmap for doing exactly that. If you care about building organizations where everyone can thrive, not just fit in, this is a book worth reading SLOWLY. Congrats, Jennifer, on an important contribution to the conversation. Get your copy here. You're welcome. https://lnkd.in/eWJcwvgp Scott Jeffrey Miller Darren Sudman Ben Conniff Jared M. Meyers #Leadership #Inclusion #GenderEquity #LeadershipDevelopment

Leadership feels heavier than it used to. Volatility is constant. Decisions are faster. The margin for error is thinner. What we talk about far less is the toll this takes on leaders themselves — the emotional labor, the inner tensions, the depletion that often follows prolonged change. Leadership resilience isn’t about grit. It’s about managing a central tension every change leader faces: the pull toward agency and the pull toward ambivalence. Act decisively, yet remain open. Project conviction, yet hold doubt. This tension isn’t a flaw. It’s the condition of transformation. When unmanaged, it distorts how leaders show up — voice grows strident or fades, ideas multiply without traction or disappear too quickly, passion intensifies into pressure or drains into fatigue, conviction hardens into dogma or dissolves into doubt. Resilient leaders don’t eliminate these dynamics. They recalibrate. And that recalibration depends on more than personal discipline. It depends on the system surrounding the leader: clear decision rights, stable priorities, real peer forums, and structures that protect focus. Resilience is as much organizational design as personal capacity. This Navalent blog explores the five dimensions that shape leadership resilience — and how leaders and organizations sustain effectiveness under pressure. https://lnkd.in/eYKSadFU #Leadership #Resilience #ChangeLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment

We talk a great deal about vulnerability at work. Psychological safety. Creating space for people to bring their full selves. But leaders quietly wrestle with a harder question. What happens when emotional openness becomes emotional dependence? Many leaders have lived some version of this story. A highly talented employee whose insecurities slowly begin to dominate the relational oxygen of the team. What begins as healthy candor turns into repeated reassurance-seeking, oversharing, or difficulty absorbing feedback. The tension for leaders is real. You want to honor humanity without reinforcing behaviors that erode accountability, confidence, or team energy. This is not a performance problem. It is a boundary problem. Emotionally needy behavior rarely resolves itself. In fact, avoidance almost always amplifies it. The most effective leaders address the pattern directly, respectfully, and with clarity. They test awareness instead of assuming intent. They set emotional boundaries instead of rationing time. They treat the individual as capable instead of fragile. They prevent team collusion instead of tolerating quiet resentment. Most importantly, they help the person build self-sufficiency rather than becoming the endless source of reassurance. Because leadership is not about absorbing unlimited emotional labor. It is about creating conditions where people can regulate, contribute, and thrive. Full article: https://lnkd.in/gcgK3QM #Leadership #Management #PsychologicalSafety #EmotionalIntelligence #OrganizationalCulture

A client of mine — a smart, well-meaning executive — came to me frustrated with two people on his team. One was "excessively needy." Always checking in. Escalating small problems into crises. Draining. The other? Ready for battle in every meeting. Combative. Exhausting. He saw personality flaws. I saw something different. What looked like neediness was actually an attach/cry-for-help threat response — a way of securing safety by clinging to authority. What looked like combativeness was a fight response — warding off perceived threats by dominating the room. Neither was a character defect. Both were signals that psychological safety was missing. Most of us know the language of fight, flight, and freeze. But researchers now recognize six distinct threat responses that humans carry into adulthood — and right into our workplaces. Your job as a leader isn't to fix people. It's to read their behavior as data about the climate you've created — and respond with curiosity, consistency, and compassion. In my piece for Harvard Business Review , I explore all six threat responses, how they show up at work, how managers often unintentionally reinforce them, and what you can do to create an environment where people no longer need them. Because the goal isn't compliance. It's authentic contribution. https://lnkd.in/e29CSDVA #PsychologicalSafety #Leadership #TeamDynamics #HBR #WorkplaceCulture

I've sat across from a lot of leaders who were told they weren't cutting it. Not ready. Not strategic enough. Too difficult to work with. And sometimes, that's true. But far more often than we acknowledge, the leader isn't the real problem. The organization is. When structures are misaligned, decision rights are murky, and roles are designed with conflicting accountabilities, even the most capable leaders start to look like they're failing. They're not failing. They're stuck in a system that was never set up to let them succeed. We're too quick to diagnose leadership problems as individual shortcomings. It's easier to put someone on a performance plan than to examine whether the environment itself is the source of the dysfunction. But organizations that keep churning through leaders without asking harder questions about design, culture, and structure will keep getting the same results. I explored this in my article for Fast Company — and what leaders and organizations can do differently. https://lnkd.in/eNM_su3h #Leadership #OrganizationalDesign #Culture #LeadershipDevelopment

