Strategy and Digital Transformation

Lately I’ve been thinking about how much leadership is really about decisions, not the big dramatic ones, but the small everyday choices that quietly shape how an organization behaves. What gets discussed. What gets delayed. What gets ignored. What gets escalated. Most leaders spend time defining goals and initiatives, and that matters. But organizations are shaped far more by the thousands of small decisions people make every day than by any strategy document. Those decisions are guided by something simple: what people believe matters. If two people hear the same strategy and walk away with different beliefs about what matters most, they will make different choices. Both will feel justified. Both will feel reasonable. Both will believe they are executing. From the outside, it looks like inconsistency. From the inside, it feels like confusion. Over time, I’ve come to see alignment less as agreement and more as shared judgment. Do people evaluate situations in similar ways? Do they prio...

King Solomon in the bible once warned, “Woe to the land when a slave becomes king.” Not because leadership is reserved for the elite, but because power does not correct a limited mindset. Authority amplifies what already exists inside a person. If the mind is disciplined, power sharpens it. If the mind is shallow, power exposes it. This is why position alone does not create leadership. Promotion does not create wisdom. Money does not create clarity. Visibility does not create competence. Power only reveals what preparation has already built. Many people believe motivation is the missing ingredient. That if you say the right words, offer the right incentive, or apply enough pressure, effort will follow. But motivation cannot manufacture work ethic. It cannot replace discipline. And it cannot awaken someone who has decided, consciously or not, to remain comfortable. No amount of motivation can change someone who does not want to work hard. This is a difficult truth, but a freeing one. On...