Leadership Chaos: How to stay steady when everything is shifting

Keith Shaw: There is so much disruption going on with companies these days that a leader might feel like they're being attacked from all different sides at the same time. So how can CEOs, IT leaders, and even managers take this cross-pressure and become better at their jobs?

We're going to speak with the author of a new book that describes this new management concept on this episode of Today in Tech. Hi everybody, welcome to Today in Tech. I'm Keith Shaw. Joining me on the show today is Robert Siegel.

He is a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He's also a venture investor and the author of this book, The Systems Leader, which should be available right now—so run to the bookstore or order it online.

He's also a repeat guest on Today in Tech, so welcome back. We're happy to have you back on the show, Rob.

Rob Siegel: Thanks, Keith. Always enjoy being back, and great to see you again.

Keith: So the new book, The Systems Leader—I think when you were on the show the last time, you had these concepts that you were mulling over in your head, or you were in the middle of writing it or finishing it. Now, they've all molded together into this book.

I got an advance copy. I was able to read it on a flight down to Texas and back—so quick read, but also very good. It discusses this concept of systems leadership.

Let me know if I’ve got this right: it’s basically about being able to respond to competing pressures—which you call cross-pressures—across a lot of different categories.

Before we get into what some of those cross-pressures might be, when did you first start noticing this in the business world as something you wanted to write a book about, versus other management concepts from the ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s?  

Rob: I started teaching a class called Systems Leadership about eight years ago with my old boss and friend, Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of GE. Right as he was transitioning out, we were looking originally at how, as the world blends digital and physical, leadership needs to adapt.

As COVID happened, the course really took on this notion of crisis leadership. Coming out of COVID, we realized we seem to be in this world of constant crisis and increasingly rapid technological innovation—and that was really challenging for business leaders.

It was almost like they didn’t know what to do. So I described some of these challenges as cross-pressures, as you referred to.

The idea behind systems leadership builds on a lot of the work that Peter Senge started in the ’90s about systems thinking—understanding action and reaction inside of systems. That could be inside a company, or between a company and its ecosystem.

But we also layered in the notion that systems leaders now need to embody dualities—things that might have once existed just inside the company now also need to exist inside of us as individuals, because things are happening so quickly. There are five cross-pressures I describe in the book.

We looked at how certain leaders we studied managed these cross-pressures by applying systems leadership and systems thinking—and the specific things they do. The whole point of the book isn’t that all these leaders are perfect. They’ve made mistakes. But we can learn from both their successes and their failures.

Keith: You definitely point out some of the successes and some of the failures—good leaders versus, I think there’s even a chapter called “Unserious Leaders,” which I’ll get into in a second. But up until now, what has been the dominant form of leadership style that most companies adopt?

Or is it too broad—does it depend on the company or the CEO’s personality? For example, a lot of companies adopt that Jack Welch style, since you mentioned GE. I’m sure Jeff Immelt had a lot of that as well, right?

You worked for General Electric, so you’re familiar with that. You know, there have been other models. I’ll give you one that I loved in the ’90s and early 2000s—there was a book called Make It So, which was about business leadership skills you could learn from Captain Picard.

If you were a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it was great because it cited examples from the show about how Picard was such a different leader than Captain Kirk.

And before we go down that nerd hole, I’ll just say—as an up-and-coming business person in the ’90s, I thought it made sense. Picard led through collaboration but still made decisive calls, rather than the gung-ho, cowboy-diplomacy thing that Captain Kirk had. So have there been other styles since then?

Because at that point, I wasn’t in management, so I didn’t have to read a lot of business books.

Rob: Well, in the old days, even when I was running companies — whether at GE, Intel, or at the startups I led, or even as a venture capitalist — you came up through a function inside an organization: sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing.

You got good at what you did, you had your teammates, and hopefully everyone did well and the company succeeded. What’s changed in today’s world of rapid technological change is that we now have to know more about what’s happening outside of our little box.

Leaders have to understand the action and reaction across functions. A great example: sales might sell something that creates a big change in engineering, which impacts manufacturing, which then affects customer behavior and satisfaction. Great leaders understand the ripple effects of all these decisions.

What’s different today is that, because everything is so interconnected, leaders must process what’s happening in different departments — both internally and externally. Some of these dualities now have to live inside us.