If no one is challenging you, your leadership might actually be failing. As you move up, feedback often gets quieter—not because you’ve “arrived,” but because people are afraid to speak up. That silence? It’s not a sign of safety. It’s a warning. I explore this and more on Reflect Forward with Kerry Siggins—how to build a culture where feedback flows, accountability sticks, and radical honesty isn’t optional, it’s essential. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/eYAkNtcd #Leadership #Feedback #Accountability #Culture #ReflectForward

Today, organizations often lean towards extremes: either highly individualistic or overly consensus-driven. Yet, achieving the right balance between the two requires effort because it's messy and hard but ultimately worth it. You can listen to the full episode of my appearance on the Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast with Marie Gervais, PhD., CTDP (She/Her) here: https://lnkd.in/gkGPaF6w #leadership #culture

“Every day I wake up ready to charge the hill. And every night, I wonder if I’m the fool leading us over a cliff.” This leader's words capture a truth we rarely name: leading change is as much an internal battle as it is an organizational one. Leaders constantly navigate the tension between agency — the drive to move, decide, and push forward — and ambivalence — the instinct to pause, question, and assess risk. This tension isn’t a flaw. It’s the cognitive and emotional load of leadership. Agency without ambivalence becomes recklessness. Ambivalence without agency becomes paralysis. The challenge isn’t choosing one over the other — it’s learning to regulate both under pressure. Left unmanaged, that tension distorts judgment, drains energy, and amplifies self-doubt. Even successful transformations can leave leaders depleted if the inner strain goes unrecognized. How are you managing the internal pressures that come with leading through uncertainty? #Leadership #ChangeLeadership #Resilience #DecisionMaking #LeadingThroughChange

Most organizational transformations don’t fail because the idea was wrong. They fail because leaders convince themselves the rules don’t apply to them. I once watched a traveler argue that her elite status exempted her from basic boarding rules. Transformation leaders make the same mistake—just in more polished language. Past success becomes a mandate. Resistance is tolerated in the name of empathy. Dysfunction gets normalized because confronting it feels exhausting. Familiar leaders are protected because letting go feels risky. Successors are chosen for resemblance, not readiness. Each decision sounds reasonable on its own. Together, they quietly dismantle urgency, credibility, and trust. Transformation isn’t undone by markets or headwinds alone. It’s undone by the rationalizations leaders tell themselves to avoid discomfort. Real change demands accountability, differentiation from the culture you inherit, and the courage to act before delay becomes surrender. I explore five of the most common ways leaders sabotage transformation—and what to do instead—in this piece for Fast Company: https://lnkd.in/eXPHpDrH #Leadership #Transformation #OrganizationalChange #ExecutiveLeadership #ChangeLeadership

Few things drain organizational energy faster than bad meetings. Most leaders try to fix the problem with better mechanics — tighter agendas, shorter time blocks, stricter rules about devices. But those tactics rarely rescue a meeting that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Soul-crushing meetings are usually a governance problem, not a facilitation problem. When it’s unclear who owns the meeting, what decisions belong there, or why the group’s work matters, gatherings quietly drift into two familiar traps: meetings as theater (status, politics, presentations) or meetings as bottlenecks (decisions routed through people who add little value). In this piece for Harvard Business Review, I explore a more fundamental remedy: clarifying mandates and decision rights, designing a cadence that matches the work, and building the right composition around contribution — not hierarchy. Because productive meetings don’t just consume time. They create alignment, accelerate decisions, and move strategy forward. https://lnkd.in/gAEdzsS #Leadership #Meetings #OrganizationalEffectiveness #DecisionMaking #Management

Imagine if everyone in your organization truly believed that your company’s values weren’t just words—but sacred, real, and guiding everything you do. What if they showed up every day, inspired to live those values in every action? How would today look different? How would it feel to work in that kind of environment—and how does it feel when you’re not quite there yet? #leadership #honesty #integrity #culture #OrganizationalBehavior #passion #motivation

The data is unmistakably clear. Diverse teams outperform. Full stop. Companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity show a 39% increased likelihood of financial outperformance. Those in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity are 66% less likely to outperform — up from 27% in 2020. The penalty for lack of diversity isn't shrinking. It's growing. But the business case was never the whole point. Diverse teams innovate more. They solve complex problems faster. They create environments where people feel safe enough to actually say what they think — and that's where the best ideas come from. We shouldn't need to keep making this argument. And yet here we are. I wrote about why diversity still matters — and always will — in my Forbes article: https://lnkd.in/gACCa_NH #Diversity #Inclusion #Leadership #Culture

