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As 2025 comes to a close, explore the year's most transformative conversations with bestselling authors, TED speakers, and global thought leaders. From Alisa Cohn's groundbreaking insights on uncomfortable conversations to Ellen Langer's research on mindfulness, discover the evidence-based frameworks that top CEOs and psychologists are using to lead excellence.
How the Year's Most Influential Leaders Can Help You Achieve Greatness in 2026
Throughout 2025, the Do Good to Lead Well podcast featured dozens of bestselling authors, Harvard researchers, top CEOs, and global thought leaders who shared actionable insights designed specifically to help leaders like you unlock your full potential.
This is about practical, evidence-based strategies that you can implement immediately. As we move into 2026, the insights these experts shared could be the difference between a year of incremental progress and a year of breakthrough results.
Let's walk through the key lessons from this year's most impactful conversations, and more importantly, how you can apply them to your leadership and life.
Alisa Cohn on "From Start-Up to Grown-Up": Why Your Willingness to Have Uncomfortable Conversations Is Your Biggest Asset
One of the earliest and most powerful conversations of 2025 featured Alisa Cohn, bestselling author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up and a Forbes contributor with decades of expertise in founder-led businesses and leadership communication. Her core insight was Your life and work are going to be better in direct proportion with the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have.
Think about that for a moment. How many uncomfortable conversations have you been avoiding?
When you shy away from difficult discussions about differing perspectives, you sacrifice alignment. You create invisible friction that compounds over time. But when you lean into these conversations you unlock a path to genuine alignment.
The distinction matters. Alignment is about everyone understanding the goal and committing to move forward together despite differences. And that kind of unity only happens through honest dialogue.
Alisa's insight is elegant in its simplicity, but don't mistake simplicity for easy. Having uncomfortable conversations requires courage. It requires you to sit with discomfort instead of avoiding it. But here's the payoff: every uncomfortable conversation you have is preparation for the next one. You're building competence and confidence in a domain that most leaders avoid entirely.
Ellen Langer's Mindfulness Research: A Different Way to Show Up as a Leader
Later in 2025, you had access to one of Harvard University's most globally renowned psychologists, Ellen Langer. Her research on mindfulness challenges everything you think you know about the topic.
Langer makes a crucial distinction establishing that meditation is not mindfulness, and mindfulness is not a practice. Mindfulness is a way of being, it's how you continually show up in the world.
One of her most powerful insights for you as a leader is this: Uncertainty is the rule, not the exception. Let that sink in. Most of your discomfort comes from the belief that certainty is normal and uncertainty is the problem. But Langer's research shows the opposite. Uncertainty is the baseline. The challenge is how do you become better at navigating it.
When you accept that you don't know, something shifts. Langer says, "If you know you don't know, then you pay attention more." This is where curiosity activates. You start looking more carefully at both your internal and external surroundings. You notice things you would have missed if you thought you already understood the situation.
Here's an easy practice you can implement today: Notice four new things about someone you already know well. That's it. Simple, but transformative. What it does is reinforce the truth that even people you think you understand deeply, you can continuously learn from. And that mindset, that posture of curiosity and openness, changes everything about how you lead.
Jeff Wetzler's "Ask": Using Curiosity as Your Leadership Superpower
As you moved through 2025, conversations around curiosity became a consistent theme. Jeff Wetzler, bestselling author of Ask, provided you with a framework for turning curiosity into a strategic tool.
Wetzler's premise is straightforward: The quality of the questions you ask dictates the quality of the answers you receive. And since you're a leader, this matters tremendously. The questions you ask determine the potential you unlock in your team.
He's created what he calls "curiosity sparks", questions designed to elevate your thinking. For example:
- "What do they see that I don't see?" When you're struggling, when you have a difference of perspective, when there's tension, this question reframes the situation. It acknowledges that you have a partial view.
- "What might they be up against right now?" This expands your perspective beyond your own line of sight. It moves you from judging to understanding.
Wetzler talked about using AI to enhance your curiosity. Instead of AI reducing your thinking, you can use it to broaden your perspective. When you're in conflict or struggling, you can literally dump your "favorite rant" into an AI system, describe your perspective fully, and then ask, "What might I be missing?" The AI will surface assumptions you didn't know you were making.
