Leadership Articles

Insights, tips and more from David & the world's top leaders.

Are Hybrid Environments the Future? Wrong Question.

Lately, there’s been a lot of debate about hybrid work models that blend time at the office with remote work. Which is better: the hybrid approach or a more traditional model, where the entire team is in the same place most of the time? I think that’s asking the wrong question. The right question is: […]

Three Ways to Cultivate Creative Thinking in a Data-Driven Workplace

Businesses love to say they’re “data-driven,” and investors love to hear it. Data makes them feel safe, because “numbers don’t lie.” But let’s be honest, numbers don’t speak either. Only a human being can turn information into ideas. And that requires creative thinking. No matter what investors say, it’s creative thinking—not data alone—that drives business breakthroughs. And […]

Five Barriers to Creating a Growth Culture and How to Overcome Them

Have you ever noticed how fast the language of leadership changes? It seems like every day there’s a new word or phrase to add to your vocabulary. One I didn’t like when I first heard it was “culture.” To my ear, it sounds like a germ! Yet, I’ve spent my career cultivating that very thing. […]

The Lesson in Every Leap. Reframing Risk as Its Own Reward

As leaders we like to focus on outcomes: I took a chance—and look how well it paid off. We think of risk as the means to an end. No pain, no gain. No risk, no reward. I think this is a missed opportunity. Sure, we know that growth and innovation can only happen when we’re willing to […]

How Losing the Vision in My Right Eye Helped Me See the Power of Self-Coaching

Today’s edition is a guest post by Tony Amezcua. My good friend and co-author of Take Charge of You, Jason Goldsmith, tells his clients, “There’s no such thing as failure, only experience.” As a performance coach Jason often works with clients who are experiencing setbacks in their careers, teaching them powerful self-coaching techniques they can […]

3 Ways to Create Speed on Your Career Path

Recently, a reporter described my career as an “unconventional ascent.” Yes, somebody with a degree in journalism, who started out as a copywriter and never got an MBA, is an unusual candidate for CEO of one of the world’s largest corporations. What makes it more unusual, though, is how quickly it happened: I was 46 when I became CEO […]

Thinking About Changing Careers? Self-Coaching is Key, Guest Post by Larry Fitzgerald, Jr.

This month, it’s my great pleasure to share with you the words of my friend Larry Fitzgerald, Jr., a tremendous leader in the world of sports—and in the game of life. Larry is a future Hall of Famer, who spent 17 seasons in the NFL, playing wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals. He’s an 11-time […]

The Key to Repeat Success? Become a Self-Coaching Pro.

When I was in my early 40s, I faced a tough decision. I had been building a career as a leader with PepsiCo, which had 3 divisions—beverages, snack foods (Frito-Lay), and restaurants (Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell). At the time, I was serving as president of KFC and had led the company through a […]

Celebrating what women bring to the table on International Women’s Day

In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m passing the microphone to my daughter, Ashley Butler, a passionate leader in her own right and a mother of three young children. As many of you know, Ashley is the Executive Director of Lift a Life, the Novak Family Foundation, which provides resources and funding to non-profit organizations […]