I contributed 974 articles to Forbes between January 20, 2011, and December 8, 2025. The single most important idea running through that body of work is that the most effective leaders are fundamentally other‑focused. People earn the right to lead by helping others become more confident, more successful, and more aligned around the few pivotal choices they face. Everything else I wrote about – happiness, executive onboarding, points of inflection, nested BRAVE leadership – built on that.
Why Other-Focused Leadership Works
At their core, other-focused leaders like Procter & Gamble’s John Pepper inspire, enable, and empower others to do their absolute best together to realize a meaningful and rewarding shared purpose. The shift from “me” to “them” plays out in daily choices. It shows up in how leaders listen before prescribing, how they give credit, how they handle mistakes, and how they shape culture. Done well, it builds trust, engagement, and loyalty, which in turn drives better, more sustainable results.
Happiness Is Good: Three Goods
“Happiness is good” sounds simple. But it’s really three goods. People are happiest when they do 1) good for others, 2) things they are good at, and 3) good for themselves. The most fulfilled leaders and teams find ways to integrate all three, instead of trading one off against another.
This matters because happiness and performance are linked. When people fundamentally believe they are contributing to others, using their strengths, and taking care of themselves and those that matter to them, they bring more energy, creativity, and resilience to work. Leaders who structure roles, goals, and cultures around those three “goods” get better results and lower burnout – and create organizations people want to join and stay in.
Converge, Then Evolve: Executive Onboarding
Nowhere is other‑focused leadership more important than across the seven stages of executive onboarding. About 40% of leaders still get fired, forced out, or quit within 18 months, often because they try to drive change before the team accepts them as a member and leader. The prime directive is simple: converge first, then evolve.
Converging is about understanding the environment, listening to people, respecting history, and becoming part of the culture as it is. Only once you have integrated – intellectually and emotionally – can you successfully pivot into evolution, co‑creating a burning imperative, clarifying direction, and driving early wins together. That “pause to accelerate” is an act of respect that unlocks commitment instead of resistance.
Flip The Script During Points Of Inflection Like Mergers & Acquisitions
At points of inflection, everything changes and things either accelerate or stall. Flipping the script [Flip The Script At Points Of Inflection From Telling To Co-creating – PrimeGenesis] from telling people what the new order is to inviting them to co-create it dramatically increases the odds of their committing and accelerating for long‑term success instead of them getting stuck on their first question, “What does this mean for me?”
Points of inflection are triggered by changes in the world around you or in your own ambitions. At those moments, you must change your strategies, organization, and operations all together, all at the same time, in sync. It’s a daunting task, and one of the times at which other-focused leadership is most essential as most transformation efforts and M&A deals fail to deliver expected value with culture as one of the root causes.
Nested BRAVE Leadership: Turning Intent Into Action
Clarify nested leadership roles by aligning cultural, strategic, operational, and tactical leaders with their primary BRAVE driver: Values, Attitude, Relationships, and Behaviors respectively – all continually evolving in the context of the ever-changing Environment.
- Cultural leaders drive Values: Who we are and what matters and why.
- Strategic leaders drive Attitudes: How to win choices nested in the culture.
- Operational leaders drive Relationships: How to connect and communicate across functions nested in culture and strategy.
- Tactical leaders drive Behaviors nested in culture, strategy, and operations, all adding up to the most important impact.
In the end, all of this comes back to one discipline: other-focused leadership. If you do that consistently – helping people do good, converging before evolving, focusing on people and culture through points of inflection, and leading BRAVE‑ly – you will not only deliver better results, you will also build organizations where people are proud to belong and eager to do their best for others in turn.
