Essays and Reflections
Coffee first. Clarity second.
Most of these essays began the same way: with a cup of coffee and a question that wouldn’t leave me alone.
I write to think: to slow down ideas before they turn into advice and to examine leadership where it becomes complicated, under pressure, during transitions, and in moments that do not fit neatly into frameworks.
These essays are not definitive conclusions. They are structured reflections.
Featured essays
The hero leader is a scalability bug
I used to believe that the best leaders were indispensable. It took me a while to see how easily indispensability can become a bottleneck.
AI is a great coach — Until it isn’t
AI can ask useful questions, identify patterns, and help us think. The trouble begins when a fluent response is mistaken for genuine understanding.
How to choose your rocky, happy road
Career decisions rarely offer a clean choice between ambition and contentment. What do you do when every available road contains both promise and compromise?
Generations' different futures
Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z grew up with different relationships to stability, uncertainty, and possibility. How does that shape the futures we imagine and the choices we make now?
Not technical enough?
Communication and leadership do not always fit the narrow mold that technical organizations tend to reward. A personal example of how that mismatch can influence whether someone is perceived as “technical enough.”
Most essays are first published on Substack.
If one of these essays puts words to something you’re dealing with, we may have something useful to talk about.