Insights Topic
Leadership
These reflections explore adapting strategy to changing conditions, earning credibility, and leading through influence rather than authority. They also consider delegation as an investment in people, how leaders evaluate progress, and the role of participation in a purpose-driven culture.
Articles (8)
What Lobbying in Albany Taught Me About Leadership
Modern leaders increasingly operate through influence rather than hierarchy, with boards, partners, regulators, peers, and stakeholders they cannot command. Eric Dalton on what years of healthcare advocacy taught him about moving people who do not report to you.
Delegate to Elevate: The Leadership Lesson That Forced Me to Let Go
Many capable leaders are trapped by the competence that made them successful. Eric Dalton on holding onto compliance work too long, the coaching that called it out, and why real delegation is an investment in a person rather than a transfer of a task.
Leading Young: Earn Respect Through Your Actions, Not Your Arguments
When you enter leadership in your twenties, you may find yourself responsible for people who have been in the field longer than you have been an adult. Eric Dalton on the difference between authority and credibility, why over-explaining backfires, and how to hold the line without becoming defensive.
The Gap and the Gain: Learning to See How Far We've Come
High achievers focus on what remains unfinished, which is exactly what makes them effective, and exactly what can make years of real progress emotionally invisible. Eric Dalton on the Gap and the Gain, and on gratitude that does not cost you your ambition.
Leadership Means Showing Up
Corporate philanthropy is easy to reduce to a line item. Eric Dalton makes the case for something harder and more valuable, leaders and teams physically participating in causes they genuinely care about, using the Walk to End Alzheimer's and an internal two-team fundraising rivalry as the example.
Leadership Like Water: What The Art of War Taught Me About Navigating Change
Strong leaders do not stay loyal to a strategy simply because it worked yesterday. Drawing on Sun Tzu's writing about terrain and the operational disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric Dalton examines why adaptability is one of leadership's highest disciplines, and why it requires more preparation, not less.
Why Every Leader Needs a Coach
The data on executive coaching is clear, and so is the personal case. Why mentorship isn't optional for leaders trying to build something new.
Who Not How: How Dan Sullivan's Book Changed the Way I Build Teams
How Dan Sullivan's Who Not How reframed delegation from a chore into a growth strategy, and what it means for building teams that scale.
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