Back when I was at Intel in the ’90s, as you mentioned, we had the folks who “made the trains run on time,” and then we had the long-haired crazy innovators — like me — working in what was the predecessor to Intel Capital.

We liked each other, we talked, but we were in very separate groups.

Today, given the speed of change — look at how fast AI is being adopted — if you’re responsible for hitting your numbers, you’ve got to know what’s coming next so you can get it into production quickly.

And if you’re developing cutting-edge tech, you’ve got to think about commercialization just as fast, because the next shiny object is right around the corner. We, as leaders, need to know how to hit our targets and also manage innovation in small teams.

And that’s one of the core tensions — one of the cross-pressures I call "priorities": balancing execution with innovation.

Keith: I think we see this a lot in IT departments, too. Sometimes you’ve got a CIO and a CTO—and one of them is focused on firefighting and solving technical issues, while the other handles the big-picture vision.

It’s like an internal/external split — which, if I remember right, is one of the cross-pressures you talk about in the book? Rob: Exactly.

Let’s take that example further with the CFO. If a CFO is going to bring AI into their function, they suddenly have to think about changing workflows — how numbers are reported, how the team functions, and how to work with the IT department.

And by the way, they’re also pulling data from other departments. So even within a single function, you have to understand actions and reactions. Keith: Right.

And back in the ’80s, ’90s, even early 2000s, IT was mostly about putting out fires. And we kept saying in articles and interviews, “You’ve got to learn the rest of the business!” Otherwise, the business will move on without you.

That’s how you end up with things like shadow IT, rogue AIs, or shadow AI projects that you can’t manage. Today, business people understand tech better than they did 30 years ago.

Rob: If we look at AI, people are using tools like Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever their favorite LLM is—for things like writing emails or building presentations. As a teacher at Stanford, it’s a fundamental issue.

Even if I’m teaching finance and giving students problem sets to reinforce the concepts, they can now run them through models that do an excellent job—even compared to models from just 12 months ago. So I have to ask myself: how do I test for true mastery of the material?

And how do I adjust what I teach, knowing that some of the old tasks are now more perfunctory? This is where systems leadership comes in—understanding what’s changing, and adapting rather than resisting it.

We fought AI in education for about 24 hours, then realized, “Students are going to use it anyway.” So we had to change our mindset—what we teach and how we teach it. That’s true for schools, companies, and even countries—large and small.

Keith: It was more than 24 hours — I think you’re under-exaggerating just a little bit! Okay, so when we talk about these cross-pressures, give me some examples from the book. I’m just going to throw out a few: local versus global, execution versus innovation...

There's a People section, which I definitely want to ask more about—that tension between strength and empathy. And then there’s internal versus external, which we mentioned earlier. So, are these cross-pressures all hitting leaders at the same time?

Or is it more like, one day it’s this, another day it’s that?

Rob: I’d argue the five cross-pressures I highlight in the book are hitting leaders everywhere, all the time. Yes, on any given day, one may feel sharper or more urgent than the others. We talked about priorities — balancing execution with innovation. Let’s look at geography: local versus global.

Even in a world where, say, the U.S. and China are splitting tech stacks and tariffs are flying, we’re still deeply interconnected. Leaders have to understand what’s happening at the community level—where jobs are, where factories are being built, where engineers are being hired—and how those locations work together globally.

One leader we studied was Revathi Advaithi, the CEO of Flex. She has factories all over the world. So how does she ensure her facilities in Mexico can collaborate with the ones in Poland?

She has to know what’s happening on the ground in each location, and how they interact with one another. Another example: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Mubadala. It’s a global tech investor based in the UAE.

He has to do what’s right for the Emirates, but they’re caught between the U.S.-China power struggle while also doing business with Europe. They take what they call a “friends-to-all” approach—avoiding exclusive alliances—because as a smaller player, they need to stay flexible. You also mentioned people.

I talk in the book about leaders needing to show strength, but also empathy for the people they lead. Kathy Mazzarella runs Graybar, a $12 billion company with about 10,000 employees. It used to be part of Western Electric.

Someone once described her as having “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” She walks into a room and commands it. But she’s also one of the most human leaders I’ve ever met. She holds people accountable, but when someone’s missing their numbers, she asks why.