This is curiosity at scale. This is how you challenge your own thinking in the privacy of your own space before you try to solve the problem externally.
Elizabeth Weingarten: How the Questions You Ask Yourself Shape Your Reality
Building on themes of curiosity and uncertainty, Elizabeth Weingarten, bestselling author of How to Fall in Love with Questions: A New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty, brought a complementary perspective to the conversation. Her work focuses on how to fall in love with the questions you ask yourself.
Here's where it gets personal: The questions you ask yourself throughout the day are shaping your experience and your outcomes. If you're constantly asking, "Why is this hard?" or "What could go wrong?" you're activating a particular neural pathway. But if you're asking, "What's possible here?" or "What can I learn?" you're activating a different one.
Weingarten also highlighted something you might not have considered. Building resilience to uncertainty and ambiguity is a skill you can develop. And technology is making it harder, not easier.
She gave a practical example you've probably experienced. You go out to dinner. Your first instinct is to Google the restaurant, check the menu, read the reviews. What are you doing? You're eliminating uncertainty. But that means you're missing an opportunity to practice navigating the unknown. You're not learning how to make decisions with incomplete information. You're not building the resilience that uncertainty requires.
Her advice? Put away your phone. Don't check the menu. Don't read the ratings. Sit in the uncertainty. Make a choice with incomplete information. Learn that you can handle it. This builds a confidence that translates directly to your leadership.
Bill George on "Authentic Leadership": Discovering Purpose Beyond Profit
You also had the opportunity to learn from Bill George, bestselling author of Authentic Leadership and Harvard Business School faculty member. George was the former CEO of Medtronic, and his insights on purpose are profound and practical.
During our conversation, George focused on how Purpose isn't reserved for nonprofits or socially conscious organizations. You can find purpose everywhere.
Most leaders default to profit as their primary motivator. But George challenges you to get specific about your actual purpose. At Medtronic, they operationalized their purpose as "lives saved." But he didn't stop there.
He showed how a financial services leader can reframe their purpose as helping customers achieve financial security. A healthcare provider can focus on keeping people healthy and thriving. A technology company can focus on making people's lives easier or more connected.
When you get clear on your purpose, a purpose that extends beyond profit, something shifts. Your team becomes more engaged. Commitment deepens. People rally around something bigger than a quarterly number.
As you move into 2026, what is your purpose? Not your company's purpose, your purpose as a leader. What are you actually trying to create? What impact do you want to have on the people and organizations you touch?
Gary Ridge's "Any Dumb Ass Can Do It": Replacing Failure with Learning Moments
One of the most memorable book titles from 2025 belonged to Gary Ridge, chairman emeritus and former CEO of WD-40 Company. His book Any Dumb Ass Can Do It captures his philosophy perfectly, and it's one of the most useful frameworks you can apply immediately.
One of Gary's most memorable insights was to take the word "failure" out of your vocabulary and replace it with "learning moment."
Think about what happens when you call something a failure. Failure carries weight. It triggers fear. It makes people defensive, reluctant to experiment, hesitant to take risks. But when you reframe it as a learning moment, something changes. You shift from judgment to curiosity.
The definition of a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. That's not just semantics. That's a different culture entirely.
Imagine a world where your team isn't afraid to try new approaches because they know that whatever outcome emerges will be treated as a learning opportunity. Imagine if mistakes were viewed as data points to be shared across the organization so everyone could benefit. That's the world Gary is describing.
Gary also shared another essential insight about your role as a leader. "Don't mark people's papers. Help them get that A."
This is where many leaders get stuck. You spend your time pointing out what people did wrong. "You did this bad. This didn't work. This is a C effort." But that's just grading. What if instead you operated with an "open-book exam" mentality? You make it crystal clear what excellence looks like. You show people exactly what an A looks like. Then you position yourself as their co-pilot.
"Here's the standard of excellence. Here's how you get there. What do you need from me to succeed?" That's a completely different conversation. And it's the heart of leadership excellence.
Alison Fiorelli's "Likable Badass": How You Can Be Both Warm and Competent
As you continued through 2025, you encountered Alison Fiorelli, author of Likable Badass, whose infectious energy and practical insights resonated deeply with audiences. Her framework is deceptively simple but profoundly important, you need both warmth and competence.
