THE STEER SIGNAL™

Your Energy Walks Into the Room First Most leaders prepare for an important meeting by thinking about the content. What you need to say, what decisions need to be made, and what the team needs to know. But are you thinking about how you want people to experience you? Walk into the room frustrated, and the energy shifts. Respond defensively to the first challenge, and people start holding back. Spend the meeting looking at your phone, and attention starts to drift. The opposite is also true. A...

Before You Cut the Middle Your strategy is clear. Your people are capable. So why does execution keep breaking down? Look at the middle. The middle layer is where strategy turns into execution. Managers translate priorities into daily decisions and shape how employees experience the organization. When the middle struggles, you see the impact: unclear direction, inconsistent accountability, decisions that keep getting pushed upward, and senior leaders pulled into problems they thought were...

A Strategic Plan is a Hypothesis, Not a Promise Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign as emperor on a military campaign, not in Rome. He wrote in his private notebook, what we now call Meditations, in a tent, between battles, watching plans fall apart in real time. If you read Meditations, you will quickly notice how he focuses on staying clear-headed when the plan doesn't survive contact with reality. After nearly three decades in rooms with leadership teams building strategic plans,...

The Cost of Avoidance Many years ago, I spent six months avoiding a conversation with a high performer on my team. At first, it felt responsible. I told myself I needed more information. I wanted to be fair. I convinced myself the issue would work itself out if I gave it a little more time. It didn’t. What changed was me. Frustration turned into resentment. Resentment turned into stories and assumptions. By the time I finally addressed the issue, I wasn't having one conversation anymore. I...

Your 28–3 Moment Is Coming: What I learned from Tom Brady at my daughter’s graduation Mid-May, my daughter Kendall graduated from Georgetown. Tom Brady gave the commencement speech.As a lifelong competitor, coach, and leader, I expected stories about discipline, excellence, and winning. What surprised me was how much the speech sounded like the philosophy we talk about every day at STEER.Brady centered his entire speech around one moment: Super Bowl LI. Patriots vs. Falcons. Down 28–3.With...

The Hits Will Keep Coming Leadership today requires a different kind of endurance.The pace is faster and the pressure is heavier. Teams are navigating constant change while leaders are being asked to make decisions with less certainty and more visibility than ever before.Recently, The New York Times highlighted how CEOs across industries are increasingly using one word to describe what modern leadership now demands: Resilience.At Steer, we believe resilience is a trainable leadership...

The Leadership Cycle That Prevents Burnout Gallup released the 2026 State of the Global Workplace earlier this month and the number that should stop every senior leader cold is not the headline engagement figure. It is the manager number.Manager engagement dropped nine points since 2022. Five points in a single year. For the first time in Gallup's history, managers lost the engagement premium they historically held over the people they lead. They are now only as engaged as their teams.What...