Highlights of the Week in Creative Leadership: April 11, 2025

In a live session earlier this week in Paris with Karen Harris, MD of Bain & Company’s Macro-Trends Group, what was to have been an overview of current global economic trends became a  focused presentation and discussion of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Harris presented compelling data showing how economic sentiment in the U.S. increasingly splits along asset-class lines – lower-income households tied to wages, middle-income earners to their homes, upper-income to stocks – creating distinct consumer outlooks based on income groups. This fragmentation explains divergent economic perceptions despite overall growth. Harris also noted we’ve entered a post-globalization era of ‘capital rationalization’ after decades of ‘capital superabundance,’ suggesting structural shifts beyond temporary trade tensions and that could, like U.S. trade deficits, continue to impact domestic industries critical to the president’s support base. She went on to link rising tariffs with broader macro trends: inflated net worth ratios, fragile consumer classes, and policy goals centered on security, trade balance, and domestic industry revival. Beyond today’s economic logic, she hinted at automation’s longer-term future – ‘robots making robots’ – that will likely upend the current division in the global economy between distinct ‘buyers (primarily the U.S.) and ‘sellers’ (led by China). 

Several lessons stood out for leaders. First, it’s increasingly necessary to tailor strategies to specific consumer segments’ primary concerns (their ‘micro-realities’) rather than relying on broad economic indicators, while also building organizational capabilities that can withstand increased volatility and policy uncertainty. Second, it’s crucial to rethink value creation amid geopolitical rifts, anticipate automation’s social fallout, and engage with trade as more than numbers – it’s a story of people, place, and power. Third, as visualized by a vivid triangle – Prediction (anticipating change), Adaptability (course-correcting fast), and Resilience (bouncing back strong) – leaders should think like investors, along multiple timescales, starting ‘inside-out’ by mapping exposure through revenue, suppliers, and business model risks.

German economists Florian Fuchs and Volker Lingnau challenge the foundational business education assumption of a rational, utility-maximizing economic actor by revealing how teaching homo economicus inadvertently promotes psychopathic traits of subclinical psychopathy. Drawing on Hare’s psychopathy checklist, they identify in leaders the cold logic, emotional detachment, and manipulative charm typical of Factor 1 psychopaths. This isn’t about dramatizing theory – it’s about recognizing how our models can shape leadership, incentives, and culture. The ‘corporate psychopath’ displays emotional shallowness, ruthless self-interest, and manipulative behavior while maintaining strategic control. The researchers demonstrate how these traits manifest in competitive business environments and monetary incentive schemes, contributing to organizational decline, toxic workplaces, and unethical decisions. For creative leaders, this insight is a call to complement traditional models with alternatives like homo faber and homo moralis, emphasizing social traits, compassion, and virtue ethics. By understanding how decision models and hiring practices, and management training more generally, shape organizational behavior, leaders can design environments that foster virtuous, caring conduct rather than cold, ‘maximize-at-all-costs’ calculation – ultimately improving both ethical culture and long-term performance.

Florian Fuchs and Volker Lingnau (2024) “The Homo Economicus as a Prototype of a Psychopath? A Conceptual Analysis and Implication for Business Research and Teaching,” Journal of Business Ethics, 195: 763-777. 

In his ‘Leadership OS,’ Autodesk Director Gaurav Jain delivers a full-stack framework for high-impact leadership, starting from the inside out. He lays out a three-layer model: Leading Self (self-awareness, style, and strengths), Leading Others (trust, feedback, and culture), and Leading Results (vision, strategy, and execution). He warns that skipping the foundational layers leads to burnout or blind spots. Yet Jain’s hard work lies in how he connects dozens of classic frameworks – from Aristotle on storytelling and the Johari Window to Daniel Goleman’s EQ model, Lencioni’s team dysfunctions, and the Circle of Competence popularized by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger – with modern demands: adaptability, narrative power, and strategic clarity. Presenting such an integrated Operating System makes clear that skipping any foundational layers can lead to burnout or blind spots. Jain’s larger argument here – like in his book, The Leader’s Playbook (2024) – is that sustainable leadership is architecture: it emerges from the knowledgeable and committed building of a system that aligns self-mastery, people leadership, and strategic direction. 

Gaurav Jain (2025) “The Leadership OS ⚙️: A Structured Roadmap to Becoming a High-Impact Leader,” Medium, “The Good Boss,” April 3, 2025.

In extensive review of previous research, three strategic management scholars redefine organizational adaptation as “intentional decision making undertaken by organizational members, leading to observable actions that aim to reduce the distance between an organization and its economic and institutional environments.” Their analysis then works through the multilevel nature of adaptation across internal, market, and institutional environments. A recurrent problem is that organizations rarely adapt to just one environment; instead, they balance competing demands simultaneously. This explains why some banks, for example, approach open banking through technology investment while others pursue institutional legitimacy through regulatory compliance. For creative leaders, this research highlights the importance of  designing flexible routines, interrogating your assumptions, prioritizing clarity in decision intent, aligning internal capabilities with external shifts, and recognizing which environmental signals warrant intentional response versus strategic non-adaptation.

Andrew Sarta, Rodolphe Durand, and Jean-Philippe Vergne (2021) “Organizational Adaptation,” Journal of Management, Vol. 47, No. 1, January 2021, 43-75.

Leadership advisor and learning designer Kenneth Mikkelsen challenges what he views as an American-exported leadership myth that emphasizes on ‘scale over soul’ and ‘image over substance.’ In a long read written for the House of Beautiful Business, he critiques the language games and polished optics of business schools, calling them out as the “bullshit pipelines’ and branding-fueled facades that hollow out meaning. Referencing thinkers and doers from Socrates and Aristotle to Hannah Arendt and David Bowie’s Major Tom, Mikkelsen argues that leadership development has become ‘dressed-up exploitation’ focused on ‘psychological supply-chain management’ rather than human formation. He advocates replacing ‘bullshit with bildung’ (the German concept of education as character formation), calls for leadership to begin with ‘being, not branding,’ and asserts the humanities’ importance in the formation of character, conscience, and care. The imperative for leaders is to question their complicity in superficial leadership models and polished jargon, create space for uncertainty and uncomfortable truths, and prioritize meaning, ethics, and genuine human connection. Through such cultivation of self-awareness and presence before strategic planning, leadership education can be reoriented toward developing whole humans who can challenge systems rather than merely optimizing them.

Kenneth Mikkelsen (2025) “The Theater of Leadership Development: A Play in Seven Acts,” House of Beautiful Business, “Beauty Shot” Substack, April 10, 2025.