Is it a competency issue—or is something going on in their personal life? It’s not that missing targets is acceptable, but she seeks root causes. She sees the whole person.

Keith: Yeah, and I think a lot of these dualities — you can't go back to the old command-and-control systems. Elon Musk might be able to get away with that because, well, he’s Elon Musk. But the rest of us aren’t.

So the real question is, how do we lead our teams through these constant challenges? It feels like every day there’s something new. You know, while reading the book, I kept thinking about these cross-pressures like a pendulum swinging back and forth.

And a lot of leaders fall into the trap of focusing too much on one extreme. Like, especially with the people vs. empathy side — some companies pick one or the other.

It’s either, “I don’t care about my employees, everyone back to the office because we need productivity,” or, “We’ll keep everyone remote because we care about work-life balance.” But both extremes can be problematic, right? Rob: Absolutely.

Aaron Levie from Box told some great stories about this in our interviews. He talks about work-life balance by saying: “At 10 o’clock on a Saturday night, if a customer calls, we pick up the phone.” That’s part of their culture — being responsive.

But at the same time, he doesn’t want his people working 24/7. He doesn’t want burnout. So he balances it: “Here’s who we are, here’s what we value. And yes, sometimes the customer comes first. That’s part of the job.” Great leaders learn how to navigate that nuance.

They know when to dial up the pressure, and when to let people recharge. And dealing with different generations makes this even more complex. You and I are Gen Xers — we’re OGs. Millennials are different. Gen Z is different from both. Their lived experiences are just... different.

What they experienced in K–12, in college — especially during COVID — it shaped them. So when we manage them, we have to meet them where they are, while still holding them accountable. You talked about the pendulum — and yes, it’s always swinging.

But sometimes it’s also hard to know exactly where that pendulum is in a given moment. Great leaders have to be present, be able to read the room, and adjust in real time.

And usually, that’s guided by a clear set of values or heuristics—something that says, “Here are our principles,” even if the application of those principles varies day by day.

Keith: When you talk about generational differences like that, I think a lot of us from older generations look at it and say, “Well, I got yelled at by my boss, so I’m going to yell at the new people.” And then you come off sounding like a curmudgeon.

But on the other hand, if you listen to concerns and work with new employees who’ve had very different life experiences, you might get accused of coddling the next generation. That must drive leaders crazy. Rob: Totally.

It’s funny — my students who are now about 10 years out of school, so they’re millennials — they’ll roll their eyes about Gen Z. And I say to them, “You realize Gen X rolled their eyes about you, right?” So I say, let’s start with not rolling our eyes.

Let’s ask: how were they raised? What was school like for them? What was their social experience? Then the question becomes: how do we lead them effectively in this moment? Even as a teacher, I had to change my approach after COVID.

My old strategy was tough love: no one came to class late, no one came unprepared, but they all knew I cared deeply. And that worked... until it didn’t. After the pandemic, students changed. My old methods weren’t landing.

So I had to stop and ask, “How do I need to change to get through to this group?” I had important lessons to teach — but I had to find new ways to teach them. And as we become more senior, that’s harder to do.

But the world is changing fast. It’s hard for us as leaders. It’s hard for the people we lead. It’s hard for our customers. So great leaders need to rise above and guide their teams through these volatile times.

Keith: That leads me to another question. Do you think it’s harder to be a leader now than it was in the past? Because from what you’re saying, it sounds like things are cyclical. We’ve all been through versions of this before—we were just younger, and our bosses were older.

So is leadership genuinely harder now, or are the issues just different?

Rob: I think it’s harder now — but that doesn’t mean it was easy before. Let me give you an example. I have a chapter called “Unserious Behavior in a Serious World.” It’s about leaders doing things we all know are wrong—and yet, somehow they get rewarded for it.

I highlight six behaviors in the chapter. Let me give you two or three of them. First: replacing decorum with outrageousness. Remember when Zuckerberg and Elon Musk were supposedly going to fight in a cage match? We all knew it was ridiculous.

And yet it was everywhere—from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal. Why are we covering this? And why are two of the world’s richest men talking about doing this kind of nonsense?