When growth slows, the instinct is to push harder. Raise targets. Tighten performance management. Get back in the weeds. It's the wrong instinct. In most of the organizations we work with at Navalent, stalled growth isn't a strategy problem. Leaders know where they want to go. It's not a talent problem either. The people are capable. It's a structural problem. The decision rights, leadership architecture, and operating models that quietly supported speed and focus in an earlier phase haven't kept up with the business. And so the organization starts working harder for diminishing returns. The fix isn't more pressure. More pressure on a misaligned system just creates more friction. Momentum returns when leaders focus on removing structural constraints — redistributing authority, clarifying ownership, and building operating models that match today's scale, not the assumptions of three years ago. We wrote about what that actually looks like on the Navalent blog. If your organization is working harder than your strategy should require, it's worth a read. https://lnkd.in/e_vXssmt #Leadership #OrganizationalDesign #ExecutiveTeams #GrowthStrategy #Navalent

We've worked with hundreds of executive teams over two decades at Navalent. But here's what still surprises us: most of them do one or two things well. Almost none crack all three. One CEO we worked with inherited a team where at least six different versions of the company's strategic priorities existed simultaneously. Six. The team was stunned when we showed them. They had no shared sense of how to win — just a collection of ambassadors from their respective functions, each lobbying for their own turf. Another team we worked with looked great on paper. Smart, experienced leaders with the right intentions. But 60% had turned over recently, and they were being asked to lead a major transformation before they'd built even basic trust with one another. In both cases, the problem wasn't capability. It was that the team hadn't learned to play all three of the roles that high-performing executive teams must play together: → Setting clear competitive direction and securing resources → Shaping a healthy culture by modeling values and building relationships → Establishing the disciplined governance that keeps an organization moving Each role matters. But the real power is in how they work together — producing clarity, cohesion, execution, and ultimately, trust. My colleagues Mindy Millward and Eric Hansen and I wrote about all three roles — what they look like in practice, where teams most often fall short, and what it takes to integrate them — for Harvard Business Review. https://lnkd.in/ePDuG22c #ExecutiveTeams #Leadership #OrganizationalHealth #HBR #Navalent

Leaders don’t motivate people. People choose to be motivated. The only thing leaders truly control is the environment that shapes that choice. Which is why some of the most common recognition habits quietly backfire. Drive-by praise can feel rushed or impersonal. Recognition employees suspect is exaggerated or invented erodes credibility. Gratitude delivered in ways that create obligation rather than appreciation can feel uncomfortable or manipulative. These moments don’t energize people. They weaken trust. Recognition becomes meaningful when it shifts away from the leader’s intent and toward the employee’s experience. Ask for the story behind the achievement. Help people understand how their work advances something larger. Acknowledge the real effort required. Motivation is rarely a technique problem. It is almost always a trust problem. Read more in my Harvard Business Review article:  https://lnkd.in/gFecVHW #Leadership #Motivation #EmployeeEngagement #Management #OrganizationalCulture

We've all heard it: people support what they help create. But too many leaders turn that principle into theater. In this lesson from my LinkedIn Learning course, Managing Organizational Change for Managers, I talk about what I call faux inclusion — the pretense of involvement. Inviting input that was never going to shape anything. Saying "we love your ideas" when the decision was already made. Here's the thing: your people can tell. And when engagement is performative, you don't just lose the input. You burn the trust you'll need next time. Authentic engagement means being honest about where people have real influence and where they don't. Bringing them in early enough to actually shape something. And closing the loop — telling people what you did with their input, even when you didn't use it. Don't decorate your change plan with input. Build it with people. That's how change sticks. Watch the full lesson here: https://lnkd.in/gWPypJfT #Leadership #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalChange #ManagerDevelopment #Inclusion

I’ve learned the hard way that emotional intelligence can look real and still be self-serving. Most leaders don’t set out to manipulate anyone. In fact, they often enter difficult conversations genuinely wanting to be empathetic, open, and self-aware. But beneath those good intentions can sit unexamined needs—to feel needed, to be right, or to be liked. When that happens, what feels like care to the leader can insidiously weaken the people they’re trying to support. I’ve watched empathy turn into rescuing, where accountability gets replaced with relief. I’ve seen “active listening” used to gently steer others toward a foregone conclusion. And I’ve seen self-awareness slip into a search for reassurance that leaves teams doing emotional labor their leader should be doing themselves. Real emotional intelligence isn’t about how skilled we sound in the moment. It’s about whether our presence makes others stronger, clearer, and more capable when we leave the room. That kind of leadership requires more than techniques—it requires confronting the emotional needs we’d rather not see. I wrote about this tension in a piece for Harvard Business Review: https://lnkd.in/gp7bp62 #Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfAwareness #Trust #ExecutivePresence

