Wharton@Work

June 2025 | 

Rising to the Moment: What Great Leaders Do Differently

Rising to the Moment: What Great Leaders Do Differently

What does it take to lead effectively in a world of overlapping crises, shifting stakeholder expectations, and constant digital noise? We caught up with Wharton professor Mike Useem to explore what sets today’s most effective leaders apart. From decision making under pressure to the evolving role of executive presence, Useem draws on decades of research, fieldwork, and experience teaching leadership to offer insights into how top leaders are adapting — and what others can learn from them.

Wharton@Work: The word “polycrisis” is increasingly being used to describe the overarching challenge to today’s business leaders. Do you think the term is accurate, and if it is, how are those in senior leadership roles addressing overlapping risks, crises, and other challenges?

Mike Useem: That term is new to me, but it’s a powerful way to capture what leaders are navigating. Research has long shown that leadership matters most during periods of disruption. And if we’re dealing with multiple crises at once, the stakes — and the opportunity for real leadership — are even greater.

That’s why we encourage participants in programs like Becoming a Leader of Leaders to invest in self-awareness and development before the crisis hits. For example, we take them to the Gettysburg Battlefield to study decisions made under extreme pressure. It’s a way for leaders to examine their own strengths and blind spots, and to form lasting insights in a setting they won’t forget.

W@W: In addition to Gettysburg, you study and teach many crucible moments for leaders, and you stress in all of your books and classrooms how important communication is as a leadership skill. It is even more important with the many different ways to get your message out there today?

MU: Absolutely. In my view, there’s no such thing as over-communicating. You need to use all the channels: personal presence, all-hands meetings, regular online updates. Nature — and people — abhor a vacuum. If you don’t communicate what’s happening, others will fill in the blanks — with rumors, assumptions, or misinformation.

W@W: Some leaders still avoid social media. Can they afford to?

MU: To borrow the famous phrase from leadership coach and author Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t get you there.” Leaders who’ve built their careers on traditional communication skills still need to evolve. Today’s environment requires fluency not just in presence and persuasion but in influence across platforms.

If you're not involved in thinking about AI and social media, you are foreclosing really important ways in which you can lead and have an impact. If you don’t feel comfortable, find someone who can help you navigate it. But opting out entirely means giving up influence in a space where your people — and your competitors — are already active.

W@W: What about decision making in this polycrisis moment? Has the element of speed, and knowing you can’t possibly have all of the information you’d like to have, changed the ways leaders make decisions?

MU: There is a greater emphasis on making timely decisions now, and decisions have become tougher to make. There’s more input to weigh, more stakeholders to involve, and less time to process it all. In the classroom, we often hear people say they’ve worked for leaders who were excellent in every way except actually making a decision. That’s a serious liability. So, we teach something we call the 70 Percent Rule: When you have about 70 percent of the information, 70 percent of your analysis, and 70 percent of your stakeholders aligned — it’s time to decide. Waiting for 99 percent means you’ll miss the moment. Acting with 50 percent means you're guessing. 70 percent is the sweet spot.

To add a final twist to that — and this is not only a cliche, it's also true — the best way to know if a decision is going to be good or not is to make it. As we see at Gettysburg, some leaders wait too long. Others make the wrong call. But the most effective ones act with what they have — and adapt quickly when needed.

W@W: That’s such an important insight. But as it comes in the classroom in a strong of other amazing insights, how do you get it to sink in? You’ve said in the past that learning “sticks” when it’s tangible. How do you help participants retain lessons like the 70 Percent Rule?

MU: We anchor it in real examples. Whether it’s a case study, a current leader’s experience, or a moment on the Gettysburg battlefield, people remember what they see and feel. Take Robert E. Lee’s decision to launch what became Pickett’s Charge — it’s a vivid illustration of what happens when a leader moves ahead without enough support or information.

While classroom lessons are based on statistics, analytics, and academic concepts, they come to life and become memorable and actionable when people not only know the analytic arguments but actually have seen those arguments applied in practice.

W@W: What about leadership blind spots? Are there common ones that stem from the different kinds of expectations and challenges leaders must face?

MU: An important one is the outdated notion of the untouchable, distant leader. Today, the people you lead are less likely to want to follow you if they don't know who you are, what you stand for, what your values are. They want to know more about you personally.

That means showing up — not just in emails or investor calls, but in hallways, town halls, and one-on-one conversations. That's become part of the formulation that people expect of a leader, and for some it’s a blind spot. They came into leadership and management at a time when senior people were on a pedestal.

I saw the power of approachable leadership firsthand when I shadowed Tricia Griffith, the CEO of Progressive and a Wharton Advanced Management Program alum. She has an extraordinary ability to connect. She’ll shake hands, ask about families, remember names. Whether she’s with five people or 200, she makes leadership personal.

She wonderfully illustrated the concept of being influential because of your personal presence. She stops and talks with people about what happened over the weekend, how the family is doing. I've seen her do it not only with four or five people in a room, but with a couple hundred people. She tries to talk to as many people as possible before standing forth as the CEO of a very big company. I think the best-in-class leaders in the last couple of years have become extremely good at working the room, of making their leadership not only something from the high tower, but also something personally delivered.

W@W: Is that a U.S.-centric expectation, or is it held more widely?

MU: It’s global. In a recent book I coauthored with J.J. Ikegami and Harbir Singh [Resolute Japan], we interviewed more than 100 Japanese leaders at companies like Hitachi and Sony. One Japanese manager whom we interviewed insisted that town hall questions not be shared with him in advance. He liked to be more spontaneous, with his full self displayed. He also has had his wife attend with him, because he wanted to remind people he has a private life too.

No matter where you lead, there's an art form to it. It is a matter of making yourself literally, physically more accessible, by showing the flag, coming to a plant, doing an offsite, or sitting down in a town hall.

Increasingly, people are looking for and expecting you to wear your leadership on your sleeve. Social media can play a role, since it can be very personal. It might seem a little strange to reveal the inner self, but you are leading a different generation, and they expect it.