Another example: AOC once tweeted something like, “If Republicans are sexually frustrated because they can’t sleep with me, they shouldn’t take it out on my personal life.” And I thought: can you imagine Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, or Margaret Thatcher tweeting that?

It’s outrageousness for the sake of attention — and it works. It gets clicks, views, and buzz. So some leaders think that’s the only way to break through. But in the book, I highlight 15–20 leaders who aren’t like that—and who are still incredibly successful.

So I want people to know: you don’t have to be outrageous to win.

Keith: Yeah, but that outrageousness gets them attention, clicks, eyeballs... right? Rob: Exactly. But I want people to know that there’s another way. That you can be respected without being a spectacle. Let me give you another behavior I talk about—it’s more controversial: I call it disdain for customers.

And the example I use is... Tim Cook. Keith: Whoa. Tim Cook? I wasn’t expecting that. Rob: Yeah, let’s unpack that. Think about the whole iMessage issue — blue bubbles vs. green bubbles. There was mounting pressure for Apple to support RCS, which they’ve only recently started to address.

Tim Cook was asked about it, and his response was... “Buy your mom an iPhone.” That’s snarky, right? But then he said something I’ll never forget: “Our customers aren’t asking for it.” That really bothered me. I’ve probably spent over $100,000 on Apple products — phones, tablets, Macs, cables.

My family of five is all in the ecosystem. I even like Android, personally — I use a Pixel. But we use Apple for everything else. And when I hear “our customers aren’t asking for it,” I think — really?

How much money do I have to spend before I count as a customer? The truth is, he didn’t want to support RCS because Apple wanted to maintain their walled garden. But it came off as disingenuous — and condescending. And everyone sees through that.

Keith: And we all have that box of cables we don’t want to throw out, but as soon as we do, we’ll need one of them. Rob: Exactly.

In our family group chats, I’d share a video or a photo, and it would look terrible — compressed and low quality — because I was the “green bubble guy.” And I didn’t care if my kids teased me. They’ve been teasing me since they were born!

But that attitude — that your customers “aren’t asking for it” — really stuck with me. It felt like Apple was trying to be too clever, and it backfired. That’s another unserious behavior I warn about in the book: being too clever by half. Another one? Working on unimportant things.

Like NFTs.

Keith: Is there still a lot of groupthink happening among business leaders? You mentioned FOMO — fear of missing out — and I think that’s real. One company brings back a return-to-office mandate, and then suddenly everyone follows: “Well, Dell did it. Amazon did it.

So we should too.” Instead of trusting their employees or figuring out what works best for their business, they just follow the crowd. I still don’t understand why it can’t be hybrid—some days in the office for collaboration, some days remote. But some leaders just don’t seem to get it.

Rob: Nicholas Bloom at Stanford has done a lot of research showing that hybrid work — doing both — is actually the most effective approach. To your point about FOMO: yes, leaders need to balance two things.

One is learning from the market and being aware of what others are doing. But the other is thinking for yourself. You’ve got to form your own opinions. I’m a big believer in free will. Leaders can take in data, analyze it, and come up with thoughtful, independent decisions.

And by the way, these are hard issues. Pretending otherwise is dishonest. Leaders today have to lead on deeply nuanced issues in a world that has very little patience for nuance. With remote vs. office: people are more effective when they collaborate in person—true. You build bonds, camaraderie, trust.

But sometimes you need peace and quiet to get things done. And if you can get that better at home, let your team do that. Some jobs require togetherness. Others don’t. For example, I can teach in the classroom or on Zoom.

I prefer the classroom — but I can do both. And I need to do both. Leaders must evaluate these challenges in context, at the moment in time. And not everyone is going to agree with you. That’s leadership: every hard problem is a 51/49 split.

You weigh the options, make your call, explain why, and move forward.

Keith: And the interesting part is, once a decision is made, companies can be reluctant to admit it was a mistake.

They double down instead of saying, “Let’s pivot.” I don’t know if that applies to return-to-office specifically, but I’ve seen those extremes again—some people say, “I never want to go back to the office,” and others say, “I want everyone here five days a week.” And there’s a middle ground.

It’s all those pendulums and cross-pressures again. Rob: Exactly.

