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Daily insights and thoughts shared from LinkedIn.
McKinsey surveyed 5,774 employees and found the top reason people quit wasn't pay — it was that they **didn't feel valued by their organization (54%)** or **by their manager (52%).**
➡️ People don't quit jobs. They quit feeling invisible. 👥 The tools keep getting better at the work. Our job is to get better at the people. ⁉️ The most expensive mistake I watch leaders make isn't a bad call — it's letting good work go unseen. And it's the one that's almost free to fix. The research is blunt about it: ➡️ McKinsey surveyed 5,774 employees and found the top reason people quit wasn't pay — it was that they **didn't feel valued by their organization (54%)** or **by their manager (52%).** In their words: when leaders reach for a bonus instead of real acknowledgment, "employees sense a transaction," not appreciation. ➡️ Gallup and Workhuman tracked nearly 3,500 people and found **well-recognized employees were 45% less likely to have left after two years** — yet **just 22% say they get the right amount of recognition** for the work they do. ➡️ Get it right — the kind that's specific, genuine, and consistent — and those employees are **nine times as likely to be engaged.** ✨ Read that together, and the gap is staggering: recognition is nearly free, drives retention, and most of us still ration it like it's scarce. 💫 So where does AI fit? Honestly — it helps. A model can flag the quiet win buried in a dashboard, remind me whom I haven't acknowledged in a while, even draft the note. What it can't do is mean it. "Great job" from an algorithm is wallpaper. The same three words land completely differently when they come from a person who actually saw what you did — and says so, to your face. 💡 That's the line I hold: let AI handle the remembering; I handle the meaning. Name the specific thing. Do it in the moment. Say why it mattered. A dashboard can tell you a number moved — only a human can tell someone, "I saw that, and it was you." 🤔 Two decades leading and mentoring teams, from L'Oréal to product management to running operations, taught me the same lesson every time: people give their best to leaders who notice. 💬 When was the last time someone at work made you feel truly seen — and what did they say? 👇 — Fernando Bello · Author of "Find the Best — A Full Guide for Product Management" · LinkedIn Top Product Management Voice #Leadership #ProductManagement #ProductLeadership #AI #FutureOfWork #EmployeeEngagement 📚 Sources for the stats: ➡️ McKinsey, 'Great Attrition' or 'Great Attraction'? The choice is yours (2021) — top reasons for quitting: not feeling valued by organization (54%) / by manager (52%); "employees sense a transaction": https://lnkd.in/efUVA-jH ➡️ Gallup & Workhuman, Employee Retention Depends on Getting Recognition Right (2024) — well-recognized employees 45% less likely to leave; only 22% get the right amount of recognition; 9x more likely to be engaged: https://lnkd.in/eysv7qrd
The leadership skill I'm practicing hardest right now? 🤔 Resilience — and I'm learning it by losing.
🧭 The leadership skill I'm practicing hardest right now? 🤔 Resilience — and I'm learning it by losing. 📆 Twice a week I live two opposite lives. 🏓 On the pickleball court, I almost always win. Two decades of competitive tennis gave me a head start most opponents can't catch. Winning is the easy teacher. 🥋 On the jiu-jitsu mat, I almost always lose. Six months in, I'm the beginner getting tapped by people I "should" beat. Losing is the hard teacher — and the better one. 💡 Here's why that gap matters, backed by the research: ➡️ Angela Duckworth studied **11,000+ West Point cadets** and found **grit predicts who succeeds better than talent, IQ, or fitness.** ➡️ Across five studies with **1,674 people**, Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach found we actually **learn LESS from failure than success — 48% vs 62% correct on a follow-up test** — because losing bruises the ego and we stop paying attention. ➡️ A national experiment with **~12,500 students** (Yeager & Dweck, *Nature* 2019) showed a short **growth-mindset** lesson raised grades — proof that the will to keep learning is trainable. 🔖 Put it together: talent wins the easy games, grit wins the hard ones — but losing only makes you better if you stay humble enough to actually learn from it. ➡️ That's the behavior I'm working on as a leader: staying teachable when I win AND when I lose, and making it safe for my team to do the same. Degrees and titles hand you frameworks; the mat hands you humility — and humility is what keeps a leader learning. 💬 Where are you winning on old talent — and where are you brave enough to lose, and learn? 👇 — Fernando Bello · Author of "Find the Best — A Full Guide for Product Management" · LinkedIn Top Product Management Voice #Leadership #ProductLeadership #ProductManagement #AI #Management #Productivity #GrowthMindset 📚 Sources for the stats: ➡️ Grit / West Point (Angela Duckworth): https://lnkd.in/dW5HNjM6 ➡️ We learn less from failure than success (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019): https://lnkd.in/dC8BPYPB ➡️ Growth-mindset national study (Yeager & Dweck, Nature 2019): https://lnkd.in/dx_M7M7r