Psychologists call warmth "likability." Your badass side is your exceptional competence. Research consistently shows that the most effective leaders combine both. You need people to trust you (warmth) and believe you can deliver (competence).
When you're naturally high on likability but lower on competence expression, your instinct is to dial down the likability. You think, "If I'm going to be tough, I need to be less warm." That's the zero-sum trap.
Alison challenges that directly: Don't lower your likability. Raise your badass side. If warmth is your superpower, keep it. Build your competence and confidence alongside it. These are additive, not trade-offs.
This matters for you because it gives you permission to be yourself while continuously developing. If you're naturally warm and relational, you don't need to become cold and distant to be respected. You need to combine your warmth with relentless competence and clarity.
Siri Shalazi on "Make Work Fair": Evidence-Based Approaches to Creating Inclusion
By midyear 2025, you had insights from Siri Shalazi, Harvard Kennedy School faculty member and author of Make Work Fair. Her perspective is particularly valuable because it reframes conversations around fairness and inclusion.
Shalazi's key insight was that the goal isn't to de-bias the human brain. The goal is to de-bias how you assess information and make decisions.
This is important because most diversity and inclusion initiatives focus on trying to change people's unconscious biases. But as Shalazi points out, there's no evidence that this approach actually works. The human brain is the human brain. You're not going to logic someone out of their unconscious associations.
You can bring scientific thinking and objective data to your decision-making processes. You can make your assessment of information less biased, even if your brain isn't.
For example, instead of relying on gut feel for hiring decisions, you implement structured interviews with consistent criteria. Instead of subjective performance evaluations, you establish clear metrics and evidence-based assessment. You're not trying to change how people think. You're creating systems that produce more equitable outcomes regardless of how people think.
This is the most reliable path to making work fair. It's not fluffy. It's not about good intentions. It's about creating systems and processes that produce the outcomes you actually want.
Diana Fioravanti's "Flip the Switch": The Powerful Question Every Leader Should Ask
As 2025 progressed, Diana Fioravanti, president of Cunningham Canada and author of Flip the Switch, brought one of the most resonant closing insights of the year.
Diana asked: "Who are you when no one is watching?"
This is a more profound question than it might initially seem. In our social media-driven world, there's a constant temptation toward performance. You present your best self. You perform authenticity. But Diana's question cuts through to something deeper.
Who are you when there's no audience? When no one will ever know? That's the real you. And that real you is what matters most.
Diana also connected this to preparation and practice. How are you continuously preparing yourself? How are you practicing your craft? Whether it's communication, leadership, or difficult conversations, you need to practice when the stakes are low so you can show up fully when the stakes are high.
And if you think back to everything you've learned in 2025, from Alisa Cohn's uncomfortable conversations to Ellen Langer's mindfulness to Gary Ridge's learning moments, you realize that all of it is preparation. Every practice conversation, every uncomfortable moment you lean into, every time you ask a curious question instead of making a judgment, you're preparing.
You're building the competence and confidence to show up as your best self, not just when people are watching, but in the moments that actually matter.
The Through Line: Your 2026 Leadership Blueprint
As you reflect on these conversations from 2025, notice the through lines. Nearly every expert pointed to similar themes:
- Embrace discomfort. Growth happens outside your comfort zone.
- Cultivate curiosity. The questions you ask determine the answers you receive.
- Build systems, not just change minds. Create structures that produce the outcomes you want.
- Practice when stakes are low. Preparation is how you show up when it matters.
- Lead from purpose. Know what you're actually trying to create.
- Combine warmth and competence. You don't have to choose.
- View challenges as learning moments. Every setback is data.
These aren't new ideas, but they're ideas that matter. They're ideas that the world's most effective leaders are actively implementing.
Are you ready for 2026?
- To get practical tools and actionable tips that will jumpstart your journey, download the Transform Your 2026 Kick Starter Booklet here.
- Join the newsletter to be notified when a new episode is ready for you to listen and get every Kick Starter Booklet for all future episodes.
- And if you’re looking to elevate your entire C-Suite leadership team, learn how Craig Dowden can help your leaders perform at their highest-level visit https://www.craigdowden.com/executive-mastermind
- For a deeper dive, listen to the full-length episode of the Do Good to Lead Well podcast featuring Wes Adams & Tamara Myles:
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Craig Dowden
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