And it’s hard. People are waking up every day thinking, “What fresh hell is today going to bring?” That’s been true for 25 years now. And yes, the media often inflames it with headlines and hot takes, because that draws attention. Leaders have to filter all that out.

Take a breath. Think clearly. Gather the data. Then act.

Keith: Rob, it’s so easy to blame the media. But I rolled my eyes at that whole Musk-Zuckerberg fight, too. I kept thinking, “Why are we covering this?” It was ridiculous. But then you get pressure from your publisher, your outlet — “We need clicks.

We need revenue.” That’s just the model we’re in now. Back when I worked for newspapers or magazines, we had a printed edition. We had gatekeepers. You could say, “That’s not a story.” And you moved on. Rob: Right.

I don’t necessarily blame the media itself. But I think we do need to understand their business model. Stimulus and response. Just like I don’t blame Gen Z. If I stereotype them: they only care about their feelings, they’re not dependable, they want to be CEOs at 25...

But let’s be real — when I was 25, I was a knucklehead too.

Keith: Yeah, I was a slacker. That’s what they called us — “slackers.” Rob: Exactly.

So the real question is: how do we help Gen Z be the best version of themselves? That’s what great leaders do. They see where people are coming from. They teach accountability and performance. And also—maybe we need to adjust a bit too. Andy Grove and others I worked with?

They were brusque, even harsh. Maybe I don’t need to be that way. Maybe I can still hold people accountable, but with a softer approach. That’s what many of the leaders we studied are doing well. Jim Fish, the CEO of Waste Management, is a great example.

One of the last chapters in the book talks about purpose: balancing ambition with stewardship. Jim always asks, “Whose brand is it, anyway?” At Waste Management, it’s not his brand. It belongs to the employees and the shareholders. He’s just a steward while he’s in the role.

And that mindset changes everything. Keith: Yeah.

A lot of the concepts in the book are aimed at CEOs and the C-suite. But do they also apply to middle managers or even individual contributors — people not managing anyone?

Because I feel like middle managers are under cross-pressure all the time — getting directions from above, while the people below say, “We don’t want to do that.” It’s vision versus execution. Rob: Absolutely.

The book is written for C-level leaders down through management. But the cross-pressures apply to everyone. Even individual contributors need to understand the dynamics — internal vs. external, execution vs. innovation, delivering results vs. showing empathy. While the examples may come from senior executives I’ve studied, the lessons are universal.

These pressures exist across small companies, large corporations, and globally. And these are human challenges — communication, collaboration, seeing the whole person, understanding geopolitical context. We didn’t always have to think about those things at every level. But we do now.

In fact, I had a conversation recently with someone in government. She told me the exact same cross-pressures apply in her world, too. So I believe the framework can be applied anywhere.

Keith: You talked with a lot of different CEOs for this book, and I want to bring up one in particular because there’s been a lot of recent news about them: the CEO of 23andMe. When you wrote the book, the company hadn’t gone bankrupt yet.

But since then, they have. I’d love to hear what you learned from your interviews with her. And does the bankruptcy change your opinion of what she was trying to do, or the pressures she was facing? There’s also been a lot of concern about customer data privacy.

But I’m curious—what was your takeaway?

Rob: So, Anne Wojcicki, the CEO of 23andMe, is someone I’ve known for about a decade. I’ve studied her and the company over that period. When I was writing the book, the stock had already fallen below $1.

I even note in the book: “By the time you read this, the company could be private, acquired, or even gone.” And that’s exactly what happened. Her big bet was this: use consumer DNA kits to collect data, and then use that data to develop breakthrough drugs.

But they never developed that breakthrough drug. So the business model didn’t work. Tactically, there were mistakes. One of the biggest was going public via a SPAC. They did it to raise more money at a higher valuation and sell less of the company. But in hindsight, they weren’t ready.

Had they stayed private, I think Anne might’ve been able to work through a lot of the issues — out of the public spotlight and without a daily scoreboard.

She also had two very different investor classes: some were excited about the consumer side; others were focused on therapeutics and high-risk biotech bets. That’s a tough duality to manage. Anne is incredibly smart. She took risks. She made bold moves. But the model didn’t succeed.

That doesn’t make her a bad person or even a bad leader — it means she made some miscalculations, and the vision didn’t pan out.