Roughly two-thirds of what separates star performers from average ones is emotional competence
👥 The people who grow fastest don't feel less. They understand what they feel and choose what to do next. ✨ That's emotional intelligence, and it's a skill you can build — not a fixed trait. The **Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations** reports that **roughly two-thirds of what separates star performers from average ones is emotional competence, not technical skill — and in top leadership roles, more than 80%.** Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence gives us a simple backbone for building it — RULER: 🔍 **Recognize & Understand** — catch the signal before the story. ➡️ Grow it: when something stings, pause and ask, "what am I feeling, and what's underneath it?" You stop reacting to the wrong thing. 🏷️ **Label it precisely.** ➡️ "I'm stressed" is a fog; "I'm overwhelmed because I'm carrying this alone" is a map. Precise words turn a feeling into something you can act on. 🗣️ **Express it cleanly.** ➡️ Share the feeling and the need, skip the blame: "I felt sidelined on that call; I'd like a heads-up next time" lands. "You ignored me" doesn't. 🧭 **Regulate under pressure.** ➡️ The pause is the whole skill — and optimism is trainable too: the EI Consortium found salespeople high in learned optimism sold **37% more in their first two years than pessimists.** Build one reliable reset: a breath, a walk, a night before you reply. ➡️ This is where teams win or lose, too — a peer-reviewed review of **104 studies (1998–2022)** found weak emotional-intelligence environments breed more task and relationship conflict. 💬 Which RULER skill would change your week the most — recognizing, labeling, expressing, or regulating? Tell me below 👇 — Fernando Bello · Author of "Find the Best — A Full Guide for Product Management" · LinkedIn Top Product Management Voice hashtag#EmotionalIntelligence hashtag#Leadership hashtag#EmployeeGrowth hashtag#EQ hashtag#FridayReflection hashtag#ProductManagement hashtag#OperationsLeadership 📚 Sources for the stats: ➡️ Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations — The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence: https://lnkd.in/eRhpFic6 ➡️ Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence — The RULER Approach: https://lnkd.in/ecfm283C ➡️ Emotional Intelligence, Leadership & Work Teams — peer-reviewed review of 104 studies (PMC/NCBI, 2023): https://lnkd.in/eb9TPNU4 ➡️ University of West Alabama — The Science of Emotion: https://lnkd.in/eeTdXEb8
In one widely cited study, salespeople selected for emotional competencies sold **$91,370 more** each than peers hired the old way — a **$2,558,360** annual revenue lift (EI Consortium).
📈 Friday thought: the skills that grow a career fastest rarely sit on the résumé — they're the ones that help us read a room, stay steady under pressure, and bring out the best in the people around us. 🌱 This week I went back to the research on emotional intelligence (EI): what it is, why it drives growth, and how anyone can build it ⤵️ 🧭 **EI is learnable — that's the whole point.** Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence built its RULER method on five skills: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions. Growth starts with labeling — "I'm frustrated we're behind" lands very differently than a slammed laptop. ➡️ Name the emotion before you try to solve the problem. 📈 **EI shows up in performance.** In one widely cited study, salespeople selected for emotional competencies sold **$91,370 more** each than peers hired the old way — a **$2,558,360** annual revenue lift (EI Consortium). Empathy isn't fluffy; it compounds. 🧠 **It can matter as much as IQ.** The University of West Alabama's science-of-emotion research notes that some researchers argue EI plays an even bigger role in success than traditional intelligence. ➡️ Develop and promote people for how they handle pressure and conflict — not just technical skill. 👥 **It grows leaders and teams.** Peer-reviewed research on PMC/NCBI links higher EI to stronger leadership and healthier, higher-performing teams. ➡️ Open your next 1:1 with "how are you, really?" before the status update — that's where real growth conversations start. 💬 Of the five RULER skills — Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, Regulating — which is your growth edge this quarter? 👇 — Fernando Bello · Author of "Find the Best — A Full Guide for Product Management" · LinkedIn Top Product Management Voice #EmotionalIntelligence #Leadership #EmployeeGrowth #EQ #FridayReflection #ProductManagement #OperationsLeadership 📚 Sources for the stats: ➡️ EI Consortium — *The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence* (emotional-competency selection results): https://lnkd.in/eRhpFic6 ➡️ University of West Alabama — *The Science of Emotion: The Basics of Emotional Psychology*: https://lnkd.in/eeTdXEb8 ➡️ Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence — the RULER approach: https://lnkd.in/ecfm283C ➡️ PMC / NCBI — peer-reviewed research on emotional intelligence, leadership, and teams: https://lnkd.in/eb9TPNU4
