Between What Was and What’s Next
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER | December 2025
A social post stuck with me recently. It said, "2025 has felt like looking both ways before crossing the street and then getting hit by a plane."
I laughed… and then I nodded. Hard.
It captured something so many leaders have described this year: being vigilant, responsible, doing “all the right things,” and still being knocked sideways by forces we couldn't predict or prevent. Sounds familiar?
As the year winds down, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve witnessed in leaders across every industry. It’s been a year of paradoxes: exhilaration and exhaustion, clarity and confusion, progress and paralysis. Yet, in those unsettling contradictions, something powerful is unfolding.
You have no doubt been exposed to the constant references to “unprecedented times.” While the term is overused, we are truly living through a time without precedent. Society is transitioning to a different way of working, being, and living, and I believe it is our responsibility as leaders to acknowledge that shift. Why? Because turning a blind eye all but guarantees we’re standing in the middle of the road when that jet hits. Getting knocked sideways is neither fun nor helpful—we need to find something different.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
As the saying often attributed to Einstein goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The old ways we have long relied on no longer serve us. The world is rapidly evolving. It’s gaining momentum—and we must keep pace. Resisting change will not stop it. We each have the option to play a part in shaping what comes next and to refuse to let fear or discomfort bring us to a halt.
If we desire different outcomes—in our leadership, our cultures, our organizations—we have to be willing to try something different.
The persistent feeling of being unsettled is a good opportunity to pause and savor a bit of George Lucas’ wisdom: “We are all living in cages with the door wide open.” Our well-established habits and beliefs can quietly lock us into a self-imposed cage.
Keep in mind that the door is open!
Stepping through that door is a choice that requires awareness, courage, and a willingness to enter into uncertainty, something we tend to unconsciously avoid because we crave certainty.
Even when it limits us, we stick with what feels familiar—the patterns, the habits, the "safe" choices, even when they slow our progress or, worse, make us stumble.
What if, since the door is already open, we chose to walk right through it? What would happen if we ventured out of our comfort zone? Could this be the steppingstone we need towards the creation of new models? As humans, we crave certainty; similarly, as leaders, we’re wired with a closure instinct, the urge to resolve ambiguity fast. This instinct reflects a prevalent leadership model that persists despite the many signs that it has passed its best-before date. It keeps us jumping to resolutions even before we fully understand the problem.
We must change. Do something different. But what?
Begin by staying present in the fog long enough for the real insights to emerge.
This is our opportunity to avoid the tyranny of Either/Or—what Jim Collins described as a thinking trap occurring everywhere in leadership. This is leaders’ tendency to narrow their field of view to two options, two explanations, two solutions… and assume they must pick one.
Either/Or thinking collapses complexity into oversimplification. It forces leaders into premature decisions, reactive judgments, and artificial trade-offs that do not serve their complex reality.
Collins invites us to something more expansive: The genius of the AND.
Not compromise—expansion.
Not dilution—integration.
But what does that actually look like in daily leadership?
Either/Or says, “I must choose between supporting my team or driving performance.” In contrast, AND-thinking says, “I can create a culture of care and a culture of accountability.”
We do so by naming the expectations clearly and asking what support is needed to meet them. We check in on wellbeing and follow up on commitments. This means holding people accountable, seeing them as capable, not fragile.
This shift creates high trust and high standards—a hallmark of modern leadership.
Another example of Either/Or is saying, “I must choose between taking time to think or taking action.” In contrast, AND-thinking says, “I can act thoughtfully and act promptly.”
This approach allows you to pause long enough to avoid knee-jerk reactions and you don’t wait for perfect clarity before moving. You make decisions based on values and the best available information, not certainty, and you communicate transparently while iterating in real time. This allows leaders to navigate ambiguity without stalling out or spinning.
Either/Or says, “I must choose between honoring people OR driving change.” AND-thinking says, “I can respect what has been and lead toward what needs to be.”
Another important illustration, one I invite you to consider is Either/Or saying, “I must choose between my needs or the organization’s needs.” Whereas AND-thinking says, “When I’m anchored, I benefit and the organization benefits—these things are not in conflict.”
When you set boundaries, integrate self-care in routines, and model the discipline of focus, you practice self-reflection and make better decisions because of it.
AND-thinking is not a slogan—it is a cognitive skill, a leadership discipline, and an inner shift in how leadership holds ambiguity. It results in leadership that is regenerative instead of depleting.
The grounding that AND-thinking creates enables us to stop collapsing under the weight of contradictions and start holding them with steadiness. Walking out of the cage is how we find our footing and strength to hold complexity. It allows us to stand in uncertainty while staying grounded. From there, we can reclaim our agency—that is where courageous leadership lives.
As the Stockdale Paradox reminds us, our willingness to face the brutal facts while holding faith is what enables us to prevail. In liminal times, fear tries to keep you on autopilot, showing up as anxiety about being wrong, letting people down, losing control. On the other end, agency interrupts that spiral by anchoring you back in choice and alignment with your values.
In other words, fear reacts and agency responds. Agency is the antidote and it lives outside of the cage, making it possible to choose your stance even when you can't control what’s happening around you. It's the power to respond, not react.
At a time when so much felt out of our hands, agency became the anchor—the reminder that even in turbulence, we still get to choose.
Rooted in a relentless commitment to our values, being outside of the cage is how we make meaning, we take a posture, and we commit to steps on a path that guards the Greater Good. If we stumble, we get back up and keep going. We don’t retreat to the cage, because we now realize that the cage is simply obsolete.
Every leader I admire, including so many of my clients, has been reclaiming their agency this year. Not in dramatic leaps, but in steady, imperfect, deeply human ways—one small decision at a time, allowing themselves to try something different.
Resistance doesn’t mean something is wrong — it often means something real is changing.
As we walk into 2026, this is the work in front of us, and I know that you have what it takes. The question isn't whether you're capable; it’s whether you're willing to step through that open door. Are you prepared to let yourself be seen, grounded, human, imperfect, and still deeply capable?
The path forward requires choosing alignment over approval and clarity over perfection.
Waiting for clarity, for the perfect decision, keeps us inside the cage. The work ahead of us requires leading from intention, not prediction, leaving the comfort of the illusion of control we enjoy in the cage.
In today's world, control is the least reliable strategy in the room. Control is a diminishing currency. Courage is not.
My hope at this point is that if you've been feeling the weight of 2025—the uncertainty, the complexity, the moments when you questioned whether you're doing enough or leading well enough—you realize that you're exactly where you need to be.
This moment is asking something of us. Something brave. Something deeply human. Something profoundly needed. The door is open…
And let me remind you that as with anything challenging in life, you don’t have to go it alone.
Coaching offers a steady place to pause, make meaning, and reconnect with clarity, especially in noisy and uncertain times. If you've been considering support as you head into 2026, I'd be honored to explore that with you.
As we step into a new year shaped by complexity and possibility, I offer leaders two reminders:
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
— Peter Drucker
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“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin
It’s time to stop waiting.
Let this be your invitation to step through the open door with courage, clarity, and conviction.