Keith: Yeah, and it’s important to note — everyone makes mistakes. We’re all human. What’s important is learning from those mistakes. Rob: Exactly. And we learn a lot by watching how leaders handle both success and failure. Let me give you another example: John Donahoe, CEO of Nike.

He’s someone I also write about in the book. John has had a remarkable leadership run — he led Bain, eBay, and ServiceNow. Just one of those would be a career highlight. He did all three.

When I wrote about him, I focused on how he was managing Nike’s relationship with China — a duality between market access and geopolitical complexity. But during the pandemic, he made a big bet: going all-in on direct-to-consumer sales. That disrupted Nike’s go-to-market model.

It caused inventory problems, supply chain issues, and left the door open for activist investors. Eventually, the pressure became too great, and he had to step down as CEO. Now, does that mean John’s a bad leader? Absolutely not. He’s brilliant. He has a heart the size of Texas.

But he made a bet that didn’t work. And that’s part of what this book is about: great leaders will still make bad choices sometimes. That doesn’t make them bad people. Keith: Yeah.

We had Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on the show recently, and he talked about something similar. A few years ago, Salesforce was struggling, and they had to lay off a lot of people — maybe for the first time ever. He didn’t expect the amount of blowback he got.

But he admitted he learned from the experience. Even after 20 years as CEO, he realized: “I can still make mistakes.” And that was refreshing to hear. Rob: Absolutely.

If you’re sitting in that chair — if you’re a CEO — you’re going to take heat. That’s just the nature of the role. And in Salesforce’s case, people pointed to the company’s culture of ohana—family.

So when the layoffs happened, people said, “How do you lay off your family?” I don’t know Marc personally, but from everything I’ve heard, he’s a kind, generous man. He and his wife are extremely philanthropic in the Bay Area. And people seem to enjoy working at Salesforce.

But still — he had to make a hard call. And he made it. I write in the book about watching Jeff Immelt go through a similar reckoning at GE. He was CEO for 17 years. For 15 of those, he was hailed as a genius.

For the last two, he was vilified. Jeff would say to me, “I’m the same guy.” He wasn’t as brilliant as people said — nor was he as dumb as the critics claimed. But that’s the job. When you’re the CEO, you get all the credit and all the blame.

And Jeff never complained about it. Not once. He’d say, “Look at the life I’ve had. I can’t complain.” When Jack Welch publicly criticized him, it hurt — but Jeff didn’t fight back. Because that’s not what a CEO does.

Keith: So is that kind of the message of the book? To find the right balance between all these cross-pressures? Because by the end of the book, I really enjoyed the stories, but I also thought — “Okay, now what? I know what the cross-pressures are...

but what do I do as a leader? Just be aware of them and hope I don’t screw up?”

Rob: That’s a great question. In the final chapter of the book, I lay out a series of takeaways. First, the framework I present is really a way of thinking. It’s about how to look at problems differently and how to act in complex situations.

But I also include some very tactical steps. For example: Find trusted people—inside and outside your company—who will tell you the truth. Run toward disruption instead of away from it. Learn new technologies and be willing to let go of outdated practices. Teach context.

One of the phrases I use is “Truth = facts + context.” The facts matter, but context helps people understand what the facts mean. That’s what leaders need to communicate—again and again. I lay out five or six specific actions that can go in your leadership toolkit.

Think of them like tools: sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes a wrench, sometimes a measuring tape. Use what fits the moment. I’m not claiming this is easy. It’s not going to get easier. Back in 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock. He predicted fast fashion, urbanization, and personal computing.

He even coined the term “information overload.” That was 55 years ago. And technology has only sped up since then.

Think about the last 25 years: the dot-com crash, 9/11, the global financial crisis, the rise of populism — Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro — the COVID pandemic, and now everything happening geopolitically. This kind of volatility? This is the new normal.

(Rob gives a thumbs up, accidentally triggering a Zoom reaction) Keith: You just triggered Zoom with your thumbs-up. No more thumbs-ups, Rob! Rob: (Laughs) My bad.

Rob: But seriously, in all of this, don’t lose your composure. Leaders need to keep a steady hand — even in chaotic times — and help their teams get through it.

Keith: So what do you hope readers get from the book? I mean, obviously you want to sell a lot of copies — and I assume you’re going to be using it in your Stanford classes. But what’s your altruistic goal?