Everyone is racing to adopt AI. The quiet winners are racing to think clearly. 95% of enterprise generative-AI pilots are delivering no measurable impact on the bottom line
🧭 Everyone is racing to adopt AI. The quiet winners are racing to think clearly. ➡️ This week on LinkedIn, four big voices circled the same idea. Steven Bartlett asked whether we are confusing how important AI is with how safe it is to bet on it. Alex Hormozi kept preaching fundamentals — "do the work tired, do the work imperfectly." Jeff Selingo questioned what a degree is really worth as learning gets reinvented. And Gretchen Rubin nudged us toward a "Summer of Upskilling." 🚥 Different rooms. Same signal. ⚙️ The tool everyone is chasing is not the edge. Judgment is. And the people who keep learning are the ones who compound. And the data backs it 👇 ➡️ 95% of enterprise generative-AI pilots are delivering no measurable impact on the bottom line — and the gap is not the technology, it is how organizations learn to use it (MIT, State of AI in Business, 2025). ➡️ 39% of the average worker's core skills will be transformed or outdated by 2030, and analytical thinking is now the most sought-after skill employers want (World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report, 2025). ➡️ My take: clarity beats hype. The best leaders do not adopt AI to move faster — they use it to think bigger. Speed without judgment just gets you to the wrong place sooner. ✨ One habit to borrow this week: pick a "Summer of ____." One theme — a skill, a certification, ten real conversations — and make small, consistent progress. Curiosity is a strategy, not a personality trait. 💡 In a gold rush, everyone sells shovels. The real edge is knowing where to dig. ➡️ The tools will keep changing. Clear thinking and the will to keep learning will not go out of style. 💬 What is your "Summer of ____" this year — and what are you finally going to learn? 👇 — Fernando Bello · Author of "Find the Best — A Full Guide for Product Management" · LinkedIn Top Product Management Voice #Leadership #FutureOfWork #ArtificialIntelligence #Upskilling #ProductManagement #GrowthMindset 📚 Sources for the stats: ➡️ MIT NANDA — "The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025" (Aug 2025): 95% of enterprise generative-AI pilots show no measurable P&L impact, and the barrier is organizational learning, not the models → https://lnkd.in/edQ5cJhU ➡️ World Economic Forum — "The Future of Jobs Report 2025" (Jan 2025): 39% of core skills will be transformed or outdated by 2030, and analytical thinking is the most sought-after core skill → https://lnkd.in/e4QdTxKT
AI Won't Replace Leaders. The World Economic Forum studied 2,800+ skills and found **69%** have low or no chance of being automated by today's AI
🧭 AI can run the play. It still can't decide which game you're playing — or carry the people through it. 🤔 That's the line I keep coming back to as agents get better at execution. The work that's left isn't smaller. It's more human. So what can't AI do that a strong leader can? ➡️ Take responsibility. An agent recommends; only a person can own the outcome and absorb the risk. ➡️ Decide what matters. AI optimizes the metric you hand it. Leaders choose which metric is worth chasing. ➡️ Build trust. No one follows a dashboard through a hard quarter — they follow people who tell the truth and have their back. ➡️ Grow people. No model mentors a nervous new hire or sees the potential someone hasn't shown yet. ✅ Here's what this AI wave is actually clarifying: ➡️ The World Economic Forum studied 2,800+ skills and found **69%** have low or no chance of being automated by today's AI — and exactly **zero** ranked "very high" risk. The hardest to replace are the deeply human ones: empathy, listening, judgment (WEF, Future of Jobs 2025). ➡️ Meanwhile, **leadership and social influence** jumped more than any other skill since 2023 — a **22-point** rise — landing as a top-3 skill employers need today (WEF, Future of Jobs 2025). ➡️ And in the companies actually winning with AI? McKinsey found high performers are **3x** more likely to have senior leaders who visibly own the work. The differentiator isn't the model — it's the leadership around it (McKinsey, State of AI 2025). 💡 AI will keep getting better at answers. Leadership is still about asking the right question, choosing under uncertainty, and bringing people with you. That part doesn't get automated. ➡️ Automate the task. But own the judgment, the trust, and the people — that's the half of the job that's still yours. 💬 What's one part of leadership you're certain AI won't replace? 👇