Failure remains one of the most misunderstood forces in leadership. Despite how frequently we encounter it, many professionals still experience setbacks as something to hide, soften, or quietly move past. Yet our capacity to grow, adapt, and lead with resilience is often forged precisely in those uncomfortable moments. That’s why I’m pleased to see Fiona Macaulay’s new book, co-authored with Deborah Riegel, Aim High and Bounce Back: A Successful Woman’s Guide to Rethinking and Rising Up from Failure, launching today. Fiona brings both practical insight and lived experience to a topic that deserves far more honest conversation. Her work offers a thoughtful reminder that failure is rarely the end of a story — more often, it’s the beginning of a more informed one. Congratulations, Fiona and Deborah, on this important contribution. Available at your local bookstore or online: https://lnkd.in/gtXWN9Z6 #Leadership #Resilience #Failure #Learning #Growth #AimHighAndBounceBack

It's fulfilling to help others, but when our desire to make an impact turns into a need to be indispensable, we risk the very insignificance we fear. If those we help realize we’re serving our egos instead, they may withdraw. In today's world, it's crucial for helpers to maintain a healthy separation between their identity and their role. #leadership #support #culture #SelfAwareness

Stress doesn’t just make leadership harder. It slowly makes our decisions worse. Under pressure, our brains look for certainty. And the fastest way to feel certain is to narrow our choices to extremes: delegate everything or take it all back, be brutally direct or painfully vague, trust your gut or drown in data. In the moment, those binaries feel decisive. In reality, they’re a stress response. I once worked with a senior leader who swung wildly between control and abandonment because both felt safer than sitting in the discomfort of nuance. The problem wasn’t her capability. It was that stress had collapsed her range of options. There are no complex leadership challenges with only two viable solutions. When you feel trapped between extremes, it’s usually a sign, not that one is right, but that both are incomplete. That’s the moment to slow down, widen the menu, and deliberately choose a better blend. Learn how stress hijacks decision-making and how leaders can counter it in my piece for Harvard Business Review: https://lnkd.in/efT_37Z #Leadership #DecisionMaking #ExecutiveLeadership #Stress #Judgment

Power is one of the most misunderstood tools of leadership. It’s not inherently good or bad—it’s about how you use it. And the way you choose to use your power directly shapes whether others will trust you. In my conversation with Stuart Waddington GolfLinks 🏌‍♂️⛳️ on the Leadership – What’s On Your Mind? podcast, we explore the deep link between trust and power. When leaders use their influence to serve a greater good, to level the playing field, to include those unlike them, and to live the values they claim—trust can grow by a factor of 16. Listen to the clip, and ask yourself: How are you using your power? You can listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/ehZ2-kmd #leadership #relationships #trust #power

It’s impossible to separate leadership from the moment we’re living in. Periods of social tension, political polarization, and institutional distrust don’t stay outside organizational walls. They shape how people interpret decisions, how safe it feels to speak, and how willing leaders are to use their voices with clarity. In my recent conversation with my great friend and brilliant colleague Alison Taylor, we explored what leadership requires during times that feel increasingly uncertain and, for many, increasingly fragile. These are not abstract dilemmas. They are daily leadership decisions playing out in boardrooms, team meetings, and culture itself. Alison continues to be one of the most incisive thinkers on ethics, governance, and organizational behavior. Our conversation reflects the complexity leaders are navigating right now. https://lnkd.in/geCpuDBq White Men for Racial Justice Kevin Eppler Jay Coen Gilbert Darren Sudman #Leadership #SpeakingUp #LeadershipCommunication #OrganizationalCulture #EthicalLeadership

The chance to lead change is a privilege. You're leaving an indelible mark on customers, shareholders, and the careers of the people you lead. That deserves to be taken seriously. But too many leaders show up to change with either delusions of grandeur or a desperate need to project certainty — both of which blind them to their own limitations and what they can't control. The leaders who do it well start from a different place. Not "I already know" but "I don't know yet." They admit their own angst about the unknown. They make it safe for their teams to grow, push back, and challenge them along the way. Organize change that way, and you'll give people energy. The alternative gives them fatigue. #Leadership #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalHealth #ExecutiveLeadership

Rejection is not a detour in the entrepreneurial journey. It is the journey. In my Forbes piece, I explored a tension many founders know well but rarely name. Confidence fuels the courage to build something new. But unchecked confidence can quietly morph into expectation. And expectation magnifies the sting of “no.” Rejection feels personal because entrepreneurship is personal. But treated thoughtfully, rejection becomes information. Underneath disappointment is often something far more valuable: clarity. https://lnkd.in/gnnb8F43 #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Resilience #Startups #GrowthMindset