What do you want a CEO or reader to feel after finishing it?

Rob: No matter where someone sits — whether they’re a CEO, a VP, a director, a manager, or even an individual contributor — I want them to feel like: You can do this. The world feels overwhelming right now.

And for many people, it feels like no matter what decision they make, they’re going to be wrong. They’ll get criticized. They’ll get canceled. The pendulum swings fast. I want them to have confidence that they can lead through this. One day at a time. One step at a time.

The book offers examples of how good leaders navigate cross-pressures. It gives you ideas to try. It helps you stay grounded. Don’t give in to the unseriousness around us. Don’t mimic the spectacle. You can be the kind of leader you want to be.

You have the choice — that’s what free will means. And that’s what I want people to walk away with.

Keith: Yeah, but it’s hard — especially with the Willy Wonka candy store of distractions that leaders face today.

Rob: It is hard. But that’s what leadership is — hard. If you don’t want to lead, that’s okay. Don’t do it. But if you are going to lead, don’t complain about how hard it is.

And if you need to vent, go home and complain to your partner, your dog — they’ll still love you. But at work? We’ve got teams to guide. People are depending on us.

Keith: That reminds me — have you seen the recent articles saying Gen Z doesn’t want to be middle managers? Apparently, a lot of them are turning down promotions because they don’t want the pressure.

Some of them see Instagram reels warning them, “Don’t be a manager — it sucks.” And others just want to stay in their lane. Does that surprise you? Rob: Two things.

First: we — GenX —ruined them. Keith: Yep.

We just sit back, eat our popcorn, and watch the mess we made.

Rob: (Laughs) I’ve got three Gen Z kids whom I love to death. But if they don’t want to step up and lead, maybe it’s because we didn’t show them the blessings and joys of leadership. We need to teach them what’s great about managing a team. About being responsible.

About guiding others. Yes, leadership is hard. But it’s also awesome. Instagram is filled with manicured nonsense. That’s not real. Real leadership is messy—but meaningful. There’s a scene in the movie Parenthood—remember that?

Keanu Reeves’ character crashes a car, his 19-year-old wife is pregnant, and she’s freaking out: “I can’t handle this!” Her mother says, “This is life. This is what you signed up for. You’re in it together.” That’s leadership. You don’t run from it. You lean in and help.

If Gen Z doesn’t want to lead, I don’t blame them. I blame us. But we can also fix it. We can show them what great leadership looks like. Look at someone like Michael Dowling at Northwell Health—one of the most amazing human beings I’ve met.

If Gen Z saw more leaders like him, they might say, “Yeah, I want to be like that.” We just need to show them it’s possible—and that you don’t have to be perfect to lead.

Keith: Yeah, but do we expect our leaders to be perfect? I mean—look at Steve Jobs. People elevated him to demigod status, but he made plenty of big mistakes too.

Rob: I’ve yet to meet a perfect person, Keith.

Keith: I was pointing at myself just now...

Rob: (Laughs) Okay, you might be the exception. But seriously—this is part of the media cycle. We build leaders up. Then we tear them down. Then maybe, if they survive, we build them up again. It’s the hero’s journey—except with pitchforks. The best leaders?

They’ll tell you: “Yeah, I got that right. I got that wrong. Here’s what I learned. Here’s what I’m trying to do better.” We had Roger Goodell from the NFL in one of my classes...

Keith: Whoa — okay, we’re not going to talk about Goodell. I’m still bitter. Patriots fan here. Rob: Fair enough!

But the point is — he was asked a hard question by a student, and his answer was brilliant. He said, “Here’s what I’m thinking. But if you have a better idea, I’m all ears.” No pride. No arrogance. Just a sincere desire to learn.

That’s what great leadership looks like. And that’s what I want people to believe is possible — for them. Keith: All right.

Rob Siegel, author of The Systems Leader. Go buy the book — on Amazon or at your local bookstore. Thanks again, Rob. This was fantastic. Always great to see you. We’ll have you back again soon. That’s all the time we have for today’s episode.

Be sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and leave a comment if you’re watching on YouTube. Join us every week for new episodes of Today in Tech. I’m Keith Shaw. Thanks for watching.